Oðin, the wanderer, threw his eye into the pool at the root of the world tree, to gain wisdom.

The Icelandic Green Party Reassembles the World Tree in the Election of 2013

The nature of the wisdom a supplicant received was determined by the quality of the gift. For an eye, he got two ravens, Thought and Memory, and what else is consciousness? That’s it, for sure. Here are a few pictures of Thought and Memory in Iceland, to show you how it works.Church, Battery, and Water for Horses.

Sheep and World War II US Army Surplus

Abandoned Cruise Ship and Fish Bins, Lagarfljót

Thought and a Door… Or is That Memory and a Mouth?

Window Remembering the Sky and Thinking of the Wind

Forest, Remembering, in Front of a House Thinking of a Waterfall

The Cow at the Hamburger Factory, Remembering Its Days as a Reality TV Show

Pretty cool, for sure, but here’s the haunting thing: what is the other eye doing? The one that is not consciousness? This?

This? Not at all. If it’s a human image, it’s conscious. The other must have been the eye of vision. The one that doesn’t stop and notice, but flows on.

There is, at any rate, something that’s not conscious, that is aware. So often, thought speaks of the Huldufolk, the elves and trolls that “live within the rock.” Are they the other eye? Are they us?

What are we looking at?