Post No. 696 - Autumn, and ... a secret

One of the things that has been quite nice in the last few weeks is the refreshing cool, the colours and the relaxation (to me) of autumn. It is one of my favourite times of the year, and, when I came back to Melbourne in the 1980s, I had visions of spending autumn and winter sitting in front of an open fireplace, looking at the rain outside, and reading. Well, I have to keep working to the point of exhaustion to pay the bills, so my sitting time is limited, and air pollution means open fireplaces aren't acceptable here in the city anymore, and because I'm in the city there is a limit to how open I can leave the blinds without losing privacy ... but I'm getting most of the benefits - including hail and wind, as well as rain :)

One of the other nice things of late is the TV series "Forever". The premise of the show is that the lead character is immortal. He can be killed, but immediately comes back to life - in water, and without clothes. Keeping that as a secret is one of the sources of dramatic tension in the series, particularly the episode I watched last night ("Social Engineering). Well, I also have a secret: although my body is mortal, my soul, along with everyone else's, is immortal. Oops. Now the secret - well, a secret, one of many, is out :)

Post No. 695 - Questions, Quotes and Platitudes

I have decided, as a bit of an intellectual and mediumship challenge, to work through Lobsang Rampa’s books and give my take on some of the readers’ questions that Rampa answered. I’m doing this with the ultimate audience in the back of my mind – me, in future incarnations.

So, this week, I have chosen a couple of questions from “Chapters of Life”, on page 197 (of my copy, at any rate): what is Nirvana?

Well, apart from the band, who didn’t exist when that book was published (first pub. 1967; Corgi pub. 1972, ISBN 552 07652 X), when I was growing up, there was a misconception that nirvana was nothingness. In fact, the original question continued to ask “why Indians want to sit around and do nothing and hope everything will come right for them in the end”.

So:

(1) Indians DON’T want to “sit around and do nothing and hope everything will come right for them in the end”: I know several, and they are hard working, industrious, family orientated people – and their nation is a complex, modern nation, with many challenges that only one other nation can have a clue about (China), but India is working through its problems in ways that are, generally, as democratically as possible – if you want to know more about the dynamism of India, follow the online version of “The Hindu” for a while.

(2) my understanding of nirvana at that time was that it is “the absence of spiritual faults” – which is the line that Rampa takes. Interestingly, when I was a kid and still trying to make going to Anglican Churches work for me, I came across a point of view that heaven and hell were actually the same place, but one set of people was enjoying the situation, and the other set of people weren’t (a bit like having some unwilling attendees at a Nirvana concert :) ).

(3) now, I would add that the concept of ““the absence of spiritual faults” is actually quite rubbery. In the same way that algebra is a major lesson for primary school kids, and calculus is the major lesson for University students, what constitutes a “fault” or a matter of good or bad significance spiritually does vary a little – the basics (don’t harm others, respect, compassion, etc) still apply, just as the basics of algebra, arithmetic, etc apply at the University level, but the perspective is different. In fact, I would go so far as to say that, having mentally gone through a digression that nirvana is actually perfecting one’s ability to learn, I’d have to say that nirvana is progressing as one should spiritually – just as, to warp the metaphor beyond reason, a primary student who is studying well and learning can have a personal sense of peace akin to that of a University student who is also studying and learning well, people in this physical realm can attain a state of nirvana, but when they continue to evolve and live in other realms, there are other states that would be the equivalent of nirvana there.

Wikipedia’s take on this topic is here.

On page 198, we have another question: Churches, missionaries, occultists, they are all out for money, they are all grabbers, everyone wants to take from we poor people who have to work for an honest living. Now, you tell me, why should I give, why should I bother with this old system of tithes?  What's it going to do for me?

Now, Rampa’s reply to this is along the lines of the benefits of being generous – give, so that you may receive. To some extent, I can understand that from an analysis of the microrunes * of Feoh/Fehu. To explain that, here is an excerpt from the current version of a book I am working on about runes (I am confident it will be finished in the next couple of decades or so, after I finish paying the price for being over-generous :) ):

If we look at Feoh / Fehu from the point of view of micro-runes, there are many ways to create this rune. Most commonly, this is shown as two upside-down alternate-Kenaz runes overlapping, and spaced slightly one above the other – see Figure No. 2. Viewed as such, it is easy enough to see that energy can be considered to be coming from energy – and hence “wealth breeds wealth”, in a sense, and all the problems that come with being wealthy (such as jealousy, family struggles for control of wealth, etc).

Figure No. 2 – traditional microrunic view of Feoh / Fehu

From the point of view of this review, I will consider Feoh / Fehu as two bind microrunes – again, laid one over the other, slightly overlapping, but this time, each bind microrune comprises Kenaz flowing out from Isa – see Figure No. 3.

Figure No. 3 – modified microrunic view of Feoh / Fehu

To consider this version of the construction of Feoh / Fehu, consider first the image of a river being created by the melting of a glacier. As the ice is transformed, it becomes something which can – in the harsh Scandinavian and northern European world - give life by growing crops and giving water. That is all very straightforward, and understandable; the crops give sustenance for life, and so “wealth”, in a sense is created – true wealth, something which is of genuine value and use, rather than something such as gold, which is of no direct, life-giving value.

When we have two glaciers, and two rivers, side by side, things can potentially still go well – or even better, but provided the water being created can flow away freely. If one river cannot get away, a flood may result, with potentially lots of damage and even loss of life.

So … if things keep flowing, keep moving, thereby allowing room for more “wealth” to be created by this transformation, “wealth builds wealth”. If we attempt to hold on to something, we risk restricting this natural flow of energy, and the consequences may be dire.

This analogy is not saying that the consequences of trying to hold on to “wealth” are due to karma: it is saying that the fundamental harm arises from the result of stopping the transformation or flow which creates something wealthy from something which may not be of value.

Water from ice is one such transformation, but other transformations can be created from our effort, our skills, our hard work. In Middle Ages Europe, one such transformation would be to turn grass and water into meat and milk, by having, nurturing and growing a herd of cattle.

The other aspect of that is that being grasping and mean-minded makes one mean of spirit: generosity can be a far nobler thing. The construction of the question shows assumptions and perceptions that are not necessarily so: the person has been blinded by their emotion.

Rampa also talks about sacrifice: the need to give something meaningful in order to receive something meaningful. Pagans are generally aware of this – it is art of the reason for offering libations to the Deities, for instance, but goes beyond that. For instance, if you want to learn, what time and effort are you going to “sacrifice” to study? According to the mythology, Woden sacrificed an eye and the pain of being hung in the World tree in order to obtain knowledge of the runes.

Those are all valid aspects, but there is another aspect to this: learning to be an adult, or to stand up for oneself, to not be gullible. Generosity to the point that it seriously hurts the giver (which is a lesson I am slowly learning in this life – particularly with regard to money) is not true generosity, but more akin to buying favours. It doesn’t do the giver good, and it possibly allows the recipient to continue in the errors of their ways.

More questions will come from time to time, but I’ll finish this off with a topic I’ve been working on, but it isn’t enough to justify a separate post.

Platitudes

At times I wonder if there is anything as annoying as a platitude (the answer, incidentally, is yes – and many are worse, far, far, FAR worse – for instance, obliviousness as to the effect one has on those about oneself, bludging off others [being a modern day Marie Antoinette, in other words], and so on). Spiritually speaking, platitudes are the equivalent of the sort of thing one says to a fractious child – something to soothe and distract, rather than give a realistic hope of a solution. “We’ll work something out.” Yes? What, exactly? Let’s have some details – or, at the least, a clear demonstration that you understand the problem.

One a more positive note, I’ve been re-reading “The Glass Bead Game”, by Nobel Prize winner, Herman Hesse, and I’ve come across a few things that are, in my opinion, worth thinking about – or even meditating upon (but not necessarily agreeing with :) ):

Such instinctive and violent inclinations and disinclinations are signs by which you can recognise the pettier souls. In great souls and superior minds, these passions are not found.

“The Glass Bead Game”, Herman Hesse

and

Truth is Lived, not taught.

“The Glass Bead Game”, Herman Hesse

Here are a few other sayings that I am currently contemplating adding to my signature block (maybe that should be … signature post at the end of every post!):

The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by sceptics or cynics, whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need [people] who can dream of things that never were, and ask why not.

John F. Kennedy

Choosing blankets on appearance or custom rather than temperature is a vanity that may result in being too hot or too cold.

Gnwmythr

Economic growth is the ultimate pyramid  scheme.

Gnwmythr

 * that is, from the perspective of how each rune has been built up from Isa and Kenaz

[1] BPLF = Balanced Positive (spiritual) Light Forces. See here and here for more on this.

[2] Please see here, here and my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of h2g2, although that doesn't appear to be as extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather engagingly - to be the Earth edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy").

[3] I apologise for the formatting: it seems Blogger is no longer as WYSIWYG as it used to be, and there are a lot of unwanted changes to layout made upon publishing, so I often have to edit it immediately after publishing to get the format as close to what I want as possible.

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr, Wéofodthegn

(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix Lux … aka Morinehtar … would-be drýicgan or maga ... )

My "blogiography" (list of all posts and guide as to how to best use this site) is here, and my glossary/index is here.

I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue (see here and here), and it grew ... See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "Pagans for Peace" project (and join me for a few minutes at some time between 8 and 11 PM on Sunday, wherever you are, to meditate-clear for peace), and here for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend learning how to flame, ground and shield, do alternate nostril breathing, work with colour, and see also here and be flexible.

I am a Walker upon the Path of Balanced Positivity, seeking Spiritual Maturity.

• Neither eloquence nor inarticulateness inherently indicates correctness, but, as words can kill, the right to freedom of speech comes with a DUTY to be as well-informed, objective and balanced as you can be.
• Gnwmythr's Stropping Strap: Occam's Razor only works if  the simplest solution is actually recognised as being the simplest, rather than the one that best fits one's bigotries being labelled 'simplest'.
• I mourn the desecration of the term 'Light Worker' by commercial interests, and the warping of the word 'Light' away from 'Clear Light' by the "(Fluffy) White Lighters".
• Presuming that everyone has, or wants, a smartphone is discriminatory, unspiritual, and downright stupid.
• Obsessive love may be a cover up of guilt.
• Proxy embarrassment is both a form of control, and an internal barrier to truth, honesty and perspicacity.
• Our entire life experience, with all the many wondrous and varied people, places and events in it, is too small a sample for statistical reliability about Life.
• Notwithstanding the greatness of exploring the world and humanity, the greatest exploration is of mind, spirit and Soul.
• May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
• Life is not a struggle for status.
• Being accustomed to interacting via certain rules makes those rules neither right nor universal.
• Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master. 
• The means shape the end.
• My favourite action movie of all time is "Gandhi", although I've recently come across "Invictus" and might put that one in to that category. However, I loathe the stereotypical action movie - and, for similar reasons, I loathe many dramas, which are often emotionally violent, more so in some cases than many war films.
• All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ... and blogging has been described as graffiti with punctuation :)

Human dignity is the inherently cumulative holistic combination of human rights, wellbeing and potential, and all actions or interaction which promote, realise or facilitate same. The converse also applies: whatever degrades, diminishes or robs humans of dignity, is inherently undignified.

Gnwmythr

The “purpose” of spiritual evolution is not the attainment of “spiritual perfection” - not in the sense of not having to evolve further, at any rate, since there is no such thing. We need to evolve in order to grow - but we can take rest breaks (hopefully well earned :) ) along the way. No, the “purpose” of evolution is, rather, to perfect our ability to learn, and thus grow.

Gnwmythr

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Females, get over 'cute'. Get competent. Get trained. Get capable. Get over 'cute'. And those of you who are called Patty and Debby and Suzy, get over that. Because we use those names to infantalise females – we keep females in their 'little girl' state by the names we use for them. Get over it. If you want to be taken seriously, get serious.

Jane Elliott

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing.

(based on writing by) Edmund Burke

We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children

Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.

John F. Kennedy

Tags: Feoh/Fehu, generosity, meanness, microrunes, platitudes, questions, quotations, runes, sacrifice,

First published: Wodansdagr, 29^th April, 2015

Last edited (excluding fixing typo's and other minor matters): Wednesday, 29^th April, 2015

Post No. 694 - Mind your Mӕgan

I accumulate bits and pieces for reading posts - and, unfortunately, tend to forget how much I've accumulated until there is too much for a good length post. Be that as it may, one of those pieces I've accumulated is the following:

• this is interesting. I may have to use integrity (although that can sound like a business w***) or ethics (which can sound like an academic w***), or some other word … in fact, having looked into this, I will use the word mӕgan, pronounced MY-an, from Alaric Albertsson’s 2^nd book, “Wyrdworking: the Path of a Saxon Sorcerer” (pp. 13 – 14) rather than honour (mӕgan is a quality that is diminished by acts that are, in the modern sense, dishonourable – and by breaking one’s word, which doesn’t seem to be considered dishonourable these days, and replenished by acts which are, in the modern sense, honourable – and by keeping one’s word. It is also apparently, more essential – according to Mr Albertsson - for magick than willpower [willa] or knowledge [hyge - conscious thought, pronounced HU-yeh] or wód [inspiration]): http://godsandradicals.org/2015/04/20/honor-i-dont-think-that-word-means-what-you-think-it-means/;

Now, there are a few concepts here that I would like to cover (to make sure I get them correct - in future incarnations when I hopefully come across this blog as much as now, and "future-me" is the ultimate audience of all that I do on this blog):

• Önd or Öd - according to Wikipedia [2] (and, to some extent, Wiktionary), a type of universal force, also termed "Odic force", possibly akin to what was intended by the Star Wars fictive mythology of "the Force". My friend Tony, RMFTB *, describes it as meaning literally "vital, or divine, breath";
• Orlay, from Orlӕg, or Ørlög - often described as "fate", or wyrd, but described by Mr Albertsson (there is a very good chapter, "Honour and Wyrd", on this in Mr Albertsson's first book, "Travels through Middle Earth: the path of a Saxon Pagan" - including a brilliant illustration of the difference between honour and morality using an Aunt Maggie's dress) as the summation of all the actions and words that have shaped a person, including things like adoption. Tony sums this up as "individual fate or wyrd", and this page describes it as the "path of choice", as opposed to wyrd being the "path of fate" (and something termed "hamingja", being the path of luck; see also here);
• Wyrd - according to MF Tony, "Fate of the individual. The action and reaction of events". See also Wikipedia's definition here, and also Urðr.

Against that backdrop, as stated above, "mӕgan is a quality that is diminished by acts that are, in the modern sense, dishonourable – and by breaking one’s word, which doesn’t seem to be considered dishonourable these days, and replenished by acts which are, in the modern sense, honourable – and by keeping one’s word. It is also apparently, more essential – according to Mr Albertsson - for magick than willpower [willa] or knowledge [hyge - conscious thought, pronounced HU-yeh] or wód [inspiration])".

So, from now, rather than talking about honour (except where circumstances make that a much simpler way to have a conversation), I will try to refer to "mind your mӕgan".

 * Rune Master From The Bush

[1] BPLF = Balanced Positive (spiritual) Light Forces. See here and here for more on this.

[2] Please see here, here and my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of h2g2, although that doesn't appear to be as extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather engagingly - to be the Earth edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy").

[3] I apologise for the formatting: it seems Blogger is no longer as WYSIWYG as it used to be, and there are a lot of unwanted changes to layout made upon publishing, so I often have to edit it immediately after publishing to get the format as close to what I want as possible.

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr, Wéofodthegn

(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix Lux … aka Morinehtar … would-be drýicgan or maga ... )

My "blogiography" (list of all posts and guide as to how to best use this site) is here, and my glossary/index is here.

I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue (see here and here), and it grew ... See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "Pagans for Peace" project (and join me for a few minutes at some time between 8 and 11 PM on Sunday, wherever you are, to meditate-clear for peace), and here for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend learning how to flame, ground and shield, do alternate nostril breathing, work with colour, and see also here and be flexible.

I am a Walker upon the Path of Balanced Positivity, seeking Spiritual Maturity.

• Neither eloquence nor inarticulateness inherently indicates correctness, but, as words can kill, the right to freedom of speech comes with a DUTY to be as well-informed, objective and balanced as you can be.
• Gnwmythr's Stropping Strap: Occam's Razor only works if  the simplest solution is actually recognised as being the simplest, rather than the one that best fits one's bigotries being labelled 'simplest'.
• I mourn the desecration of the term 'Light Worker' by commercial interests, and the warping of the word 'Light' away from 'Clear Light' by the "(Fluffy) White Lighters".
• Presuming that everyone has, or wants, a smartphone is discriminatory, unspiritual, and downright stupid.
• Obsessive love may be a cover up of guilt.
• Proxy embarrassment is both a form of control, and an internal barrier to truth, honesty and perspicacity.
• Our entire life experience, with all the many wondrous and varied people, places and events in it, is too small a sample for statistical reliability about Life.
• Notwithstanding the greatness of exploring the world and humanity, the greatest exploration is of mind, spirit and Soul.
• May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
• Life is not a struggle for status.
• Being accustomed to interacting via certain rules makes those rules neither right nor universal.
• Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master.
• The means shape the end.
• My favourite action movie of all time is "Gandhi", although I've recently come across "Invictus" and might put that one in to that category. However, I loathe the stereotypical action movie - and, for similar reasons, I loathe many dramas, which are often emotionally violent, more so in some cases than many war films.
• All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ... and blogging has been described as graffiti with punctuation :)

Human dignity is the inherently cumulative holistic combination of human rights, wellbeing and potential, and all actions or interaction which promote, realise or facilitate same. The converse also applies: whatever degrades, diminishes or robs humans of dignity, is inherently undignified.

Gnwmythr

The “purpose” of spiritual evolution is not the attainment of “spiritual perfection” - not in the sense of not having to evolve further, at any rate, since there is no such thing. We need to evolve in order to grow - but we can take rest breaks (hopefully well earned :) ) along the way. No, the “purpose” of evolution is, rather, to perfect our ability to learn, and thus grow.

Gnwmythr

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Females, get over 'cute'. Get competent. Get trained. Get capable. Get over 'cute'. And those of you who are called Patty and Debby and Suzy, get over that. Because we use those names to infantalise females – we keep females in their 'little girl' state by the names we use for them. Get over it. If you want to be taken seriously, get serious.

Jane Elliott

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing.

(based on writing by) Edmund Burke

We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children

Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.

John F. Kennedy

Tags: ethics, honour, integrity, magick, Mӕgan, personal characteristics, personal responsibility,

First published: Manadagr, 27^th April, 2015

Last edited (excluding fixing typo's and other minor matters): Monday, 27^th April, 2015