The Trail of Bifrost.

Once again, Anton and I took a drive to the outer reaches, with no true intent.

Unexpectedly, while wandering through the soft borders, I happened upon a place that had long since evaded me: Asgard. It's less a place than a state, from the human perspective. To travel there, I had made the journey through Vanaheim and Alfheim, both areas where connections to very, very old friends showed the strength of their bonds from over 20 years.

Oh, to see the plentitude of faces in all things every where. This is Alfheim, the home of the light-spirits. Consciousness is abound in their presence. The faces we see in objects also see us. The feeling of being surrounded, and permeated, by millions of tiny faces and minds everywhere can be exhilarating. It's one of many layers to the world.

In Asgard, thoughts seem to be angles of gigantic 4-dimensional geodesic spheres. What we touch when thinking seems to be a tiny little point on huge, lattice-work structures set outside our own dimensionality, where one can be in, out, on, and observing simultaneously.

Of course, a lot of these are merely symbolizations of larger concepts, and a wealth of information to collide together aids in the understanding of these structures and symbols. Wodan had shown himself to me, at one point. Blue, one-eyed and brilliant. The figure, the idea of Wodan comes to show how our universe comes to be, in our minds, and how our conceptual being forms in a framework. In a sense, Wodan gave the universe a skeleton on which to grow flesh and evolve, rather than merely killing the hypermassive giant Ymir. The separation of Ymir's parts reflects that although now separate, the universe is all merely part of a larger structure, and the pieces of these structures can then evolve separately. Ragnarok comes when these structures require recombination into the context, when their separate existence has fulfilled its purpose, en masse. The Betrayor element, signified by Loki, in truth serves a function higher than that of those on its same plane. The Wodan function serves a similar purpose of preparation and realization. Perhaps, although mythologically girded for war, Wodan had truly sacrificed his own separate existence willingly, knowing that his place in the cycle was over, and that he would always be considered part of the void, that his own function had something representing it. In response to that niche, he sired the children Vidar and Vali, a dualizing of his own concept, at least in the mythological context. Our conceptions are merely a series of symbolizations. Numbers might be seen to compose the universe, yet only from our own human viewpoint, that from its own position and construction must create limits for its own perceptions in order to communicate within its own structure and to others. To Name is to create a limitation in one's own perception of an object, and give it substantiality. It allows us to slow our view of its vibration down enough to acknowledge it as something separate. We name with more than just language: feelings, thoughts, sensations also Name an object, Memory, especially. This limitation can be considered Wodan's sacrifice of his eye to Mimir's well for knowledge, and this journey, this understanding of Symbols his own sacrifice of himself to himself, to create the paradox that allowed him the chance to see the Runes, or the Mysteries.

The Phoenix, the element of fiery perspective, of proactive observation, led me slowly, by fits and starts, back home.