The words on the scroll held by the guardian angel (Teresa, Guardian of Mothers) are an apt description of Our Mother God.
God made a wonderful Mother who never grows old.
Her smile of sunshine and her heart of gold.
This angel statuary is accompanied by the statement
"God could not be everywhere, so [She] made mothers."
However, we know that Our Mother God is everywhere.
Furthermore, we know that She is the Mother of the whole world, as the following Mother's Day poem declares.
"Hundreds of dew drops to greet the dawn,
Hundreds of bees in purple clover,
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn,
But only one mother the wide world over."
Reverend Mother Georgia
Vikhedi the 17th of Abolan (Tuesday the 21st of September) is Cuivanya, the Feast of Divine Life.
This is the true Earth Festival of the Filianic year, being the central feast of the Autumnal season which corresponds to the element of earth and the golden west.
This feast celebrates the harvest, both for its abundance and also as a symbol of renewal, just as the previous Festival, Cuivanya - the Golden Festival - is the feast of Regeneration. these great Mother Festivals in some ways mirror the Daughter festivals of the other half of the year in their themes of death and rebirth.
Earth, while viewed in a foolish and materialistic way by some people, does indeed have its place in religion. It signifies the abundance of Dea, who grants "both worldly enjoyment and Liberation", but also on a deeper level, it signifies the Mother as Ground of All Being. As the Scripture says:
"Let her not trust the ground her feet are set upon and doubt the Ground upon which that ground stands".
That Ground is, of course, the Mother, and ultimately the Dark Mother "Who was before the beginning and will be when all the worlds are ended" and is the Ground upon which all things stand.
O Northern Neptune, my nuptials' witness, many waved-hand benediction priest, have seen and given declaration to pronounce wife, and wives, and ebb-pulled back bride. I see her laced veil on thy curls. O, great Father of the Restive Deep! Longing is too long held in this sorrow-blistered breast! I wish not to yearn for feasts, but feast! Feed me, Fishmonger Proud! Feed these unfed lips with such bounty as thy lusty sea-loins know! Sate me, O Sea O'ersurfeit! Let me taste the satisfaction of fullness, and I will fullest praise thy well-to-be-praised waves! Rhythm of river's deepest sources, basin of the very bosom of seas, you ought know well these lips from praises seldom falter! but fiercely seek the praise a wild heart might give! Give me then love as might pregnant lie within thy whale-homed belly of the brine! The dreams of eat, however vivid, feed not my fervent-seeking spirit. Grant, O Grandfather of the Gem, such issue Love create.
It is for lack of praise the city falters. It is for lack of praise hearts do weary. When folk together do not come to praise, and therefore raise the holy powers, all the land is vanish'd of its magic so far as the tribe's luck, which ebbing, a mere minimum becomes and all effort is strongest plied to vain, with waste of greater remnant than is spent. It is for laughing at these truths the land becomes a net of tombs. We are thieves if we silence what praise is due, and thankgivings ought be daily. Neglected cathedrals of sublime might, shaped by living essences, surround us, and they sustain the living power, sole to ask that we, our poet power, art, creation, render back to them. And if you laugh, the world laughs back sterility. And if you mock, the world mocks back its might supreme against your insect-taunts and squeaks. Praise, pay up, paying the e'er-increasing debt racked up by life imbibing up -- pay up, and praise.
...Upp líta skalattu í orrostu ; gjalti glíkir verða gumna synir ;síðr þitt um heilli halir (Havamal 129), "Thou shalt not look up in battle --- the sons of men become like terrified swine --- lest you, hero, become bewitched." In the first Merseburg Charm, the idisi or disir of those in battle (who would be valkyries) are said, suma hapt heptidun, suma heri lezidun, "some fasten fetters, some hamper the army". This was a form of bewitching. If they looked up in battle, then their concentration would be broken, and they could become subject to the disir of the opposing side, who floated over the battle field.
This is a supernatural explanation for a set of proverbial truths : Keep your eye on the ball. Focus on what you are doing. It is when you take your focus off what should be holding your attention that you may be bewitched.
When you're in a battle, fight the battle. Keep your eyes ahead of you and about you, but don't look up and into the distance. If you don't remain focused, the anxiety may get the best of you and you may panic. Stay with the task at hand.
Which brings us to the following meditation : No prayers for what lies outside the battle.
What is the battle in your life right now? There will be a greater battle, which is the larger strategic realm you are trying to conquer, but there will be a smaller battle, which is the tactical terrain that right now you need to get through and overcome in order to be able to address the larger realm. We will call the first your war, and the second your battle.
Identify your battle, and direct all your prayers towards the completion of that battle. If you have correctly identified your battle, that struggle which is of greatest concern for you to overcome in your life right now, you should be offering up no other prayers but to accomplish this task.
Any "looking up" from this battle, any prayers directed to the heavens and to the Gods that are irrelevant to this struggle, will only serve to distract you, and quite likely to disorient you, and possibly to such a degree that you may lose your bearings and begin to panic.
It is when you lose sight of your primary goals that you may become bewitched or spell-bound, panicked but unable to move. You may find yourself paralyzed, stuck in position, because you're no longer focused on what you actually need to get done.
The Gods know what your battles are, and what your war is. They particularly know this because you have declared as such in sumble. In so doing, you have as good as asked them to further you in this task. And in doing this, you have as good as asked them to consider any other requests to be irrelevant, and they will follow suit. In other words, as a general guideline (which the Gods may set aside at will as they will), the Gods will neither hear nor heed those prayers which ask for things that lie outside the scope of the field of battle.
That's really something to contemplate, because it answers, or at least addresses and begins to answer, the question of why all prayers are not answered. If you haven't unlocked the power that belongs to you yet is locked down within that challenge you have yet to overcome, then you are approaching your life from a more helpless place than you need to be, and the Gods want to encourage your empowerment. Therefore, stop running around like a pig run scared, face your fears, and charge back into that battle which is calling you, the one where you stand some chance of success, and where winning will bring you greater power. If you aren't doing that, what are you asking for from the Gods? Trinkets? Amusements? Trivia? Let alone that which, beknownst or unbeknownst to you, out and out contradicts the goals of one's chosen battle? Will even prayers brook contradiction? Think deeply on this. If you ask for that which negates that for which you more strongly ask, what in fact are you asking? If your battle is to find health in your life, for example, and yet you ask for someone unhealthy for whom you pine, how will that affect your battle? Is that a prayer it would even be compassionate for the Gods to grant?
On the other hand, if there was indeed something small which you needed which would actually further you in the struggle, that could be a rational prayer, and one which might be answered. A man pausing in the heat of battle might just need a cold can of Coke, no matter how trivial that might sound, to get back into the thick of it. It's likely the Gods would not begrudge that one. And, once the battle was fought, the Gods certainly wouldn't begrudge a genuine request for shore-leave. But where would you be running off to before the fight is won? First things first.
Of course, if you don't know what your battle is, then your battle is to find your battle. Meditation, counsel, rune-casting, as well as a rational examination of one's greatest goals and obstacles in life ought to begin to make this clear. This battle to find one's battle may well be called a battle, because it is often not easy figuring out just what the struggle is. Once you've assembled the strategic picture, you want to ask yourself, "What struggle is winnable if I really apply myself to it, and which will bring me greater strength to fight the further battles I will need to win to reach my larger strategic goals?". Don't start with what's untackleable. Don't start with a battle which you could win, but which will leave you so weakened or disheartened that it will sap your strength for the battles ahead. Start small and choose appropriate battles which will slowly but steadily build your morale. Once you've done this, and identified the proper tactical field, apply yourself to it full steam ahead, and don't stop, appropriate rest periods aside, until you've reached your goal. And don't be surprised if lots of little things your easily-distracted mind thinks you want are denied you by the Gods if they are not related to the attainment of your goal, and the overcoming of your frustration. If you want to get an idea of what your needs rather than your greeds are, tally up what is absolutely necessary to tackle the issue ; anything beyond that is greed. Keep tackling the issue. You know what the issue is that you need to be tackling. It's most likely the one that you've been avoiding.
The Gods aren't there to collude in your avoidance. They're there to encourage you to step up to the plate. And if that plate is too intimidating as yet, then get yourself into some kind of training program which will prepare you baby-step by baby-step to get to that plate, because even such pre-plate training is a way of stepping up to the plate. Just do it.
You're welcome to stay in frustration as long as you wish. If you want to stay spell-bound, and therefore in the power of ill, that is your choice. Don't blame the Gods when things aren't going the way you like. The enchantments people most often fall into are those of Gullveig -- greed, angst, envy -- and Loki -- fraud, forswearing, slander, and strife-provoking. These are the ills to which we humans -- all-too-human as Nietzsche said -- are most often subject. Envy is one in particular that assails us when we are trying to be successful and fighting our battle, and it is particularly indicated by the Havamal verse in conjunction with its matching Merseburg Charm, because it is when we look up and behold the dis of another that we may become bewitched. The dis of another is the one guiding their fate (not yours), whether it is their personal or their family fate. It belongs to them. It is a property of their individual self or family. How often do we look up from the struggle that faces us and wish we were someone else, wish we had someone else's luck, wish we had the rewards or talents someone else had? Such vain wishes and empty fantasizings do not gain us one iota of strength to carry on the battle, and in fact, just drain and diminish our morale. It is therefore a vicious cycle which keeps us in frustration. An entire army may be hampered with such petty attempts to escape the matter at hand. A true prayer is about getting out of this rut.
A prayer for luck, therefore, ought to center on, "Give me the strength and opportunity to overcome the challenges I face at this stage in my development," because in actuality, it is often the blockages and knots we are tied in, and the ways we avoid challenges, that get in the way of our success. Human beings have multiple ways of avoiding their problems and refusing to face them head-on. Wishing for luck under these circumstances is asking for the problem to be solved without solving the problem. It is a logical contradiction. It is asking, "Exempt me from having to do the difficult and psychologically troubling work of working through this difficulty, and just give me the rewards." But rewards are the natural consequences of successfully working through the challenges unfolding out of one's unique developmental stage in life. Our "prayer", such as it is, is asking the Gods to do something that is inherently unhealthy (not to mention going against nature). It is asking them to collude in our disempowerment, and to enable us to remain stunted in our growth. It is asking them to foster dependence rather than healthy independence. And because they are strong, loving, health-and-whole-wishing Gods, they're not going to do that.
The Gods have made us free. We are therefore free to fuck up. We are free to stay locked in an unresolved situation as long we choose. We can remain in perpetual misery so long as we refuse to face up to our challenges. (But this is, as the Havamal verse implies, viewed as a form of ill enchantment.) Or we can get really honest and say, "I'm having a really hard time overcoming this difficulty, and I don't even know how to go about it. Can you send me some help, or direct me in the right way, that will increase my resources, and give me more effective tools for tackling this situation independently and successfully?". That's a prayer to which the ears of the Gods are especially attuned.
all translations copyright 2010 Siegfried Goodfellow
...Upp líta skalattu í orrostu ; gjalti glíkir verða gumna synir ;síðr þitt um heilli halir (Havamal 129), "Thou shalt not look up in battle --- the sons of men become like terrified swine --- lest you, hero, become bewitched." In the first Merseburg Charm, the idisi or disir of those in battle (who would be valkyries) are said, suma hapt heptidun, suma heri lezidun, "some fasten fetters, some hamper the army". This was a form of bewitching. If they looked up in battle, then their concentration would be broken, and they could become subject to the disir of the opposing side, who floated over the battle field.
This is a supernatural explanation for a set of proverbial truths : Keep your eye on the ball. Focus on what you are doing. It is when you take your focus off what should be holding your attention that you may be bewitched.
When you're in a battle, fight the battle. Keep your eyes ahead of you and about you, but don't look up and into the distance. If you don't remain focused, the anxiety may get the best of you and you may panic. Stay with the task at hand.
Which brings us to the following meditation : No prayers for what lies outside the battle.
What is the battle in your life right now? There will be a greater battle, which is the larger strategic realm you are trying to conquer, but there will be a smaller battle, which is the tactical terrain that right now you need to get through and overcome in order to be able to address the larger realm. We will call the first your war, and the second your battle.
Identify your battle, and direct all your prayers towards the completion of that battle. If you have correctly identified your battle, that struggle which is of greatest concern for you to overcome in your life right now, you should be offering up no other prayers but to accomplish this task.
Any "looking up" from this battle, any prayers directed to the heavens and to the Gods that are irrelevant to this struggle, will only serve to distract you, and quite likely to disorient you, and possibly to such a degree that you may lose your bearings and begin to panic.
It is when you lose sight of your primary goals that you may become bewitched or spell-bound, panicked but unable to move. You may find yourself paralyzed, stuck in position, because you're no longer focused on what you actually need to get done.
The Gods know what your battles are, and what your war is. They particularly know this because you have declared as such in sumble. In so doing, you have as good as asked them to further you in this task. And in doing this, you have as good as asked them to consider any other requests to be irrelevant, and they will follow suit. In other words, as a general guideline (which the Gods may set aside at will as they will), the Gods will neither hear nor heed those prayers which ask for things that lie outside the scope of the field of battle.
That's really something to contemplate, because it answers, or at least addresses and begins to answer, the question of why all prayers are not answered. If you haven't unlocked the power that belongs to you yet is locked down within that challenge you have yet to overcome, then you are approaching your life from a more helpless place than you need to be, and the Gods want to encourage your empowerment. Therefore, stop running around like a pig run scared, face your fears, and charge back into that battle which is calling you, the one where you stand some chance of success, and where winning will bring you greater power. If you aren't doing that, what are you asking for from the Gods? Trinkets? Amusements? Trivia?
On the other hand, if there was indeed something small which you needed which would actually further you in the struggle, that could be a rational prayer, and one which might be answered. A man pausing in the heat of battle might just need a cold can of Coke, no matter how trivial that might sound, to get back into the thick of it. It's likely the Gods would not begrudge that one. And, once the battle was fought, the Gods certainly wouldn't begrudge a genuine request for shore-leave. But where would you be running off to before the fight is won? First things first.
Of course, if you don't know what your battle is, then your battle is to find your battle. Meditation, counsel, rune-casting, as well as a rational examination of one's greatest goals and obstacles in life ought to begin to make this clear. This battle to find one's battle may well be called a battle, because it is often not easy figuring out just what the struggle is. Once you've assembled the strategic picture, you want to ask yourself, "What struggle is winnable if I really apply myself to it, and which will bring me greater strength to fight the further battles I will need to win to reach my larger strategic goals?". Don't start with what's untackleable. Don't start with a battle which you could win, but which will leave you so weakened or disheartened that it will sap your strength for the battles ahead. Start small and choose appropriate battles which will slowly but steadily build your morale. Once you've done this, and identified the proper tactical field, apply yourself to it full steam ahead, and don't stop, appropriate rest periods aside, until you've reached your goal. And don't be surprised if lots of little things your easily-distracted mind thinks you want are denied you by the Gods if they are not related to the attainment of your goal, and the overcoming of your frustration. If you want to get an idea of what your needs rather than your greeds are, tally up what is absolutely necessary to tackle the issue ; anything beyond that is greed. Keep tackling the issue. You know what the issue is that you need to be tackling. It's most likely the one that you've been avoiding.
The Gods aren't there to collude in your avoidance. They're there to encourage you to step up to the plate. And if that plate is too intimidating as yet, then get yourself into some kind of training program which will prepare you baby-step by baby-step to get to that plate, because even such pre-plate training is a way of stepping up to the plate. Just do it.
You're welcome to stay in frustration as long as you wish. If you want to stay spell-bound, and therefore in the power of ill, that is your choice. Don't blame the Gods when things aren't going the way you like. The enchantments people most often fall into are those of Gullveig -- greed, angst, envy -- and Loki -- fraud, forswearing, slander, and strife-provoking. These are the ills to which we humans -- all-too-human as Nietzsche said -- are most often subject. Envy is one in particular that assails us when we are trying to be successful and fighting our battle, and it is particularly indicated by the Havamal verse in conjunction with its matching Merseburg Charm, because it is when we look up and behold the dis of another that we may become bewitched. The dis of another is the one guiding their fate (not yours), whether it is their personal or their family fate. It belongs to them. It is a property of their individual self or family. How often do we look up from the struggle that faces us and wish we were someone else, wish we had someone else's luck, wish we had the rewards or talents someone else had? Such vain wishes and empty fantasizings do not gain us one iota of strength to carry on the battle, and in fact, just drain and diminish our morale. It is therefore a vicious cycle which keeps us in frustration. An entire army may be hampered with such petty attempts to escape the matter at hand. A true prayer is about getting out of this rut.
A prayer for luck, therefore, ought to center on, "Give me the strength and opportunity to overcome the challenges I face at this stage in my development," because in actuality, it is often the blockages and knots we are tied in, and the ways we avoid challenges, that get in the way of our success. Human beings have multiple ways of avoiding their problems and refusing to face them head-on. Wishing for luck under these circumstances is asking for the problem to be solved without solving the problem. It is a logical contradiction. It is asking, "Exempt me from having to do the difficult and psychologically troubling work of working through this difficulty, and just give me the rewards." But rewards are the natural consequences of successfully working through the challenges unfolding out of one's unique developmental stage in life. Our "prayer", such as it is, is asking the Gods to do something that is inherently unhealthy (not to mention going against nature). It is asking them to collude in our disempowerment, and to enable us to remain stunted in our growth. It is asking them to foster dependence rather than healthy independence. And because they are strong, loving, health-and-whole-wishing Gods, they're not going to do that.
The Gods have made us free. We are therefore free to fuck up. We are free to stay locked in an unresolved situation as long we choose. We can remain in perpetual misery so long as we refuse to face up to our challenges. (But this is, as the Havamal verse implies, viewed as a form of ill enchantment.) Or we can get really honest and say, "I'm having a really hard time overcoming this difficulty, and I don't even know how to go about it. Can you send me some help, or direct me in the right way, that will increase my resources, and give me more effective tools for tackling this situation independently and successfully?". That's a prayer to which the ears of the Gods are especially attuned.
all translations copyright 2010 Siegfried Goodfellow
Can you create something eternal? Can you summon an archetype from the nether?
Indeed, you can.
The Gods imbued us with their gifts. We have ond, we have odr. We have the awesome power.
I'm listening to Duran-Duran's The Chauffeur. I cannot imagine a time when this sparkling beauty did not exist.
And yet it did not pre-exist the 1980s.
This stunning, elfish gorgeousness, this must-be?
This must-be might not have been.
If someone hadn't set out to create.
This is a piece of beauty this world never knew.
It is a real bringing in of something from nothing. It is a birth, a creation, a gift.
The absolutely real opportunity to adorn this world with beauty, with grace, with love, with inspiration, with strength, with courage exists for each of us.
You may bring jewels here that never were before, yet after they are brought, are as if they could not never have been.
What an incredibly rich chance! Grab it! Grasp it! There are subtle glimmering beauties unseen surrounding you in the ether. Reach out to them, seek them out, touch them, take them in, and find some way to give them birth and form in this world.
For the world is ugly, remember, not only because of the presence of evil, but the failure of the creative to fully develop themselves and give forth their gifts. In fact, it might be said that the only real way that evil prospers is through the sabotage and muting of that very creative potential.
If you fail to wyrd, the whole world will be robbed of how you might have enlivened its deadening normality into something sparkling and alive. Such life smuggled into this world through gifts on loan from the Gods is something that makes a difference and ensures that there is still inspiration to go on, so that this world becomes a place of soul-making, and not of soul-breaking.
It doesn't happen under conditions of stagnation. This is why Odin stirs up with wod. A little turbulence is needed in lives that get too complacent, for they may lose their opportunity in their slumber.
Every one of you has something you may create -- from nothing, pure magic developed into art and craft -- that will bless this world, and smuggle beneath the giant's notice some sustaining beauty.
Even the smallest authentic beauty can make a difference in a life, or several lives.
Remember, what enlivens us now might not have been.
In fact, very easily might not have been.
Shakespeare's works were not inevitable. Lucas might not have made Star Wars. Gene Roddenberry could have stayed in the LAPD. Snorri could have left the writing down of the myths to someone else -- or no one.
It might be frightening, and is, to imagine a world where Shakespeare might not have been at all, nor any of the other crafters of beauty who make this often hard-edged life just a bit more bearable, but it is to restore the past to the fragility and fluidity of its contingency, its might-have-been-elsewise, had a choice been made different here or there. But that very uncertainty, the frightfulness of that slippery reality, is the excitement of this opportunity here in the present.
What do the Gods have in store for you? What potentials did your ancestors work hard to have the Norns weave in to your fatelines? What beauties wait to birth through you? This is a religious question.
Beauty is part of the battle! When you make yourself an incarnation for the Gods' creations, and allow that holiness to pass through you and bless all who will have it, you have become a potent weapon in the Gods' hands against the Giants!
Don't think so? Ever noticed how easy it is to destroy, and how difficult it is to create? How casual comes criticism and slander, and how steep the road to actually build and get something off the ground? Tripfalls are laid everywhere, it's painting in a minefield, dancing on a seismic fault. Many will give up this battle. Will you? You're going to have to work hard to bring this to fruition. Who stands in your way? What stands in your way? However formidable, intimidating, gargantuan they seem, do you remember that what blessing comes to be created through you comes from the Holy Gods?? Now, are you going to let that Giant win? I mean, maybe you're not going to win, it's never certain, and sometimes you don't know how you're going to get out of this mess or how you'll ever push through, but are you going to let that smelly, messy, disgusting lump of stupid Giant-flesh stand in the way of that which the Gods would intend? Come on, get back up on your feet, go back to the workshop, stare at the unfinished blueprints again, and roll up your sleeves.
See, we've got good work. It's good work. We don't know precisely the outcome, we only know that if Shakespeare had never sat down at his workshop and began pondering lines for his actors, well, literature, which is what feeds the soul in a difficult world, would now be tremendously impoverished. And so he stole back from that nothing which is the shrouding of the Giants' absconding to bring us treasures. So we get back into the workshop and sit down to our good work.
The knee-jerk anti-Christianity has gone too far in paganism, because paganism has lost its own image in the mirror. We've allowed Christianity to claim as its own much of what was originally ours. And I intend to correct it. By pissing off all the right people. So I'm going to speak in a way that may jar you at first, and I hope it does, because then that will make you think. Here goes :
Basically, heathenism is like a super-form of Christianity, with fists, with ferocity, with will, that will gangbust Paradise, by smashing all the monsters who stand in the way barring the gate.
We are real serious about confronting and overpowering evil.
The evil can cringe and cower behind the doctrines of forgiveness they hope will shelter their weaseling.
We see through such bullshit. The deeds speak for themselves. If there is anything redeemable, the Gods will know.
This is the battle we are fighting. There are forces for Good in this world, that sustain its holiness and numinosity. And then there are forces intent on tearing it down, on corrupting and perverting everything they touch. And both forces are very real.
And it is no joke to us which side you choose to support.
Oh, we don't really care what you call it. We're polytheists, after all.
But your deeds will speak. However you dress the symbolic ceremonial you offer on the altar, your deeds will speak loud and clear the true values you chose.
And if you are on the side of Fenris, Jormungand, Leikn, Loki, Angrboda, and all their kin --- and I mean this here in a real sense, not costume-play and little pseudo-Jungian pretend-games -- you are our enemy and you are going to lose.
That's not a promise from us.
It's a promise from our Gods.
No, unless you are really corrupted, your fate doesn't hang in the balance on every little mistake you might make. Get real. The Gods are not tyrants. The tyrants are the jotunn-forces who too often hold the day in this age. It's the overall texture of your life as measured and averaged over time through your deeds. We all make mistakes. We're all imperfect. The Gods know that.
But what do you do with your mistakes? Do you make good on them? Do you pick up and put your nose to the grind to make good on them and restore what holiness may have been lost? Anyone on a team might falter. Which team are you on?
Because of Christianity, this seems to have become a taboo topic, some element of our religion of which we should be embarassed.
Au contraire! We have no problem with the "evil" word. It's real, it's significant, and it is what we are battling. If that sounds too "primitive" to your urban ears, guess what? You've become corrupted by the pseudo-sophistication of those urban snares our ancestors called tombs. Odin advises us to be satisfied with a moderate amount of sophistication, not because he doesn't encourage endless development, but precisely because some kinds of sophistication forget their base, and lose touch with their roots. We are barbarians, after all. We're meddling-sophisticated, well-cultivated, benevolent, whole-loving, and holiness-serving barbarians, but we are not overrefined slaves who have lost their sense of the stakes, and what really matters. Once you've given up in life, and given your all over to the world-logic of empire, many things like "evil" begin to sound just a little too "simplistic" and "primitive" to your ears.
Wake up. There is evil in the world. It stems from all kinds of sources. But it is real, and it is to be fought.
"But -- but -- that's dualistic!"
You're damn right. And something to be proud of. Because it matches common perception. Look around. There's some things in this world that ain't right. Trust your gut and your heart. Not all the sophistication in the world is going to convince you (unless you are the thrallish type and easily duped) that everything's ok and ought to be affirmed. Hell no!
Some are too caught up in Nietzsche's idea that this world must be affirmed, as he tried to fight what he saw as the "anti-worldly" attitude of Christianity.
Hang on, wait a minute. He accepted the idea that there is "a" world. Where is this world? I see many different things. And some of them are good. And some are bad. Am I to affirm what is bad in the name of some synthetic "world" that is but a sloppy synthesis carelessly borrowed in opposition from some conception of Christianity? We need not be world-affirming because there is no "world". There is a domain the Gods have blessed and shaped, and that is called Midgard. And then there is another place, barren, and fit only for misshapen creatures, and that is called Jotunheim. And they are not, or should not be, the same place. This globe, however, that is the beautiful birthright estate of our Beloved Mother Earth, is at present hodge-podge criss-crossed with a shifting quilt pattern of Midgard and Jotunheim, two different domains, requiring precisely opposite allegiances from us.
Let's clarify, making sure we aren't being narcissistic here. We aren't judging the world by our standards. There's many different creatures living on this planet, and so we have to live in a kind of dynamic compromise and set of implicit treaties that allow ecosystems to grow, thrive, and sustain themselves. It is Mother Earth's estate, after all, and she is fond of her many creatures. (Although as our cousins the Indo-Iranians indicate, however, some arch-heathens did believe that some segment of the creatures had already been subject to deformation and corruption, and had lost some of their original wholeness. Tics come to mind!) But evil is precisely what has broken and will continue to break those implicit treaties, stretching all excess out of proportion, holding sacred nothing of Mother Earth (nor any of the other holy Gods, for that matter).
There is a whole hell of a lot that is still holy even in this very-corrupted world. Go into the center of a forest grove. Go down to the ocean by the moonlight. These will show you glimpses of how things might be, how they were intended, the beauty, sublimity, balance, and sense of fitting in to all this. But there is still much, unfortunately, in what is erroneously called "the" world, that is not holy.
"But wait ... wait ... what you're saying doesn't quite fit in with my modern understanding of ecological environmentalism or skeptical atheism."
Yah. Your ancestors didn't fashion this to just perfectly mold with whatever modern idea you might come up with. And you might have to decide. Is it more important to you to make sure you're modern, or to attune to the spirituality of your ancestors?
See, there's a distinctly modern bias towards entrenched cynicism and rank materialism which sees all spirituality as little else but "metaphor" with no real force behind it. And if it's all nothing but metaphor, like a currency with nothing to back it up, then it's really all pretend-games anyway, and you can do whatever you want. But that's not the spirituality of our ancestors.
We're serious about Golden Age politics of spirituality. This is all culminating in the Return of Baldur, and you'd better not forget it. We are not foot soldiers in the army of the jaded who blush at speaking openly about the "Golden Age", because it seems so, well, yesterday and unrealistic. Fuck your realism ; it's nothing but a slavish mentality bowing down to the jotnar of this world, and we will fuck up that reality in the name of something holy and good that is not as deadeningly unimaginative as you are.
Does that seem too "goody-good" for your jaded modern ears? Motherfucker, we've got hammers, we've got axes, we mean business about this Good stuff.
Now we know that in the Axe Age we are not going to get to live Golden Age conditions, but we do not for that reason give up. No, we develop every attainable good that can be attained so that the conditions will be right in the ground for the Return. And we don't live our whole lives as warriors. Much of the time we are farmers, just trying to make a living, put some food on the table, and find some time after all that is done to enjoy ourselves. And yep, we make some mistakes in the process. How does it end up in the wash? Other times we are wizards, artists, poets, creating beauty directly from the mind, summoning up intelligence, beautifying a world which has already grown too ugly. (There I go myself calling this a "world". Let's just use the Axe-Age name for it : Valland, the Land of Many Battles, the arena of struggle between Midgard and Jotunheim.) Just because we will or may not in this lifetime see Golden Age conditions does not mean we stop believing in them. No, we are guardians of that which shall return, in whatever small snippet of holiness we have the honor to ward and cherish. We are holders of potent seeds. And it is that Golden Age we live towards.
"But ... but ... isn't that just the postponing of true living Nietzsche was talking about?"
Come on, who "truly lives" in Valland under these conditions? We are in unspeakable struggle. Forces vie for the very face of the planet. Pretending like there is no struggle under such circumstances is mere foolishness. But it does not negate the struggle that we live towards the Victory.
For in living towards the Victory, we taste some of that victory in our lives today. We are ourselves itself extended out and backwards dispersed through time, awaiting its own gathering. And that is worthwhile and meaningful. In whatever little ways we can gather victories in our lifetimes, and it can often be meagre under conditions where the entire playing board has been tilted all to hell, we are tasting and gathering victories to culminate in that final victory.
This structure, see, isn't original or exclusive to Christianity. It is, if anything Zoroastrian, which is but a reformed version of Iranian Indo-European heathenism. And Zoroaster (or whomever, utilizing a traditional figure) only had to reform the religion when corruption had raised itself to such a level that it had begun penetrating into the priesthoods such that worship of truly evil forces had begun to spread itself on a cultic level. (Worship Fenris and other so-called "Rokkr", anyone?) Zoroastrianism is still full-flung polytheism. All the Gods under the Chief God fight the Iranian concept of the jotnar and thurs.
Don't begin by looking at Christianity and then saying, we need to mold our thing in the opposite direction, because Christianity preserves through various pick-ups along the way, a good deal of the Indo-European dualistic structure. It is in nuances that we must pick our battles with Christianity. It is in the fine details of the battle-lines, and the acceptable tactics. And when we realize how close we are to aspects of Christianity, and yet so far, then we will become a real threat, because then we will be close enough to be a heresy, and then we will turn and say, no, brother, you are the real heresy, but you are welcome back in the fold if you'll put aside your exclusivism and practice some tolerance. We promise you we won't make you worship demons. (We're fighting them!) So long as you don't have the stupidity and discourtesy to insinuate that our Gods are demons! Learn a little discrimination. And then perhaps we can bring our little prodigal brother back into the family.
LaSara Firefox says, "Suffering is inexhaustible; I vow to extinguish it."
That is a warrior's vow. It is full of the immeasurably benevolent defiance that characterizes our Gods.
And it is precisely what the Gods intend and are planning.
The idea that suffering is inevitable is a crock of shit, and our Gods intend to smash that crock to smithereens.
Some people think Ragnarok is some sort of "grim" and "dark" idea.
Bullocks. It's going to bring Baldur back to rule. Do you even get what that means? Baldur is going to rule!
And all of you who have given your hearts and souls over to the deceit and lying and cheating and slander of Loki, and the greed, fear-mongering, and raging hatred of Angrboda will be manure for the World-Tree.
See, 'cuz here in Norse religion, we don't accept that the monstrous is inevitable. Oh, challenge we like. There'll still be challenge in Baldur's world. But it won't be the kind that crushes you. The kind that crushes the spirit out of you, your kin, and your people. No, it will be the kind that keeps pulling you on to improve and discover everything you and the universe can be.
We're not about consolation, which is something both Christianity and lazy atheism offer : hey, suffering is inevitable, so let us comfort you.
Fuck that!
Is that what Thor's hammer stands for? No way!
It means, Even giants can be smashed!
So why don't the Gods just wrap the whole thing up now?
Well, evil has had time to seed itself and proliferate, and build its forces. So the Gods are building their forces. You see, they play to win.
Ragnarok is not a tragedy.
It is a comedy.
In the old sense of the word. It ends in victory.
But there are other reasons. The Ahriman-forces of Loki and his kin must be allowed to fully develop, so that when he serves his fated role and leads them to the battlefield, they will all be present, where they can then all be defeated, and the world will be rid of all such ill.
And don't try to shove my ears full of bullshit like the "need" for there to be "both" good and evil in order for there to be balance in the universe. Grow up. Don't you understand that ill is precisely the taking of events outside the balance? Good is the balance. Evil is that which constantly sabotages that balance, and thus takes things outside their wholeness.
There is yet another reason to not bring the whole thing to culmination just yet. That is love. The love the Gods have for this world, as messed-up as it is. There is still beauty to be had, and so long as the Midgard Serpent hasn't yet squeezed out every last opportunity for beauty, there are still treasures to be generated. "For the Gods so loved the world, they held back the final battle to allow it to ripen...".
There is a time in the struggle between Ahriman and Ohrmazd when Ahriman is given the upper hand, to spoil all he can. That is only part of the plan to gather up all into one head so that head can be guillotined.
In the meantime, we honor and venerate all that is still sacred, and has not yet been spoiled (or fully spoiled).
Think not that suffering, however overwhelming, is inevitable. Be a warrior. Vow to extinguish it.
That is, I think, akin to what the Einherjar swear.
And in the end, we will be victorious over all the perversions and corruptions of strength, talent, love, and joy that at present are so thick they often choke them out. And we will be victorious through strength, wisdom, and ferocity towards evil.
And if that sounds too Christian to your ears, tough shit.
It's actually a warrior's position. Are you fighting this war just to fight, or to win?
Sistahs, I want to give big thanks for the many of you that have reached out to me lately. I DO have many changes happening in my life. The funny part is that unlike my usual self- worried, fightin', lamenting change - I am actually IN THE FLOW...For the last 26 days I have been on a juice fast/feast. I have watched myself and my life during this time in 'overview' mode. All of this process has been about the bigger picture- the details don't seem to be important right now. I see so many parts of my life healing or dissolving just as the toxins leave the body. It is funny how Zen it all becomes - what once was important - non-negotiable or what was once even desired seems to be transforming before my very eyes.
So many of us live from a space and time that is ALREADY GONE yet we are still there in our minds - trying to re-live it. It is as if that past moment is ALL that there is when in in reality the GRANDEST parts of our lives are still waiting for us to be present and recognize the moment.
I see inside of me a NEW Wombyn being born - she is none like no other. She is no longer thinks like she use to... nor does she sleep or eat like she use to...She has placed many of her past experiences in their rightful place in order to be her true self. She no longer uses her energy in efforts that continue to render her invisible or less than. She is the GREAT I AM! And in my awareness of her inside of me, I am no longer able to bend, crotch down low or get small to make others comfortable. I stand and let what is BE and what will BE COME. If others have judgments then I let them wallow in those opinions while I move forward, UP and OVER.
Sistah, what a beautiful time it is for those ready to SEE it. The days of self-doubt are gently put to rest so that what is Divine within us can step forward. I give thanks for the guidance of Spirit leading the way...
It appears that Professor Hawking has recently declared that the universe can exist without the need of God.
A discussion of this on the Aristasia Forums has raised several interesting points, including this one commenting on the fact that the great mathematician Laplace said much the same thing about God being an "unnecessary hypothesis" some two centuries ago.
An interesting point about this is that when Laplace made his famous statement, he thought that "science" was almost ready to understand the universe in its entirety. A few loose ends needed tying up, but in its essentials, the whole thing was understood.
Such problems as how to reconcile quantum physics with Newtonian physics were not problems at all, because no one would even hear of quantum physics for another hundred years.
The Secret of the Universe (he believed) had been unlocked on a purely Newtonian model (which, for the most part, is what ordinary Tellurians still mean today when they speak of science).
Now physicists say that they are only a few steps away from a GUT or a TOE (a Grand Unified Theory, or a Theory of Everything - that is what they call them!) - just as Laplace did two centuries ago.
Assuming that the west-Tellurian purely-material science model lasts that long, I wonder what they will think two centuries from now. Perhaps they will again be on the verge of the Final Breakthrough, having long ago realized that Hawking was as far from the full truth as Laplace.
The link below leads to the full discussion.
In recent months, I have felt especially discouraged by the worldly ways of the place where I am currently employed and the lack of like-minded friends in the housing development where I live. I have been longing for a position and a home in a spiritual community.
This morning, I received a note of encouragement and love from a friend of mine named Maria.
She included the picture of two angels, whom I immediately realized were Sai Vikhe (Holy Courage) and Sai Sushuri (Holy Compassion).
I accepted this message as words of encouragement and love to me from Dea (Our Mother Maria).
So, I am passing on this picture to other Devotees of Dea that they may also be assured or Our Mothers Courage and Compassion.
Reverend Mother Georgia
And importantly also, we feel - it shows how Divine courage (Sai Vikhe) protects Divine love (Sai Sushuri)
In further response to your correspondent who gangs up with the boys in sneering at Professor Gimbutas, may I suggest this article.
It is very materialistic (which is the only way you get to be "respectable" in patriarchal academia) but it makes it very clear how the hatchet job on Prof. Gimbutas was done, how little basis it had in fact, and how much it rested on the boys' club applying very different standards to a female archaeologist (especially one who dared to challenge patriarchal orthodoxy) than those applied to male archeologists.
It also makes it quite clear that the supposed "discrediting of matriarchy" was nothing more than a reshuffling of concepts and a change in academic fashion, and that the facts of the almost total dominance of female images in pre-historic societies remain unchanged.
Thank you for this. We would also add that the frequent claims that the huge preponderance of female figurines "were not divine" shows an incredible degree of parochialism.
No civilisation other than the modern west (and to a lesser extent its predecessor the "classical" world) has ever been a "secular society". What possible warrant can there be for modern Westerners projecting this particular historical oddity of their own onto every ancient society with a preponderance of feminine imagery - which amounts to thousands of cultures over many times the duration of the entire history of patriarchy?
The arrogance, and the sheer small-town ignorance of the rest of humanity, is astonishing.UPDATE: We wish to make it clear that when we said that we do not accept the Kurgan hypothesis, we were not simply dismissing Prof. Gimbutas's very erudite findings. We leave that particular debate to (unprejudiced) specialists in the field.
What we meant was that we do not accept the popular projection of her theory that attributes patriarchy in general to the mad, bad Kurgan invaders.
Clearly this cannot be true as patriarchal revolutions are documented to have taken place all over the world. Nor do we believe that the ancient Indo Europeans were inherently patriarchal. As with all humans, their patriarchy was a late development and the Indo-European tradition, like all others, is originally Deanic.
Beneath a pinioned rock that thrice was cut I lay embound in iron chains congeal'd from visc'ra torn with teeth from one to son another mine, while I was forc'd to watch. To watch! To watch! The flesh was ripped apart! No tears I wept to give my captors gain. Yet I, in sooth, on head of mine : full guilt. Full guilt! My captor's sons I set at throat with dart so venom'd, bane was quickened sure! The greatest God who white and lily stepped innocent son, celestial boon and blessing on ever, ay, and always earth this age. This age, golden age, any age to come, I killed. Not my own hand : his dear belov'd brother strong I trick'd and gave the arrow just dipp'd in mistl'toes witch-enchanted brews. Unknownst he took so trusting me and shot -- he shot! oh never such a shot was seen! To melt the golden smiles down-dripp'd regal blood! and earth touching, sprout St. John's Wort bloom'd, while doom'd most blessed loved God of old. The tears spat out ocean froth like curses. Cries so terrible and pitiful from Gods! My spite and vengeance spoiled then by tears mine own. And laughter, laughter under palm of hand while slink'd I far, far thence with quickened haste. Oh, time hath its tricks, and I, over time, in my own trap -- a net I made -- was caught! Then caught and bound was struggling brought 'neath ground. Here lies the locked one : see? These chains, my sons' own guts, his very flesh now father-binds! The deep and darkened ir'ny'f anger'd Gods! So say they all in sooth doth hate me full. All life! All living things that took their breath from bless'd, beloved, broad-hearted Baldur. He's dead. I'm dead. We're all all dead-deadened by hand of mine, by mind of mine now curs'd! When earth you feel ashak'd and tremble, roar, you feel, O Embla's kin, my raging wail-remorse! Shall I, so craz'd, at end of times, be burst and wolf-army leading lead the hopeless fight against the Gods in wild vengeance slaughter? So fateful, I, necessity-endrawn, might self give sacrifice to end my kin's long and wretched ogre mayhem, which landeth even blessed me -- (by Gods) -- in chains. And even then upon my Heimdall deathbed, with thought of me a secret agent sly, whose own deceit I trick flatter meself, will I, oh then, but catch a single wink of single eye, whose pawn I once again be prov'd to be, by master of the tricks that I, apprentice claim to folly be? These maddened thoughts taunt in the cold venom. And I, a partner once, of espionage, be pawn-partnered once again by he who wizard-wonder old man love once was? Sigyn, bowl me from serpent's poison'd thoughts.
O Sol, sing not of Surt whose blackened hands burnt by sun's fires, blackened the beauty of dawning day. Whatever hands may beauty craft do crumble when those hands the same do crush the light. Rise from falling fall, be fierce, O Sol, and sear the soiled hands of Surt again, that all may feel your blazing bright, and awe, in imitation, striding tall with fiery strength.
Her light is like the thunder, thrown off like brazen brands of burning spears which pierce the neb'lous shields of wicked spirits. This light is for all, that none need fear the fiends. This torch She, the sun-carrying one carries bright as charioteer 'cross the daily heavens. And she is wrath turned regal each burning moment on beam on blessed beam of lawful light disperse the night of evil shadow. She rides the reins as fire's valkyrie. Heaven's warrior, sky's flame's maiden, more-than-formidable queen of bluest arches. Her many fingers fiercely point the paved path of good, yet ill she all incinerates, merciless, to those who mercy lack. The light of her holy warmth is not to be gainsayed. She is a Lady, She is a Soldier of the searing pyre whose blazes march the paths of the pure. Feel her phoenix-flame and shudder, shake off all remaining dust of ill and worship. Worship fire of heaven's seas' charging maiden, Mani's kin. She is the day's angry benevolence, the evening's artist in scarlets. Make way for the golden magma-crowned Queen of Day. Hail Sol!
I read your stuff. It looks to me that you're basing your beliefs on discredited hypothesis of James Mellart and infamous Kurgan "hypothesis" of Marija Gimbutas. No respectable anthropologists or archaeologists today buy their romanticist garbage.
There is no "traditionalist" feminism. All evidences point to a history of men dominating and oppressing wimmin first with their primitive worship, then with more "civilized" religions of Ahura Mazda, Yahweh, Jesus and Allah.
So it is in my opinion more honest to tell wimmin that you are here to deconstruct patriarchal religions, instead of disguising all this with trappings of old worn-out Christianity and Hinduism.
The notion that the vast evidence for the original feminine orientation of all civilization across the globe has somehow been "discredited" is thoroughly dealt with in The Myth of the Myth of Matriarchy. We suggest you read it.
We are unsure why someone who dismisses the whole of patriarchal civilization as a tale of oppression should suddenly have such daddy-complex awe for "respectable" archeologists and anthropologists who are very decidedly a part of the patriarchal hierarchy and perform outlandish contortions in order to deny the evidence and perpetuate the myth of the inevitability of patriarchy.
On the other hand, we do not support the Kurgan hypothesis (that patriarchy was brought about by a race of Indo-European barbarians). As The Feminine Universe makes clear, feminine civilization was displaced by patriarchy all over the world. It is not an historical accident caused by one particular tribe but appears to be a part of the inevitable decline of the Kali Yuga. To that extent patriarchy does have a certain inevitability. But it is very clear that it has not always existed.
Quite why you suppose the religions of Christianity and Hinduism to be "worn out", we have no idea. We do not ourselves espouse them but they are traditions that have brought salvation to countless thousands during the patriarchal era, and have even provided ways for Our Mother God to be worshiped in Her true Form. They certainly cannot be dismissed with a supercilious malediction.
We have no interest in feminism, traditionalist or otherwise. But we do certainly uphold the feminine tradition in faith. You seem anxious to prove, along with daddy patriarch, that the feminine tradition does not exist. And that history has been nothing but a dreary tale of male triumphalism.
Bear in mind that those who have no past have no future.
But however that may be, we are not here to tell women (correctly or incorrectly spelled) anything of a political nature. Our only mission is to spread the love of Dea Who was, is and ever will be the sole Creatrix, Mother, and Redemptrix of each and every one of us.
I can certainly relate to the conversations that faithful devotees of Dea have had with their acquaintances, friends and relations who are faithless secular scientists. I have been a part of similar conversations as well.
Yes, I too find it very strange when I encounter people who find comfort in a world view without a Comforter. And in my experience, there is nothing one can say to someone who insists on following this theoretical perspective. I also do not feel inclined to share my precious faith in Dea with those who would have no appreciation for such a personal relationship with the Divine.
It is best, I find, simply to be kind to these people and extend to them the Love of Dea that they seem to think they do not need.
Reverend Mother Georgia
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What I would like to question in general, is the idea that there is a thing called science that has certain concepts and conclusions. That is a popular belief in Telluria, but is it really true? Science is not one thing it is a collection of different things that all have a certain thing in common (that they restrict themselves to material phenomena and use the experimental method).
When Tellurians talk about science and say that it says this or denies that - they are treating it like a kind of Church with truths and doctrines. That may be what they want and even need - but it isnt what science is.
To say, for example science denies God makes no more sense than saying pottery denies God or "cookery denies God"..
The following interchange took place between two Deanists on Heartbook, the Aristasian Social Network. We reprint it here as it may be helpful to others who have had similar experiences:
Still recovering from my last crisis and having the opportunity to talk to more people about matters of impermanence and faith, I am being left speechless.
Why? I found out that most people - including those most dear to me - are absolutely faithless and they find solace and meaning to their lives in those "scientific" things they were taught in school. I can't blame them, though. But seems that they are becoming agents of the Fs of D as they seem to try to comfort me using their scientific evidences and studies and the like. I feel like laughing but I can't. Because it feels like it's opening a hole in my heart.
They ask me "why can't you accept this? It's science!" and I can't even gather the courage to tell them why. My only weapon is my faith in Dea. But, honestly, the last thing I would be able to bear is to see them laugh at my love for God. That I could not take.
_____
How eerie and how cold that is! To find solace in this strange abstraction called "science" which really means nothing at all. Do they not realize that the whole point about science is that it is an experimental method? It makes and tests theories which, by their very nature, must always be provisional. A scientist who is not prepared to discard old theories when evidence suggests a new one is a bad scientist. Everyone knows that.
And what that means is that the "facts of science" are merely a group of provisional theories, any or all of which can be discarded tomorrow. Many of the "certainties" of the popular scientific world-view are already discarded by real scientists who are specialists in the fields concerned.
To place one's faith in this - to seek comfort in this shifting, provisional collection of merely-human observations and guesses, as if they were certain and eternal, is a pitiful reflection of the human need for what is real and changeless, even when the cultural ideology has denied it to them. They need bread and they are given stones.
Certainty and absolute Truth lies only in Dea. Human activity can produce fine machines, but it can never produce pure Truth.
Devotion's a flame offered ash to vapor. The cold black echoes with twinkled torches.
I give ode to the Wod-Master's wild camelot-crew who round-table roar from heaven's meadows.
The long strip of milk dappled pointillist on onyx, the plank for gold-toothed guardian of warriors, once in world wrapped up a babe, swans pulling upon shield lifted grain to king-teach the craftless.
This dancing tongue erupts from hearth's holy mouth, calligraphs of rainbow leap, and seers see the deepest mysteries within.
What is offered to the log's life smoked and swallowed by the sun's small spark received, the star-scaffold's ward carries over. Thus those desperate whispers over recels heard in the halls of the high.
Stretched out o'er that long band 'tween, the ether is formed by prayers, and ram-horned holy one, with wish, shall offer all the echoes of the ancients. Hear prayer pooling up in ripples. Pray.
Let the axes slip, I have already fallen upon the four winds, and thrown myself onto the air, surfed the waves of roiled atmosphere, rode round the rim of the globed toy of trickster powers, where cackles at the thralled gullibles tossed off nobility to create their sin-parties ; and I have seen the cynic multitude bow before the altars of greed and deceit, each professing their own worship before the eyes of many, yet in sooth give up unto nether powers seeded sordid so long ago so that those bound and exiled have indeed bodies beyond reckon. And wisdom is indeed but consolation for the noble in a world where oaths have no value. I throw myself upon the winds, and witness the cascades of simultaneous sacrilege, the festivals of rupture and treason, the ghosts of those not yet given up yet hollow held by but a thread still hanging moaning and abandoned in the ether, and surrounded by powers foreign making plea, promise for price of love and value thrown down. I give nod towards the great gods of this age, astounded, mock-begrudging admire, their sheer plenitude and debased prevalence. Yet mine air breath self-sent, wind-wisdom carried, go out falcon-feather oared, wings smooth cutting air, to love given up. Find woman loving woman, exult ; Find male loving male, exult ; find true love in kiss of man and woman, exultation ; for whereever love finds homage in this abandoned-to-awful world, my soul may find peace. I see the severed spirits halved of maidens and young men killed not by crafted weapons, but black and awful overpower, and soaring, wish-seek to guide them to the Sun's royal fields, and flock to shining golden-cleansed follow that blazing, innocent queen 'cross heavens, restored to that which was stolen from them. And my spirit soars to fly, fleeing sole habitation in viking flight, returning home only to alight, and speak what sooth my soul hath seen, in dreamy outgoings. Around this rock rimmed by fog, few follow ancient Gods of good ; lost many, overawed by immense and monstrous, bow to Giants, crushed in adulation. And I see the circus but will call it no festival, and I mind the madness, but weep at Baldur's fall. Beyond on Freya's folded wings will I find love.
She called it "borrowing", this daughter of Freya, this priestess-naïf with long locks of burgundy, and spoke of it so casually it was as if an everyday experience. "You know, when you are looking at a sparrow on a tree-branch, and suddenly you are inside the sparrow's body, looking back at you, and the sparrow is in you looking at you, the sparrow...". So obvious, so matter of fact, just-so, and plain as day. And my young baffled mind, furiously intrigued, but not knowing, skeptical yet immediately enchanted. And called "borrowing", for the body of each "borrowed" the consciousness of the other.
Was she able to say this, was she able to see this, because she was broken, because, like Freya in her tower, her hair too was tied in knots, and eyes far-away to escape the anguish of unwanted assault? Yes, perhaps. Perhaps. It may be in this world that the broken are those gifted to seethe, for spirit boils and bubbles within them in great pathos and desperation.
I had never heard of any such thing, not, at least, spoken of with such mundane certainty, such common sense borrowed from the stars. But then I read of witches, who told Inquisitors that they transformed into rabbits, and mice, and cats, and feathered things, and it sunk : this was something archetypal. This was not but a fairytale, but an ecstatic experience common to many in the world. And fairytales perhaps were but the informal scriptures of this experiential spirituality.
Then it was that I prayed for enchantment, oh, that one might experience beneath an old, gnarled tree in the woods, losing one's mind, and all sense of time, and touch those deeper, stranger roots where magic happens, not as a manipulation of the material world, but as a sense of wonder and awe more incredible than one had ever hoped.
So it was I fell in love, and was cursed and blessed with the gift of enchantment for which I prayed. It was at this time a book fell into my hands, one I had seen before but passed by. In a New York used bookstore, Hans Peter Duerr's Dreamtime fell into my hands, and it spoke of everything I had heard and hoped for. This was the enchantment for which I had wished, affirmed in words, etched with philosophical erudition and scholarly power.
Oh, that love, love that could marvel, love that stretched and strained one to the breaking point, love that chased after hundreds of miles, from one town to another. Love full of the anguish of the cuckold's horns, Freyr's antlers with which one discovers one's manhood. Manhood in the otherhood, by emptying out one's humanity, into the earth, into the anguish, into that surrender I heartily call abandon. There and then I knew, for I felt my satyr's legs hairy reach down with hooves to the salty, dusty, hay-smelling earth. This is my mate. This is the one for whom my hormones are cellular spells cast creation in the first primeval soups. She is the Earth speaking to me.
Odr and Freya, the one after the other, and reversed, again and again. In those long voyages seeking, tasting that rich red wine of melancholy upon which the greatest poets are drunk, but beyond, begin to see, I, I began melting, transforming, tentatively tasting what she called "borrowing". An oak meadow of golden-brown savannah south of San Francisco. There I felt myself becoming the entire field, my soul stretched out to its very limits, and I was one. There I experienced myself as the oak. Can you imagine? To feel it within one's very body, not an imagination, but a physical, kinesthetic experience of becoming the tree, feeling oneself as the bark and heartwood, boughs and leafed branches. Oh for certain it was that now I was broken that I could so feel. I had asked for enchantment, and was given that broken heart through which alone the mind of the mundane may be opened. I fell into that Ophelia-space she so readily drifted within, and there I tasted the seethe of her seidthe.
Oh, then to Deleuze and Guattari, not to chase after postmodernisms, but seeking words deranged and wild, as Rimbaud turned and twisted into philosophy, that might speak such strange derangements love had brought me. For you see, I had been gifted with an elfin gift, a light rarely able to linger in this world, and that was the realization that though I belonged to her, I yet did not belong, and thus, I belonged where I did not belong. It was, in other words, the knowledge that in impossibles our highest essence is to be found, for in contradiction there is light as like unto no other. (An Odinic realization!) And thought is not that which has been thought before. It is rather the puzzle in the paradox, the struggle within the riddle's contradiction, the careful thrashing within the tarry cat's cradle whereby one struggles to be free, and join together what resists synthesis.
There is yet a catch to such love and such madness. Where love coheres in the impossible, it cannot long be sustained in this world so intolerant of contradiction, so enamored of resolution. What may dance in the wave equation is so far beyond its collapse upon which the atoms of this world are built! So you might touch eternity, you might know the transform of the beloved beyond all forms, and yet, in time, it might pass on, disperse, and be lost. The love of your life.
And then you might spend years dazed, longing, desperate to bring it back, like the shepherd in the tale who once having seen the Fairie, wastes away from thereonin, for nothing within this mundane world can ever compare to such Exhaustive, Inexhaustible Beauty. Oh, say Deadly Beauty! Yet tales are warnings ; I would not waste away, nor would I let waste such wonder. For when you are given a gift, you are also given a debt, one that must be repaid, and when it is magic, with interest.
There are lessons others may provoke within us, but it is we who must claim them. Another can only evoke for so long. Then, if we find that which has been sparked to be of any worth, it is we who must find a way to make it live within us. Such could be the task of many years, or even decades. But it defines the very difference between the diligent and the lazy. Such is a devotion that may well be called religious, for did you not know that the genius is but that fairy-fylgia the Norns and Gods assigned to us from places more divine?
Her name meant "light", her name meant "lands of bliss beneath the earth", her name meant "broad pastures", and these were each true names. And oh, within her form, did Freya speak most freely. If ever flesh were epiphany, if cells might portals be that open the gateways to spirits' call, she was, she was. And all began, some foolish young maiden, with simple talk of "borrowing". Oh, simple indeed!
For that I resist you, I love you. For that I shall not sway e'en to your overaweing charm, I declare my loyalty, through a stance that separates myself from thee. For that I stand apart, from this very stance, I say, I love thee. For that I nurture that anger you birth within me, from the very heart of principle offended, I hold that which is highest in thee high, and shall not cease to salute. But from the very ground of my own being, which cannot be abandoned, not even for that love I hold.
For that I resist you, I love you. For you merit the highest love, and that love I give comes with rebuke, for that which is less than strong. O beloved, I would have you tall with might, I would have your arms bicep'd and flexed, with fist raised tall against the age's holy terrors, for I hold you that high, higher than any cower or crouch which you might in fear's moment timid give. There are those lines where I cannot give, where the cord hath no slack, and I may not sway to please, not even thee.
Look yonder upon seaside cliff, there on that peak I stand defiant, and my aired fist is a salute to thee, a salute which says I shall not come down. O love, I know I myself merit rebuke, but think thee not this breast does not itself whip in each Delling's scion sail across skies? I am my own highest critic, and whatever strong satire your bridled tongue might wish is uttered more loudly within, and so I too grow by rebuke, for where I have wilted, I have failed the blossom, and where I have melted, I have refused the strong edge of stone, and I alone must answer these irrefutable charges. How mighty indeed these taunting indictments, that only the strong counsel of my soul's elfin spirit may eke good defense in that court to come! I shall not let my failures lie fallow, but lift them goad to mock and make me more, for I have no excuse to be less than strong, and it is strength the fruit the Gods wish to pick from those trees to whom they Godly gave breath! Yet so I may call thee out to that might your own soul merits.
For that I resist you, I love you. It is not, as it might seem, in follow that we most loyal show. Distance is but a glue to those whose hearts cannot help but honor, and that I "no" utter, to above dress my deeper "yes", is but a way of love through defiance. For you come not to feed me, but to be, and where I say you fail to feed, I utter only my own menu, and do not condemn, only affirming my self appetite. O love, you are greater than fodder for my taste, and that your lips alone do not feed me is no testament against that strong esteem mature I hold for thee, for such is nothing less than sooth.
For that I resist you, I love you. It is none less than utter respect. For you are holy, beloved, and beg distinction, which the distance of my arms grant. The heart in its uniqueness is ever so close. Your dignity is foremost in my defiance. You have touched me, and I shall say so, and it shall never not be, nor not have been, for what is truly touched is transformed, and must speak its truthful weaving if sooth is e'er to be had. I cannot be as you will, for I am wild, but know, beauty wrapped in gleaming skin and wonder-word dripping lips, that this wildness I am, even in resistance, says nothing but, I love you, even if I utter it past the slough of romance's coil, for love is found for strong souls in ecdysis. So let it be.
[F]imbulfambi heitir sá er fátt kann segja þat er ósnotrs aðal (Havamal 103). "The greatest fool is called he who can say such little, for that is the estate of the unsophisticated." [O]rðum skipta þú skalt aldregi við ósvinna apa því at af illum manni mundu aldregi góðs laun um geta (Havamal 122-3), "Words exchange thou shalt never with an uncouth and rude ape, for from an ill man wilt thou never receive reward for good."
Monsters merit not reply when they open roars from deformed maws and howl ; for merit is the price paid to be received. Many a day the unfinished, unbloomed raw rocks of crudeness roar and wish it speak, yet none are loosed from the long ladder of golden light so struggle stretched up to reach we all must climb. Rough preludes of could-be gems lie jagged and dormant within us, begging polish by kindness and strength and courtesy. But the stones' untamed cliff-scions wreak their havoc in jagged fits, which wins the merit only of Mjollnir. More than this must be ventured if ears of only the most common are wished purchase, let alone the just-below-elven ears of the noble, no less the golden ears of Heimdall, who sole carries the wish and holy bid to Gods, up rainbow paths of sky's hued flames, if he sees merit in the calling. Does one think one moments' folly to shove the curse of bigot's strife and pack the holy ears with dung be carried? Nay, such unworthed words, uncouth and rude, are dropped into the dungheaps ; down there near the dungeons where such offal feeds the awesome Mill.
all translations copyright 2010 by Siegfried Goodfellow
Keep the opposition alive in you, for it is your resistance to world that makes world come alive and sustain its dynamic quality. Severity is a gift to those in lazy need of rebuke for what they careless sow. Intensity, fueled by proper disgust, hatred even, of all that is ill and poor in the world, gives focus, and sustains drive. To rebuke is to push back the thickets that would surround and choke you out. To live life as a stand for those principles which differentiate one from the dominant unthought of the age is a claim to true nobility. Respect naught that deserves not respect. In speaking truth to behavior, you honor the one dishonored by their own misbehavior. Keep hearty touch with the dirty, imperfect world, for its flaws shall inspire your ire and stoke your fires to some reach beyond, where steps ahead you may lead the race, however humble, in your intrepid, defiant advance.
How easy to be choked in mire, drowned in the swamp of easy mediocrity! How easy to sink to the level of living for nothing, speaking only that which has before been said, an easy, herdlike going along with what all else nod in an age of indistinction and colorless corruption. But that which opposes stands up, and speaks, for intelligently refined, it is the oil that feeds the fire in the belly, there where Vindler speaks wisdom in the gut.
Are you important? For what call did you birth forth in blood and amniotic ocean into perilous and strange world made from the bones and blood of ancient monsters? That call is a debt your deeds must e'er repay. For your very presence feeds upon the planet, and if you are to be more than a mouth for fodder, then let what comes out of that mouth, and let those limbs fed on fodder, speak for something more divine than the mere being here, but something deeper, more profound! For nobility is not had without cost ; easy it is to slip from courtesy. Easy it is to let selfishness immatured usurp the quality of one's inborn kindness, making brute to fit a rough world, coming back alone with blows instead of mallets with which to polish. For roughness lies ready for our ready making, if we will take up tool with ready wit and work. The shaping work of the Gods is not yet done, awaiting only our limbs to willful heed the call, and find that special shaping only we can carve. It is certain that the world's ferocity and overwhelmed wave of ongoing immense shall wipe with scoffing hands of erasure whatever we seek to impress upon its even humble parts, such that creation is a struggle to etch upon the magma flows whatever imprint we can desperate and at times random manage. Life must be deliberate, or it is soon merely species of storm, swept up within, merely a moment in the senseless drift, and to go beyond this, one must summon up and gather such piercing spear of force within that one may penetrate the very fogs with one's indomitable will.
It is the chance to grapple you have been given, from Gods grown master through the grapple, against unbeatable, or so seeming, odds. This whole array of endless black, this fire-studded theatre of stuff, this march of titans tumbling watery and cold through the great expanse, is monstrous and strange, and swallowed, it swallows, while one may grant it worth alone through struggle, which pits one's smallest will against its awesome immense ; and for such a gamble, even the Giants nod begrudging admiration. So the Gods will grant greater merit. You have rushed wind-tunnel and wild into a hopeless space, the odds all aligned against you, so gull, wings whipped back and buffet by the hurricane, with what courage will you meet the feary fate? Such merit shall you win utter with audacity.
For that it is, it ought? What cowards utter such feeble squeaks eked from bedlam? For that it is, it shall become, and I, I might be gifted such honor as to be one of many who shapes that very happening! There is one we love! Not one who cowers slavish before whatever simple happens to present itself! Seek out, and let ears hold the secret yet manifest truth : there is meaning in heroic defiance. This world was not meant to be bowed to, but enjoyed through the prayer of adventure, which is its own species of complex worship, one thrown down gauntlet with eager and earnest dialectic.
Thank you for posting the excellent article on Demonology. It is so very important for Maids to remember who the real enemy is and where the real battleground is fought. It is not between nations or cultures or tribes or religions or social classes or political ideas or genders. It is a battle between the forces of righteousness, harmony, justice and mercy on the one hand and the forces of wickedness, discord, partiality and cruelty on the other hand. All Maids have a common enemy and should band together with one accord keeping in mind the axiom "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".
Reverend Mother Georgia
Rayati! Thank you for the wonderful article on demonology. What can a lady do to help battle demons and keep her spirits high during the fight?
Rayati and thank you again,
Miss Eliza Abonwood
On keeping one's spirits high and fighting the good fight, you may find some of the posts on this blog/thread helpful (Fs of D stands for Forces of Darkness, in case it is confusing at first).
Thank you for posting the excellent article on Demonology. It is so very important for Maids to remember who the real enemy is and where the real battleground is fought. It is not between nations or cultures or tribes or religions or social classes or political ideas or genders. It is a battle between the forces of righteousness, harmony, justice and mercy on the one hand and the forces of wickedness, discord, partiality and cruelty on the other hand. All Maids have a common enemy and should band together with one accord keeping in mind the axiom "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".
Reverend Mother Georgia
Rayati! Thank you for the wonderful article on demonology. What can a lady do to help battle demons and keep her spirits high during the fight?
Rayati and thank you again,
Miss Eliza Abonwood
On keeping one's spirits high and fighting the good fight, you may find some of the posts on this blog/thread helpful (Fs of D stands for Forces of Darkness, in case it is confusing at first).
The words on the scroll held by the guardian angel (Teresa, Guardian of Mothers) are an apt description of Our Mother God.
God made a wonderful Mother who never grows old.
Earth, while viewed in a foolish and materialistic way by some people, does indeed have its place in religion. It signifies the abundance of Dea, who grants "both worldly enjoyment and Liberation", but also on a deeper level, it signifies the Mother as Ground of All Being. As the Scripture says:
"Let her not trust the ground her feet are set upon and doubt the Ground upon which that ground stands".
That Ground is, of course, the Mother, and ultimately the Dark Mother "Who was before the beginning and will be when all the worlds are ended" and is the Ground upon which all things stand. 
And importantly also, we feel - it shows how Divine courage (Sai Vikhe) protects Divine love (Sai Sushuri) 
