Reweaving the Threads

Andvari transformed my luck; or rather He gave me the initial impetus and then taught me to govern that transformation. That is, in many respects, the secret of the luck Andvari brings: its development (or not) rests with the choices, behaviors and integrity of the individual him or herself. There’s no ‘quick fix’ with Andvari. There is only the slow, steady, honorable reworking and where possible restitution of and for past mistakes. His is a wisdom that is far older than the fast paced, egregious, technologically based society we live in today. Andvari’s wisdom comes from the richness of the land that can nourish the people, the roots of the eldest of trees that support the weight of the branches above, the unmoving strength of the mountain, and ageless power of wyrd itself.

I learned this partly through my understanding of wyrd and partly through Andvari’s influence (and Fuensanta’s kind teaching).  In truth, I am still struggling and learning to integrate His wisdom into my every day life. Perhaps I will always be learning. Most of my adult life was spent in poverty. After a failed ballet career replete with serious injuries, I struggled to make a living in New York City, working first at one low paying retail job after another until segueing into a secretarial position that was marginally (but only marginally) better. Money for many years was something that brought only fear and anxiety: will there be enough? How can I pay all my bills? Gods, will I be out on the street next month? Money was a thing that brought with it pain and a reminder that my life at the time lacked not only any simple pleasures but even any vestige of simple security. Not having enough food, being one paycheck away from homelessness, having no financial means of ever bettering my circumstances were constant reminders of the ratted, knotted constraint of my ancestral money luck. With those reminders came a pervasive sense not only of anxiety but of shame.

Fuensanta saw this early on in our acquaintance and bided her time until she was able to take me by the hand. She adopted me and not only gave me a chance for a better life, but taught me step by stumbling step to craft my luck the Andvari way. He allowed this and with this gift came great and binding taboos, worthy ones, touching upon how I interact with others, how I interact with money, how I live in my skin, upon Midgard’s soil and in the dwelling I call home. These taboos touched and continue to touch on every aspect of exchange in my life, from how I treat the beggar who asks for money, to how much I tip the waiter or waitress when I dine out, to what food I buy, to what I do with my old clothing.  Money still fills me with terror but now I turn to Fuensanta for counsel. I turn to Andvari for advice and then I still my internal furor and listen to His sonorous, quiet voice and its unswerving, unshakeable guidance. Through this counsel, I have learned to live in the world rather than simply surviving. I have learned that money is alive as much as any other vaettir. It lives and breaths and shifts and flows, the living manifestation of fehu. It is sacred as much as the land is sacred. It is not money that has debased itself rather it is we who have debased it. Money wants to be honored, wants to be acknowledged and partnered with. As with other vaettir, we can have a reciprocal relationship with it. This was a revelation for me.

Many of the lessons were simple: common sense ideas and guidelines many of which are included in this small book. For someone like me though, this guidance was life-changing. The shame and anxiety that I had lived with for so very long fell away (save for the occasional nightmare, which is quickly banished by the firm hand of reality). I realized that these things were not mine by right, as Fuensanta would say. I had done the best I could and well before meeting Fuensanta tried to make amends for those times I had fallen short of Andvari-approved behaviors. I learned the hardest lesson of all: that what IS mine by right are those actions and decisions that I choose to make, even the smallest ones, on an intimate, day by day basis. He removed the blinders that I, like so many other city-folk had learned to wear for survival’s sake.

What was truly amazing for me was seeing how surely the threads of my luck were changing. I belong to Odin and He’s long pushed me down the road of a Northern Tradition shaman. One of His gifts to me is the ability to read the threads of wyrd and orlog, fate if you will, living threads of causality and consequence. I was well aware, even as I tried hard never to look at it, how tangled and bare was the financial hamingja of my ancestral line. I’m not sure why, but those threads that dealt in any way with material abundance and financial luck were problematic, in some places worn down, in others knotted and tangled, in still others taut and spare with overtones of grasping desperation. When Fuensanta adopted me, I became part of her ancestral threads and this new influence overcame many of the problems of my own threads. I had to work hard and maintain my ‘end of the bargain’ so to speak, where Andvari was concerned but over a very short period of time, luck began to flow more healthily in my own odal threads. It was as if He’d grafted me onto Fuensanta’s, which by virtue of carrying His blood, were stronger than my own. For this, I shall be ever grateful.

I see things differently now in a way I never expected. It isn’t just the immense gratitude for the teaching and this opportunity to learn and grow in so many new ways. Advari has taught me to find value in the things of Midgard, the things of a world that for most of my life I never liked and never understood. My interpersonal relationships have changed as well, as these too involve reciprocity and exchange (Andvari’s venues – though don’t be going to Him for love advise. It will, frankly, piss Him off. He’s not about love. He’s about knowing what is yours and knowing what is not, and what, therefore, must be given in exchange). Through Andvari, I have learned lessons of value: not just of valuing those things around me, but of learning to value myself and my own talents. In doing this, I have come to a far greater awareness of the luck threads of those with whom I interact and this has begun to teach me compassion.

Andvari may be stern and difficult to approach, taciturn and even at times downright uncommunicative but He is not unkind. Of all the many Gods and Goddesses that I have honored, worked for, or approached, He is among the fairest. He values honest work and commitment, even when we make mistakes. He’s a firm but patient teacher and His lessons enrich one’s life.

God of the forge, of wealth,

of dark loam and richest earth,

You have sustained me.

Because You have little use for fancy words, I will spare You my rhetoric of praise.

I will say only this: because of You, I am learning to live:

with integrity, with mindfulness, gifted with love

and with more peace than I ever thought my due.

In payment for Your blessings, I will bring You always these two offerings:

my gratitude and my willing devotion to work.

May it please You.

Hail, Andvari.

(Excerpted from “Root, Stone, and Bone” by Galina Krasskova and Fuensanta Arismendi. Available at amazon.com or asphodelpress.com).