Autumn Equinox: A Time to Remember...

The most significant dates in the solar year are the Winter Solstice and the Summer Solstice, the longest night and the longest day.  These are significant because they are the points where the sun is nearest to one of the poles and furthest from the other.  The Winter Solstice marks the end of shortening days and begins the lengthening of days, and the Summer Solstice the opposite.  But half way between these days are two other significant days.  The Spring and Autumn Equinoxes mark the point where the sun passes the equator as it moves from one pole to the other.  The Solstices are liminal because they are transitions between the growing days that the shrinking days, the shrinking nights and the growing nights.  The Equinoxes are liminal because they are the transitions between the sun in the north and the sun in the south.  All liminal times and places are of importance and can't be ignored.

Yesterday marked the Autumn Equinox, half way between the Summer and Winter Solstices, the sun crossing from the northern hemisphere to the southern.  It is considered the transition from Summer to Autumn.  In astrological terms, the Equinox marks the sun moving from Virgo into Libra, the Virgin to the Scales.  The Coptic word for the constellation of Libra was Lambadia meaning "station of propitiation".  In Arabic, it's Al Zubena, meaning "redemption" or "purchase".  Around this time of year (from sunset of the 29th to sunset of the 30th) is Rosh Hashana in the Jewish religious calendar.  Rosh Hashana means "head of the year" and is the Jewish New Year.  In the Tanakh, it is often called Yom Ha-Zikkaron, the Day of Rememberance, because it's a day of looking back at the past year.  One tradition is Tashlikh meaning "casting off", in which you walk to the nearest moving water and empty your pockets into it, symbolizing casting off your sins from the year before.  Which fits well with the Coptic and Arabic words for the constellation of Libra.

An obvious image that comes to mind is Ma'at in Egyptian mythology weighing the heart of the dead against the weight of a feather.  Ma'at is the goddess of law and morality, whose justice is extreme and unbending, but she also regulates the movements of the stars, the changing of the seasons, the actions of all mortals and gods, and is the Order that brought the cycles and constants of creation out of the chaos that came before.  In Genesis, the is the bohu that is order in the tohu, the Chaos.  Ma'at can be seen as Ananke, the three-headed serpentine goddess of Necessity, Fate, and Destiny, the twisting of her and her mate Chronos, Time, their coils twisting around each other, causing the turning of the stars and seasons, and the actions of mortals and gods.  Just as the Egyptian gods are bound by Ma'at, the Greek gods are bound by Ananke and her daughters, the Fates, and the Norse gods are bound by the Norns.

Here begins Autumn, and the march toward Winter, the time of the Ana and the Arddhu in Feri, of Wisdom and the elder years of life as he head toward the death of Winter.  This time of year is a time of balance, redemption, forgiveness, and Fate.  It is a time to remember Her, "Old Fate, the major deity of all true witches."

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

Nine Acts of Witchcraft Become the Three Grimr, Part 1, Nourishment...

In 2009 and 2010, I wrote a series of ten posts on the first nine acts of witchcraft.  These posts were an analysis of the nine acts, the nine changes, G-d did at the beginning of Genesis which brought about the creation of the world.  I looked at them in sequential order as they occurred over the seven days in the myth.  I'd like to take another look at these acts by looking at them in a different way.

The nine acts are:

1. Let there be light.  (link)
2. Let there be a firmament.  (link)
3. Let the waters under heaven be gathered.  (link)
4. Let the earth put forth.  (link)
5. Let there be lights in the firmament.  (link)
6. Let the waters swarm and let fowl fly.  (link)
7. Let the earth bring forth the living creature.  (part 1) (part 2)
8. Let us make man in our image.  (link)
9. And he rested.  (link)

People usually focus on there being seven days, but few ever mention that there are nine acts.  The number nine doesn't occur often in Hebrew texts and thoughts compared to other numbers, but is is very common in Norse and Germanic myth.  Among many other occurances of the number, there are nine worlds, Odin hung on the Tree, a sacrifice by himself to himself, for nine days, and nine of the gods survive Ragnarok.  Also, in Greek myth, there are nine muses.  In Robert Cochrane's letters, you circle the alter three time three (9) times for the Maid, three times six (18 which is 9 time 2) times for the Mother, and three times nine (36) times for the Hag.  Also, he indicates nine Rites or Knots of the year during which the male and female clans would come together.

But nine is always related to three in myth, as is six.  Six is three sets of twins, and nine three sets of three.  When you look at the nine acts as groups of three chronologically, not much emerges.  In the first trinity, we see separation, separation, coming together.  In the second, we see three things coming forth.  In the third, we coming forth, making, resting.  While these sets are interesting and shouldn't be ignored, they don't form any patterns that are common for all three sets.  But if we group them by taking each one in the chronological grouping and put them with each in the next set and so far, some interesting details emerge.

Let there be light.  Let the earth put forth.  Let the earth bring forth living creatures.

Working backwards, we see the the earth bringing the living creature, and the earth putting forth plants.  The connection here between the two is easy to see.  The earth brings forth both.  The interesting thing is there are two words here.  Let the earth put forth uses dasha (דָּשָׁא), but when the earth obeys, it brings forth, yatsa' (יָצָא).  Dasha is to sprout, to grow green.  Yatsa' is to put forth, to depart or cause to depart.  So it sprouts, then grows up, out, away from the ground.  But G-d tells the land to bring forth, yatsa', the living creature.  And all the living things of the earth (not of the water or the air) are brought forth, pushed out of the ground.  And then, it says, G-d makes, 'asah (עָשָׂה), fashions all of them.  So they come forth, then are formed.

But back to the first triune, the first of the Grimr.  The first two are easily connected, the earth bringing forth.  Out of the earth they come.  But how does that connect to the first?  Let there be light.  To see the connection, we must understand nature and cycles.  Let's start with the creatures.  To begin with, they only eat plants.  Only later do some eat other creatures.  Plants.  So animals, the third part, eat plants, the second part.  So what do plants live on?  If animals get their energy from plants, where do plants get their energy?  Light.  Ah ha, light!  The first part.  So light feeds the plants and plants feed the animals.  Now this triune starts to make sense and come together.

But there's another element here.  The plants and animals come out of the earth, but where does the light come out of?  Let's look back a bit:

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.
3 And God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light. 

And afterwards:

3 And God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.

So, before light, there was the earth, darkness, waters, and the spirit of G-d (The four elements.  Earth and water.  The spirit is wind, air.  The darkness is black fire, see The earth was (tohu va-vohu), chaos and void...)  And it's the darkness that the light is intermingled with, not the rest.  So it would seem that the light came out of the darkness, just as the plants and animals came out of the earth.  There is a verse somewhere in the Zohar that says that light is brightest that comes out of the darkness.  The black fire of inspiration brings forth light, illumination, Truth.

So the darkness, the fire, brings forth light, and the earth brings forth plants, then animals.  The light nourishes the plants.  The plants nourish the animals.  The three are a cycle, the three become one.  On the first day.  On the third day.  On the sixth day.  The first act.  The fourth act.  The seventh act.

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

Awake, Oh Sleeper!

Are the Christian End Times coming soon, with the Tribulation, the pouring out of the Vials of Wrath?  Is the Norse Ragnarok coming soon, with an endless winter and a war like no one has seen before?  Is there a great catastrophe Apkallu?  Will the US economy collapse soon?  Will the world end on December 21, 2012?

Will the Age of Aquarius start this year?  Will there be world peace?  One stable world government?

Every culture, every religion, every faith, foretells trouble coming at some point, or great peace and prosperity.  Regardless of who you ask, no one thinks the world will stay the same.  All prophecies are of change.  Even politicians foretell change.

But when it comes down to it, all we can do is do our own work and help those we can. Whether we move toward a stable one world government or towards complete anarchy, it's not what happens that matters but how we respond. Our responses bring learning and growth, and we move forward on our journey. If all things stayed the same, we would be stagnant and never grow, never change, never move forward.

Our world is very turmoilous, but we walk the border between this world and other worlds even more turmoilous than ours.  In the liminal space, change is the only constant.  If you don't change, you die.

Don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself.  Experience your world today, in this moment, let change take a hold of you and move you forward.  The journey is nothing more than placing one foot forward, then another.  Live in the now.  Respond to the now.  Make a difference in the now.  Don't waste the now.  Each moment is Da'ath, Knowing.  Each moment, we stand in the Abyss and are changed by it.  Unless we are asleep.  Awaken, oh sleeper, leave your dreams of tomorrow, your memories of yesterday, and see the landscape before you, see the now, step forward, and change!

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

The Return of the Dead

Yesterday, I received a new book in the mail.  A few years ago, I read a book called Witches, Werewolves, and Fairies: Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages by Claude Lecouteux.  I checked it out of the library and liked it so much that even though I had read the entire book, I bought a copy.  This new book is also by him and I am looking forward to reading it.

 The Return of the Dead: Ghosts, Ancestors, and the Transparent Veil of the Pagan Mind looks like a very interesting book to me.  Here's what the Amazon Product Description says:

"How the ghost stories of pagan times reveal the seamless union existing between the world of the living and the afterlife

• "Demonstrates how Medieval Christianity transformed the more corporeal ghost encountered in pagan cultures with the disembodied form known today

• "Explains how the returning dead were once viewed as either troublemakers or guarantors of the social order

"The impermeable border the modern world sees existing between the world of the living and the afterlife was not visible to our ancestors. The dead could--and did--cross back and forth at will. The pagan mind had no fear of death, but some of the dead were definitely to be dreaded: those who failed to go peacefully into the afterlife but remained on this side in order to right a wrong that had befallen them personally or to ensure that the law promoted by the ancestors was being respected. But these dead individuals were a far cry from the amorphous ectoplasm that is featured in modern ghost stories. These earlier visitors from beyond the grave--known as revenants--slept, ate, and fought like men, even when, like Klaufi of the Svarfdaela Saga, they carried their heads in their arms.

"Revenants were part of the ancestor worship prevalent in the pagan world and still practiced in indigenous cultures such as the Fang and Kota of equatorial Africa, among others. The Church, eager to supplant this familial faith with its own, engineered the transformation of the corporeal revenant into the disembodied ghost of modern times, which could then be easily discounted as a figment of the imagination or the work of the devil. The sanctified grounds of the church cemetery replaced the burial mounds on the family farm, where the ancestors remained as an integral part of the living community. This exile to the formal graveyard, ironically enough, has contributed to the great loss of the sacred that characterizes the modern world."

Testing, please ignore...

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Test, test, test, test,

Establishment and Prophecy

Statue of Peter Waldo.
Image from Wiki Commons.

The year is 1179.  The place is Rome.  It is the Third Lateran Council, and a small group of men stand before Pope Alexander III.  One of them is named Peter Waldo.  They are known as Waldenses or Poor Men of Lyon.  They have come to Rome to ask permission to preach, after the Archbishop of Lyon had forbidden.  The answer was no, they could only preach with the permission of the bishops.  They ignored this decision and preached anyway.  One thing they denied in their preaching was the authority of the church.

Painting of St. Francis of
Assisi.  Image from Wiki Commons.

The year is 1209.  The place is Rome.  Twelve men stand before Pope Innocent III.  One of them is Francis of Assisi and the other eleven are his disciples.  They have come to Rome to ask permission to preach and to found a new order.  Innocent gave his blessing and the Poor Franciscans were formed.  Francis would found two more orders and was declared a saint after his death.  One of his main messages was against the gathering of wealth by the Church and by clergy.  He said that to follow Jesus is to give up all you have and give it to the poor.

Jan Hus at the Stake.
Image from Wiki Commons.

The year is 1414.  The place is Constance, Germany.  It is the Council of Constance, and John Hus, after being promised safe conduct by the Pope and Emperor, is arrested and put to death.  His message was that the Church needed to be reformed and return to the scriptures.

Throughout history, there have been reformers, wanting to change the established order.  Sometimes the order has listened and changed.  Sometimes they have tried to crush the dissenting voice.  But either way, change has come, sometimes immediately, sometimes centuries later.  You can find this pattern in every place and time on earth.  It is the natural order of things.  Change occurs, then settles into the norm and stops changing, then prophecy or reform or dissent come and stir things up, then things settle again.  And the cycle continues.  Most of my ideas on this came from the book A History of Medieval Christianity - Prophecy and Order by Jeffrey Russell.

These two Twins are one way to view history.  Establishment and Prophecy.  Order and Chaos.  Orthodoxy and Heresy.  A constant dance between the two.  Establishment breeds prophecy, prophecy changes establishment and brings a new establishment.  The reformers of one generation are the establishment of the next.

In Taoism, the established order is Yin.  Yin is settled, still, static, passive.  It only acts if Yang acts on it.  Change, revolution, is Yang.  Yang is dynamic, moving, active.  There can be no change without Yang, but there can be no stability without Yin.

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

Spirits of Place, Magic of Place

Lake Marie in the Snowys near
Laramie.  The area around 10,000 feet
I was referring to.  Image from PlanetWare.

In the mountains at 10,000 feet, all alone, crystal lakes, aspen and pine groves, bare rock peaks, thin air, simple white and yellow flowers (the higher in elevation you go, the closer flowers come to only being white, but even at 12000 feet, you can find a few white flowers), a few deer in the distance, on the edge of the clearing. No humans for miles. The wind in my hair. So peaceful, I feel at one with the wind, floating, flying, light as a feather, relaxed. A place of old spirits that don't really notice humans.

An aspen grove.  Image
from Chomper's Chatter.

In an aspen grove, nothing but green leaves and white bark. I can't see more than five feet in all directions. The ground is soft and mossy under my feet. The air smells like new life. I can't feel a breeze, but the can hear the wind playing in the leaves and branches above me, I can feel their pleasure to dance in the wind that is my heartblood. I put my hand on a tree trunk and she welcomes me and I feel the life of the whole grove, hundreds of trees, from newly spouted saplings to ancient trunks soaring 50 feet above me. I come upon a little stream at the center, crystal clear water over black soil and grey rocks. A slight babble as the water slowly meanders between the trees. I've forgot about humans, forgot about everything but the life around me. Many spirits, one spirit, and me in its heart.

A rain forest in Oregon very
similar to the one I was remembering.
Image from 123RF.

In a dense forest in Oregon, the canape soars two hundred feet above my head. It is dark as twilight down here at their roots. The underbrush rise above my head, with smaller trees that love the shade rising above these bushes, reaching for the douglas fir above. Ferns and other plants are at my feet as I walk silently around them. I lean over and pick sweet clover and eat the leaves, so energizing, so strong, so unique. I can't hear or feel the wind. The air is so still. Birds sing above me. The air is so moist you can taste it. My skin shouts for joy as it drinks deep. I can't see far through the underbrush, but the soaring pillars and the vault high above bring to mind a cathedral in England, with the same awe and sense of huge space. But in the cathedrals in England, you feel man reaching for God; here, all you feel is God, nothing reaching, just presence. There are more spirits than you can count, all playing, all interacting, but slow, timeless, for there is no time here.

A pool and tree in the canyon
oasis I was talking about, Nacapule
Canyon.  Image from BestDay.com.

In the hills in Mexico, in the middle of the desert. We walk up the narrow canyon and turn a corner and it comes to life. Not the brambles and cacti of the land below, but bright greens and blues, like the feather of a peacock. The palms tower above us, but are dwarfed by the rock above.  After the dryness of the desert, the moisture is suffocating in this desert heat, but I revel in it. The spirits here are quiet, sleepy, waiting. We are intruders, but they aren't concerned. Humans come, humans go, but the spirits remain.

The glacier just below the Lower Saddle
in the Tetons, where I slept the
night before attempting the summit
of the Grand.  Image from
jcross' personal site on MIT's server.

On the great rock saddle that connects the Grand Teton to the Middle Teton, way up here at probably 11000 feet. There is no plant or animal life up here, just the rocks and the humans camped here. I look out one way across Jackson Hole,. way below me, like I'm on the edge of a canyon. It seems so remote, so far away. I walk a hundred yards and look out the other side, toward Idaho, and it is just as remote. On my left and right, the mountains, so severe, so massive, rise above me. There is nothing here but rock and wind. The night before was dark as pitch, but the sun now is so bright. The thin air is so clear. I breathe heavy, but I'm not out of breath. I feast on the clear clean air. I raise my hands and become one with the wind. It's chilly way up here, even though its July, and the night before was frigid. It had been warmer when at the end of the day, in the last stretch before the saddle as we hiked through the glacier that is now below us on the Jackson Hole side. Soon, we will head on up the Grand Teton. Up here, all is ancient. No tree feels as ancient as these rocks below us and above us. The spirits here are unconcerned by our presence.  We are gnats that they could flatten easily, but why bother? We're not that important.

A canal with swans in Salisbury.
All our pictures of that trip aren't
digital, but this looks a lot like
it, but wider.  Image from Trip Advisor.

Sitting by a canal in Salisbury, England. The man made banks rich with bright green grass, rolling down to the crystal water in which the ducks and swans play. To the south, an old wooden water wheel on the side of an old wooden mill, so rustic, like something off a post card, but it's not famous enough for post cards here. The groomed trees rise above us in a perfect row, spaced so the leaves almost touched. This small city has existed far longer that the United States has, let alone towns in Wyoming, and it has had people here for much longer. There is no separating nature from man here, for man has been here way to long to do that. But the beauty is breathtaking, the balance of human and nature. I am at peace and relaxed.  We sit here for a while before we head to the cathedral. This spot, not on any tourist map, and unknown to even many residents, has captivated us for now. The spirits here are playful, more active than a forest or a mountain.  They are at harmony with us, not from indifference or not noticing us, but because humans are such a part of their world. The spirits laugh in the wind and play in the swiftly flowing water, glad for life, glad for this place to play.

Time Square in New York City.
Image from the midweek post.

I stand in the middle of New York City, in Time Square, cars fill the
streets, bumper to bumper, all rushing to their destination. The buildings
tower above me, the sun reflecting of their windows. Everywhere is movement and sound. My pulse raises, matching the flow of humanity. My heart beats the rhythms, in my mind I see the ever changing patterns dancing across the map in my head. There's no nature here, but there is life, a fast paced, roaring, torrent of life, pulling at me, filling me. I vibrate with it.  The spirits here rush about and revel in the energy. They've known humanity for so long, they are humanity, the spirits of humanity, of technology, of progress. The movement, the stress, the rush, the flow of humanity is worship to them and I feel them in my bones as strongly as the spirits of the mountains or the forest. The life of this place, so different than that of the wilderness, is still its Twin, the balance of the life of the wilderness. There is magic here, but a different magic, a roaring magic and moves fast and ever changes.

Where do you find magic?

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss