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I'm sure that some of you are taking a look at this thread just to figure out what the three words in the title mean. Most people wouldn't even begin to know where to look for such a thing, though I'm sure a few would at least try Wikipedia for the information- but you will not find anything there regarding that short, simple phrase, yet you still want to know what it means.

Reyn til Rûna

If you decided to take a look at this thread because you were curious of the title, then you have already indulged in your curiosity, your desire to learn, your need to know. None of these things in and of themselves are a bad thing, but they can lead to some truly frightening mental positions. However, it is also these three words that are the driving force behind my mentality now, and they are becoming more and more so with each passing day.

Reyn til Rûna

In Old Norse, the phrase means, “Seek toward the Mysteries!” It is a phrase that is rarely used- even a thousand years ago, it was rare- and the depth that it reaches is astounding.

To break it down even further, Reyn til Rûna is not only expressing a desire to discover what mysteries there are around us, but those that are within us as well.

Asgard represents the highest level of thought, hence its representation at the head of the body. Those who could think at the "Asgard" level of thought were often considered to be the most spiritual people in Norse mythology. Asgard also contains the spirits of those who go to Valhalla, though those who actually make it that far are few and far between. The people who make it to Valhalla are those who have shown themselves willing to sacrifice not only everything they have, but everything that they are and can have toward the "greater good" of the people. However, it takes far more than just that. It also takes the willingness, ability, desire, and actually exploration of the Self to expand and grow as an individual.

Alfheim is often related to the logical thinking that most people use; the people who are regularly thinking at this level are often extraordinarily good at deductive reasoning as well as math and the sciences. Elves are considered to be a very logical race in ancient mythology, an extremely thought-filled breed with seemingly little connection to the more earthly realms. Often, they seem highly intelligent though they lack in what we would refer to as "common sense." This is also where the term "Elf-struck" stems from; an individual who has been "elf-struck" is often no longer able to think properly or form a coherent thought; the Norse believed that this is because an Elf "struck" it out of them because the person angered the elf-spirits. As far as I know right now, it lies at the collarbone because it belongs between Asgard and Midgard; if you take a look at Buddhist Chakras, the collarbone is also a high-energy area.

Midgard is more of the "gut" thinking of humanity (hence its location). It consists of the instinctive, survivalistic thought processes that occur on a day-to-day basis within each of us; unfortunately, this is also where most of humanity is stuck even though they express a desire to move beyond this region. However, the desire is not enough. They have to actually will themselves to make the effort toward the growth necessary for the other methods of thinking.

Svartalfheim, though it is translated as "Dark Elf Home", is the home of what we would now call dwarves. Herein lies the Creative functions of the mind- and the body, as expressed by the second picture that I asked you to draw. It is this "world", so to speak, that all creative forces are derived- from stories to inventions, from painting to dancing, from sketches to music- and just about everything in between. As such, it is associated with the loins because of their inherently creative nature; through the act of sex (which, I might add, is not a bad thing even outside of marriage, contrary to what modern monotheism would like for us to believe), a new life is created. Dwarves are often told of being very "down-to-earth" despite the fact that they've never been particularly bright. They are also the source of many of our nightmares, according the the ancient Norse; as with the elves, it is entirely possible to aggravate a dwarf, though it can cause either nightmare or some kind of artisan's block- writer's block is one of the most commonly heard of.

Hel, the Land of the Dead in Norse Mythology, is often incorrectly assumed to be a misspelling of the Christian "Hell"; it is, in fact, exactly the opposite. "Hell" is a direct derivative of the Nordic Hel, though the meaning was twisted so that the Christians could more effectively control those who followed their beliefs. There is nothing particularly bad or dangerous in Hel, as the Christians would try to make you believe. In Norse mythos, Hel is nothing more than one of the resting places of the dead; it where you would go to communicate with someone who had died and did not make it to Asgard to stay with the Gods and Goddesses. This is also where the vast majority of people go upon their death. From what I have seen in my research, Hel is not directly associated with any particular type of thought, as it is a place of communication with the dead.

Well, here is the reason why I posted all of that seemingly useless information before this: Much of my philosophy revolves around all of that, though my philosophy is not wholly Nordic.

What I have done is not only work to fill your mind with odd bits of knowledge, but to be able to show you something. Each of the nine worlds is representative of something in our world and in ourselves. Asgard is represented not only by our head, but by the "heavens" above us; Asgard is the sky around us. Alfheim is the air in which we breathe. Midgard is the world on which we walk. Svartalfheim expresses the underground caverns that we have explored- and those we have yet to find. Finally, Hel is the underworld that exists out of our reach- and why many of us bury our dead in the ground.

What of the other four worlds? Each of them represents a particular element in Norse mythos, which notably differs from the elements of other mythologies: Muspelheim, fire; Niflheim, ice; Vanaheim, organic life; Jotunheim, earth and rocks.

Now, I'm sure that some of you are wondering why those are used for the elements instead of the "traditional" earth, wind, fire, and water. Here is a quick and easy explanation of this: Out of fire and ice come warmth and water, which life needs to survive. Fire drives the earth to change despite its desire to be unchanging, which, in turn, forces life to adapt to these changes and grow again.

Now, take all of these things and put them together.

It takes a balance of hot and cold to make it warm enough for us to survive, hence why we have an average body temperature to live healthily. Changes occur both within and without our bodies and minds, which force us to adapt and to grow. This growth often causes a change in thought-patterns, regardless of the direction that it shifts. In turn, this shift in thought-patterns causes additional changes within us, again causing us to adapt to these changes.

Bringing all of this into perspective, Norse mythology is little more than a different take on psychology that what most of us are accustomed to. It is more simplistic than modern psychology in many ways, and is also much more discrete to those who can't for the life of them figure out how to interpret it.

I'm sure that some of you noticed that the quote in the first post was from something called the "Rune-Gild". For those of you wondering, the people in the Rune-Gild are Odinians- people who seek not to worship Odin, but to emulate him. They are called the "Rune-Gild" because part of what they do is Runework; something that works in a similar fashion to spells and prayers of other religions. Numbers, like in so many religions, are extremely important to Odinnic cults like the Rune-Gild. Though I have yet to go through all of the reading that I desire to for it, I do plan on joining the Gild sometime in the near future- not because it is a religion, but because it is a part of my past and my future.

Do I believe in reincarnation? Most certainly. I can already tell you that I am the second incarnation of a rune-wizard who also specialized in prophecy. This is something that I plan on exploring further.

Do I believe that there is a single, all-powerful being? No, I don't. I believe that there are two; one male, one female. If there is only a god, then how are women created after the image of a male? If there is no goddess, then how can we possibly believe through blind faith that a single god innately knew which organs to make within a woman to allow the man to reproduce? In my eyes, this is simple; there has to have been a goddess.

Do I believe that the world is going to end in 2012? It's not going to end, but it will have changed so drastically, so suddenly that it will simply be the end of the world as we know it. We have already experienced one massive upheaval in this world when Christianity and Catholicism managed to turn their foothold into a stranglehold on every other religion in the world roughly 1,000 years ago. It is time for another such shift. Christianity is already on its downward spiral; it's now only a matter of time before it returns to the small cult that is was in its early days.

No religion every fully disappears. There will always be followers of each religion, regardless of unjust persecution and indignation by other cultures. It is my hope, however, that people will turn to viewing religions like Christianity not as something that turns them into a self-sacrificial, self-proclaimed martyr, but as a lifestyle to take up and to use to grow.

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For those of you who took the time to read all seven posts that open this thread, thank you for taking the time and having the patience to bear with me on my rather wordy conquest. It was broken up not to increase my post count more quickly, but because it would be an overwhelmingly long post if I hadn't done so. I would rather have it be spread out over several posts and give you good breaking points than to have a headache of a post for you to sift through.

For those of you who actually took the time to read this, feel free to post your thoughts and comments; I will be around to discuss it.

Essentially, yes, you are correct about those who make it to Valhalla, but you also need to remember that not all of the Norse people were warriors. Like every other civilization, the vast majority of the population served other purposes; healers, scholars, agriculturists, and herdsmen were also wholly necessary. Valhalla still, for every reason listed above, remains to be a resting place for the valiant "elite" who managed to make it that far.

As you figured, I did not expect you to believe it- in fact, I don't really expect much of anyone to believe it until they've seen it in action. Most of the mythos behind all of this is quite indistinct, and I probably won't even begin to learn the vast majority of it until I can join the Rune-Gild. What I have done and seen, though, is far from fake even though I am still very much a novice at this.

I do plan on doing a small demonstration of energy play via MSN webcam on the 26th for those who are interested; if it is something that you would like to see, send me a pm and I'll give you the contact information. Hopefully it will turn out well for providing some kind of evidence for some of what I say I can do.

While I have no scanner that I can use for creating the images that I ask to be made while reading through the opening bulk, I can create a photoshop/paint image that will show the first and photoshop a different image for the second. While I won't be working on that tonight, I will be doing so tomorrow after completing my homework.

And to answer your question, I do not believe them to be alternate planes or a parallel universe; they are very much demonstrative, though I can already give you the two objects that gave them the "world of fire" and "world of ice"; look at the sun and moon. In our sky, what do they look like? A world of fire and a world of ice. Our planet would appear to be somewhere in between them (for the most part), so it wouldn't be a bad assumption to believe that it would take a happy medium between fire and ice for our planet to survive just like it takes the same kind of balance for us to survive.

While you are correct in saying that it would be far more convincing in person, it may be a while before I can get out that way. In any case, though, what the webcam session will mostly be showing is the usage of energy to distort images. I'm not sure how subtle or obvious it will be, but if I can pull enough energy that night, then I should be able to make it at least somewhat visible in at least a couple of different ways- namely as a distortion between my hands and (hopefully) as a distortion around my body that somewhat resembles an "aura."

As promised, I discussed this with my mentor; the information regarding Surt's attempted destruction of Niflheim is somewhere in the Prose Edda. If you don't have a copy of the Prose Edda on hand, here's where you can find it.