While not a God
of the dead per se, Bragi as Skald of the Gods is perfectly positioned to teach
us how to enhance our relationships with our ancestors. Skalds are, in their
own way, liminal figures. They are truth speakers, tale weavers, and through
the power of their gifts, they weave the threads of the past into a cohesive
tapestry for the present. They navigate those often misty channels between the
living and the dead, between all that has passed before, and all that will be
given to the future.
Part of a Skald or Bard’s job was to facilitate remembrance of the
dead. Through the telling of their stories, the singing of songs, the speaking
and sharing forth of their names and deeds, the dead, our honored ancestors,
are able to draw near and live again and we are able to learn from their
stories. The most sacred duty a Skald has is the duty of remembrance. He or she
is able to teach the rest of us how to connect to our ancestors, how to honor
them, how to maintain that most sacred connection. Moreover, Skalds are our
tradition keepers, vessels of living memory.
Our ancestors had predominantly oral traditions. While they may
have possessed writing, the dominant means of cultural transmission was not
through the written word. This means that remembrance, values, connections to
the ancestors, to the past, to the Holy Powers, and to the future was all woven
together and maintained through the sharing of stories and songs. This is how
the tradition thrived. There is a saying in Lukumi: ‘when an elder dies,
a whole world dies with him.’ This is all the more so of a Bard or Skald, who
would have spent years and years studying the traditions of his or her people.
They are, by the very nature of what they do and know, bridges between the
world of the living and the world of the dead. The knowledge they bear and
transform through the act of performing is a knowledge of culture told through
the deeds of the dead, and that knowledge is transmitted through the creative
synergy between listener and performer, just as the skills of a Bard would be
transmitted from master to student through the process of training.
When a master Skald passes on a song or intricate musical passage
to a student, he or she is not just teaching technique; he is initiating that
student into a world of tradition stretching back to the very beginnings of the
craft itself, a craft that was born out of the deeds and longings, joys and
sorrows of our ancestors. The teacher is the living conduit for a tradition
that passed through him from his teacher, to his teacher from his teacher’s
teacher, and so forth. It is transmission through the body of those actually
performing the craft. Likewise, that collected tradition and all the knowledge
that it holds is opened like a treasure box whenever a skilled bard or skald
performs.
In her cultural history of ballet, author Jennifer Homans
discusses the tradition of classical ballet, which shares with ancient bards
and skalds both intensive training and the physical as the vehicle of
knowledge-transmission:
“Ballet, then, is an art of memory, not history. … Memory is
central to the art, and dancers are trained, as the ballerina Natalia Makarova
once put it, to “eat” dances – to ingest them and make them part of who they
are. These are physical memories; when dancers know a dance, they know it in
their muscles and bones. Recall is sensual…and brings back not just the steps
but also the gestures and feel of the movement. .. Thus ballet repertory is not
recorded in books or libraries: it is held instead in the bodies of dancers.”
(Homans, p. xix).
It is much the same with the gifts of the Skald. Here, it is not
only the physical and technical prowess of the ‘tradition-performer’ that comes
into play, but also the willingness of the audience to listen and engage with
and so become part of that process of cultural transmission. We who carry our
ancestors in our bones: in our blood, marrow, skin, appearance, and dna
celebrate them and carry their stories forward through the physical process of
listening and interacting with those who hold one of the keys to opening the
doorway between then and now. Telling our stories, honoring our dead,
celebrating through song and tales and music and dance…these are important
parts of rebuilding a tradition. That restoration does not occur through
clinging to the written word. The written word provides history. It is a thing
to be studied. Memory however is something quite different. It provides for the
future and it is a thing to be lived.
It’s important that we remember the dead. It’s important that we
remember our ancestors, honor them, and call upon them regularly, helping them
to remain part and parcel of our families and by extension communities.
Honoring the dead benefits everyone. They provide strength, wisdom, guidance,
and protection to their descendants. They lived, in many cases, the very
traditions that we as Pagans and Heathens today are trying to restore. They can
help root us in the origins of those traditions, origins that we have long
forgotten. Their stories, their deeds – good and bad—formed us and the world we
live in. Because of that latter, they too have an obligation to find, create,
and maintain balance. They too share an obligation to restore right
relationship between the living and the dead, between the living and the land,
between the living and the Holy Powers, on all possible levels.
Our world is hopelessly out of balance. So many indigenous
traditions, including our own as Heathens and Pagans, have been sundered. It’s
going to take both sides of that equation to return to some semblance of right
relationship: it’s going to take the living and the dead working in tandem.
Bragi can help teach us how to do this.
Sometimes it can be very difficult to know where to start when it
comes to honoring the ancestors. We don’t have a conscious cultural tradition
today of doing so. Most of us (in American culture at least) did not grow up in
homes with active ancestor shrines. I believe remembering the dead is almost a
genetic impulse, but we live today in cultures that try to sanitize everything,
and sometimes even to pretend that death doesn’t exist. Then there is so much
abuse and damage so often perpetrated within families. It can be especially
hard to move back past that to establish a working relationship with one’s own
ancestors. Sometimes doing so can take an awful lot of hard work and a very
long time.
There’s no shame in that. When honoring the dead, it’s important,
very important, to remember that we are not just the product of the past few
generations of our line. We have a line of dead going back to the day the first
primal critter pulled itself out of the primordial ooze to try a little land
living. We have our tribal Mothers and Fathers, ancient ancestors and very
strong who watch over and protect the integrity of the line. We have friends
and teachers, mentors, and those who inspire who may or may not be related to
us by blood. They are ancestors too. If one is adopted, then one has adopted
ancestral lines as well as biological. There is a rich and complex web of
connections just waiting to be acknowledged and accessed. That it is difficult
doesn’t take away from its importance. One can call on the dead to help forge
this connection, but if that is too hard, going to the Gods can also help.
Being in right relationship with our dead is part of what it means to live a
healthy, whole, spiritually balanced life. This isn’t something just for
shamans or mystics, spiritworkers or priests to do, it’s part and parcel of
maintaining a stable household, in other words: something every man, woman, and
child should be
doing. This is our portion as responsible, hopefully pious human beings and
adults.
That doesn’t mean one can’t call for a little help though. So if
you are struggling in learning how to honor the dead, if you find it difficult
to make or inhabit that connection, perhaps Bragi might be a good God to seek
out for help. The very art and craft of which He is a God, rests on the
shoulders of the dead after all. He too has a debt to them and what better way
to discharge that debt than by helping us develop that ongoing contact? The
skills of a Bard or Skald awaken dormant connections with our past, most
especially with our ancestors. Call upon Bragi to help open those doors. Call
upon Him joyously so that you might learn to sustain those ancestral
threads. Call upon Him and maybe, just maybe, He can help.
Hail Bragi,
Skald of Asgard,
Walking amongst the Worlds,
Singer, Story teller, Tale-weaver
Speaker for the Dead.
Memory-Keeper
Memory’s Teacher.
Hail, Bragi.