Theos-Talk Archives (September 1996 Message tt00034)

Okay, Sveinn, etheric builders. That's very good. That was the
quote I'm relating to the Second Race. Now I'm skipping stanzas
and going to the next stanza where the "meaning of the refrain"
but is worded strangely different than the familiar "The High
Gods gathered in council."

> Then from the host Three came,
> Great, merciful, from the God's home:
> Ash and Elm on earth they found,
> Faint, feeble, with no fate assigned them.

For physical manifestation to take place, three energies are
required. Spirit, matter, and soul weave a form consistently
with the three outpourings in the SD or maybe you like the triple
evolutionary scheme better, which states there is a physical
evolution or evolution of form, a mental evolution and a
spiritual evolution. Anyway the reference to three as in the
third race would be the first physical race of man, since the
first two were considered etheric.

Ash and Elm on earth they found without fate suggests that the
shistas are open to a "human" influence. Mankind is now ready to
begin a development akin to where he left off in the last round.

The verses continue:

> Breath they had not, nor blood nor senses,
> Nor language possessed, nor life-hue:
> Odin gave them breath, Haenir senses,
> Blood and life-hue Lothur gave.
>
> I know an ash-tree, named Yggdrasil:
> Sparkling showers are shed on its leaves
> That drip dew into the dales below.
> By Urth's Well it waves evergreen,
> Stands over that still pool,
> Near it a bower whence now there come.
> The Fate Maidens, first Urth,
> Skuld second, scorers of runes,
> Then Verdandi, third of the Norns:
> The laws that determine the lives of men
> They fixed forever and their fate sealed.

Is this "dripping" reproduction? Could it refer to the "sweat
born?" Check Stanza VI in the SD which is titled The Evolution of
the "Sweat-Born" and more reference to "drops," etc. with the
biggest drop being the egg or the Man-Swan.

Here's a quote from p. 132 Volume II:

> ...the Second Race gave birth to the Third--which itself is
> separated into three distinct divisions, consisting of men
> differently procreated.

Sveinn, what do you think of this quote?

> The little ones of the earlier [sub]-races were entirely
> sexless--shapeless even for all one knows; but those of the later
> [sub]-races were born androgynous. (snip) From being previously
> asexual, Humanity became distinctly hermaphrodite or bisexual;
> and finally the man-bearing eggs began to give birth, gradually
> and almost imperceptibly in their evolutionary development, first
> to Beings in which one sex predominated over the other, and
> finally, to distinct men and women.

The words "little ones" make me think of the young offspring,
because the first two races were not small. A little egg-shaped
baby born sexless doesn't mean it remained that way, later two
sexes in one were born, and finally as shown above either one sex
or the other. This doesn't mean that the androgynes stayed that
way all of their life, just that they were born that way or that
they could temporarily become fixed that way. Look at this quote from
Plato which is referenced in the quote from the SD above in
a footnote.

> ... the primeval man was round his back and sides forming a
> circle; and he had four hands and four feet, one head with two
> faces, looking opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely
> alike; also four ears, two privy members, and the remainder to
> correspond. He could walk upright as men now do, backwards or
> forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a
> great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in
> all, like rumblers going over and over with their legs in the
> air; this was when he wanted to run fast.

Hope this note finds you well,