Sunday 27 May 2012

Post No. 386 - A Sunday's musings [discussion on mistakes/negative learning, prejudice, war & violence, historical evil]

Well, I've been busy - as usual. Probably one of the biggest things is getting ready for the next meeting of the organising committee ("organising mob", some of use call ourselves, using a good ol' piece of Aussie vernacular :) ) of the Victorian Queer Spirituality Conference (the new website will probably be hosted here), but I've also managed to finish another little project I've been working on, aimed at making our neighbourhood a nicer, more pleasant place (our move to the country is still some time off, sadly).

What I've done is create a small ... "base station", using Wolfsangle[1], Dagaz and Stan, with the idea of transforming negativity to create a sacred space, and a wand using those same runes plus the Eyes of Ra (see here and here, although the latter should more properly be called the Eye of Sekhmet) and the glyph for Ynpu ("Anubis", to use the Greek name) for personal protection, with a bid of copper binding (which I almost totally mucked up by trying to adapt a rope whipping technique - I'll stick to standard techniques next time :) ) and some crystals (peridot, which personally gives me great strength, apophyllite and a clear quartz tip).
The idea is that I do my normal ritual for protection, light a candle, and then walk the streets of my block and a neighbouring block or two (my neighbourhood is pretty safe, if you discount bigotry [2] ) carrying the wand, and using the two devices as a link to help flood the streets with light and positive energy..

The energy is building up nicely, but it will take some time for it to work properly. At least I feel ... more welcome in my immediate neighbourhood. It has made me doing rescue work in the neighbourhood easier, and more thorough (I did a very large rescue yesterday morning by simply opening a portal, which allowed around twenty entities who had been stuck and were now ready to willingly pass over to do so).

I've attached a few photos of the devices below.




I plan to make more wands from commercial dowel - eventually I hope to find a timber merchant I can get more appropriate timber from, but dowel is durable, readily available, and affordable ... I'll also be working from naturally-found, suitable timber, but living in the city makes that a more difficult source of material.
(This is partly me acting on the reading I recently received, by the way, which include advice to do more to express myself :) My next such project will be making small shields to use when establishing protection ... )

This device is largely about energy or, you could say, power. I was talking recently to my partner, the wonderful Sharlot, about this when we were discussing nightmares, and I pointed out that the biggest source of power around any person, a source that could be biblical in action, is actually one's own Higher Self or Oversoul. Your soul takes a role in helping to maintain the creation that we call physical reality, and, if it chose to be less cooperative, it could choose to allow you to perform literal miracles by bending or declining to go along with the "rules" that the Higher Selves have agree will form the basis of this creation.
That isn't likely to happen from you wishing it - no matter how hard you wish for it. There are greater purposes at play here, purposes such as spiritual growth, which is the fundamental reason this creation exists.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that the greatest source of power and strength around any person is their Higher Self (or, as I prefer to say, their Innermost Self). Things like the devices I've created and described above are tools, much as Tarot or dowsing are argued to be a tools to bypass conscious doubts and blockages and allow the inherent psychism in people to act.
So ... what else have been doing? Reading :)
One of the books I'm reading - re-reading, actually - is Jim Butcher's "Turncoat", from The Dresden Files series (I like the humour, the style of writing, the reasonable portrayal of traditional - largely British - mythology, and am looking forward to reading the book where Harry Dresden rides a zombie Tyrannosaurus Rex against zombies ... :) ). "Turncoat" is the book I was recently trying to remember that discusses the Dresden-verse "Laws of Magic", created as a plot device. In the discussion, Harry takes the normal, human point of view, that justice and right and wrong matter; others in book, and, to some extent, Harry himself, tend towards the view that, because of the consequences of the body (existing only in the Dresden-verse) governing wizards getting involved in human affairs and trying to ensure justice (which would include the wizards having to declare war on the United States because of its treatment of Native Americans) being so severe, the only safe thing was to stick to the simplistic, absolutist interpretation of their Laws of Magic, in order to limit the damage that any one wizard can do.
It's an interesting discussion, and well worth reading the book purely to stimulate consideration of that issue, but what it led to me thinking about (oddly enough, as I was doing the mass rescue yesterday that I referred to earlier in this post), was the topic of evil.
Now, this reality exists for the purposes of ensuring that, in the long term, our souls grow spiritually. The key points here are:
  • the growth is of our soul, which means that
    (a) we, as off-shoots of the soul, don't necessarily have to make the growth: we might actually have to make mistakes or go through unpleasant experiences so our SOUL can grow - I'll come back to this in a moment, and
    (b) the interpretation of growth is mature; 
  • the growth is in the long term which ,particularly combined with the maturity behind the interpretation of "what is growth", means that
    (i) we may have a few lifetimes of rest and taking things easy, and
    (ii) the time that karma sometimes takes to work is not necessarily a problem.
It is still love that is the key to growth, but the interpretation of "what is love" is on a spiritual scale that we may not necessarily understand.
Now, making mistakes. How do we learn from those?
Well, one explanation is that we learn by karma returning the negative consequences of our actions, which then is recognised at a soul level and eventually trickles down to our level of being, and we feel uncomfortable doing that mistake and say our conscience has told us not to do it :)
Another explanation is that we, or at least, our innermost, truest self, feels inherently uncomfortable at what we are doing, and eventually we choose to feel more at peace by not doing that wrong act.
Hmmm. Which of these is correct? So ... do I go to that extreme polarity of this divide, or do I go to the other extreme polarity of this divide? Or do I say, well, actually, they're both right, and people's experience varies between the two extremes in a dynamic way, depending on where they are at in life.

I'll go with the latter - and bless my bisexual partner's heat and soul along the way :)
I've also been doing more reading of Dion Fortune's book "The Magical Battle of Britain". As I wrote previously, the book is far too Christian for my tastes, and I disagree with her assertion that Christian mysticism is the "traditional" European mysticism. Then, as I read further, I came across a statement that the Second World War was largely a struggle between Christianity and "the old Norse gods".
More prejudice and bigotry?
Not necessarily ... although there is some error in this.
Some time ago I read a book called "Pagan Resurrection: A Force for Evil or the Future of Western Spirituality", by Richard Rudgley (ISBNs 0-7126-8096-9 and 978-0-712-68096-7, pub. Century, 2006) [3]. This book argued that Odin had influenced the archetype of the German nation, and that had led it down a path that led to both World Wars and the preceding Franco-Germanic wars. Now, there are a few flaws in Rudgley's approach (just as there are in Dion Fortune's), but Odin is a deity who does not have a flawless reputation. Insanity is associated with this god, and a few other less pleasant things, few of which are associated with the deity Wodan from whom Odin developed, as well as quite a few good characteristics.
I'm not too upset about writing that, as I am a follower of the original "all father", Tyr, who was more about social justice and following personal moral codes of behaviour. Over time, Tyr was usurped (yay Tyr! boo Odin .. with the greatest of respect and appreciation - gulp!) by Odin, and - if Christianity hadn't interrupted the natural progression of things around 1000CE, Thor would probably have replaced Odin as the "all father".
What does this actually mean, when a deity's role changes, or is replaced?
Well, my view of most of the deities is that they are thoughtforms which bind together different aspects of Deity in particular proportions which best suit the task being attributed to that deity. Hence, for instance, Tyr is the combination of characteristics of Deity which best serve the roles of justice and personal valour; Odin that combination of characteristics of Deity which best serve the role of mystic and powerful "all father", and Thor the combination of characteristics of Deity which best serve the role of successful fighter against overwhelming forces.

When Tyr was viewed as the "all father", I suspect tribes were learning how to live together and be internally successful. When that was accomplished, tribes - and individuals - started to seek power, and it was more effective to transform the relatively benign wood spiorit Wodan to Odin. Later, as the consequences of struggles for power led to people and tribes feeling overwhelmed, people and tribes were interested in overcoming overwhelming forces, and Thor would have been best for that - except the overwhelming forces overwhelmed.
How this happens is through the energy that people feed into the thought forms changing, but the fundamental characteristics that are combined in differing proportions are, in my view, universal, eternal aspects of deity - who I view as the Goddess.

Going back to Dion Fortune's interpretation of the conflicting psychic forces behind the Second World War (and Rudgley's book), I think people tend to interpret things in ways that they feel comfortable with. Hence, for instance, one interpretation of a pentacle is that it represents order - the four elements of the earth, according to the Ancient Greeks, surmounted by spirit. Inverting that can be representative of the forces of nature, forces such as Pan or Cernunnos, being in control - and that chaos can be so uncomfortable for some that, rather than admitting they have something which needs to be looked at, they described it as being a sign of evil.

I think that is partly what happened in the case of both Dion Fortune and Mr Rudgley. They got a little bit of it right - the influence of Odin, and the fact that war was against evil - but they then stuck a whole lot of other interpretations onto the situation - such as other Norse deities being the same as Odin, and Christianity having a fundamental role that it doesn't - which shouldn't have been included.In doing so, they have missed a lot - including the wrongs that are always done on both sides in a war.
All food for thought, and her is a little more food for thought, in the form of a few reading links.


Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr
 (pronounced "new-MYTH-ear") 
 May the world of commerce & business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.






Notes:
  1. This is properly called t"Wolfsangel", and is named after the hooks that used to be used in Europe in the Middle Ages for catching wolves. What they did was in now way angelic: it was barbaric - but then, I don't see wolves as dangerous nasty predators threatening me and my family, I see them as magnificent predators which largely got a bad rap from human's fears and misconceptions (see Never Cry Wolf (film) for more on my view of wolves). Hence, I very deliberately change the pronunciation of this to "angle", not "angel", and I have now decided to use the modified spelling as well (and, given the possibility that the rune is a fairly modern invention anyway, I'm not losing any sleepover it). However, the association that has developed, of binding and transforming negative energy, is exactly what I seek when I use this rune.
  2. If four years living here, in an area which is supposedly gay and lesbian friendly (I don't think any area even claims to be bisexual friendly, sadly), I have had around three times more incidents of gender identity based discrimination than I did in the twelve years I lived in my previous location.
  3. An extract from the draft post, which I still haven't finished follows:
    I started this post quite some time ago, when I first read "Pagan Resurrection: A Force for Evil or the Future of Western Spirituality", by Richard Rudgley [Note 1] (ISBNs 0-7126-8096-9 and 978-0-712-68096-7, pub. Century, 2006).

    The review of Rudgley at Wikipedia included this about "Pagan Resurrection":

    Rudgley's 2006 Pagan Resurrection, subtitled A Force for Evil or the Future of Western Spirituality? posits the idea that western civilisation, belief systems and attitudes have been formed by the "Odinic archetype". The influence of Christianity, he says, has been relatively recent and shallow. Rudgley spends much of the book emphasizing the dark and violent side of Odin, according to Independent reviewer David V. Barrett, "committing the ultimate sin of any anthropologist or historian, back-projecting from highly selective examples of unpleasantness today and photo-fitting them to a distorted image from the mythological past". Barrett concludes that Rudgely's book is "a catalogue of racist individuals and organisations whose only connection with Odin, through very dubious links, is by assertion rather than argument."[2]

    What I liked about this book was that it didn't shrink from the less pleasant aspects of paganism - specifically, the interest (obsession) that parts of Nazi Germany had with paganism. The book describes the imperfections of some of the Norse gods (specifically, Odin), and that Jung predicted there would be three waves of effects from the "rebirth" of Odin.


Tags: about me, change, deities, Deity, energy work, evil, evolution, growth, perspective, protection, tools, wands,

First published: Sunnudagr, 27th May, 2012

Last edited: Sunday, 27th May, 2012 


 


 

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