About Death

It is hard to get rid of some music. It follows you for some time.

The leaves are falling from the trees. The wind is blowing. The rain is falling. Mother Earth is dying… again.

Every year this happens, we know. Our forebears knew too. It happened to the day – with night turning into Sunrise, day and then Sunset. It happened to the Moon – with the lunar eclipse turning into a waxing Moon, a full Moon and the waning Moon. It happened to the month – with the first week being the week of reincarnation, the second the week of birth, the third the week of life and the week of death. It happened to the year – with Winter being the season of reincarnation, the Spring the season of rebirth, Summer the season of life and Autumn the season of death. It happened to man too – man being an elf (i. e. a white spirit of the noble dead) in the realm of death (the burial mound), being born, living and then dying again.

All the powers of the universe go through this, some faster than others, some on a grander scale than others, sure, but they all do. Even the planets. Even the solar systems and the galaxies. They all have life. 

So all the European deities go through the same. They are renewed and return better than they were before they died: as they live they fall apart and eventually die – just like man. Only the good return, but this good is corrupted with time and must then be renewed. Over and over again. 

There is no end to this. And no beginning either. No “creation” and no “Armageddon”. It has always been like this and will always be like this. Ragnarok is just a renewal of all the good in our world. We live in eternity, and “time” is just an illusion: a way for man to understand this eternity.

When Mother Earth dies man can harvest: e. g. eatable mushrooms start to grow on the rotting forest ground and chestnuts fall from the chestnut trees. The death of one entity is always the life of another.

I am a man, trapped in this eternity, unable to see it all at the same time, so I venture into the dying forest and harvest, so that I can eat and thus continue to live for some time. Maybe I at one point I all of a sudden can see why I am here, and find a purpose to it all. Maybe I do when I die – and therefore choose to return to life again. Over and over again.

Maybe the spark in me, giving me life, grows stronger as I live, and nourishes the deities when I die. 

HailaR Erþô! HailaR WôðanaR!

The chestnut harvest after 15 minutes of gathering in the forest about 50 meters from our property: