Countless myths have been passed down to us from the most diverse cultural periods. They contain images of early humanity depicting the origin of the world, the activity of the forces of nature, gods and fate after death.
the world tree In the previous instalment of this series, we quoted verse two of the Song of the Edda: I remember yet the giants of yore, who gave me bread in the days gone by. And Voluspa, the prophetess, continues: ‘Nine worlds I knew, the nine in the tree with mighty roots beneath the mould.’
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arlier we wrote (Pentagram 2010, no. 5): The myths, collected in the Edda, speak about the mysteries of the development of the world – the great ones as well as the small ones. In this verse, the prophetess gives evidence of this. She beholds nine worlds of genesis and sees nine branches on the world tree of human genesis, the primordial ash, Yggdrasil, as it is called in Germanic mythology.
The world ash is a cosmological representation of the universe. The tree symbolises the timeless, eternal centre of the world; it bears and sustains the universe and keeps the world inwardly together. It represents both a spiritual basic structure as well as an impulse to development. The ‘nine fatherlands, worlds’ present an image of the ninefold structure of creation, reflected in the ninefold human being of yore. We are confronted with nine levels of development of the consciousness: the three times three aspects of the body, the soul and the spirit that are interrelated. The soul and the spirit speak in the body. The body as well as the spirit are manifested in the soul. The soul and the body prove themselves in the spirit. THE BRANCHES OF YGGDRASIL That this is
the case is clearly shown by the branches of Yggdrasil that spread over the whole world and stretch higher than heaven. The crown of the (spiritual) tree is Asgard, the castle of the gods. It is the cosmos of the ashes, living in the light. The highest, spiritual, eternal principle is Gimle, the morning red in ascent. When Asgard will one day be destroyed in Ragnarök, the turning point of history, renewal is enabled through Gimle. The ash or rainbow bridge Bifröst, where the white deity, Heimdall, the light figure with his sword and horn, keeps watch, links the world of the gods with that of man. Man calls this bridge a rainbow. It is a sphere of the soul that links what is the world tree 37
