When Pan Holds Court in the City Streets

Twilight comes early in Boulder, as it's so close to the mountains that the sun sets and twilight begins about two hours before it does out on the plains, eighty miles to the east.  It is an odd place at twilight, when street performers and panhandlers are every ten feet, and people are laying down their beds here and there in the bushes in parks and grounds.

If you walk Pearl Street at twilight, and have eyes to see and ears to hear, you'll be surprised at what is happening around you.  For the Old Gods walk the city streets, and Great Pan holds court in the twilight's light.  I saw him tonight, under the fading sky and almost full moon, I was him on Pearl Street in Boulder as I walked in twilight tonight as my other self.  He looked quite human, in human guise, and his dress the same, but his words were honey, and anyone with eyes could see if they watch that gait and sway as he walked on the balls of his bare feet that it was only glamour that hid the goats feet of his true form.  And walking behind him, the urge was strong to join his court among the merry throng that were gathered there, and follow him, to dance and ecstasy.

I saw young Artemis, down and out, her dog content but too small and too motivated to join the hunt.  She sat there on the sidewalk, it worn clothes, a boot in front of her with a sign, her pack beside her and her dog half snoozing on top of it.  I stopped and turned aside and talked to her a moment about her dog, and gave her a dollar before heading on my way.

I spotted Hermes upon a wall holding a sign.  He looked serious and like any other panhandler, but his sign was a bit different, and I read it, and couldn't help but grin.  "Slept with Lindsey Lohan, need help."  He spotted my grin and matched it with his own, his eyes passing from serious to mischievous in an instant.  He pointed at me and snapped his fingers, and said quite loud but too quiet for anyone but me to hear as I passed almost twenty feet from him, others closer, "Gotcha."  I went on my way.

I spotted Hephaestus, sitting on a bench as an old man, his eyes down, not noticing anyone, lost in his own thoughts and memories.  He seemed weak and feeble, but you could feel the strength and power.  A hard life, unsure what to make of it.

I saw Athena, sitting on a bench beneath a street light, the thick book in her lap more important than the street performers around her.

I saw Apollo standing on the edge, a guitar instead of his Lyre, his voice singing out an Alternative song from the '90s, load and clear, but smooth and glorious, a voice that can move the soul.

And I saw Neptune, walking the opposite way as me on a dark sidewalk, empty except the two of us.  He was a shadow of an old man, hidden in shadow.  He moved off the sidewalk as I passed, giving me room, and I saw a glimpse of his khaki trousers, his Hawaiian shirt, his thick grey beard, his straw hat, the cup of rum in his hands.  He didn't look at me, and we both continued on our way.

If you walk Pearl Street at twilight, and have eyes to see and ears to hear, you'll be surprised at what is happening around you.  For the Old Gods walk the city streets, and Great Pan holds court in the twilight's light.

Twilight comes early in Boulder, as it's so close to the mountains that the sun sets and twilight begins about two hours before it does out on the plains, eighty miles to the east.  It is an odd place at twilight, when street performers and panhandlers are every ten feet, and people are laying down their beds here and there in the bushes in parks and grounds.

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

Mistress Over the Dead: a look at the "Witch of Endor" and related myths

The subject has come up often lately in various places online of the "Witch of Endor".  This is said as if it was title, and I read a discussion one place that said, was there's only one witch in Endor, and was there never a witch there before or after?  The very question implies not understanding the passage, so thought I'd dig into it a bit.  'Eyn Do'r, or, technically, b'Eyn Do'r, "in 'Eyn Do'r".

First off, in case people are confused, we're not talking about the moon called Endor in Star Wars.  :-)  This is in 1 Samuel in the Jewish Tanakh and Cristian Old Testament.  Endor is the way it's typically rendered in English, but it's two words in the Hebrew text.

Here's the whole verse, from the Revised Standard Version:

Then Saul said to his servants, “Seek out for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.” And his servants said to him, “Behold, there is a medium at Endor.” ~1 Samuel 28:7 RSV

And the Hebrew:

ז  וַיֹּאמֶר שָׁאוּל לַעֲבָדָיו בַּקְּשׁוּ-לִי אֵשֶׁת בַּעֲלַת-אוֹב, וְאֵלְכָה אֵלֶיהָ וְאֶדְרְשָׁה-בָּהּ; וַיֹּאמְרוּ עֲבָדָיו אֵלָיו הִנֵּה אֵשֶׁת בַּעֲלַת-אוֹב בְּעֵין דּוֹר

The phrase that matters here is:

Behold, there is a medium at Endor.
אֵשֶׁת בַּעֲלַת-אוֹב בְּעֵין דּוֹר

Breaking it down:

אִשָּׁה - 'ishshah - woman, wife, female

בַּעֲלָה - ba'alah - mistress, female owner, sorceress, necromancer  From בַּעַל:
בַּעַל - ba'al - owner, husband, citizens, inhabitants, rulers, lords, master of <>, lord.  From בָּעַל:
בָּעַל - ba'al - to marry, rule over, possess, own
אוֹב - 'owb - water skin bottle, necromancer, one who evokes the dead, ghost, spirit of a dead one, practice of necromancy, one that has a familiar spirit.  From אָב:
אָב - 'ab - father of an individual, God as father of his people, head or founder of a household, group, family, or clan, ancestor, originator of patron of a class, profession, or art, producer, generator, benevolence and protection, term of respect adn honour, ruler or chief.
בְּעֵין דּוֹר - b 'eyn do'r - in 'Eyn Do'r
עֵין־דוֹר - 'Eyn-Do'r - Endor, Fountain of Dor
עַיִן - 'ayin - eye, spring, fountain
דּוֹר - dowr - period, generation, habitation, dwelling.  From דּוּר:
דּוּר - duwr - to heap up, pile, to dwell, to remain, to delay, to inhabit, to go around.
דּוּר - duwr - ball, circle

My translation:  "There is a woman that is mistress over the dead at the eye of the circle."

So Saul disguised himself and put on other garments, and went, he and two men with him; and they came to the woman by night. And he said, “Divine for me by a spirit, and bring up for me whomever I shall name to you.” ~1 Samuel 28:8

ח  וַיִּתְחַפֵּשׂ שָׁאוּל וַיִּלְבַּשׁ בְּגָדִים אֲחֵרִים וַיֵּלֶךְ הוּא וּשְׁנֵי אֲנָשִׁים עִמּוֹ וַיָּבֹאוּ אֶל-הָאִשָּׁה לָיְלָה וַיֹּאמֶר קָסֳמִי-נָא לִי בָּאוֹב וְהַעֲלִי לִי, אֵת אֲשֶׁר-אֹמַר אֵלָיִך

Divine for me by a spirit
קָסֳמִי-נָא לִי בָּאוֹב

קָסַם - qacam - to practice divination, divine.
נָא - na - please, if you please
לִי - li - to, for (first person singular)
בָּאוֹב - conjure up, invoke, in/with + אוֹב (see above)

My translation:  "Please divine by conjuring for me."

The woman said to him, “Surely you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off the mediums and the wizards from the land. Why then are you laying a snare for my life to bring about my death?” ~1 Samuel 28:9

ט  וַתֹּאמֶר הָאִשָּׁה אֵלָיו הִנֵּה אַתָּה יָדַעְתָּ אֵת אֲשֶׁר-עָשָׂה שָׁאוּל אֲשֶׁר הִכְרִית אֶת-הָאֹבוֹת וְאֶת-הַיִּדְּעֹנִי מִן-הָאָרֶץ וְלָמָה אַתָּה מִתְנַקֵּשׁ בְּנַפְשִׁי לַהֲמִיתֵנִי

cut off the mediums and the wizards from the land
הִכְרִית אֶת-הָאֹבוֹת וְאֶת-הַיִּדְּעֹנִי מִן-הָאָרֶץ

הִכְרִית - hkarath - the + כָּרַת
כָּרַת - karath - to cut, cut off, eliminate, kill, cut a covenant, to hew, to be cut off, to be cut down, to be cut off, to be chewed, to fail, to destroy, to take away, to permit to perish.
אֶת - et - to, with
הָאֹבוֹת - havot - the + אֹבוֹת
אֹבוֹת - avot - plural of אֹב:
אֹב - av - father, male parent, ancestor, forefather, progenitor, originator, prototype
וְאֶת - 'owb - and + אוֹב (see above)
הַיִּדְּעֹנִי - hyidde'oni - the + יִּדְּעֹנִי
יִּדְּעֹנִי - yidde'oni - a knower, one who has a familiar spirit, soothsayer, necromancer.  From יָדַע:
יָדַע - yada' - to know, to perceive, to discriminate, to distinguish, to know by experience, to recognise, to consider, to be perceived, to be made known, to be revealed, to cause to know, to be known, to make oneself known, to declare, to reveal oneself.
מִן - men - from
הָאָרֶץ - haarets - the + אָרֶץ
אָרֶץ - erets - country, land, territory, district, earth, ground, soil

My translation:  "removed ancestors and spirit knowers from the ground"

The king said to her, “Have no fear; what do you see?” And the woman said to Saul, “I see a god coming up out of the earth.” ~1 Samuel 28:13

יג  וַיֹּאמֶר לָהּ הַמֶּלֶךְ אַל-תִּירְאִי כִּי מָה רָאִית וַתֹּאמֶר הָאִשָּׁה אֶל-שָׁאוּל אֱלֹהִים רָאִיתִי עֹלִים מִן-הָאָרֶץ

a god coming up out of the earth.
אֱלֹהִים רָאִיתִי עֹלִים מִן-הָאָרֶץ

אֱלֹהִים - 'elohiym - rulers, judges, divine ones, angels, gods, god/goddess, godlike one, works or special possessions of God, God
רָאִיתִי - raiti first person singular past tense of רָאָה:
רָאָה - raa - to see, to have vision, to observe, to look at
עֹלִים - 'alim - plural indefinite form of עָלֶה:
עָלֶה - 'alah - to go up, ascend, climb, meet, visit, follow, depart, retreat, spring up, grow, shoot forth, rise, excel, be superior to, be taken up, be brought up, be taken away, to take oneself away, to be exalted
מִן - men - (see above)
הָאָרֶץ - haarets - (see above)

My translation:  "a godlike one I See, rising up from the ground"

As Saul can't see the shade, raa here is vision, the Sight, not physical mundane sight.

He said to her, “What is his appearance?” And she said, “An old man is coming up; and he is wrapped in a robe.” And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground, and did obeisance. ~1 Samuel 28:14

יד  וַיֹּאמֶר לָהּ מַה-תָּאֳרוֹ, וַתֹּאמֶר אִישׁ זָקֵן עֹלֶה וְהוּא עֹטֶה מְעִיל וַיֵּדַע שָׁאוּל כִּי-שְׁמוּאֵל הוּא, וַיִּקֹּד אַפַּיִם אַרְצָה וַיִּשְׁתָּחוּ

And she said, “An old man is coming up; and he is wrapped in a robe.” And Saul knew
וַתֹּאמֶר אִישׁ זָקֵן עֹלֶה וְהוּא עֹטֶה מְעִיל וַיֵּדַע

וַתֹּאמֶר - vatomar - and + תֹּאמֶר
תֹּאמֶר - tomar - third-person singular imperfect of אָמַר:
אָמַר - amar - to say, think, pronounce, intend
אִישׁ - 'ish - man, husband, adult male
זָקֵן - zaqen - old, elderly, aged
עֹלֶה - 'alah - (see above)
וְהוּא - vakharash - and + הוּא
הוּא - hi - he, it, he is, it is
עֹטֶה - atah - to wrap, cover, veil, clothe, roll, array, be clad, cover, fill, put on, turn aside
מְעִיל - m'il - robe or coat worn over a tunic by men of rank
וַיֵּדַע - vayeda - and + יֵּדַע (see above)

My translation:  And she pronounced, "And an elderly man rises and he is wrapped in a obe" And he knew

Interesting her is that "knew" is the same "knew" from which "knowers" above is derived.  He knew it was Saul when she spoke in the same way that those who had been removed knew spirits.  Insight, intuition, the beginning of Sight.  His eyes were opened, through her words. The story continues with him and Samuel taking directly.  He appears to now be able to both see and hear him.

Then Saul fell at once full length upon the ground, filled with fear because of the words of Samuel; and there was no strength in him, for he had eaten nothing all day and all night. ~1 Samuel 28:20

I won't worry about the Hebrew here, as it doesn't reveal anything interesting to the discussion.  I will note that "ground" here, "earth" from which Samuel arose, and "land" from which the ancestral spirits and spirit knowers were removed are all the same word.

In summary, Saul asked for a medium and was told there was a mistress over the dead in the eye of the circle.  He seeks her out, and asks her to divine for him by conjuring a shade.  She is fearful because the king (whom she doesn't yet know is him) had all ancestral spirits and spirit knowers removed from the land/ground/earth.  He reassures her and she calls forth the one he asks for (ingress).  She sees it is a holy man and gets an inkling what is happened, and tells him what she sees.  He asks what the shade looks like and she describes him, and in that description, he Sees and Hears and has congress with him.  After he is gone (egress), Saul falls to the ground, with no strength left. Afterwards she feeds him so he can renew his strength.

This conjuring brings to mind Odin conjuring the volva in Baldrs Draumar (Baldr's Dreams).  Henry Adams Bellows' translation (found at http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe13.htm) puts it thus:

1. Once were the gods | together met,
And the goddesses came | and council held,
And the far-famed ones | the truth would find,
Why baleful dreams | to Baldr had come.

2. Then Othin rose, | the enchanter old,
And the saddle he laid | on Sleipnir's back;
Thence rode he down | to Niflhel deep,
And the hound he met | that came from hell.

3. Bloody he was | on his breast before,
At the father of magic | he howled from afar;
Forward rode Othin, | the earth resounded
Till the house so high | of Hel he reached.

4. Then Othin rode | to the eastern door,
There, he knew well, | was the wise-woman's grave;
Magic he spoke | and mighty charms,
Till spell-bound she rose, | and in death she spoke:

5. "What is the man, | to me unknown,
That has made me travel | the troublous road?
I was snowed on with snow, | and smitten with rain,
And drenched with dew; | long was I dead."
Othin spake:

6. "Vegtam my name, | I am Valtam's son;
Speak thou of hell, | for of heaven I know:
For whom are the benches | bright with rings,
And the platforms gay | bedecked with gold?"
The Wise-Woman spake:

7. "Here for Baldr | the mead is brewed,
The shining drink, | and a shield lies o'er it;
But their hope is gone | from the mighty gods.
Unwilling I spake, | and now would be still."
Othin spake:

8. "Wise-woman, cease not! | I seek from thee
All to know | that I fain would ask:
Who shall the bane | of Baldr become,
And steal the life | from Othin's son?"
The Wise-Woman spake:

9. "Hoth thither bears | the far-famed branch,
He shall the bane | of Baldr become,
And steal the life | from Othin's son.
Unwilling I spake, | and now would be still."
Othin spake:

10. "Wise-woman, cease not! | I seek from thee
All to know | that I fain would ask:
Who shall vengeance win | for the evil work,
Or bring to the flames | the slayer of Baldr?"
The Wise-Woman spake:

11. "Rind bears Vali | in Vestrsalir,
And one night old | fights Othin's son;
His hands he shall wash not, | his hair he shall comb not,
Till the slayer of Baldr | he brings to the flames.
Unwilling I spake, | and now would be still."
Othin spake:

12. "Wise-woman, cease not! | I seek from thee
All to know | that I fain would ask:
What maidens are they | who then shall weep,
And toss to the sky | the yards of the sails?"
The Wise-Woman spake:

13. "Vegtam thou art not, | as erstwhile I thought;
Othin thou art, | the enchanter old."
Othin spake:
"No wise-woman art thou, | nor wisdom hast;
Of giants three | the mother art thou."
The Wise-Woman spake:

14. "Home ride, Othin, | be ever proud;
For no one of men | shall seek me more
Till Loki wanders | loose from his bonds,
And to the last strife | the destroyers come."

We don't see the weakness at the end, as it ends with her parting speech.  But there's a feel to the conjuring much similar, with the spirit rising up from the ground, the spirit none to happy to be called and having a threatening tone.  Neither rose willingly, and neither could resist the call.

There is another tale we have of summoning the dead, that of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey.  Book Eleven says:

At the furthest edge of Ocean's stream is the land to which all journey when they die. Here their spirits endure a fleshless existence. They can't even talk unless re-animated with blood.

Accordingly, I did as Circe instructed, bleeding a sacrificed lamb into a pit. Tiresias, the blind prophet who had accompanied us to Troy, was the soul I had to talk to. So I held all the other shades at bay with my sword until he had drunk from the pit.

He gave me warnings about my journey home and told me what I must do to ensure a happy death when my time came. I met the shades of many famous women and heroes, including Achilles, best fighter of the Greeks at Troy
~Mythweb - http://www.mythweb.com/odyssey/Odyssey.pdf

While we don't have the patterns we saw before, no rising from the ground, no hostility, no weakness afterwards, there is a parallel with Odin's conjuring.  Odin road to just outside Hel to do the conjuring, the place of the dead.  Likewise Odysseus travels to the land of the dead before using blood to allow the dead to talk.

It is interesting to note that Odysseus' name comes from ὀδύσσομαι, "to be wroth against" or "hate", from μισώ.  The beginning of the name brings to mind Óð (as in Óðinn).  Many of Odin's names bring to mind hate or anger.  While it is unlikely there's a link between the two tales, it's interesting to entertain.

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

Five Rivers Past the Gates of Death

Last July, I wrote a post concerning death called Close the world, Open the Next: a Requiem for Life, a Soliloquy for Death (Blogger, Wordpress, LiveJournal).  Within it, in a small section concerning the Song Of Amergin, I made the following statement concerning the River Styx:

The Hawk, according to Graves and the myths he connects to the Cliff, is on the Cliffs of Nonacris, in Arcadia (because everything comes back to Arcadia).  From the Cliffs flows the headwaters of the River Styx, one of the rivers of the Underworld.  In some myths, it is the River Styx that Charon ferries the dead across.  Styx is firmly rooted in Death, and is where the gods go to make oaths, swearing them on the waters.  Styx is Hate, and it's followed by Sorrow, the Tear that the Sun lets fall.  Cochrane said, "A Crafter is born not made, or if one is to be made, then tears are spilt before the Moon can be Drawn."  Sorrow and Tears are necessary ingredients to Witch.  The Tears fall for the desolate world, the Wasteland.

To expand a bit on this statement, I'd like to discuss the five main rivers of the underworld discussed in Greek myth.

Styx, Στύξ, in Greek literally means "hate" or "detestation", that which we despise and reject, the abject.

The River Acheron is literally the River of Sorrow, or River of Woe.

The River Cocytus is literally the River of Cries, or River of Lamentation.

This leaves two other rivers, the River Phlegethon, the Flaming River, and the River Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness, or River of Oblivion, or River of Concealment.

It's said Styx loved Phlegethon, but his fire burned her and killed her, that's how she ended up in the Underworld.  Phlegethon is said to coil around the earth, much as Loki's son in Norse mythology does, then flows into the depths of Tartarus.  There, Styx and Phlegethon were allowed to unite, flowing together, fire and water.

The River Lethe is of course the river souls drink from to forget the pains and sorrows of life.  The Eleusinian Mysteries and a few others taught their initiates how to find the pool or river Mnemosyne, Memory, instead.

Styx (Hate) leads to Acheron (Sorrow).  Acheron leads to Cocytus (Tears).  Cocytus leads to Phlegethon (the fire that burns away the chaff).  And Phlegethon leads to Lethe (Forgetfulness) or Mnemosyne (Memory).

But this is easier to see when we think of Styx as the abject, the casting off of what we hate in ourselves, rather than the hate itself.

Through the Gates of Death, we first cast off that which we hated about ourselves in life.  Then we feel the loss of that which we loved in life, this is our sorrow.  This leads to tears, lamenting the loss of all we thought he had in life, after we've cast off both what we hated and what we loved, all our attachments.  But then we burn off even the sorrow and lamentation, leaving nothing but our unbiased memory of what came before.  We then stand at a crossroads.  Do we drink of forgetfulness and lose even the memory of things past, starting with a clean slate, but losing also that which we learned, or do we drink from memory and hold onto that last part of the life we lived before, remembering the lessons and wisdom, learning from them in that which we now enter?

This is paralleled in the Descent of Inanna, of course.

This is of course the course not of just physical death, but of all try initiation.  And it the path we take to fully realize what it is to be Witch.

FFF,

~Muninn's Kiss

Romulus and Remus: Establishment and Witch

Back a while, I had a dream that I wrote about where there were four groups, two large, two small, and the two big groups were led by Romulus and Remus.  Later dream, we (the group I was in, one of the small ones) met Romulus and a small group of his people.  I don't remember them, but I remember a sense of his people (the small group of them, not all of them) behind him and our people (once again, not all of them) behind me and the leader of our group.  I was a priestess in the dream, and the leader was also female.  I think we were on a couch or something similar, and it seems like the encounter took place in a parking lot.  Our leader was sitting on the right hand side of the couch and I was sitting on her left, pretty close to her.  Romulus was standing, bent over her trying to sexually assault or maybe rape her.  She had her knee up trying to push him away and I was grabbing at his arm, trying to stop him.  He was dressed all in tight black leather that covered everything but his hands and head.  I woke up in the middle of the struggle.

It had been a very long time since I did any reading on Romulus and Remus, so earlier this week, I read up on them to refresh my memory.  The following are my thoughts on the story, some of the themes, how it relates to the craft, and some thoughts about the meaning of the part of my dream I expanded on above.

Before I get into the details of the legend, I'd like to talk about twins.  Romulus and Remus are of course twins, and this is very important.  Twins are very common in legends, myths, and folk lore.  There's something about twins that people find magical, unusual, mystical, or frightening.  Twins hold a special place in our psyches, and in the secrets of the universe.  What is a twin?  Our other half?  Our reflection?  Our doppleganger?  Some cultures see twins are evil, bad omens, demons.  Others see twins as a sign of favour from the gods.  In some cultures, twins, or the second twin, are killed, in others, revered.  A twin that dies can haunt their sibling or be a guide or protector.  But regardless of the cultural views, twins capture our imaginations, because they reflect spiritual truths and we know, whether we "know" or not, that these are important.

To look at a few sets of twins, I'll start with Cain and Abel, the first two children of Adam and Eve in the Torah.  Though I don't see anything in the Hebrew to show whether they were twins or not, traditionally, they have been seen as such, and I think the parallels with Romulus and Remus are important.  Everyone's heard the story.  Cain raised grain and Abel raised livestock.  Abel makes an offering to G-d or the first born of his stock and G-d accepts it (probably with fire from heaven).  Cain makes an offering of the first of of his crops and G-d doesn't accept it.  There's a lot of debate on why G-d doesn't accept it, but that doesn't matter for this post.  Cain gets upset and kills his brother.  Abel's blood from the land cries out to G-d, and G-d comes and asks Cain where Abel was.  Cain says he's not his brothers' keeper.  G-d makes him a wanderer.  Cain says everyone will try to kill him, so G-d puts a mark on him to protect him.  Many witches claim descendence from Cain, but I'd like to look at this a little differently.  You can parallel Cain with Romulus and Abel with Remus.  Depending on the version of the legend, Romulus killed Remus like Cain killed Abel.  I will talk later about Romulus being the Establishment, the Orthodox, those in control, and Remus being Witch, the source of change in the world.  Remus is a challenge to Romulus' control.  Likewise, Abel being accepted by G-d was a challenge to Cain.  And, of course, Abel's blood in the earth crying out has echoes in spirits of the land and of the call of the ancestors, of the Mighty Dead.

Another set of twins were Castor and Pollox.  I don't know a lot about them, so I can't say much.  They were the children of Leda.  According to some versions of the story, even though they were born as twins, Castor was the son of Tyndareus and Pollox the son of Zeus (in swan form).  Pollox was immortal and Castor mortal.  They were raised by Tyndareus in Sparta.  There's no story of a twin killing a twin here.  Castor dies in a cattle raid and Pollox goes to Zeus to intercede for him.  There are a lot of things that could be explored in this story, but not really anything I can relate to this post.

I'm not going to go into much detail here, but the Divine Twins are very important in Feri.  I've made a lot of posts about them in the past.  They appear in many different guises, but they can be seen as the two sides of the same thing:  the Summer and Winter King, life and death, creation and destruction, past and future.  The big thing related to this post is the interconnectedness.  Romulus and Remus, Cain and Abel, Castor and Pollox, you can't have one without the other.  The story is about the twins, not about on or the other.  It's the interaction of the two that makes the story.  Witch moves in relation to the world around her, not just the natural world but the social world.  Sometimes he works against the world, sometimes with it, but change needs something to interact with or it isn't change.  The stillness interacts with the movement of the Cauldron.

Robert Cochrane calls two of the Wind Gods, Lucet and Tettens twins:

(Lucet and Tettens are the Twins, the Children of Night and the Serpent, brothers and some say one and the same person. Fire and Air, growth and decay. One looks forward, the other backward. One creates, the other destroys, Castor and Pollox.)

Lucet is the King of Light and the Child.  He is the day, the sun.  Tettens is the god of witches, the winter, the night.

In Voudou, you find the Marassa, the twins.  There's a secret here, because the two become three.  the Marassa are mischievous and can be dangerous.  There's a lot that can be said about the Marassa, but I'll move on for now.

To be continued...

FFF,

~Muninn's Kiss