seed

descent propels me downwards into pre-birth

a catastrophe of ancestral amniotic dreaming

ashed in the fertile litter of leaf dead loam

prayed into earthen fissures

dark mycelial corridors of not knowing

a trinity of tendrils steeped in the völva’s remembering

slither towards the edge of what is now, our imagining

seduced as we are by uisge’s deep welled call

now, watered and rooted we three rise

a tripod of support for all the Things

that might come together

---

Notes:

Stephen Jenkinson in his book ‘Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble (pp 386-7) breaks down the etymology of the word Catastrophe to come up with the following:

Kata (Greek): “a descent to achieve diminishment, so that when the threshold of mystery presents itself, you are spare and spry enough to cross it and enter”

Strophe: ( Indo European): “a thing braided or woven or gathered in pattern or strategy.”

Together he suggest we might get something like this: “That rope or road that was fashioned for you in the Time Before, by those you will not meet, to give yo a way of going down against your plans and good sense, to give you a way down and into the Mysteries of this life, the Mysteries granted you that you would not choose for yourself, the Mysteries that would yet make of you a human worthy of those coming after.”

Völva. A seeress/Staff Bearer speaks with Odin in the Poetic Edda poem Völuspa, and remembers back to the early times when she was raised by mythical beings named jötnar, recalling the nine worlds and nine  ídiðiur ( Tree Ogressess) and Yggdrasil, The World Tree, (reputedly a great Ash) being just a seed under the ground.

Uisge: Gaelic word for water

Tripod: The World Tree Yggdrasil is supported by three roots that extend far away into other locations; one to the well Urðarbrunnr in the heavens, one to the spring Hvergelmir, and another to the well Mímisbrunnr.

Thing: ( Assembly or Moot) The Norse Gods would assemble at Yggdrasil daily. The Old Germanic form of the word is pingso, which derives from the word pengaz and has the meaning ‘certain time.’ The Old English Thing has at it’s core the basic meaning ‘an assemblage, a coming together of parts.’