HPS: (Placing finger to lips) Shhhhhhh. There is a secret here. Do you wish to know what it is?
Seekers answer “yes.”
HPS: Very well, then. The Great Secret is this: Your life—and the world you live it in—is a beautiful and terrifying…but instructive illusion.
That which makes up your particular and personal illusion is behind that Veil.
The purpose of your life—and yours, and yours—is to discover how to discover what is behind the Veil.
And then to do it.
Simple, isn’t it? (Shaking her head, ‘no.’) But take heart. The journey you are on right now will bring you at least a few steps closer to understanding.
In the Place of Perfect Equilibrium, I stand watch over the Gateway of Knowing. Have you any questions?
(When questioning comes to an end or no one speaks…) It is well. Now, pass on and continue your journey.
The Magician: And just where do you think you’re going?
The Fools probably answer that they are seeking enlightenment.
The Magician: Ah. And where do you intend to find it? (word the question to fit their answer.)
The Fools only answer will be that they don’t know but that they need to cross the bridge.
The Magician: As I suspected. You haven’t a clue. Now listen up. You can’t just go wandering around expecting things to fall into place. The Multiverse doesn’t work that way. First you need to decide exactly what it is that you’re looking for. Enlightenment isn’t good enough. Each of you is looking for something different. It may be as specific as “How will I make next month’s rent.” or as general as “What do I need to do next in my life?”
But it’s a waste of your time and the Multiverse’s to ask the Multiverse for next month’s rent. Deep down inside, each of you knows what you truly need to do or to happen to turn your life into something that feeds your soul. Unfortunately, it usually isn’t something you’d choose to do for fun. Do you dare to ask for what you truly need? If you do, the Multiverse will open the way for you. But will you have the intelligence to recognize it and the courage and the will it follow it?
Take a minute and think about it.
And when you decide what you’re looking for, walk to the center of the bridge, reach up, (Magician raises his right hand which is holding a double ended wand) connect with the Multiverse and ask for guidance. Then channel the gift it gives you into manifestation. (Magician points downward with his left hand.)
Then you can go wandering around expecting things to fall into place.
I’m here to give some advice to a bunch of Fools who are starting a journey to enlightenment. And I know I’m in the right place, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more perfect bunch of Fools.
I’m here to tell you that you don’t need to go wandering around in the woods to find enlightenment.
It’s right here.
All the beauty and perfection of the Multiverse is right here and right now.
All you have to do is be still… and reach for it.
But because you’re a bunch of Fools, you won’t listen to me. You’ll go running around looking for something you already have.
So here’s some advice. If you’re going to be Fools, at least be divine Fools. Let go of the cares and worries and responsibilities of your everyday world.
Because you’re not there anymore.
You’re here, between the worlds, searching for something that’s right under your nose.
Only a madman would do that—so be divinely mad. Forget all your limitations and expectations.
Be like children—open to anything and accepting of everything.
Last year I was honored to be asked to write a “Fool’s Journey Through the Tarot” ritual for SunFest 2016. My first response was to run away screaming “Nooooooooo!” I know from previous experience that there is nothing more time consuming and brain warping than writing, organizing, and directing a large scale ritual.
And then it dawned on me that The Fool’s Journey was exactly what I’ve been writing about on this blog for the past several years and it is exactly what my first book, Forging the Blade (which will soon be available), is about.
And after doing the blog, the book, and countless readings for clients, I was a firm believer in the transformative, life changing power of tarot.
So how could I not share this amazing tool with my community?
“OK,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
Fortunately, my community is composed of many amazingly talented people who volunteered to be in or help with the ritual, who serve on Other Worlds Of Wonder, the non-profit board that runs SunFest each year, and other friends who own Ffynnon, beautiful land dedicated to hosting pagan events.
It all came together nicely.
Even the weather co-operated.
We took three days to do the ritual. Each day the ritual participants, or Fools, journeyed through Ffynnon Forest to meet the major arcana tarot cards.
The first day was the Journey to Adulthood: The Magician through The Chariot.
The second day was the Journey to Higher Knowledge: Strength through Temperance.
The third day was the Journey to Enlightenment: The Devil through The World.
The response to the ritual was overwhelming. As I moved through the festival, visiting with friends and organizing the ritual, people were constantly stopping me to tell me how much the ritual meant to them. Some were actually in tears as they told me what a difference it had made in their lives and how much it gave them to think about. Many folks at the festival knew very little or nothing about the tarot, but they stopped me to say that after meeting the cards they were going to buy a book and a deck and start studying. And the children loved it. Many begged to go through again. OWOW made beautiful, free children’s tarot decks available and the kids played with them constantly. But, best of all, the spiritual power of the tarot energized the community. OWOW has had people volunteering to help with next year’s festival, paying a year in advance to come to next year’s festival, and volunteering to be in next year’s ritual.
For the next 21 days I will present a picture of each of the major arcana cards as they appeared in Ffynnon Forest and what they said to the Fools who found them.
Telly Savalas pretty much nailed it.
This is, indeed, the big question.
The one we wake up in the wee hours worrying and wondering about.
Because, deep in our souls, we know that Dean Martin was right. You’re nobody till somebody loves you.
Oh dear, I’m showing my age here aren’t I?
Having a sweetie, a lover, close friends and family is wonderful. It’s what Valentine’s Day is all about. It makes our hearts sing and the world look rosy. It means we don’t wake up quite as often with the big question heavy on our hearts. But even if you have the happiest marriage and children and friends that adore you, sometimes you still wake up wondering.
This is one of the reasons we have religions. If you pay attention, almost all of them are about answering this question. And their answer is pretty much unanimous:
“The whole freakin’ Multiverse, Baby! We are all somebody.”
But unfortunately, most of us don’t feel this Love. If we did, the only thing we would wonder about when we woke up at night would be where the bathroom was.
We live suspended in and permeated by a spirit soup called the Multiverse. We are even more unaware of it than the air we breathe. This is because that soup, along with all our non-physical bodies, exist in other dimensions besides the three we live our day to day lives in.
Image by Faerie-nuf
These other dimensions are not “above” us, they are all around us. They are not super-natural, they are natural. The vast majority of the beings who inhabit these dimensions are powerful, loving, and ever-so-willing to help us. But we must always ask. They can do very little if we don’t ask.
I ask for help and guidance every day—often several times a day, and my life and the lives of my clients, friends, and family are so much richer, safer, happier, and healthier because of the responses I receive.
So who are these beings?
image by ericgerlach.com
Most people who deal with other dimensions and their inhabitants see a spiritual hierarchy, with the Divine One, creator of all, at the top and the material world at the bottom. Here is a quick list and description of some of the members of that hierarchy from top to bottom.*
The Divine One: Our creator, Universal Life Force, or whatever you want to call it. We are it and it is us. There is no part of us that is not of The Divine. Of course it loves us. I was raised Presbyterian, and so as a child, this was my only option. It hears our prayers but we can’t “hear” it. The Divine One is, as my catechism said, infinite, eternal, and everlasting. The Divine One is also unknowable. In my experience, conversations with it are one sided. It has nothing to say to you, but when you are in communion with it there is a beautiful feeling of peace and love. Gods and Goddesses: Most people who worship gods and goddesses see them as facets of The Divine One. As such they are infinitely powerful, but they possess shape and personality and are much more satisfying to talk to than The Divine One. And many love us unconditionally. But each one has an agenda and some would have no qualms about using you as a pawn. Nothing personal, just business. It’s important to know as much about each god and goddess you invoke as possible. Angels and Demons: These are the messengers of the gods. In fact the word angel is derived from the Greek word angelos, which means messenger. The word demon is derived from the Greek daimon, a powerful, benevolent spirit. However, Plato, and later the neo-Platonists and Christians used the term to describe only evil or malevolent spirits. So angels are the good guys and demons are the bad guys. Both are powerful and both can be of great service. And they both really want to get to know you better. Angels have been created and charged by the Divine One, our loving creator, to aid, protect, and comfort you. There are tens of thousands of angels. A bit of research will tell you which one you need. Be sure to get the name right. Many demon names are suspiciously close to angel names. Demons wish to possess and ultimately destroy you. I strongly advise against summoning demons, no matter how useful they may seem. Saints and Ascended Masters and the Virgin Mary: These are spirits of enlightened men and women who have chosen to remain accessible to us so they can continue to advise, teach, and help us. Because they are human souls, they each have their quirks and fortes. Again, it is good to know as much as possible about the ones you invoke. Dragons: Two of them live under our house. They’ve been here for centuries. I have no doubt that they love us. They take care of us and the house and land in their own gruff, offhand way and sometimes offer to help with my healing work. They have also identified other dragons that live in some of my clients. They do this because they can’t help me with them because there is already a dragon there, and dragons are very territorial. Sometimes I can talk the client’s dragon into helping me and sometimes I can’t. Dragons vary in size, color, power, and temperament, but they are all proud, powerful, self serving, and totally marvelous. There seem to be at least two types of dragons. Wild dragons, like the ones under our house, don’t belong to anyone, but can temporarily “adopt” humans. Other dragons seem to live inside some people, coiled around their souls and exerting what influence they can. They really want to establish communication with their people—mostly so they can tell them what to do, but also because they are quite fond of them. Nature Spirits, Devas, Fairies, Elementals, and Elves: These entities live close to the material plane and are adept at working with its energies. They can be quite helpful, quite mischievous, or quite harmful. Elementals are often invoked to guard the quarters of a magic circle. Working with any of the above is iffy but never boring. I have done some work with the plant devas since I love to garden and have found most of them to be sweet, sensitive souls
Power Animals: Animal spirits that are available to you for advice and to help you accomplish things on the other dimensions. Shamans say we all have several power animals. Ancestors and Ghosts: The spirits of dead people. They can be quite helpful and loving and are due honor and respect, but it is important to keep in mind that if Aunt Sally was a sweet, useless person she will be a sweet, useless spirit. Spirits of the living: Our spirits travel, both consciously and unconsciously. My older brother visits our Dumb Supper, a feast we hold at Samhain for our ancestors. It gave me quite a turn the first time he showed up. He never remembers being there, but several of us always “see” him.
To reach out to an angel or one of the mother goddesses, or a beloved ancestor, or any of the above takes a bit of practice, but it’s well worth the effort. *Sit quietly in a psychically clear, safe space. *Picture a protective shield around you that allows only good to enter. *Decide who you want to “talk” to. This is important. Each being has its strengths, weaknesses, and areas of focus. If you’re worried about a plant in your garden, talk to its plant deva, not the Divine One. *Picture them and say their name, either aloud or to yourself. *Open your heart and lovingly reach out to them. They will be there in less than an instant and they will always come. *Wait patiently for the response. It may take awhile for you to quiet your mind enough to feel the presence, but you will eventually. The feeling is amazing. And no, you’re not just making it up. *The more often you do this the easier and more wonderful it becomes. *The more often you talk to a god or goddess or whoever, the stronger and more meaningful your connection becomes. *Tell the being what you need. *Say good bye. *Say thank you. Always say thank you. *Wait patiently, your request will be fulfilled, maybe not in the exact form you envisioned, but it will come. If it doesn’t come it’s because of your karma (or the karma of the person you’re asking about)—from this life or past lives. *Next time ask what you need to do to work through your karma.
So there you have it. That’s who loves ya.
A Multiverse full of immensely powerful beings.
And that love is a priceless treasure.
Happy Valentine’s Day
* These are my opinions/beliefs, formed after years of life, research, and experience. They work for me. But books—in some cases enough books to fill many library shelves—have been written about each of these types of beings, and they don’t all agree with me.
Snowdrops. Ya gotta love ‘em.
Dainty, pure white flowers that thrive in the coldest, darkest part of the year.
In the Pacific Northwest they always arrive just before Imbolc, the festival of first light.
They reassure us that winter won’t last forever.
But for me, the arrival of these cheerful flowers triggers bittersweet memories.
The snowdrops in the picture are growing in my front yard. They used to grow next door in Patty’s front yard. We were friends and neighbors for over twenty years, and we did a lot of talking during that time. The things we talked about most were gardens and growing things.
Two years ago Patty lay dying of cancer in a hospital bed in her living-room, surrounded by grieving friends and family.
The tiny island of Gavrinis guards the turbulent entrance to Brittany’s Gulf of Morbihan.
From “Carnac, Locmariaquer, and Gavrinis” By Charles-Tanguy Le Roux. See Footnote.
To get there, we took a beautiful 10 minute boat ride from the tiny village of Lamor-Baden.
Lamor-Baden’s waterfront at low tide
Perched on the island’s highest point is a spectacular tumulus.
Actually it’s a tumulus covering a cairn, covering a dolmen.*
And it’s old. Built in 3500 BCE during the Neolithic Era, it is older than the Great Pyramid of Giza and even a few centuries older than Newgrange, its more famous Irish cousin.
And it’s really big. At 100 meters in diameter, it’s bigger than Newgrange.
And the 46 foot long passageway leading to the central chamber is made up of huge stones carved in fantastic patterns that seem to shimmer and pulse. Several sources state flatly that they are some of the most magnificent art humanity has produced, a masterpiece of universal art.
And it’s prominently placed. When it was built, sea level was much lower and it was part of the mainland. It would have overlooked a large inlet that could have served as a major Neolithic seaport.
Park service map on Gavrinis. The dotted lines show the present day coast.
And it’s a riddle of a dolmen wrapped in an enigmatic cairn inside a mysterious tumulus.
• Why was it built? Like the even older alignments at Carnac, no one knows. The ranger on Gavrinis assured me that they had found human remains at the site, but none of my other sources mention this. So was it a tomb? A temple? A public meeting place? All of the above? Some of the above? None of the above? It had to have been something really important to get a primitive farming society (at least we think it was a primitive farming society) to move all those rocks and all that dirt, and carve all those stones using only round quartz pebbles—remember, this is the Neolithic Age, no metal.
• Are those images carved so laboriously on those stones just pretty designs or do they mean something?
We know that the Egyptian temple and tomb decorations were dense with meaning because we can read the pretty pictures (hieroglyphs) carved all over them. But no Rosetta Stone exists for the Neolithic Age. We can only speculate, and we’ve done lots of that. **
• Why was the wooden outer façade burned to cinders and the passageway to the central chamber blocked and filled with rubble only a few centuries after it was built?
• Why isn’t the southeast facing entryway aligned with the rising of the Winter Solstice sun? Newgrange is aligned to the Winter Solstice sunrise which has illuminated its chambers for over 5 millennia, and it would be convenient to assume the same at Gravinis. Unfortunately, although other sources claim that the rising Winter Solstice sun shines on the back of the central chamber, the source I trust most says that this is definitely not true. The opening is just slightly too far south for this to happen.*** This means that the sun will never shine inside this structure because the sun is at its southern-most point at Winter Solstice.
Which brings me to the final small, but still fascinating, mystery of Gavrinis that no one ever mentions.
A large and venerable oak tree grows from the southern base of the tumulus, and if you look south from that, there is a large holly tree. Oaks are plentiful throughout Brittany, but hollies, although native to the area, aren’t nearly as common. This was the first one I’d seen.
They form a north-south line**** which begins with the holly tree in the south and ends with the oak tree in the north.
Winter Solstice? Oak and Holly? My pagan brain immediately spits out the ancient Celtic myth of the Oak King and the Holly King who fight for dominance every year. The Oak King always wins at Winter Solstice and begins to gain power and the Holly King always wins at Summer Solstice and begins to gain power. Their never ending battle portrays the cycle of the seasons and reminds us of the universal paradox—everything changes, yet everything remains the same. It also reveals the Mystery of Winter Solstice: Out of the heart of darkness, at the time of the Holly King’s greatest power, the light of the Oak King is reborn.
• But who planted the oak tree and the holly tree at Gavrinis?
• And are these the first ones?
• Or are they replants of a long line of oaks and hollies stretching back to when?
• Perhaps to the first Celts to inhabit the area?
• Or did the Celts get the story of the Oak King and the Holly King from the descendants of the people who built the tumulus? In that case the first trees may have been planted way back in the fourth millennium BC?
• And then there is the chivalric romance of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which a beautiful Green
The Green Knight, image by Diana Sudyka
Knight on a green stallion rides into King Arthur’s banquet hall just after Christmas carrying a sprig of holly and challenges him to a duel, which is taken up by Gawain who beheads the visitor, who then picks up his head and leaves with Gawain’s promise to come and allow him to cut off Gawain’s head next year.Could this be a “modernized” version of the ancient Celtic myth which was a “modernized” version of an ancient Neolithic myth?
We will never be able to definitively solve all the mysteries of Gavrinis. The answers are lost in the mists of time. But perhaps, at this late date, the truth isn’t as important as what we believe to be true.
A blessed and contemplative Winter Solstice to all.
*Tumulus: An ancient, earthen burial mound, barrow. Cairn: A mound of rough stones built as a memorial or landmark. Dolmen: A megalithic structure composed of a large flat stone laid on two upright ones. They appear singly or lined up to form a passageway.
** The Megalithic Science website ran an article that explains how the designs on a section of Gavrinis Stone R8 depict the integration of two astronomic cycles: The Saros cycle, made up of 19 eclipse years of 364.62 days and the Metonic Cycle, made up of 19 solar years of 365.2422 days.
This means that the people who carved these stones were able to keep a very accurate calendar and predict solar and lunar eclipses. The Chaldeans (612-539BC) were the first culture we know of that had this capability, but Gavrinis stone R8 was carved 3,000 years before the Chaldeans existed.
Another website opines that “The concentric arches engraved in the stone(s) are careful depictions of the (non-linear) standing waves generated by baritone chanting at the entrance of the passage chamber, constructed with the appropriate length and width to allow reflected sound waves to retrace the same wavepath as it moves in both directions.”
In a Notes to Ponder post, the author describes how a computer with a pattern recognition program, analyzed the patterns on a few of the passageway stones and decided that some were symbols for the number of days in a year, the exact latitude and longitude of Gavrinis, and the mathematical constant Pi. (unfortunately, no references were given) If this information is really coded into the patterns, it sounds to me like the information in the scientific part of the golden records we put in Voyager I and II. Could the Neolithic cultures have understood that eventually they would be forgotten and left these amazing monuments of stone to remind the cultures that would follow them that they existed and they too had knowledge and power?
***Carnac, Locmariaquer, and Gavrinis, Text by Charles-Tanguy Le Roux, Photographs by Yvon Boelle, Editions Ouest-France, Edilarge S.A., 2011. The Carnac Museum of Prehistory sells this booklet in their gift shop and recommends it. The author is an authority on the Neolithic Age in Brittany.
****The line definitely runs north-south, but we didn’t have a compass to determine if it runs exactly north-south; and, if so, whether it’s aligned to true or magnetic north.
***** Many believe that the Arthurian legends were set in Brittany, not England. And there are many places along the coast of Brittany named for Camelot’s inhabitants.
I have been to Stonehenge twice and was in awe of the engineering ability and sheer effort it took to build it, but the whole thing felt somber and empty, like there was nothing there for the living, and possibly never had been.
image by flicker user Viky.png
Stonehenge’s neighbor, Avebury, is a totally different story. The stones there feel good and the energy is celebratory and joyous. You could tell by the way they were laid out that they were avenues and enclosures for community festivals. The archeology also supports this.
image by www.megalithic.co.uk
So how, I had always wondered, would the standing stones of Brittany feel? They are much older, some dating back to 4500BCE—Stonehenge and Avebury date back to about 2500BCE (first stones erected) and 2600BCE respectively. So when my husband and I and Jim and Yvonne, our traveling buddies, decided we wanted to go to Paris, Craig and I put in a request to spend a week in Brittany. Jim and Yvonne were an easy sell after they’d seen pictures of a few alignments.
Le Menec Alignment at Carnac
So we rented a lovely, old farm house in Peillac.
Le Verger
which is way down in southeastern Brittany near the town of Redon.
Our neighbors were very nice.
And then we ventured out to see the stones.
The first ones we saw were the Kerzerho Allignment several miles northeast of Carnac—dozens and dozens of granite slabs and boulders all lined up in several rows and radiating energy. Walking through them was a relaxing, mind-mazing experience. Yvonne pulled out her dowsing rods, and as she walked between the rows they began rotating, pointing first toward one stone and then the next. They were never still.
I began checking how the energy moved in different stones and found that some pulled energy up out of the earth and some channeled it down from above. The flow was quite noticeable. But to make sure I wasn’t just making it up, I asked Yvonne and my husband which way the energy was moving in the stones I had tested, and they always agreed with me. However, we could find no pattern. The up and the down stones weren’t lined up opposite each other and they didn’t alternate. They seemed to be randomly dispersed.
Kermario Alagnment, image by booksfact.png
A few days later at the Kermario Alignment at Carnac I took the time to sit still and meditate with the stones. It was a bright, beautiful early autumn day and the sun felt warm and soft on my shoulders. After awhile things got very still and the world…slowed…down. “Why did they bring you here?” I asked the stones. I waited a bit and an image of the stones with a strangely dressed person touching or leaning against each one drifted into my mind and ideas began forming in my head that morphed into flashes of sentences spoken by a voice that wasn’t a voice.
“We were used for healing. But this was only one of our many uses. Since you are a healer, we’ll tell you a little bit about that small part of our work. The priests who lifted us from our beds and placed us here on the ley lines were also healers. They knew the subtle ways that earth energy and stone work on a body. Each of us has a different effect depending on how deeply we are buried in the ley line, what shape we are, and how our crystals are aligned; and the priest understood each of our talents. At the holy days villages from miles around would gather here and the priests would take each person to the stone that would help him or her most. When everyone was in place, the priests would go to their own stones, activate the entire alignment, and heal their people.
“You have already noticed that some of us pull life force up from the ley line and some pull it down from the sky, but you have drawn the wrong conclusions about how to use this energy. Those of us who pull the life force down, you think of as grounding stones, but what we are actually doing is pulling what you call air prana through the energy bodies and the physical body. The ones who pull life force up from the ley line, you think of as energizing, and they are, but they are energizing with what you call ground prana, earth energy, the stuff you need to heal the physical body.
“Now here is another small teaching for you. When you touch a stone that is pulling up earth prana, which chakra would you open and clear to receive the most benefit?”
My jaw dropped in amazement. I couldn’t believe I was being quizzed by healing stones last used by my Neolithic ancestors.
“Base chakra,” I replied, hoping I’d gotten it right.
“Yes, and for the ones pulling down air prana?”
I was about to reply “Crown chakra,” but thought again. I am a pranic healer and we are taught that the Spleen chakras pull in air prana and distribute it to the other chakras. Hoping that Master Choa had it right, I said, “Spleen.”
“Exactly,” they replied, and my respect for Master Choa went up even higher.
“This is what we can tell you about why the priests placed us here. But remember, this is just one of our many uses.”
As I felt their presence diminishing I thanked them for their teaching and their wonderful energy. Then I grabbed my husband and did a quick healing on him using the techniques the stones had taught me. I had him touch a stone that was pulling up ground prana and checked his base chakra. It felt congested, like there was too much energy coming at it all at once, so I cleared it out and the chakra was now able to take in and assimilate all the energy the stone was giving it. I waited a bit, and then I had him touch a stone that was pulling down air prana. Same story here, only with the spleen chakras. When he released the stone, I stabilized the energy and asked him how he felt.
“It felt great. Very comfortable,” he said. I had been hoping for something more spectacular, because I knew that the stones had given him an amazing amount of energy.
Me in the Kermario Allignment
As I continued to wander through the stones, feeling their strong, glowing presence, I came upon a large stone that radiated huge amounts of what I now knew to be ground prana. What would it feel like to channel all that marvelous energy through my base chakra? I opened myself and reached out to touch it.
“Don’t play with that one!” The stones were suddenly back in my head and most insistent. “You’re not ready for it.”
I sighed and contented myself with a simple touch and rejoiced in the fact that even after six thousand years the Alignments of Carnac are still alive and vibrant with healing energy.
I just read a post by John Halstead in his blog, The Allergic Pagan. It was entitled “Believing in Our Myths, Without Believing in Them”. I don’t always agree with what this guy has to say, but he always makes me think, and this post was no exception. It is definitely worth reading.
One thing it made me think about is that perhaps we don’t understand the ancient myths in the same way that their creators–the Egyptians, Celts, Greeks, Norse, etc.–did. The ancients didn’t have history, they had stories.* Some of these stories were so effective on a spiritual/emotional level that they were told and retold and eventually became myths. The myths of these cultures were as true to them as what they did yesterday, but I think they understood in a way that we don’t that there are different truths. Today we look at stories as either true or untrue, fact or fiction. If something actually happened it becomes history which we lump into the category of fact, if it didn’t we call it fiction or myth.
The Judeo-Christian god. The one, the only, image by Michelangelo
We also live in an essentially a monotheistic culture of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, etc. Your average, run-of-the-mill monotheist believes there is only one true God.** And most, but not all, monotheists believe that their myths are historically true. The fact that they are”true”, according to modern thought, makes them somehow more “right” than the Greek, Norse, Celtic, and Egyptian myths. But we pagans now have more recent stories that inspire us–The Burning Times and The Civilization of the Goddess to mention just two. And these stories are actually based on historical fact, and so, like any conservative monotheist, we insist that the stories we tell each other about them are “real truth.”
In my opinion, this is both unnecessary and spiritually counter-productive. These stories should be viewed primarily (but, not totally) as myths. When a story is told as “real, historical truth”–although I would debate whether such a thing actually exists–it, by definition, tends to become correct or incorrect, which then implies right or wrong, which then degenerates to good or bad, black and white, good guys and bad guys, and, ultimately, and here is the problem, us and them.
Myths always occurs outside of our own socio-political context and are therefore timeless. The Burning Times and The Civilization of the Goddess are events that we know actually took place in our own world and we tell them in our socio-political context:
“Between the 15th and 16th centuries the Catholic Church, the religious patriarchy of the Western World, in it’s effort to totally eradicate paganism in
Yes, we should. But what exactly should we remember? The evils of Catholocism and the Patriarchy or religious tolerance? image by magickalgraphics.com
Europe, burned almost 60,000 people at the stake, most of whom were helpless women…”
“In Neolithic times “God was a Woman”. And what is today Eastern Europe was ruled by women and The Goddess. There were no wars and everyone lived in peace, harmony, and abundance until warlike, patriarchal invaders from the steppes of Asia swept in…”
But I think it is more productive to tell these stories in a mythical context:
“Once upon a time in a kingdom far away, a king decided that everything would be better if everyone in his kingdom believed the same thing. His courts, when charged with making his desires come true, found that the people who were most different in their beliefs and whose influence was most insidious were women. To make these women confess what they believed, the judges developed cruel tortures and when the women were found guilty, they burned them alive as an example to others…”
“Once upon a time there was a land that was ruled by women. There was no war and everyone lived in peace, harmony, and abundance until the civilization was destroyed by warlike nomads…”
The take-home lesson from The Civilization of the Goddess is that Women are powerful beings capable of running a stable civilization for thousands of years. It is not that masculine values are bad and men are ruining the world.
Do you see the difference between the two tellings? When we tell these stories as actual happenings, segments of our society become villains and we are tempted to direct our anger and hate toward them instead of looking at the deeper meaning behind the events. But if we look at these stories as mythic events that happened long ago and far away they become useful spiritual lessons that do, indeed, stir up intense emotions and energies, but these emotions and energies are aimed at our own souls, not at a specific country, religion, gender, or institution. Like any other myth, they challenge each of us to change our ways of thinking and being in the world, which affects how we treat others and how we choose to exert our power in the world.
Which, actually, are the only things we can change.
Enjoy Halstead’s post!
*Herodotus (400BCE) is often called “the Father of History.” He is also called “the Father of Lies,” because not everything he wrote was accurate. Which means he was actually telling stories?
One of the greatest dangers a writer faces while doing research is getting sidetracked by an irresistible piece of trivia and wandering for hours through cyberspace and reference books. By the time he or she resurfaces, bleary eyed and sated with useless information, hours have passed—hours that could have been spent on something productive.
This happened to me, for about the bajillionth time, as I was preparing a presentation about the history of tarot. I kept running across the statement that the first playing cards didn’t appear in Europe until the early 1300’s— and they were probably Mamluk.
Mamluk playing cards had 4 suites–coins, polo sticks, swords, and cups–and 3 court cards–Kings, Viceroys, and Deputy Viceroys.
“What’s a Mamluk?” I thought. And that’s when the Mamluks grabbed me and dragged me through nearly eight centuries of fascinating history that had absolutely nothing to do with the tarot.
It all began way back in 800 CE when the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad began supplementing their military with slaves purchased from a place called Circassia in the northern Caucasus Mountains.
Circassia doesn’t exist anymore, but Circassian people still live there. And it’s still sort of the Lake Woebegone of Eastern Europe, where all the men are strong,
Modern Circassians
all the women are good looking,
Modern Circassian
and all the children are above average.
The medieval Circassian slaves were such excellent fighters and strategists that they were given more and more power and responsibility. Any historian would have told the caliphs this was a bad idea, but who listens to historians?
They eventually grew more powerful than the caliphs who owned them and formed a military regime that dominated the Middle East for over eight centuries. They called themselves Mamluks (Arabic for slaves).
Mamluk–artist unknownBaybars (maybe), artist unknown–at least by me.
In 1260, Baybars, a Mameluke general owned by the Sultan of Egypt, defeated the Mongols and halted their sweep through the Middle East and into Egypt. This is a hugely significant accomplishment, since the descendents of Genghis Khan had been pillaging their way west for the past 500 years without a single defeat. Baybars then killed the sultan and took over Egypt. During his reign of seventeen years Baybars crushed the dreaded Assassins in their last strongholds in Syria, drove the crusaders from Antioch, and extended the rule of Egypt across the Red Sea to control the valuable pilgrim cities of Mecca and Medina.
A totally amazing curriculum vitae.
The Mamluks remained a force to be reckoned with in the Middle East until the early 1800’s when The Ottoman Empire realized that they were way too powerful and massacred them all in Egypt (1811) and then Baghdad (1813).*
But not all the Mamluks stayed in the Middle East. Many become mercenaries throughout the Levant and Europe. Every King and even some of the more wealthy nobles had their crack Mamluk troops. Napoleon Bonaparte’s Imperial Guard had a Mamluk division and Napoleon himself had a Mamluk body guard.
Roustam Raza, Napoleon’s Mamluk body guard, oil on canvas by Émil Jean Horace Vernet, 1789-1863Another image of Roustam Raza
Remember all those medieval historical novels and romances where the hero must fight the villain’s dreaded Mamluk bodyguard?
And soldiers have lots of time to sit around and play gambling games. I have no doubt that the European knights of the 1300’s were eager to learn the favorite game of these amazing fighters. And so playing cards became all the rage in Europe–thanks, in part, to the Mamluks.
Circassian woman, veiled, by Jean Leon Gerome (1824-1904)
Circassian women were so beautiful that they were sold as concubines and became the rulers of seraglios throughout the Middle East. From this position they would have had quite a bit of influence on Middle Eastern politics.
Voltaire had this to say about them:
“The Circassians are poor, and their daughters are beautiful, and indeed it is in them they chiefly trade. They furnish with those beauties the seraglio of the Turkish Sultan, of the Persian Sophy, and of all of those who are wealthy enough to purchase and maintain such precious merchandise. These maidens are very honorably and virtuously instructed how to fondle and caress men; are taught dances of a very polite and effeminate kind; and how to heighten by the most voluptuous artifices the pleasures of their disdainful masters for whom they are designed.”
–1734, Letters to the English, Letter XI, On Inoculation
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840–physician, naturalist, and racist) theorized that the Circassians were the closest to God’s original model of humanity, and thus “the purest and most beautiful whites were the Circassians”. Since the Circassians were from the Caucasus Mountains, the word Caucasian came to be the name of the white race.
Now, aren’t you glad you know what a Mamluk is?
