Hela's Gifts
Hela is implacable and cannot be bargained with. That does not mean that she is evil or malicious; there is absolutely no malice in her. She is entirely about dire necessity. She can show a great deal of impersonal/transpersonal love for people, but she is very cold and objective; she sees far in the future and works with that kind of vision, which can seem unfair and uncompassionate to we humans who live day to day. If you need help in extremity, and she feels that it is appropriate, she will give it. If she feels that giving you aid would interfere in your destiny, no plea in any world will change her mind. She will not aid anyone in going against the natural order, even a deity; one remembers how even Frigga did not win against her when it came to Baldur's death.
In the Northern Tradition, it is often possible to bargain with one's deities, or to tease or cajole them, or otherwise play with rules-lawyering and trying to talk around them. Sometimes it even works. Odin and Loki are notable for being open to this kind of activity. On the other end of the spectrum, Hela is totally implacable. When She gives an order to you, nothing you can say will make Her change Her mind. If you persist in defying Her, She will hurt you in some way that is perfectly designed with your personal misery in mind, and will be impossible for you to resist. She shows no sadism or glee in your pain; She just does it as coldly and impersonally as She does so many other things. No one says No like a death deity, and Hela's No seems to have actual weight to it; you feel crushed by it. There is no fighting Her and no bargaining; She will continue to coldly say No long after you have no more fight left in you. This is a goddess who can make all the Aesir back down; remember this before you face off with Her.
Generally, however, her coldly implacable side is only brought out when someone either A) clearly and knowingly breaks her rules, or B) asks for her aid and advice and then refuses to do what she tells them must be done. If you can avoid these two errors, you won't see it, but it is always there, just beneath the surface of her serene and compassionate demeanor. Many of the folk who have worked with Hela speak admirably of that detached, noninvasive transpersonal compassion, telling of how it gave them a safe space in which to heal themselves. Hela has a deep wisdom and a great deal of objective perspective; She sees far and wide and studies the threads of Wyrd with an intense focus. She is capable of far-seeing planning on a long-range scale that leaves other, more self-focused deities (not to mention humans) in the dust. If you ask her for advice, you can guarantee that it will be designed with the greatest amount of long-term good in mind, although it may require a good deal of short-term pain and sacrifice.
Some folk have felt themselves called to her Underworld and, once there, were informed that She had invited them down as a way to begin a death-and-rebirth period in their lives. If this is the case for you, forget trying to get out of it. This is not Hela's malice or even whimsy; She has neither. Consider it a heads-up that your life is going to fall apart and need to be rebuilt from scratch, and humbly accept whatever advice She may have as to how you can best survive this.
- Colors: Black, white
- Symbols: Skull, red roses, dried roses, bones, "Day of the Dead"-type skeleton images
- Altar suggestions: Skulls, skeleton images, grave rubbings, skeletal hands, bones, dried roses, black shrouds, black mirror, black and white candles, plantain leaves, rue, wormwood, yarrow, yew, the runes Ear (sometimes combined with Raido for the Helroad) and Hagalaz, sometimes Othala. It is not uncommon for a Hela altar to be an ancestor harrow as well, with pictures of and offerings to one’s own beloved Dead.
- Food and drink: Tea, good wine, apples (Hela has an orchard of Her own); meat, bread, soup, meals that your ancestors would have liked, blood; good quality chocolate, coffee beans. Hela likes dried, well-preserved flowers, especially dried roses. She also likes blood, as do all the Death deities. Some people offer her tea, or food that can sit on an altar and rot. (Don’t take it away until it is entirely dessicated, no matter what happens.) Don't approach her altar with an unhealthy attitude toward death and decay.
Some things to do in order to propitiate Hela:
- Support Green Burial. Lobby for green cemeteries in your area.
- Don't be embalmed. Choose green burial or cremation. Don't add to the poison in the Earth with your death.
- Support home funerals. Learn the regulations on home funerals in your state or country. If they are unfair and prevent people from caring for their own dead, lobby to change them. Learn how to help with a home funeral, if possible. Suggest it to your friends.
- Volunteer at a hospice program. Volunteer to sit with a dying elder who is being cared for at home so that their caretakers can get a few hours away to do necessary things. Volunteer to help and talk to terminally ill patients, at home or in a hospital. Do not be afraid of or disgusted by those who are soon to pass over.
- Volunteer to help those who are recently bereaved.
- Work to help the mentally ill, chronically ill, or socially outcast. Work in a soup kitchen (Hela feeds the vast underclass). Work to alleviate poverty.
- Clean up a cemetery.
- Work to expunge your own delusions. (But you really have to do it, not just delude yourself into thinking that you're doing it.)
- Establish and maintain an ongoing and consistent practice of ancestral devotion.
- Make out a Living Will. For that matter, make out a will, period. Don't leave your affairs in a mess for others to clean up should you die suddenly.
- Carry an organ donor card. Make your death count as life to other people. Even bones and skin can be used.
- Volunteer to clean road-kill off the roads. Say a prayer for the spirits of the dead animals.
