Bestla

My new monthly devotional schedule began the night before last with the dark moon, at which I honor Bestla.  Bestla is a frost giantess, the sister of Mimir (the famous guardian of the Well of memory who collected an eye as a pledge from His nephew, Odin, in return for a drink from those waters, and who also taught Odin galdor, or incantation magic). She married Borr, one of the Aesir, and by Him became the mother of Odin, Villi and Ve (or Odin, Hoenir and Lodhur, depending on which text you consult).

There is only a line of two about Bestla in the extant lore, but in my own UPG She was a sacrificial priestess among Her own people in Nifleheim, before the slaying of Ymir and the creation of most of the worlds.  This makes Her a very ancient goddess, as well as a very dark one (as is fitting for the mother of the sorcerer-king of Asgard).  It was She who set before Odin the difficult task of killing Ymir at the behest of the Norns (whose student She was) and for the good of Her people.  In so doing, She became known as Kingmaker, both in the literal sense (as She had given birth to Odin), and in the sense of having raised Her son to kingship, at great cost both to Herself and to Him. Bestla is exacting and strict, meticulous and infinitely calculating, with the formidable strength and pride of a giantess, and a will to rival that of Her son.  In fact, She is the only being I have ever seen Odin defer to. Margaret Beaufort, who risked everything to put her son Henry VII on the English throne and forged the Tudor dynasty in the process, reminds me quite a bit of Her.

 Bestla, as a sacrificial goddess, is the death goddess of the Aesir. She slays, or helps us to slay, that which is past its time and is hindering further growth.  I was instructed to honor Her at the dark of the moon so that She might play a similar role for me as Hekate does for a few of my friends: help in clearing away any stagnant, decaying, negative energy left over from the past month, so that I might start the new month fresh with the new moon–which is, appropriately enough, my day for honoring Odin, for Whose reign Bestla Herself cleared the way.

 This particular practice is new to me, but on this first night a pattern was established that I think may endure.  I was drawn outside, into our back yard, to stand in silence beneath the moonless sky, eyes shut, feeling the night around me, hearing the little noises of animals and the wind, and the occasional tentative call of a bird.  I carried outside with me a white ceramic mug filled with white wine (Bestla’s color is white, like bone, and She likes white food and drink, such as white bread, white cheese, white chocolate, dry white wine, white chocolate liqueur, white rum, and gin).

 I stood before the Nine Herbs garden and called to Her, offering Her all of my frustrations of the past month, all my despair, and even my unworthy emotions such as envy and anger, and asked Her to transform them for me into pure energy, just as Her tree, the yew, uses the decaying remains of the dead to fuel new growth.  Bestla’s gift to us and to all the worlds, is Odin, and His gift is both death and life, the first breath and the last, our entrance into this world and consciousness and our leave-taking of the same, when breath, life and consciousness return to He who granted them to us.

In my own personal UPG, Bestla is also the goddess of herbal witchcraft,  an art She passed on to Her son.  (In contrast, for me Idunna is the goddess of herbal medicine.) Under Bestla’s tutelage (and Odin’s, of course), I will be taking up this art again and making a number of salves, incenses and powders, both for my own use and to offer in my store. Last night I officially began by starting an infusion of Odin’s nine sacred herbs in olive oil, which will eventually become a Nine Herbs salve, with more then half the ingredients having been grown in a consecrated Odin garden.

 Unfortunately there are not many sources I can recommend for Bestla, other than my own books and an article I wrote on Her which appears in Raven Kaldera’s Jotunbok anthology.

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