“Straightway after the rime dripped, there sprang from it the cow called Audumla... She licked the ice-blocks...” 3

It is important to note that even before the universe began primal forces were at work. One way to interpret it is as a metaphor of the Big Bang. Energy met emptiness and an entire universe was born. This simple fact of the existence of primal forces before creation shows us that creation was not a singular fluke event, but part of a natural process. Even the Gods themselves were created (and in the story of Ragnarok we see many of Them die). We can also see this at a smaller scale in Nature and in our own lives. The cycle of birth, death and rebirth went on before us and will keep going on after us.

The creation of the world

“Then Bur's sons lifted the level land. Mithgarth the mighty there they made” 4

Odin and His brothers could not abide Ymir and his disorderly, destructive ways so they killed him. From his flesh They made the earth, and from his bones the mountains. His teeth and bone dust became the stones and sand. His blood became the lakes and seas. The brothers set his skull around the earth, held up by one dwarf for each of the cardinal compass directions, and it became the sky. The brains turned into the clouds. The dwarves themselves were created from the maggots that infested Ymir’s dead body. Then the brothers took sparks from Muspelheim and threw them into the void surrounding the new world and they became the stars. The Jotuns still posed a danger to the world, so Odin used Ymir's eyebrows to partition creation into an area for the Jotuns and an area safe (at least mostly) from them. These lands became Jotunheim and Midgard.

“of his blood the sea and the waters; the land was made of his flesh, and the crags of his bones... They took his skull also, and made of it the heaven” 3

This is perhaps the greatest story of life from death. We see described in the lore something we already understand from our physical lives -- that building something requires raw materials. We know that those materials come from somewhere, whether they are metal ores ripped from the earth or dead organisms broken down by bugs, worms and microbes to form new soil and then new plants. The fuel we burn in our cars also comes from just such a process. Within all of these processes are a continuous cycle between not just life and death, but also order and chaos. The initial void and swirling energies was a highly entropic environment which was ordered (to a degree at least) when life arose from it. This life did some rearranging, and built another level of order. The forces of entropy (the Jotuns) are ever-present though, requiring constant energy to maintain the order. The lore contains many Jotun-fighting tales, and everyone knows how their place doesn’t stay clean without effort. Sometimes the Jotuns win and wreak destruction, but life always manages to return again.

There is another important detail here too. Creation doesn't happen at the snap of a finger. It takes careful thought and great effort. Anyone who has ever painted a painting, built a software system, or birthed and/or raised a child knows this. Creation is also not a singular act. It takes cooperation and teamwork. Although it is often said that Vili and Ve are aspects of Odin 2, we see Ymir, Audhumla, Buri, Bor and Bestla all having a hand (or tongue in Audhumla's case) in creation. Furthermore, I believe that even though the lore doesn't mention Her here, Frigg must have had as much involvement in creating the world as Odin. Other stories tell of Idun keeping the Gods young with Her apples and Frey making the crops grow each spring. Creation is continuous and collaborative.

“Then Allfather took Night, and Day her son, and gave to them two horses and two chariots, and sent them up into the heavens” 3

Odin set night and day in the sky, along with the sun and moon. Night is a daughter of the Jotuns, and Day is her son. She rides around the world each day on her horse Hrimfaxi (frostmaned) and Day rides Skinfaxi (gleaming-maned). Sunna (the sun) races across the sky each day pursued by a wolf that will eventually catch her. Likewise Moon is pursued by another wolf and will one day be consumed himself. Both wolves are children of a Jotun.

It is interesting that the sun and moon and even the days and nights are not Gods, but children of the same giants of chaos that will one day destroy the world. They are forces of Nature that we depend on, but can also bring us grief. Note also that unlike some other traditions, in Germanic lore the burning sun is female and the gentler moon is male.

“An ash I know, Yggdrasil its name. With water white is the great tree wet. Thence come the dews that fall in the dales. Green by Urth's well does it ever grow.” 4

No discussion of the Norse creation story would be complete without mentioning the great tree Yggdrasil, but Yggdrasil doesn’t seem to fit nicely into the story. It is just kind of there -- never being created or destroyed, despite getting gnawed in a few places. In a sense, Yggdrasil is spacetime itself. It is the medium in which passage between worlds is possible. It both contains them and exists within them. The “water” is the time half of that, continually flowing between the present moment, which then becomes the past. Past circumstances then substantially affect what happens in the next present moment. Thus time is seen as cyclical instead of linear.