Yoga is a Sanscrit word meaning 'yoking'. I keep thinking of that word 'yoke': "We need a practice to yoke the chaotic human to the Way of Edhli-frith (Ecology)." In Eormanz, 'yoga' is 'yokoth'. Eco-yoga is Edhlifrith-yokoth. Eco-yoga would be a means to fit the human psyche (ferth) to the Edhli (Biosphere), a total form of training (drawning) similar to what Hindu and Buddhist yogas are meant to do, but with a completely different aim: to produce the functional Edhli-self through a process of Ecological-Self-Realization (Edhli-self Santhning). What that might be and how it might be reached are interesting questions, which I am unaware that anyone has answered yet.
Seekers for such self-realization could be called Eco-nauts (Edhlimind Kannadhers (explorers). They would be like the early forest sages (Wald-wisers) who practiced the way of yoga in the midst of Nature, but seeking the Ecological God Within, so as to "Be as God" (i.e., ecological). Eco-yoga would re-engineer the psyche, yoking the deep mind to the real, biological world (Santh-- reality, truth), an opposite result, in fact, to the aim of traditional yoga. I'm beginning to think that humans can't really be "one with Nature," though. We are different to other animals, we don't fit. Maybe it is a mistake, trying to commune with them as persons like ourselves, and to be true animals ourselves. But part of any eco-yogic quest to yoke ourselves to Nature would be to find a niche in the Ecosphere where we could fit, as culture-bearing animals with a rather intractable, unruly nature that is a threat to the Biosphere-- if that is possible in humans no longer shaped-to-fit by natural selection . Let's see if it is.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
the Drygand as Neo-God
The Drygand is "Life fighting for All Life, All Life fighting for Life!"
The Drygand is a numinous weirdness expressing the vast totality of Life (biological). The Drygand, the ultimate Chimaera, is a more adequate and appropriate expression for our time, the Age of Ecology, of the primordial God of all Nature, which was seen as the Snake, Naga (man-snake), and Dragon. And the Wolken, from which he derives, is the pantheist Godhead.
The Drygand is a numinous weirdness expressing the vast totality of Life (biological). The Drygand, the ultimate Chimaera, is a more adequate and appropriate expression for our time, the Age of Ecology, of the primordial God of all Nature, which was seen as the Snake, Naga (man-snake), and Dragon. And the Wolken, from which he derives, is the pantheist Godhead.
Monday, June 6, 2011
The Primordial Drygand
The Snake is the minimalist animal, of the simplest form.
The chimaerical Drygand is the maximalist animal, drawing on the forms of all living things.
Snake and Drygand are the two extremes that bracket the whole of Life between them. And like brackets, one is not found without the other.
The Snake, Were-snake (Naga), and Dragon (a snakish chimaera), represent a primordial God found in archaeological evidence and mythology from around the world. This God preceded the humanist gods of advanced civilizations which had conquered Nature and distanced themselves so far from it that the gods, apart from a few minor Nature-gods, were in the form of the human masters of antinatural civilization. This can be seen in the Olympian gods of ancient Greece, who came to preside over the most advanced civilizational humanism yet seen. These advanced civilizations found reassurance in myths of heroes slaying chimaerical monsters. In the case of ancient Greece, these monsters may represent the pre-Olympian Titans and even more archaic gods, who may not have been seen as monsters by their devotees, but as a numinous weirdness expressing the vast totality of Life. The Drygand, the ultimate Chimaera, is just a more adequate expression for our time of this primordial Godhood of all Nature.
The chimaerical Drygand is the maximalist animal, drawing on the forms of all living things.
Snake and Drygand are the two extremes that bracket the whole of Life between them. And like brackets, one is not found without the other.
The Snake, Were-snake (Naga), and Dragon (a snakish chimaera), represent a primordial God found in archaeological evidence and mythology from around the world. This God preceded the humanist gods of advanced civilizations which had conquered Nature and distanced themselves so far from it that the gods, apart from a few minor Nature-gods, were in the form of the human masters of antinatural civilization. This can be seen in the Olympian gods of ancient Greece, who came to preside over the most advanced civilizational humanism yet seen. These advanced civilizations found reassurance in myths of heroes slaying chimaerical monsters. In the case of ancient Greece, these monsters may represent the pre-Olympian Titans and even more archaic gods, who may not have been seen as monsters by their devotees, but as a numinous weirdness expressing the vast totality of Life. The Drygand, the ultimate Chimaera, is just a more adequate expression for our time of this primordial Godhood of all Nature.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
ETs vs. Faeries: 1 Introduction
A few weeks ago it occurred to me that immersing myself in the UFO/ET mythos might trigger new ideas for the Shaggy Mythos. Over the last couple years I've had the urge and intent to bring the Mythos from its 'once upon a time' orientation into engagement with the present and future-- the future-primitive thing. It was about time for this, the next step to take, but how?
Well, I've been working on it, but it's problematic. I've read and taken notes on a great many books that are more contemporarily oriented and it's made me more sophisticated, but though it all puts what I'm doing into a deeper, wider cultural context, it doesn't inspire departures for the Mythos like mythic-folkloric material has-- it isn't directly usable, just serves as background information, I complain to myself-- but really, it does work indirectly, and some of it is pretty mythic-folkloric in its ideology. Thus the idea of investigating the UFO/ET mythos.
I hadn't read anything on 'space aliens' for two decades, when I read books by Whitley Strieber and Budd Hopkins on abductions. They were disturbing but I had my doubts-- a sci-fi horror-fiction writer? and a New York sculptor? Besides, a lot of the 'abductees' seemed to be pathetic cases who might have psychiatric reasons for what they claimed to be experiencing. And then there was the hypnosis, which became dubious as a means of retrieving objective memories after the 80s wave of child-abuse hysteria. Before that, I had read John Keel's Mothman Prophecies, which read like fiction instead of journalism.
Beyond my skepticism, I just don't like the idea of 'aliens from outer space' interfering with our planet-- don't we have enough on our plate without that? It detracts from our need to keep our attention on what we're doing to the Biosphere and mobilizing ourselves to rescue it. And counting on 'space brothers' to save the day is demotivating.
But I told myself," Well, I'll read for the mythic-folkloric stuff and skim the rest". But as I started reading I got sucked into the mystery of what UFO/ETs really are. I've gone through a half-dozen high-end books so far (except for one) that present a great deal of evidence and analysis before coming to the conclusion that UFOs, at least, are real, not just delusions or misperceptions, but the authors admit they don't know what they are, though they doubt they're extraterrestrial. I admit I have no idea, either. But everyone loves a mystery, even an insoluble one.
Well, I put in a lot of time, and effort taking notes, and ended up concluding the same as when I was a young man--"I can't be convinced merely by reading books". And since I have not had convincing personal experiences of UFO/ETs or of parapsychological phenomena-- and all the authors believe that the phenomena require an openness to parapsychological explanations if we are to go further in solving this mystery, well, it was intriguing reading, but only the mythic, psychological, and cultural critiques are likely to be of much use.
So I've been racking my brains trying to sort out all that material into discrete topics, which hasn't been easy because it all hangs together, as things do in reality, and we falsify that when we pick it apart to make a rational structure. But I've got it down to a few basic takes out of which discrete pieces can be written-- along the lines the title of this one suggests-- essentially, New Age vs. Pagan mentalities, and the symbolic meanings of UFO/ETs, and the process of Mazeway Resynthesis that seems very applicable to this whole matter. So, I will see what I can do to work these up into pithy pieces in the next few weeks.
Well, I've been working on it, but it's problematic. I've read and taken notes on a great many books that are more contemporarily oriented and it's made me more sophisticated, but though it all puts what I'm doing into a deeper, wider cultural context, it doesn't inspire departures for the Mythos like mythic-folkloric material has-- it isn't directly usable, just serves as background information, I complain to myself-- but really, it does work indirectly, and some of it is pretty mythic-folkloric in its ideology. Thus the idea of investigating the UFO/ET mythos.
I hadn't read anything on 'space aliens' for two decades, when I read books by Whitley Strieber and Budd Hopkins on abductions. They were disturbing but I had my doubts-- a sci-fi horror-fiction writer? and a New York sculptor? Besides, a lot of the 'abductees' seemed to be pathetic cases who might have psychiatric reasons for what they claimed to be experiencing. And then there was the hypnosis, which became dubious as a means of retrieving objective memories after the 80s wave of child-abuse hysteria. Before that, I had read John Keel's Mothman Prophecies, which read like fiction instead of journalism.
Beyond my skepticism, I just don't like the idea of 'aliens from outer space' interfering with our planet-- don't we have enough on our plate without that? It detracts from our need to keep our attention on what we're doing to the Biosphere and mobilizing ourselves to rescue it. And counting on 'space brothers' to save the day is demotivating.
But I told myself," Well, I'll read for the mythic-folkloric stuff and skim the rest". But as I started reading I got sucked into the mystery of what UFO/ETs really are. I've gone through a half-dozen high-end books so far (except for one) that present a great deal of evidence and analysis before coming to the conclusion that UFOs, at least, are real, not just delusions or misperceptions, but the authors admit they don't know what they are, though they doubt they're extraterrestrial. I admit I have no idea, either. But everyone loves a mystery, even an insoluble one.
Well, I put in a lot of time, and effort taking notes, and ended up concluding the same as when I was a young man--"I can't be convinced merely by reading books". And since I have not had convincing personal experiences of UFO/ETs or of parapsychological phenomena-- and all the authors believe that the phenomena require an openness to parapsychological explanations if we are to go further in solving this mystery, well, it was intriguing reading, but only the mythic, psychological, and cultural critiques are likely to be of much use.
So I've been racking my brains trying to sort out all that material into discrete topics, which hasn't been easy because it all hangs together, as things do in reality, and we falsify that when we pick it apart to make a rational structure. But I've got it down to a few basic takes out of which discrete pieces can be written-- along the lines the title of this one suggests-- essentially, New Age vs. Pagan mentalities, and the symbolic meanings of UFO/ETs, and the process of Mazeway Resynthesis that seems very applicable to this whole matter. So, I will see what I can do to work these up into pithy pieces in the next few weeks.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The Draug
The Draug is greedy for wondrous madhoms with which to bedeck his great barrow-hall. And greedy, too, for a long life of fair, strong ever-youth. And for these he will plunder the Land, and suck the life-blood from the Living, and wield dark Searucraft to live well, live long, and to raise himself above all Life, wreaking waste-land all about him and far and wide, for he cares only for his own life and the things he wants.
Draug: Persian drauga= demon, Old Norse draugr= a monster much like that described here.
Madhom= a treasure. (OEng madhum)
Draug: Persian drauga= demon, Old Norse draugr= a monster much like that described here.
Madhom= a treasure. (OEng madhum)
Monday, May 16, 2011
Day 1
the White light of the Void, of the Modern World. the stark existential blankness from its burning, blanching, sterilizing Light, has stripped us of everything we had.
the Past has passed, burnt-out like disintegrated old clothes in an incinerator.
now we are Stripped Naked, naked Being, trundled out from the White Fire chamber into the Stark Naked New, clothed in a White Shift, naked garment, bleached, purified, in which we pick ourselves up and Go into the New Reality of the Green Planet, the only possible Future.
the Past is Ash, incinerated. we start from scratch. Ecology is Reality now. every day is Day 1-- we start from scratch-- no Past. in a New Light.
today is the Future. today after today after today.
the Past has passed, burnt-out like disintegrated old clothes in an incinerator.
now we are Stripped Naked, naked Being, trundled out from the White Fire chamber into the Stark Naked New, clothed in a White Shift, naked garment, bleached, purified, in which we pick ourselves up and Go into the New Reality of the Green Planet, the only possible Future.
the Past is Ash, incinerated. we start from scratch. Ecology is Reality now. every day is Day 1-- we start from scratch-- no Past. in a New Light.
today is the Future. today after today after today.
Monday, May 2, 2011
from The Shaggy Saga
(word-help below)
The Lodestone was fostered like a bairn in the womb, deep in the Wolken over long time. And when it was ready to be born, the Wolken called to the Twayne, to their marrow, so softly. And they were led as if blind into the Mistryne, going by feel only, and the murmurs in their blood, toward the Lodestone. And in a long wayward faring through the Twyrymet they neared its stead. And when the Lodestone was found, it was made known to them that this was not theirs to have, but they must bring it to the Drygand.
Now the Drygand had lived wild and free, frisking about the Edhli at play, diving in and out of the body-shapes of all Life-kinds in an endless frolic, falling from one kind to the next as the samen-flowod flowed twixt them in the Net-working of the Edhli. And so over time he had learned all there could be known of the Whole of Life, its hungers and fears, gladness and sorrow, in all of its Kinren, his bredhern. He was beloved Child of the Wolken, free to play as he would, but never straying far from Its hearth.
But the Drygand had felt the coming of the Dilgoth as Man strengthened his Rykedom over the Edhli and knew the worsening harm it had wreaked, and so he saw his childhood coming to an end, and when the Twayne came to him, led straight by the Stone, the Drygand saw that he would undergo a cherrenge, and become a new, greater Being. The Lodestone drew him mightily, but he felt it a hard thing he must risk, to be made over, and he quailed from giving himself to it and knew not how he could do it. But the Wolken murmured within him, easing his fears, sending him on, and so he came to the Twayne, who bore the Lodestone both at once within them, as it was a living stone, and together they clasped their hands about his head, and by the Will of the Wolken the Lodestone was dubbed onto the Drygand's head, through the handhold of the Twayne, and it came and melded to his brain. And many things happened there which cannot be told, as much that had been worked in the deep Mistryne of the Wolken now worked quickly within the ferth of the Drygand, edmaking him, bringing his being and knowing and life-drang under a new mynt-- to fight the Dilgoth so that the Edhli could live on, that Life could live. And when the Cherrenge was fullfilled and the Drygand made into Halleth of the Edhli, he then came and in like way dubbed the Lodestone back onto the Twayne, but with something of the cherrenged Drygand to it now, so as it melded to their own selfness, and edmade with that a new whole, an Aukin-self, they each of them, Wildeor and Bilewit, became Thegns of the Drygand, Drygand-Twynechts, guided always by the Lodestone to fight for the Sake of the Edhli, and for the new Menning which is the only hope for Man.
And so these three, Drygand, Wildeor and Bilewit, went everywhere, offering to gift the Lodestone to everyone fit to undergo the Cherrenge, Wights of the lands and of the waters then becoming Land-drygands and Water-drygands, and the Alfs becoming Drygand-alfs and Kynechts, and to Man-kind they told of the Dilgoth and of the Edhli-menning Sake, and some that were ready anfonned the Lodestone into them, becoming thereby true Alfar.
And that is how this great Cherrenge in Time has happened, out of fearsome need, to stop the Dilgoth and to make a new Menning of Edhlifrith, so that Life may live.
Wolken= Cloud-mind of the Eorth.
Mistryne= mystery.
Twyrymet= dual-space of Reality and Imagination.
Drygand= the Pan-chimaera.
Edhli= Nature, Biosphere.
Samen-flowod= the vital Life-fluid.
Kinren= the species of Life.
Dilgoth= the Extinction Event.
Rykedom= reign, rule, sovereignty.
Cherrenge= change.
Ferth= mind-spirit-soul.
edmake= remake.
Life-drang= life-force.
Mynt= intention, purpose.
Halleth= holy hero, savior.
Aukin-self= enhanced self.
Thegn= thane, a ruler under troth to another.
Sake= cause.
Menning= culture-civilization.
Kynecht= knight.
anfon= receive.
Edhlifrith= Biosphere protection.
The Lodestone was fostered like a bairn in the womb, deep in the Wolken over long time. And when it was ready to be born, the Wolken called to the Twayne, to their marrow, so softly. And they were led as if blind into the Mistryne, going by feel only, and the murmurs in their blood, toward the Lodestone. And in a long wayward faring through the Twyrymet they neared its stead. And when the Lodestone was found, it was made known to them that this was not theirs to have, but they must bring it to the Drygand.
Now the Drygand had lived wild and free, frisking about the Edhli at play, diving in and out of the body-shapes of all Life-kinds in an endless frolic, falling from one kind to the next as the samen-flowod flowed twixt them in the Net-working of the Edhli. And so over time he had learned all there could be known of the Whole of Life, its hungers and fears, gladness and sorrow, in all of its Kinren, his bredhern. He was beloved Child of the Wolken, free to play as he would, but never straying far from Its hearth.
But the Drygand had felt the coming of the Dilgoth as Man strengthened his Rykedom over the Edhli and knew the worsening harm it had wreaked, and so he saw his childhood coming to an end, and when the Twayne came to him, led straight by the Stone, the Drygand saw that he would undergo a cherrenge, and become a new, greater Being. The Lodestone drew him mightily, but he felt it a hard thing he must risk, to be made over, and he quailed from giving himself to it and knew not how he could do it. But the Wolken murmured within him, easing his fears, sending him on, and so he came to the Twayne, who bore the Lodestone both at once within them, as it was a living stone, and together they clasped their hands about his head, and by the Will of the Wolken the Lodestone was dubbed onto the Drygand's head, through the handhold of the Twayne, and it came and melded to his brain. And many things happened there which cannot be told, as much that had been worked in the deep Mistryne of the Wolken now worked quickly within the ferth of the Drygand, edmaking him, bringing his being and knowing and life-drang under a new mynt-- to fight the Dilgoth so that the Edhli could live on, that Life could live. And when the Cherrenge was fullfilled and the Drygand made into Halleth of the Edhli, he then came and in like way dubbed the Lodestone back onto the Twayne, but with something of the cherrenged Drygand to it now, so as it melded to their own selfness, and edmade with that a new whole, an Aukin-self, they each of them, Wildeor and Bilewit, became Thegns of the Drygand, Drygand-Twynechts, guided always by the Lodestone to fight for the Sake of the Edhli, and for the new Menning which is the only hope for Man.
And so these three, Drygand, Wildeor and Bilewit, went everywhere, offering to gift the Lodestone to everyone fit to undergo the Cherrenge, Wights of the lands and of the waters then becoming Land-drygands and Water-drygands, and the Alfs becoming Drygand-alfs and Kynechts, and to Man-kind they told of the Dilgoth and of the Edhli-menning Sake, and some that were ready anfonned the Lodestone into them, becoming thereby true Alfar.
And that is how this great Cherrenge in Time has happened, out of fearsome need, to stop the Dilgoth and to make a new Menning of Edhlifrith, so that Life may live.
Wolken= Cloud-mind of the Eorth.
Mistryne= mystery.
Twyrymet= dual-space of Reality and Imagination.
Drygand= the Pan-chimaera.
Edhli= Nature, Biosphere.
Samen-flowod= the vital Life-fluid.
Kinren= the species of Life.
Dilgoth= the Extinction Event.
Rykedom= reign, rule, sovereignty.
Cherrenge= change.
Ferth= mind-spirit-soul.
edmake= remake.
Life-drang= life-force.
Mynt= intention, purpose.
Halleth= holy hero, savior.
Aukin-self= enhanced self.
Thegn= thane, a ruler under troth to another.
Sake= cause.
Menning= culture-civilization.
Kynecht= knight.
anfon= receive.
Edhlifrith= Biosphere protection.
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