Grimr Reading List

The following is an incomplete reading list.  I put this together randomly over the last two hours.  There is no particular order to it, and it is missing the authors currently.  Additionally, to make it a complete list, I would want to provide a summary of each book, my opinion of them, and a link either to a place it is available to read online in the case of older books, or a place to purchase them for the newer books, if either of these exist.  Some of these are easily obtained.  Others are out of print but not out of copyright and very hard to find, especially at a reasonable price.  The first section is a list of books.  The second is a list of magazines and periodicals.  Anything on either of these list, I recommend or it wouldn't be on here.  Some, however, I have not read and/or do not currently have access to.  I have included some that are highly recommended by people I respect.  I have included some that I know the author and the author's work, and hence know the book listed will be good.  I have included some that I haven't finished reading but recommend it based on what I've read so far.  I have included fiction and non-fiction, history and myth, religious texts and magic texts, esoteric and exoteric texts.  Some people will like some things on this list, others will not, but will like other things.  Some of these are based on years of research, some completely intuitive.  Some are very intellectual, some are very mystical.  Some are very practical, some are purely theoretical.  But all are related to my path, my walk, my stream, and I recommend all of them, just not to everyone.  Take it for what it is.  Your mileage may very.


Book List

• The White Goddess
• The Golden Bough
• Tubelo's Green Fire
• Riding Windhorses
• Drawing Down the Spirits: The Traditions and Techniques of Spirit Possession
• Share My Insanity
• Goddess Initiation
• Fifty Years in the Feri Tradition
• Etheric Anatomy
• The White Wand
• Evolutionary Witchcraft
• Kissing the Limitless
• Spiral Dance
• Magic and Witchcraft
• The Zohar
• Practical Chinese Medicine
• The Web That Has No Weaver
• Tao Te Ching
• I Ching
• The Herb Book
• A History of Medieval Christianity: Prophecy and Order
• Religious Dissent in the Middle Ages
• Witchcraft in the Middle Ages
• A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics, Pagans
• Satan: The Early Christian Tradition
• Dissent and Reform in the Early Middle Ages
• Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages
• Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World
• The Prince of Darkness: Evil and the Power of Good of History
• Dissent and Order in the Middle Ages: The Search for Legitimate Authority
• A History of Heaven: The Singing Silence
• Paradise Mislaid
• Inquisition
• I Asked For Wonder
• Plants of Life, Plants of Death
• Primal Myths
• Goddess of the North
• The God of the Witches
• The Elements of the Grail Tradition
• The Jewish Book of Days
• The Kabbalah: The Essential Texts From the Zohar
• The Book of Qualities
• Witches, Werewolves, and Fairies
• Stillness Speaks
• Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins: An Encyclopedia
• Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy
• The Elements of the Runes
• The Art of War
• Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
• A Field Guide to Irish Fairies
• The Encyclopaedia of Celtic Myth and Legend: A Definitive Sourcebook of Magic, Vision, and Lore
• The Return of the Dead: Ghosts, Ancestors, and the Transparent Veil of the Pagan Mind
• Magic that Works
• Aradia: Gospel of the Witches
• Roles of the Northern Goddess
• Pillars of Tubal Cain
• Thorns of the Blood Rose
• The Formation Of A Persecuting Society: Power And Deviance In Western Europe, 950-1250
• Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation
• The Origins of European Dissent
• Diodorus Siculus: Library of History
• Lilith's Garden
• Azoetia
• Qutub
• The Roebuck in the Thicket
• The Robert Cochrane Letters
• The Complete Brother Grimm Fairy Tales
• The Book of Fallen Angels
• Masks of Misrule
• The Lesser Key of Solomon
• The Greater Key of Solomon
• Witchcraft: A Tradition Renewed
• History of the Kings of Britain
• Book of Invasions
• Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism
• The Middle Pillar
• Chicken Qabalah
• The DustBunnies/MarchHares Big Damn Handout Volume I
• Black Book of the Yezidi
• Drawing Down the Moon
• The Religion of the Teutons
• The Guide for the Perplexed
• The Book of Lies
• The Book of Thoth
• The Book of the Law
• 231 Gates of Initiation
• The Cloud of Unknowing
• Little Flowers of St. Francis
• Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
• Le Morte D'Arthur
• Living with Contradiction
• The White Hart
• Taleisen
• Merlin
• Arthur
• Pendragon
• Grail
• Avalon: the Return of King Arthur
• The Crystal Cave
• The Hollow Hills
• The Last Enchantment
• The Wicked Day
• The Prince and the Pilgrim
• One Thousand and One Arabian Nights
• Aesop's Fables
• Andersen's Fairy Tales
• The Traveler
• The Dark River
• The Golden City
• Vellum
• Ink
• The Interior Castle

Magazines and Periodicals

• The Cauldron
• Witch Eye: A Journal of Feri Uprising 
• Circle Magazine
• Witch's Almanac

FFF,

~Muninn's Kiss

On Centres, Actions, Webs, and Spiders

Image from National Geographic.

There are certain keys, mantras, ideas, concepts, that are central to my being, central to my work, central to my beliefs, central to my practice, central to my ethics, central to my religion, central to my witchcraft.  These keys come up again ans again.  These include the Twins (Tvennr), the Weaver (Grimr), the Mirror, the Bridge, the Priest, the Mask, the Knot, the Blade, the Tower, and the Wanderer.

Another is the mantra, "Each person is responsible for their own action."  This mantra is very important in defining my personal ethics and is very important in informing my understanding of not just the human world, but the natural and spiritual worlds as well.  The following passage from Riding Windhorses expresses this mantra in a very well and in a way that makes a lot of sense to me.  This is in the context of Northern Asian shamanism, primarily among the Siberian and Mongolian peoples.

"Shamanism is concern with personal power and bringing good fortune into one's life.  In the context of the cosmology described above, one must remember the saying, 'Everyone has his own universe, everyone has his own path.' While every day brings an individual into contact with the personal worlds of others, the core issues of life lie within one's personal universe. In this individual aspect of the cosmos, a person stands at the perfect center of the universe, supported by Mother Earth and enveloped in the clear blue vastness of Father Heaven. At the center one's cosmic soul (suns) shines as a bright white star, and the body soul (ami) is a red point of light. One can fly freely within the vastness of space or travel upon the earth. Because one has his or her own path, one is ultimately responsible for his or her own actions."

This also expresses a lot of other important concepts in my beliefs and practice.  Present here is the concept of the Guardian of the Centre, and also of Witch Herself.  Modern science and common belief says that it is pure ego to say the earth is the centre of the universe, and especially to say yourself is the centre.  But who doesn't feel, at least subconsciously, that they are the centre?  That doesn't mean no one else is important, or that all should serve and cater to you, or that it's all about you.  But you relate to the world from your own person, not from the centre of the galaxy or solar system, nor even from the person you hold most dear.  You relate to the world from your own person, so that is the centre of your world.  You are the centre of the web, the weave.  All the threads in your life radiate out from you, connecting you to the things and beings around you.

The Fable of Arachne by
Velazquez, image from  Hellenica.

This isn't just metaphor.  According to KaHuna tradition as it has been passed into Feri, Unihipili, Nefesh, your lower soul, Fetch, forms threads, called aka threads, which connect her to everything she comes into contact with.  Energy, mana, flows through these threads in both directions.  Fetch is the spider, the Weaver, at the centre of the web, each aka thread connecting her to everything she has ever touched until the thread is either cut or withers away.  Energy flows across these, but that energy has memory.  Fetch is made of the same stuff as the threads, that mana, that energy, and she contains our deepest memories.  And the Fetch of each thing contains it's memory, whether that thing is a person, a spirit, a god, a dog, a tree, a rock, a toaster.  All things have a Fetch, and all Fetches contain deep memories.  Across the threads, the memories flow.  Fetch is sometimes called the Listener, just as the middle soul is the Talker.  She sits at the centre of her web, her weave, and listens, listens to all the memories.  Her universe is made up of all those things that are part of her web, all the memories she listens to.

Horizontal Traditional Loom,
Centre Cultural Alexandra  David-Neel.

Uhane, Ruach, your middle soul, Talker, has a web of her own.  This one people are more familiar with.  We use terms like social networking all the time  Talker's web is one of social interactions and communication.  While Fetch's web is passive, she sits at the centre and listens, she forms connections automatically with anything she touches or that touches her, she lets the threads weave the pattern, Talker's is active.  She actively builds a web, reaches out to form each connection, feeds the connections she values and wants to keep.  She constantly has her hands in the weave, forming them, directing them.  Fetch's web is static.  A thread forms and stays until it is cut of withers.  Talker's web is dynamic.  She's constantly adding strands, cutting strands, feeding strands, pruning strands.  But for all the differences, one thing is the same.  Talker is also the centre of her web, her weave.

The Norns

And, of course, Aumakua, Neshamah, your higher soul, Godself, has a web of her own.  Many people, whether they believe in it or not, know the concept of Fate, Destiny, Necessity, Weird, Karma.  Consequences that influence the future, things in the past that direct the present.  Many cultures talk of the Weaver or Weavers, in whatever form.  Spin the thread, measure the thread, cut the thread.  Birth, Life, Death.  A good way to understand Godself's web is to look at the concept of Weird or Wyrd in the Germanic traditions.

O.E. wyrd "fate, destiny" (n.), lit. "that which comes," from P.Gmc. *wurthis (cf. O.S. wurd, O.H.G. wurt "fate," O.N. urðr "fate, one of the three Norns"), from PIE *wert- "to turn, wind," (cf. Ger. werden, O.E. weorðan "to become"), from base *wer- "to turn, bend" (see versus). For sense development from "turning" to "becoming," cf. phrase turn into "become." The modern sense of weird developed from M.E. use of weird sisters for the three fates or Norns (in Germanic mythology), the goddesses who controlled human destiny. They were usually portrayed as odd or frightening in appearance, as in "Macbeth," which led to the adj. meaning "odd-looking, uncanny," first recorded 1815.  (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=weird)

Frigg Weaving the Clouds

Another world used in Old Norse is ørlǫg, literally, "beyond law".  Frigg is said to know all ørlǫg, but not say it.  She is often portrayed as a Weaver.  Think of her sitting at her loom, letting the threads go where they go and seeing ørlǫg in them.  But the Norns control the threads, control ørlǫg, control urðr, Wyrd, Weird.  You'll notice a few words above.  "To turn, wind".  Like a thread on a spindle or distaff.  "To turn, bend".  Like the threads being bent into a pattern on a loom.  (Note that one possible root meaning for witch is "to bend", also.)

Wyrd itself is Fate, the web of all things that were once whole.  Orlog is the ever changing threads which are found in the athem.  It is the fate of the individual itself.  Orlog affects hamingja and vice versa.  The hamingja bears the orlog in this life.  By fulfilling and bettering the hamingja, one takes care of orlog.  This in turn “feeds” the fetch, or spirit, by fulfilling fate and bringing the fetch one step closer to completing the true “Great Work.”  So it would seem that Orlog is the transmitter of wyrd to the hamingja and that by improving hamingja one can create a better wyrd for the future.  (http://artesmagicae.blogspot.com/2010/08/following-is-second-chapter-from-book.html)

The Athem is the spirit cord, divine spark or “breath of life” which flows through us.  These cords, which all things possess are the “Threads of Fate” which tie all things together.  It is when these “threads” cross that we become attached to another being or thing and thus generate more “fate” (understood by most modern cultures as karma.)  It is the series of all athems which bind all things together in the great tapestry of Fate.  It is both a completion and destruction of the tapestry, by resolving all fate that we shall finally achieve the Great Work as a universe and allow the Godhead to be whole again.  Each athem by itself also binds together each part of the individual anthropos.  It is through the athem that we make contact with entities of spirit and, indeed, our own spirits.  This is because the athem is in constant contact with the spiritual forces of the universe.  It is interesting that the Egyptians seem to have believed that life ended when the ka left the body, which seems to support our analysis here.  (http://artesmagicae.blogspot.com/2010/08/following-is-second-chapter-from-book.html)

The fetch is the portion of the soul complex that truly lives on after we are no more. It is what truly carries wyrd from life to life. (http://artesmagicae.blogspot.com/2010/08/fetch-true-spirit-and-meaning-of-life.html)

(Note that he is using the word fetch differently than I used above, much closer to what I mean by Godself.  Read his whole articles to understand his use of it, which is Germanic in origin, whereas my usage comes from Feri.)

So, according to Dr. R.J. Thompson, we have the fetch (Godself) carrying wyrd between lifetimes, with the wyrd residing in the athem.  These cords, the athem, the "Threads of Fate", is what I'm talking about here.

The Godself, the (Greater) Neshamah is made up of three parts in Kabbalah, the (lesser) neshamah, the chiah, and the yechidah.  In the way I see these, the (lesser) neshamah contains our capacity for love, the chiah contains our True Will, and the yechidah our Divine Sparks, which are also the Threads of Fate.  The yechidah is the athem Dr. Thompson talked about.  It connects us with the Divine, to which all things are connected.  The yechidah is our Soul Root, which grows in the soil of the Divine.  Picture an upside down tree, with the roots in the ground above and the branches reaching for the sky below, which is our world, the World of Action.

These "Threads of Fate" are Neshamah's web.  Just as Fetch's web, the aka threads, connect to all things she has touched, to the Fetch of others, just as Talker's web, our social network, connects to all beings we interact with, to their Talkers, Godself's web, the Threads of Fate, connect her to the Godself of all others, and to the Divine, which is the same thing.  She, too, sits at the centre of her web, for only our own Fate, our own Destiny is relevant to us.  Other's actions effect us, other's threads cross ours, but only our own Fate matters in the end.

The Lady of Shalott, by
William Holman Hunt, 1905

Which brings us back to the passage from Riding Windhorses and my original mantra.  Other's actions, other's threads, be they aka threads, social threads, or Threads of Fate, effect us, influence us, come into contact with us.  We are effected by them.  When people enter our personal universe, they are part of that universe, and each one has an effect, like the butterfly flapping its wings in chaos theory or the observer in the slot experiment in quantum physics.  But ultimately, they are responsible for their actions and I'm responsible for mine.  It's not what they do to me that matters, it's how I respond.  It isn't what they give me, it's what i do with what they give me.  It is my web, my weave, my tapestry, my personal universe, and I am responsible for it.  I make my own decisions, I do my own actions, and I am responsible for what I do, not for what they do.  If I take responsibility for their actions and their decisions, I give them power over my life, I submit my life force to them.  Same thing if I let them dictate my decisions and actions.

I am the Guardian of the Centre.  I am Witch.  I loose and I bind.  I spin, I measure, I cut.  I weave the tapestry of my life.  I am responsible for it, and I have Power over it.  I am Human, but I am also Divine.  I am Fey.  I am God Herself.  I am the Nagara.  I am the Tvennr.  I am the Grimr.  I am the Vordr.  I am the Heidr.  I am all things.  And I am nothing.  It is my world, my universe.  I am the Centre.  I am the Circumference of all.

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

Six New Books, From Inanna to the Grail, From Mongolia to the Modern World

Yesterday, I bought three new books from Night Heron, the local used bookstore, and ordered three from Amazon, which will be here in a couple weeks.

Starhawk is the author of the famous book Spiral Dance.  She is a Feri initiate who went out and did her own thing.  This book, Truth or Dare, is a look at the nature of Power and how to find us in our lives to create change in our lives and communities.  It uses the myth of the descent of Inanna, in several different retellings, to present this idea.  It uses the descent to show how we need to identify and shed off the things that hold us back.

This book, Elements of the Grail Tradition by John Matthews, looks at the test, trials, and initiations found in the Arthurian and Grail legends in the pursuit of the Grail, from the most ancient known Celtic legends up through the Middle Ages, to identify what the Grail truly is.

This book is by my friend Francesca De Grandis.  I've been wanting to get Goddess Initiation since I picked it up in the Tattered Cover down in Denver a year or so ago, before I knew Francesca and didn't notice who the author was.   I was very excited to find it here in town.  The book is basically a year long lesson plan on how to find your inner goddess and your priesthood.

This book, The Book of Qualities by J. Ruth Gendler, is basically a book of personifications of common human qualities.  A friend of mine from of mine from high school posted a piece about Beauty from it on Facebook and it really touched me, so I found it and ordered it.  It looks amazing.

This book is a guide to Mongolian and Siberian shamanism.  The author, Sarangerel, is actually trained in Mongolia.  She was born in the US but of a Mongol bloodline, and traveled to Mongolia and did the work and study and research to truly know the tradition and the people of her ancestors, then share it with world.  This book is her introduction to the tradition, including rituals and techniques.  It is one of the major sources for one of the books I'm reading, Calling Down the Spirits.

This is Francesca De Grandis's newest book, just recently released.  It looks amazing.  It is about finding and realizing your dreams, seeing your own beauty, and finding your freedom.  I'm really looking forward to it arriving.


FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

On Priests, Priestesses, Bridges, and the Abyss...

The Priest and Priestess have been coming up a lot in my conversations with people and in my mind and Fetch.  I've talked off and on about this role, but haven't really put it all together.  In this post, I'll use Priestess generically, though I mean both Priest and Priestess.  (On a side note, Priestess was originally Priestress, which I like.)

Rope bridge in Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom.

To me, the role of Priestess is that of a Bridge.  The Priestess joins the mundane and the divine together through her.  Over that Bridge, the Ineffable, the Divine, G-d, God Herself, crosses over and comes to earth, comes to the people.  Over that Bridge, the people cross over and come to heaven, come to God Herself.  The Priestess is liminal.  She isn't of the "common people".  She isn't G-d (depending how you look at it).  She's in between, one foot in each world.  Like Witch.  Taboos and Geises are part of every culture, every religion, every tradition.  These are the rules that define the interactions of the members with each other and with the gods or spirits.  Most importantly, they define the boundary between Human and Divine.  The Priestess Bridges that boundary and allows the crossing over, unites the two sides of the line.  But that Bridge is only necessary and only important and only seen for what it is if the boundary already exists.  It's the image in Judaism of the curtain that separates the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and the Temple.  There is so much symbolism in these two structures.  Only the High Priest could cross over, pass through that curtain and enter the Holy of Holies, and only once a year, to sprinkle blood on the Mercy Seat.  The taboo was broken once a year by him to bring unite the people with G-d.  But this was still dangerous.  There was a rope tied to his leg and bells on his clothes, so if he was struck dead, the bells would cease and they would pull him out.  There is an inherent danger in breaking of taboo.  This idea of a Bridge and the Priestess is very important in my practice and my beliefs.  Witch is the Priest and the Priest is the Bridge.  It's jumping the broom, crossing the hedge, it's the joining of heaven and earth and earth and the lower world in the axis mundi, the compass outside space and time yet including all of it, the centre which is the circumference of all.

Going back to one sentence I just said, if the Bridge isn't needed if the boundary, the taboo, the geise, doesn't exist, why have the boundary in the first place?  Wouldn't it be better to have no separation between Divine and Human?  No boundary means no Bridge and no separation, right?  Isn't this what we want, union with the Divine?  At first glance, it seems like it.  But we are Human.  Without the boundary to begin with, we don't see Human as one with the Divine, we see the Divine as one with Human.  We can't see the Divine because we are looking into a mirror with Human eyes and only seeing our self, and not just our self, but only the mundane aspect of our self.  We miss the Divine and so end up creating a separation between Human and Divine, and unlike the taboo boundary, this is a boundary we can't see and so can't cross.  We aren't aware it's there in the first place in order to cross it.  The taboo, the geise, creates a boundary we can see and are aware of.  We can point at it and say, on that side is the Divine and on this side is the Human.  So when it's time to cross it, to break the taboo or geise, we are able to see both the boundary, the Abyss, and to see the Bridge, the Priestess, which is us.  Before that point, the Priestess crosses for us and connects us, showing glimpses.  But when the time comes, like the Hebrew High Priest entering the Holy of Holies, we become the Priestess and the Bridge and cross to the Divine.

Kai no kuni Saruhashi no shinsha
no zu, ‘A True View of the Monkey
Bridge in the Province of Kai’
by Shotei Hokuju.  Image
from JapanesePrints-London.

One way to look at the Bridge is as spanning the Abyss.  When I talk about the Abyss, I usually am referring to the concept in Kabbalah.  In Kabbalah, there are four worlds.  The first, Assiah, the World of Action, corresponding to Malkuth and is the physical world (where actions, change, can occur) is separated from the second, Yetzurah, the World of Forms, corresponding to Yesod, Hod, and Netzach, by the Firmament.  Yetzurah is separated from the third world, Briah, the World of Creation, corresponding to Tipherah, Geburah, and Chesed, by the Veil.  Briah is separated from the fourth world (or is it the first?), Atziluth, the World of Emanations, corresponding to Binah, Chokmah, and Kether, by the Abyss.

Below the Abyss are the things we humans, with our human minds, can understand.  Across the Abyss are the Supernal Triad, Kether, Chokmah, and Binah, which can't be understood with the human mind or intuition, intellect or emotions.  Any words we use for the things across the Abyss don't come close to describing them.  It is more this abyss of ability to comprehend that forms the Abyss than anything else.  Part of it is protection for us, lest we be destroyed or go insane.

In the midst of the Abyss is Da'ath, Knowing, the "false Sephirah".  Depending on who you ask, Da'ath is either a trap or a treasure.  It's the "false Sephirah" because it doesn't really exist on the Kabbalah Tree of Life.  The Sephiroth are eternal, they are the Divine in this world and are the building blocks, the DNA if you will, of creation.  Da'ath only exists in the moment, only when you're in it, then it's gone.  It's a trap because you can get lost in the Abyss if you're not careful, and find only insanity.  It's a gift because it is a glimpse at the Supernal Triad.  In Da'ath, you get a taste of what's beyond, a glimpse that changes you, for Da'ath is intimate knowing.  What you see becomes a part of you.  But you can't stay there without losing yourself in the Abyss.

Da'ath, sitting in the Abyss, connecting the two worlds, is a Bridge.  It connects that which we can comprehend to that which we can't.  Da'ath is the Priestess.  She stands in the Abyss, holding the Divine in one hand and the Human in the other and brings them together.  She helps the people get that glimpse across the Abyss that will change them forever.

Though there were concepts of Priestess that I encountered before then, my current understanding of Priestess started with my understanding of the Hebrew letter Chet and the Chatoteret.