This month’s poem is a look at the world tree and its worlds, from metaphysical perspective as to what the worlds are, and what they might mean for us as human beings today.

The Flow of Nine Worlds

All was Yggdrasil to the ancient Norse,
a fathomless Tree that framed the worlds,
nine in number, into a united whole.
Ginnungagap, a great emptiness,
was there in the beginning and there alone.
Still it’d have stayed, but there started a flow,
the first of flows, which formed the worlds.
Ice upwelling from the outer North
met fire flaming from the farthest South,
and a hailstone was made in the heart of it all,
Ymir at first, and Auðumbla then.
The eldest Gods and etins were formed
as the flow continued, finding new paths.
But Sigföður knew that something was lacking,
that greater worlds were going unmade,
so Ymir he slew, reordering his parts
into that awesome Tree that is Yggdrasil now.
Nine are the worlds it nurtures and grows,
keeping them balanced by careful design:
the worlds and their flows must work together.
‘Twixt Nifl’ and Muspell’, the numbing ice
and flaming fire does flow yet still.
‘Twixt Vana’ and Jötun’ are the vital energies
of growth and resistance for glorious life.
‘Twixt Asgard and Hel, highest and lowest,
are action and stillness for alternating motion.
‘Twixt Svartálf’ and Ljósálf’, below and above,
are shaping and intention for shepherding will.
But here in Midgard, in the middle of all flow,
we live, we die, we learn, and we grow.
For boom or bust, the balance is ours,
to maintain and manage in this middle world,
or to carelessly wreck and cause destruction.
But now it seems that Nature is threatened
by the insensitive abuse of our central position,
by behaving as if humans are gods
and high above the whole of existence.
So needed dearly is a renewal of wisdom
to fix the flows that bring fates of ill.
But the outside realms are only a part
of the whole picture; the whole of those flows
is also within, for the elder poets
kenned us as trees, since crafty Óðinn
made people as well from primal trees.
Our inner flows are also critical,
and we are bound to try to balance them too.
Balance within and balance without
for the flows within and the flows without:
to heal ourselves and heal the world,
our course must be this, it cannot be else.

Copyright © 2023 Eirik Westcoat

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