Freya [PBP]
A few months ago, the goddess Freya called to me at a ritual at Stone City last year. Since then I’ve worked with her a bit and done some research on her.
Freya is one of the Vanir who went to Asgard as a diplomatic hostage in the war between the Vanir and Aseir. She is a goddess of both love and war, as well as beauty and seidr. She gets her pick of half of the heroes who have died in battle to live with her in the field in the afterlife named Fólkvangr.
Freya is also the wearer of Brísingamen, a beautiful golden necklace that she won from the dwarves. The most common tellings of the myth Freya decides that she wants this beautiful golden necklace but there is no money that can purchase it. The price from the dwarves is for the goddess to spend one night with each of the four dwarves who made it. A recent telling of this myth by Sharon Knight speaks to the love and compassion that Freya has for each of the dwarves, helping them to see that each of them is unique and precious as individuals.
In my working with her, Freya represents the compassion of strength. She is the goddess who will tell you to consider your opponents with the idea that maybe you can actually work together instead of opposite each other. She can be a hard taskmaster as well as a stickler for discipline in the warrior aspect, but a kind and loving woman in her lover aspect.
Now that I’ve worked with her for a little while, I can see that, as usual, there is a lot to learn 🙂
Image Notes:
Image obtained from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Freyja_in_the_dwarfs%27_cave.jpg. Image from The Heroes of Asgard : Tales from Scandinavian Mythology / by A. & E. Keary with illustrations by Huard. London, Macmillan and co. and New York. 1891 Republished online by the Baldwin Project at http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=keary&book=asgard&story=_contents – this specific image was obtained fromhttp://www.mainlesson.com/books/keary/asgard/front3.gif and processed slightly with the GIMP.