Urda, Werdandi, Skulda

THE WAY OF THE GRAIL – SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS – October 26, 2020

Czech original: Urda, Werdandi, Skulda · cesta-gralu.cz

Once again we shall lead our gaze upward to the places where the three sublime Norns dwell, who in so important a manner reach into the great course of the happenings in the gearwork of the Subsequent work of Creation

If our gaze penetrates in the right direction, then there will appear before us the frontage of a glorious pavilion which is a part of the ring-shaped temple that encircles, upon the summit of the gardens of Asgard, the mighty trunk of the Tree of Knowledge

We have already described that the Tree of Knowledge is in reality a stream of the down-flowing current of Light which descends from the heights of Creation into the Subsequent work of Creation together with all its parts of the materialities

Those also who have read the preceding part about the three Norns know that through these same places radiation streams likewise from below upward, so as to bear witness in its currents to the state of things in the planes where the humanly spiritual sparks develop towards their perfecting

In clouds illumined by the Light there then appear, in the high spheres of the work of Creation, pictures portraying in spiritual imagery that which has come to pass, that which is happening and that which is yet to happen in the planes of the Subsequent work of Creation

The inhabitants of the spiritual worlds who are graced therewith may then behold parts, or even entire sequences of the happenings, which portray in the language of the spirit that which takes place in the planes where the spiritual sparks abide upon the way of their development

Thus also Ismael upon the summit of Creation, kneeling before the throne of Parzival in the most blissful of the halls of the Grail, was permitted, out of these pictures which rose up before his gaze, to describe in the language of the spirit that which is bound up with the further working of the plan of God and which therefore will one day come as a happening fulfilling itself above the earthly planes of mankind

That these were pictures scarcely intelligible to the earthly intellect is self-evident, for in the spiritual part of Creation everything is formed into pictures which are destined for the comprehension there

And therefore, when in inspiration these pictures were later transmitted for the receiving by a simple, inwardly open earthly writer, that well-known Revelation of John, which is a part of the New Testament in the Bible, had in the end to lack to a certain degree the sequence and the logic which the earthly thinking of men uses here

The past stood in one connection with the present and the future, just as the pictures rose up in the woven threads from the three Norns, who through their work laid into the pictures that which is most important for spiritual understanding

And that spiritual understanding is not earthly understanding is self-evident to everyone who has experienced even but a little in a true spiritual attunement

The spiritual is always living and mobile, and it perceives the symbolism of the pictures otherwise than earthly thinking with its interpretations of the forms of happenings comprehends these same pictures

It is therefore evident that, just as there appears above that which happens below, and to it there joins itself at once in answer that which is only yet to come, so below, again, this which streams down from above must afterwards be rightly translated by someone called thereto into comprehensibility for earthly thinking, so that it may be understood

Therefore also in the time of the Son of Man upon earth the needful explanation was added thereto by hands called for it, and thus the Revelation of John, until that time closed for thousands of years with seven seals, was opened and made clear for all those who are of pure heart and of living mind

The Revelation was freed of the seals and now works for the fulfilment of all the pictures laid within it, also for the worlds of the materialities

Such is always the happening which comes from the Light, wherein the grace-filled greatness of God thinks of all that is needful, so that the spiritual sparks upon their paths of development in the materialities may always have at hand that which is truly important for them

All this has a certain connection with that peculiar blessed temple which at the very beginning of the ages was formed in the Subsequent work of Creation beneath Valhalla for the three Norns and also for their glorious helpers, of whom there is a great number

And precisely in the place of the ring-shaped temple there is found, as the most glorious part of this temple, the pavilion where the three Norns have their seat, whose origin is of the high animistic species

The three Norns work unceasingly in their service and thereby bring the future into the Subsequent work of Creation

They are often described as spinners, or also as aged women weaving the threads of fate

In ignorance of their real nature men have nothing in hand save, for the most part, very strange forms which call forth the picture of old women filled with aloofness and unkindness

The men of the ancient peoples in their ignorance gave them this picture, because they proceeded from their own threads of fate, in which all too often they found only disfavour and hardships

This disfavour they then ascribed to the Norns, as though these wove the threads out of themselves

What folly therein there was and still remains in a great number of men, who know nothing and do not even wish to know anything

In reality these three animistic servants are glorious, like all those servants who have their origin in the animistic stream blessed by the Will of God

The oldest in appearance is Urda, who also arose as the first of the servants in this place

Her hair is silvery, and furrows cover her otherwise bright brow

It is not because she bears the traces of age, but upon her countenance lies the imprint of the threads which she must weave as she winds the past upon her skein, and with this past there are for the most part bound only grey threads rising out of the planes of the materialities beneath Asgard

She has also a great silvery mantle with a hood, which she draws over herself when out of the depths of the materialities there rise streams bearing within themselves, greatly strengthened, pain, suffering and death

One of her hands holds the skein, and the other, with a gentle moving of the fingers, continually receives the thread running together out of the weaving of the greatest of the Vaenen, who prepare for this servant the threads which come from the volition and the striving of all creatures living in the universes of the world-parts

From the skein of Urda there rises a streaming of radiation which vanishes high above in the crown of the tree over Valhalla, in the nebulae of the Light

At the left side of Urda, in the radiantly illumined circular pavilion, sits Werdandi, the servant who weaves the present

Werdandi weaves the threads which come downward from the heights in the streaming of the tree, and to them she joins a part of the threads which flow to her from the hand of Urda

Werdandi in her appearance most resembles a mature mother

Into her countenance there is woven a loving solicitude, and at the same time also a stern justice

She has thick brown hair bound into a long braid which winds about her feet and runs on into the roots of the tree, in that there is portrayed in it the length of the time of life of the human race in the Subsequent work of Creation

She too has her silvery mantle and upon it a hood, which she may put on when she weaves heavy happenings for one of the world-parts

Her hands weave all that is needful for the course of the happenings, so that men may experience their lives and in them ripen towards their ascent or their downfall, exactly according to whither the ways of fate of their volition proceed, of the volition formed out of the free will of their spirit

At the left hand of Werdandi there sits then the third of the Norns, Skulda

Skulda is the youngest Norn and bears within herself the important service of the weaving of the future

In reality she weaves none of the threads, but her left hand holds a bowl in which she catches the dripping oil of the luminous blessing of God

In this dripping of the luminous oil from the heights there is contained the germ of all that will come as the consequence of the past and of the present

This oil bears within itself the life which kindles and drives all things towards the harvest of the fruits which are to grow out of everything that has been sown

To this there join themselves the Justice of God, the Wise Purity of God and the Love of God, which are that movement of the golden oil dripping from the heights into the bowl of Skulda

Into this bowl the servant Werdandi, sitting beside Skulda, dips her fingers, and this oil she adds to the threads of the present which are just being woven in the materialities

Thereby the thread changes from the future into the present, which at once hastens through the threads carefully guided by the Vaenen to the world-communities, to the lands, to the peoples and also to individuals, so that it may fulfil itself upon them

In her other hand Skulda holds a silver rod with which she drives forward the threads unwinding from the hand of Werdandi

To many who are permitted to see this picture of Skulda it appears as though she herself wove the thread of the future

In reality the future is formed out of the past and the present which Urda and Werdandi weave

Into these threads Skulda joins the gleam of the Power of God, which flows to her in the form of the down-running golden oil

In that Skulda drives the threads forward with the silver rod, there is at once formed out of them the present

Men have always regarded as a kind of fatefulness that picture wherein from Skulda there goes forth a strengthened streaming of the threads bearing that which is to come

They perceived it as an unstoppable happening, and in this irresistibility they surmised that it is not possible to guard oneself against it otherwise than to accept it as the play of an appointed fate which unwinds for them and which they cannot change

In reality nowhere does there arise a single thread which would bear within itself an unjust happening for any man or creature

Everything is strictly guarded against anything coming to pass which would bear within itself the principle of an unjust fatefulness, as even today many men wish to persuade themselves, who often seek to regard themselves as victims of a higher happening in their life

Let us therefore follow the course of the threads which bear within themselves the near present for men upon their paths

As has been said, the threads driven forward by Skulda hasten to the highest of the Vaenen, who thereupon sort these threads and send them onward into the planes beneath them, where again a whole army of further servants stands ready, who again lead the threads onward and sort them into still finer streams, which hasten at last to the experiencing of the individual man, wherever in the planes of the materialities he may be

Wherever he finds himself, the threads will find him and will form themselves, with the help of the nearest servants of the Vaenen and the Alphar, into actual life with all that is needful which is to come

The threads draw near, and by their species they can bring only that which truly belongs to man

Man himself can even at the last moment still change that which comes to him, through a new setting of his volition

So swiftly does everything work and have effect

In everything there is mirrored the sovereign possibility of the free decision of the spiritual nature in man, which is always the ground of that which happens upon earth

Every inflowing of a thread brings a situation which gives him a new opportunity for decision

It can thus bring progress and liberation, if man passes through the experiencing purely and rightly

But there can also arise new guilt, when men who meet one another in the gross material happening succumb to their faults and weaknesses and through them then harm the other man more than it should have been in the natural condition of immaturity which is fulfilled through the reciprocal adjustment

This happening lies always fully in the hands of men themselves, and it rests only with their decision how far they let themselves be ruled by dark influences, or on the contrary how far they swing themselves higher and show forth, in the fulfilment of the returning happening, their nobility of character and their goodness towards other men

From the heights there hasten always only threads bearing the tidings of the need for the adjustment of guilt, or of something which still remains an open wound calling for healing

Thereby the threads prepare the present out of the past, and this present forms the situation and the surroundings where this or that takes place

There arises a nodal point which brings the opportunity for the loosening of the past, and this even in moments when men are not in the least aware of it and regard the given situation as the most ordinary one, which in their everydayness repeats itself for them perhaps already for the thousandth time

Nevertheless in the given situation there is always a gift from the Light for the opportunity of advancing forward

Even in the smallest meeting with another man there lies the opportunity to free oneself, to move further in one's manner of acting towards a higher nobility of character and kindness

The helm of that which is to follow is always and only man himself with his free will in decision

Therefore in the case of all men it is in the end always decisive in what inner state of attunement they meet, and how together they master the fulfilment of such a moment, how they pass through that nodal point

Whether both as victors, or only the one or the other, or whether even both create for themselves through the given experience a new karmic thread which will again have to be lived out in a future time, all this depends only upon themselves

It is only needful to perceive that the woven, running thread bears within itself a pressure calling for the experiencing of some situation

The free will of the men concerned then decides whether it will be a liberating experience, or an experience leading to a new thread which will again have to be woven, to await a new opportunity

Thus there unwind between many men karmic bonds enduring perhaps even for centuries, or even for thousands of years, before a new moment of the opportunity of liberation can come again

It is then a grace-filled opportunity for use, which however by men in their dullness is all too often experienced wrongly, in the unwakefulness of their spiritual perceiving

Thereby precious time is squandered, which is so greatly needed in order that the human spirit may move onward in freeing itself from the threads of its fate which have arisen

And yet there is always at hand the most effective way to pass through everything rightly – the way of a complete, all-embracing setting of goodness in all that men experience

That alone bears within itself the power to bring liberation from everything that burdens, so that the ascent of the spirit may one day be completed

Alas, the lamentable state of ignorance of the greater part of men brings it about that a great part of the threads is in its experiencing only a ground for a continuing bondage, or even for a still greater sinking into entanglement in new guilt caused to other men

If men surmised what greatest justice and what Wise Love of the Laws of God rules therein, then they would recognise that they alone are that decisive power which can free them, through the living out of everything that comes to them, whether in joyful harmony with others or through the forgiveness which is born within them through the nobility of their attitude towards all that has been done to them by other men

In reality everything is so simple and plain

To ascent there leads always only that simplest, most universal way, granted to the human spirit for its attaining of joy and of fulfilment

It is a universal way, demanding nothing save to hold within oneself a helping, joyful and pure volition which does not grow weary and stands ever in readiness within man

There is nothing else therein, nothing else can men devise as a substitute for this glorious way of ascent, offered by the Love of God to their spiritual spark in Creation

But now back to the servants weaving the threads at the foot of the Tree of Knowledge

The servant Skulda has the form of a maidenly, youthful appearance, and her head is adorned with fair locks bound into a thick braid falling down to her feet

Skulda too has a mantle, which in her case has a light golden shimmer

This mantle has no hood, but she has a very light shawl with which she can cover her hair and also her face, when from the heights there has drawn near to her the announcement of a coming heavy experiencing for the worlds of the materialities

That is when the consequences of a heavy karmic kind return, and also when there pulsates through Creation the fulfilling radiation of the Light calling the worlds in the Subsequent work of Creation to the reckoning in the Judgment

The description of this happening in the Subsequent work of Creation would however require a separate chapter for the bringing near of the happenings working therein

Perhaps there will sometime yet be time to bring all this near through the weaving of the threads streaming from the heights through the Tree of Knowledge

Now, however, once more back to Urda, Werdandi and Skulda

Around the three sublime spinners of the threads of fate it is ever astir, for from Valhalla many further sublime helpers are appointed to their aid, among whom belong also the Hesperides, who in the place of the pavilion change from owls into maidens in order to bring to the three Norns the golden apples of the Tree of Knowledge, from which they give them morsels for their nourishment

Also from time to time the Valkyries are to be seen here in gleaming armour, who come when out of the threads woven by Werdandi there rises battle and the departure of heroic warriors from the gross material plains is to be expected

Likewise Hathmes with Hermetes incline themselves to these places, and this because they too read from the woven threads their call to work, before which almost always the warlike Hareiars, summoned to the destroying of worlds, goes on ahead of them

In stillness there also comes to the pavilion of the spinners the servant Sthyx

That is in order to look into the threads to see when she will accompany from the Light to the materialities, or again from the materialities to the Light, those radiant spirits who plunge into the Subsequent work of Creation from the heights of Creation, or even from the part of the Primordial Creation itself

Her joy in such a case is indescribable, for the radiation of the Light vibrating in these sent-out helpers is for this servant always refreshing and uplifting

Sthyx then accompanies such an envoy from the heights of the Light to the places where his spirit prepares itself for incarnation

In an ethereal place filled with the radiant light of the highest heights in the Subsequent work of Creation there is then woven, through the threads of the future, the possibility of incarnation into the places where such a bright envoy is to work

He himself helps in inspirations so that the conditions for his incarnation in the gross materialities may be prepared as well as possible for the beginning of his service

Not seldom he draws near, in the ethereal covering which he has received, to those who are to give him a home, in order to strengthen them by his radiance in their support of their own personal ascent towards the Light

When the threads are woven to the end and everything is prepared, there is joined by the servant Sthyx the silver band leading to the little body forming itself in the gross material womb of the earthly mother

The sublime spirit surrenders himself in full trust to the streaming of the forces which bring him nearer to the union with the astral covering of the body and thereafter also with the earthly body of the child itself

Everything around him interweaves, and he beholds his past as well as the future which is made ready for him

His consciousness gradually narrows into a slender stream, as the formed threads draw taut and as the radiation of the earthly draws him ever closer and closer

It is as though his consciousness were drawn out into a long-drawn, ancient sounding, the glorious calling of home, and at the same time there rise up before him more and more the voices of the approaching world

In that moment Sthyx lovingly passes her hand across the brow of the servant, and for a moment he sinks into an unconscious sleep

His spiritual nature, which he bears within himself, finds itself close to the earthly birth

Over his eyes there is laid the white band of the temporary forgetting of his past, so that for a certain time he may not be disturbed upon his earthly path of recognising and of learning

Only from time to time can the past from the heights of the Light sound forth in his inner trembling

But this his earthly childlike consciousness is no longer able fully to grasp, and he gives himself over to these echoes of home only as to a quiet reminding which painfully sets trembling the inner being of his earthly childlike consciousness

Thus, or perhaps a little otherwise, yet in its essence still ever similarly, may the incarnation of the spiritual servants, men and women, take place, who come from the planes of the Light into the materialities of the Subsequent work of Creation in order to fulfil here a part of their joyful service to the Light

Always their way begins in the threads going forth from the hands of Werdandi, to which Skulda then joins the peculiar vibration of the protection of God and of blessing for their way of service in the materialities

Out of these threads there is woven by the Vaenen and the Alphar everything needful for the preparation of the incarnation and also for the fulfilment of all the important moments in the earthly life of such servants, men and women

At a certain time there sounds to them through these threads the call, which is an unquenchable stirring to enter upon the service to the Light, for which alone they incarnated into the materialities

Thereby their whole earthly way is then changed, for there is no longer anything which could be stronger in their life than the fulfilment of that for which they came to earth

Such a call awoke in the servants of Jesus, out of whom there then became his apostles, disciples and pupils, so that through the glowing through of their recognition they might bring His word to other men, with whom through their kind of comprehension they had a near homogeneity

Also those called around the Son of Man, when He was personally upon earth, had prepared in their threads the same kind of inner call, when He summoned them through the Word of the Grail Message brought by Him

And also today, in the present time upon earth, there is a great number of those who came in order that in the most difficult hours for earthly mankind they might awaken to their task, which unites them with the Light and which also awakens in them an unexpectedly peculiar resolve to find the Truth and to transform its radiation into their life, as something inseparable from their further way in the earthly body

Thus through the places in the heights where the three Norns, Urda, Werdandi and Skulda, have their seat, there fulfils itself the beginning of sublime fulfilments for everyone who comes from the Light to the help of these distant earthly worlds

How glorious is all this, what nobility dwells therein and also what wise greatness of the guidance of God in all things, of this many men in earthly bodies are not aware, for the day-consciousness of the intellect today outshines everything and thus dims, even in those who are called, the clarity of their comprehension of the reason why they are upon earth

With this, however, everyone needs to deal for himself, so that he may let the radiance of the awareness of his task well up within his inner being, and together with it that there may awaken in his spirit a reverent humility before the Wisdom of God, which brings all this to life

If his spirit succeeds in bringing this to a clear grasp, then he should no longer depart from this knowledge, so that through the threads woven in the places of the Tree of Knowledge it may draw near to him with helps and with the blessing of many gifts, which can show themselves in him only in the living radiation of his mature spirit

Blessed be the hour for everyone who inwardly attains, in his ripening to a true inner greatness and wisdom, such a moment of enlightenment

For him there are now made ready streams of blessed bestowal from the Light, so that his way may be filled only with splendid working in an important service

There, where he lives and works, there is to tremble within him the loud assent to the Light, so that he may become a beacon of radiant human fulfilling, which in its thoughts and deeds strives towards an exemplary working among men

High knowledge is to be made accessible to him as a gift from the Light, which he is then to use for the recognising of the direction leading to the Light, so that through his striving he may break open the way into the new age upon earth

Quietly and faithfully the three Norns weave for such a pure spirit, who bears the Light within himself, the threads which in much prepare his way forward

If he goes in harmony with these threads and loses not the courage within himself, nor wavers in his conviction of the greatness of God, then it will grow bright around him and from his way there will fall away the last hindrances which prevented him from the full working for the Light in the service of the Holy God