Viðr, The Core of Self

There is the face you show.The voice you use. The choices you make.

And beneath it all, there is Viðr.

The wood at your center.The part of you that does not change when the seasons turn, or the winds shift. In Norse thought, Viðr was rarely named, but always there, the reason two people could face the same fate and walk away changed in different ways.

A völva might see it as the grain of a person’s thread. Strong, knotted, or smooth, it would hold no matter how the rest of the weave frayed.

I picture an oak in winter, stripped of leaves, bark scarred from storms, but the trunk still standing. That is Viðr.

Even if all else is lost, this part remains.