Jord's Lesson
by Ari
Jord, the Jotun Earth Mother, came to me not in some wild place as I'd expected, but in a public park. Granted, this might be because she had to catch me where she could, and I'd been city-bound for a while. I was sitting in the park in mid-autumn, looking up at that perfect blue sky with the orange-yellow leaves against it, my back against a maple tree. I'd wanted to sit against the enormous oak a few feet away, but there was trash scattered around its base. So I stared at it instead, and then suddenly, sitting against its rough bark, Jord appeared.
Jord is immense - billowing flesh, great wide hips, breasts that could feed a million children, eyes and hair the color of dark chocolate, reaching to her feet and vanishing into the roots of the oak tree. Voluptuous doesn't begin to cover it, yet she was beautiful and very sensual. One could feel the urge to sink into her lap, into her body, and she would let you. It wouldn't be a violation no matter who it was, because she could envelop you. The hard part would be not getting lost in her. She wore a green garment that looked like a piece of turf that had somehow been ripped up wholly, flowers and weeds still intact, and draped about her. Of all the giant-gods - heck, of all the Norse gods period - she is the one who is closest to Gaea, to being the embodiment of the Earth Mother.
Was there a bit of Thor in her face, in her eyes? I couldn't tell.
The lesson that she taught me was about grounding. I was surprised, because that's a fairly elementary technique and I was hoping for something a little more advanced. I'd learned to ground years ago, when I'd started out in a Wiccan coven. Yet when I objected that I already knew this, she laughed at me and said:
Ah,
little man, you think that you know everything about becoming one with the
Earth? Because you can sit down on a fine day with the Sun shining and nothing
wrong in your life and do it? Because when everything is peaceful you can quiet
yourself and reach down? That's the easy part of it, little man. That's the
child's part. But I am a Giantess, even if I am tree and soil and all beneath
it. I am of Earth, but I know that Earth quakes and one must hold on.
You want to know about Odin, then? And me? Ah, he was not One-Eye yet, he was young, so young. Nearly a virgin. He thought that he was not a virgin, but then he had never been with me, had he? No, it was I who made him a man, that youthful murderer with the winter sky in his eyes. His uncle, his father's brother, brought him to me all callow and nervous. I had just borne a child from that one, I was still feeding her at my breast, but my womb was empty and that makes me restless. I took the boy into my arms, I cleansed him of some of his blood-guilt - not all, even I cannot take away all the stains on a Thread, Urda must have her say - and I changed the winter sky to summer. I admit, he was more of a son to me, but then most of you boys are. You have no idea how old I am. I am Nott's first child, born just after she rose to the sky.
And then I sent him forth again, cleansed and taught how it is to love a woman. Those who came to his bed afterwards should thank me, for it was my hands who guided him in that. We arranged his wedding, Bestla and I, married him to that babe who lay sleeping peacefully in her cradle while I made merry with her future husband not a few feet away, and I bore him a son, and sent that son to Bestla to raise, for I saw that Odin would have great need of him, and he was too young and quick, then, to care for a child.
But I bore him Thunderer, yes, he is one of mine. And there is part of the lesson: I came from the sky, yet I am Earth, yet I bore again Sky. I am the pole between them, the one who can reach up and down, take what is Up and bring it Down, anchor it, secure it, return it again. There is no land-wight who will not speak to me, if there is a single blade of green anywhere on its face.
You passed by this grass a month ago, yes? Why did you not sit and link yourself to the earth then? Of course, you were weeping. Your heart had been torn in two, and it was all you could think of. You could not focus enough to ground then, only when it is easy - and that is the problem. Sit there and I will link you hard to the Earth, and I will give you a song to put you back there when you need it most, when there is no peace, when you think that it is impossible. It will tie you to the pole from sky to earth and back again, which is Me.