The Flow of Nine Worlds

This month’s poem is a look at the world tree and its worlds, from metaphysical perspective as to what the worlds are, and what they might mean for us as human beings today.

---

The Flow of Nine Worlds

All was Yggdrasil to the ancient Norse,
a fathomless Tree that framed the worlds,
nine in number, into a united whole.
Ginnungagap, a great emptiness,
was there in the beginning and there alone.
Still it’d have stayed, but there started a flow,
the first of flows, which formed the worlds.
Ice upwelling from the outer North
met fire flaming from the farthest South,
and a hailstone was made in the heart of it all,

Hyperborea: The Polar Seat

My poem post for September is a meditation on the mystique of legendary Hyperborea. It comes from a similar sort of impulse as seen in my poem Et in Arcadia Ego, which I released on this blog a number of years ago. It could be described as a sort of Esoteric Traditionalism, and both poems are part of my branching out beyond Norse Mythology. Enjoy!

---

Hyperborea: The Polar Seat

Hail Polyhymnia! Of Hyperborea,
that celestial land that was lost ‘ere time,
inspire me to speak with spirited verse.
Beyond the North Wind is this noble land,
a holy realm that was hiding away
in the terra incognitae of times long gone,
but no such land is now remaining.
What might have been the main of its being
in the Golden Age when gods still ruled?

Volcano

In 2021, while still in the midst of the pandemic, a new volcano erupted in Iceland at Fagradallsfjall. Fortunately, this location was relatively out of the way, so it would not pose any immediate threat to people, property, or animals, but still close enough that it was easy to get to from the capital region. As a result, the volcano became quite a tourist attraction, at first among Icelanders, because travel hadn’t fully reopened yet. This made a great many people happy, as we all needed something fun and exciting in spring/summer 2021. I got out to see the volcano twice, and on my second trip, was fortunate to see its fire-geyser form relatively close, an opportunity that would not last, as the lava flows would eventually cut off that access point. Naturally, I wrote a poem about the volcano. It is simply titled “Volcano.” Please pardon the asterisks on certain words—I’m trying to keep the posts here relatively clean.

---

Volcano

Twas an empty land, only for grazing
and the occasional hike by a curious wander,
a beautiful valley of the barest acclaim.
But tremors abounded when the time was at hand,
as the hidden might of heat underground
steadily streamed, struggling to surface.
From far below this fire had surged:

The Black Dog

For the third Sunday of July, this month’s poetry post is a reflection on depression, by zoomorphizing it in the form a popular metaphor for it, the black dog.

---

The Black Dog

A poem now I compose this time
on that darkest haze, a draining of color
from my view of the world, the vigor-killer
that’s called depression. It’s a constant pet
that I can’t be rid of, though it can be leashed,
and sometimes it sleeps. He said it best,
that war leader, Sir Winston Churchill,

The Yew

Hail all! For the third Sunday of June, I have another poem for you. It’s about my other favorite tree, the Yew (Taxus baccata). With it, there’s a picture of some yew trees from Ireland, which I took when I visited there on a research trip in 2019.

Enjoy!

---

The Yew

The Tree of Trees for triumph I praise,
that fimbul rood and focus of Spirit
a gift of the Gods for the gain of Midgard.
A lustrous light, it is life in death
when cold and snow surround our ken.
For the noble Norse and numerous others,
it is majesty, main, and myth-saturated;

Black Walnut

Hail all! For the third Sunday of May, I have another poem for you. It’s about one of my two favorite trees, the eastern American Black Walnut (Juglans nigra). With it, there’s a picture of a local tree at the end, from last summer.

Enjoy!

---

Black Walnut

A mighty tree, an American treasure,
is Juglans nigra, the Union’s walnut.
Warm, humid air with welcome sunshine
favors its growth in a fine summer.
‘Tis green everywhere: green are the leaves,
green the flowers and green the fruits.
The inside is sealed by a silver-gray bark;
placed underneath, with pungent scent
is a staining substance — a strong essence —

The Skaldic Eagle on the Nordic Mythology Podcast

On April 4, I made an appearance on the Nordic Mythology Podcast, where I talked about kraftaskalds, the subject of my PhD dissertation. It runs for about 73 minutes. Now, the recording is available as episode #156 on all podcast platforms for everyone to join. Ones that I have links for in this post are:

Apple Podcasts
Youtube

Note, of course, that with the Youtube version, you also get the video! It’s also available on Google Podcasts, Spotify, and various other major podcast directories. Enjoy!

The Return of the Eagle’s Etsy Shop

After an extremely long hiatus, which included the entirety of my PhD studies and then some, I’ve reopened my Skaldic Eagle Etsy shop. This time around, I’m offering something new: my books. The first two offerings are my Viking Poetry for Heathen Rites (paperback edition) and Eagle’s Mead (the one and only edition in hardback). As I would be filling these orders directly myself, you can also request that it be signed!

That also means that quantities may be limited at times, and things may go out of stock occasionally. More listings are planned in the coming weeks.

You’ll notice that my shop says “Runes in Wood, Carved and Colored.” I used to have rune wands and rune lot sets listed there, but I have no current inventory. If you’re interested in a custom commission for “Runes in Wood, Carved and Colored,” whether it’s a wand, lot set, or something else, please contact me, and let’s work something out.

A Skaldic Eagle in the World

Welcome, Seekers, to a new phase of activity for this blog, and here is my first poem for you all. This is the Skaldic Eagle’s poem about his mission in the world, and so I felt it the most appropriate one for this relaunch, since it is a sequel to my earlier poem, “A Skaldic Eagle Takes Flight,” which launched a previous phase of this blog back in early 2017. If you haven’t already done so, you may wish to read that precursor poem, either before or after this one. Enjoy!

---

A Skaldic Eagle must offer his Mead,
must give his gifts, for gain to the World;
the Work is imperative, a wode-filled impulse.
But defending the Center ‘gainst foes and shadows
—that its sacred light illumines unimpeded
a world of darkness—is a woesome task.
And even an eagle must often land,
and life on the ground can get one down,

Update for April 2023!

Wow, I see that it has been just over a year since I updated this blog! Exciting things have been happening, they just haven’t been in this blog. It’s time for a change. But first, the news:

• On April 4, I appeared live on the Nordic Mythology Podcast, where I talked about the subject of my PhD dissertation: kraftaskalds. These are poets in Icelandic folktales who do magic through improvised poetry for cursing, blessing, putting down walking corpses, and much more. Only the NMP’s patrons get to see the shows live, but the recordings become freely available to all several weeks later, on a variety of platforms, both audio and video. When mine pops on various podcast networks and Youtube, I’ll have a post about it here.
  

  ---

• All of my new poetry, audio, and other writings are debuting on my Patreon site, which is here under my name, The Skaldic Eagle. It’s been running now for over a year with updates on the first four Wednesdays of each month. The pattern is now well established: the first Wednesday is a poem, the second Wednesday is an essay, the third Wednesday is an audio recording, and the fourth Wednesday is a poetic teaching. The occasional fifth Wednesday is usually a vacation day or general status update.
  

  ---

• My Patreon site is really where you should join to get my best and latest stuff. Currently, I have started an “Eagle’s Mead Audio” series there for third Wednesdays, as I aim to record an audio collection for Eagle’s Mead that’s comparable to the one I have for Viking Poetry for Heathen Rites. In February, I started a poetic teaching sequence on writing traditional Germanic alliterative poetry, from the ground up, beginning with the alliterating sounds. This sequence will continue for a while into the technicalities of line and meter, and probably stanza forms.
  

  ---

• But I will now start posting here on my WordPress blog more frequently. The plan is regular updates here every third Sunday of the month. Generally, these will be things that have appeared on my Patreon already. If it goes well, I may increase the frequency of content posts here to twice a month. News updates like this post will appear irregularly on an as-needed basis.
  

  ---

• That means that the first of those new posts is next Sunday, and it will be a poem. Audio recordings will appear as well. As for essays and poetic teachings, those may just be excerpts, but we’ll see.
  

  ---

Enjoy!