Slow Havamal: 105

[kylec]

In verse 105, Suttung’s daughter Gunnlod gives Odin a draught of mead while he sits on a golden chair. He remarks that he later repay her badly for her trusting an troubled mind.

Odin is treated with hospitality and served a special mead which we will later learn grants gifts such as poetry. It’s a dear possession of the giants, and his place on a golden chair shows he is honored during his visit. Whether his cause was to be granted the mead, or he happened on it while pursuing something else, I can’t say, but he was very taken by it, and he foreshadows the events to come.

From a more abstract point of view, we have a muse who inspires a guest, which leaves him wanting more. She probably expected her gift to be sufficient and the receiver to be grateful. Maybe he was, but a taste only whet his appetite. Just as alcohol loosens out inhibitions, a divine mead seems to release the bindings from our creativity, giving us more direct access to that source the giants guard.

Gunnlod’s mind is described as both trusting and troubled. It’s easy to see the first, but I wonder what worries her. Probably, she was not supposed to share the drink. Or some part of her sensed what thirst it awakened in Odin. Like most things, I reckon the mead of inspiration is best savored in moderation and can drive certain folks to imbibe beyond their limits.

Odin’s personal stories are not necessarily advice to live by. As often, he may explain through a mistake what not to do. It isn’t clear where this anecdote falls, and maybe it isn’t offered for judgment at all—rather, the tale itself may be the drink. One thing worth noting of creatives might be that, whether it’s Odin later spilling the mead for humanity or the giants sharing it with Odin, everyone appears to tap into a special source that comes from outside the self. Of course the artist is important to the creative process, and like a filter alters the mead in a way that n one else can imitate. But those powers that animate the world and our imaginations aren’t simply sloshing around in us to be recycled. They come from somewhere else altogether, and need to be courted, and taken with responsibility.

In another episode in an endless string of Havamal synchronicities, I just started The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, a fine meditation on the creative process, in which he insists on a similar origin for our inspiration (not necessarily the mead hall of giants, but the collective unconscious, the ether, or whatever you choose to call it). Rubin thinks that all people are essentially creative, and that the artist is that particularly sensitive individual who by a fine antenna receives and transforms inspiration from a place we all can access, and shares it with the rest of the world. Let’s see how Odin proceeds in the coming weeks.