A Rose By Any Other Name...

I was in my early twenties when I first married Odin--although I barely knew who He was at the time—and He bestowed on me my first spiritual name.  That name, which He conveyed to me via Ouija board (yes, I know all the dangers of using them—now, anyway—but as I said I was young) was Pria.  Being without the Internet and not really knowing much about Proto-Indo European at the time, it was years before I discovered that this name (which I used for many years while having no idea what it meant, or whether it even meant anything at all) was actually an IE prototype of the name Frigga and meant Beloved.

Years later and after much had happened, Odin reasserted His claim on me and His place in my life.  I repeated the marriage vows I had taken to Him all those years before, only this time in full knowledge of Who I was pledging myself to, and what at least some of the implications of that vow would be. I asked Him for a new name, and was given three: Swanhild, the "Valkyrie name" I insisted on which has hardly ever been used, Wodandis, which became the online name I used widely in the Heathen community, and Gunnlod--which was actually the very first name He suggested, but the last one I was willing to accept or use, given its heavy baggage and lore connections.

It took three years for me to finally break down and formally accept the name Gunnlod in ritual, in accordance with His wishes. It was a solemn and very sacred occasion, second in importance only to my wedding day.  And yet, it has taken two years after that for me to begin to grow into an acceptance that it is my name, and that nothing can change that.  However, it has always been an extremely awkward and difficult name to use in situations involving other people, and became even more so when Gunnlod came to be a secondary personal patron of mine, and when my Kindred adopted Her as our patroness alongside Odin.  Not that She has any problems with my bearing Her name; it was done with Her full permission and agreement.  The problem is that it's been awkward for me to use in the community, even the smaller and more rarefied spirit worker communities.

This past year has seen my real entrance into doing spirit work for other people, and it's become apparent that this is what my main focus is going to be from this point onward, for the rest of my life. Although I ironically have a thriving Kindred now, I finally accepted the fact that I was never meant to be the mainstream priestess in the temple at all, but the witch in the little hut at the edge of the woods.  With this acceptance came the consideration of possibly taking yet another name for use among other spirit workers--separate from my priestess name by which Heathens in general had known me, and also separate from the name by which my Gods call me (which is mostly what Gunnlod is working out to be). After all, my God-husband has hundreds of names, why should I be limited to one or two? But for the longest time I was stymied as to what the new name should be. I kept thinking along the lines of some kind of variation on Gunnlod or nickname based on it, and just couldn't come up with anything that seemed fitting.

Then a spirit worker friend posted (in LiveJournal) about her own new name, and all the pieces suddenly fell into place. I had never before considered the idea that my working name could be a conceptual one that stood for my basic function and nature as a spirit-worker and also tied in all the meanings of my other most important names. Once I considered that idea, I knew what the new name had to be: Hjarta (pronounced Yar-ta, with the stress on the first syllable), the Old Norse word for "heart." I also considered other words meaning "heart" in different languages (mostly Germanic ones), but if I'm going to be honest, when I first saw Hjarta I heard Odin’s voice in my ear saying, "That's it."

Why "heart?"

There was a night, not so long ago, when I had a trance experience of Odin taking out my heart and replacing it with His own, and then putting my heart inside His chest. That was something He told me at the time had actually happened a really, really long time ago; He was only reminding me of it, replaying it in a sense. It's the quite literal reason behind the pet name He uses for me most frequently, "My Heart." It was also the reason I decided on an anatomical heart pendant as my own personal, wearable symbol of my relationship with Him. He has often used hearts as metaphors or symbols with me; for example, another endearment He uses for me is "My home"--implying but leaving unspoken that saying, "The home is where the heart is," which weaves the heart symbolism back in again.  And I’ve often found heart symbolism (not frilly romantic hearts, but grisly, real hearts) leaping out at me from fairy tales, novels, and artwork. Not that there hasn't been a preponderance of the more conventional romantic hearts, too (a symbol which actually represents, among other things, the female vulva); one example (among many) of this is the day I found a chipped heart pendant made of black glass lying in my path on my way home from work.

So how does all this heart symbolism relate to my spirit work? Well, as I mentioned earlier, my primary purpose as a spirit worker is to serve as a Door for Odin, as well as a door linking this world with Asgard.  And in a sense, the heart is a doorway of the body--an important chakra in healing work (in Reiki, the healing energy pours forth from the eyes, the hands, and the heart), the crossroads at which all paths of the body's circulatory system meet, the vehicle through which the life force moves and is distributed throughout the body.  And then there are the ways in which it ties in with my other names.  The other Old Norse word meaning "heart," hugr is used in the sense of courage (rather than referring to the physical heart), and this ties in with the name Gunnlod, which means "battle invitation."  (Also, the rune that relates most closely to the heart for me is Gebo--which is the first letter of the name Gunnlod.)  "Heart" also obviously has sentimental connotations which tie it in with the meaning of my first spiritual name Pria, meaning "beloved." My primary approach in this work is one of devotion, and although there are other Gods and spirits I work with, Odin is my center, my home, my reason for being; none of my other relationships even come close. My devotion to Him is single-mindedly intense to the point of being obsessive. But there are reasons for this, and He says He wouldn't have it any other way; it is part of my function as a spirit worker, and seems to be the way I was designed, the way I was made.  (And if that limits the breadth of my spirit work, the varieties of work I can do and experiences I can have, then it also lets me delve more deeply into His mysteries and our relationship--so I'm not complaining.)  My new name ties together all of these things--along with, I'm sure, other functions, ideas, and concepts that I'm forgetting about, or that haven't even occurred to me yet.

I won't be giving up any of my previous names (I wouldn't be allowed to, anyway), but from now on I'll be using Hjarta (as well as Gunnlod-Hjarta) when writing about my spirit work—as I am doing on this site.  I’ve called this site “Chambers of the Heart” because this is a place for me to share my Work in a much wider and more open way than I’ve ever done before.  In a very real sense, I’m inviting all of you inside my home and letting you take a look at my family photos, my personal mementos, the contents of my closet and my dresser drawers.  I’m allowing you a peek inside my heart and its chambers, its innermost workings.  This is a new adventure for me, and I won’t say it doesn’t make me nervous, letting all of you see inside me like this.  So why am I doing it?  One reason is that understanding is the enemy of fear; it’s my hope that as more people in the mainstream religious communities and the general public come to understand spirit work, what it is and isn’t, the less they will fear us.  We may not be part of their communities, but there’s no reason for us to be enemies, any more than the chieftains of old were the enemies of the lone witches on the hedge.  The community leaders may not have socialized with these odd misfits, they may not have invited them to dinner or swapped cupcake recipes with them, but they knew they could seek them out and turn to them for help when famine or war or disease struck, when tribal luck ran out and only the direct intervention of the Gods Themselves could save the day.  That was our role in the past, and it still is.  We may not live in the midst of our various wider communities, but we are here to serve them when the need arises, if they would but let us.

Another reason is education.  Every year, the Gods—of all pantheons—seem to be calling more and more people away from the more traditional modes of worship and towards spirit work.  There may never be exactly a lot of us, but for better or worse, each year sees an influx of new names, new faces.  In the end, each of us is in this alone, with only our Gods and spirits to support us, and only Them to rely on as we do Their Work.  But just as I have been inspired and enriched by the generous sharing of some of those who started before me, as well as some of my colleagues who were called to this Work at about the same time as me, I’m sharing my Work because it just might provide some bit of inspiration or help to others out there.  I’m still fairly new at this myself, hardly an expert.  But we all bring to the table different backgrounds, different tools, different ways of working that could enrich and complement what others are doing—and vice versa.  This site is a place for me to share my own ways—my chambers of the heart.

—Gunnlod-Hjarta
© 2008

wodandis@gmail.com