Friday, August 17, 2007 B
"Captain"
8:11pm
"Tiwaz: (T: Tyr, the sky god.) Honor, justice, leadership and authority. Analysis, rationality. Knowing where one's true strengths lie. Willingness to self-sacrifice. Victory and success in any competition or in legal matters. Tiwaz Reversed or Merkstave: One's energy and creative flow are blocked. Mental paralysis, over-analysis, over-sacrifice, injustice, imbalance. Strife, war, conflict, failure in competition. Dwindling passion, difficulties in communication, and possibly separation."
Knowing this to be just a surface skim, I looked without success for a booklet by Edred Thorson on the Runes. (Some day, it will turn up.) I did, however, go to his Runegild site to see if I could learn more. And I did, in an article comparing Odinn and Tyr.
Odinn and Tyr have "Antithetical" natures, very much similar to that of Set and Horus, one being more chaotic and inward, and one being more outward and orderly. Odinn does "self sacrifice for knowledge", whereas Tyr does "self sacrifice for community". This is so much like Set symbolizing 'rulership of the inner world', and Horus symbolizing 'rulership of the outer world'.
There are additional distinctions, some of which include "Clairvoyance" as Odinn's strength, and "Rationalism" as Tyr's strength. This is like the antithetic natures of the Grecian Dionysus and Apollo.
Again, these are two that need to work together.
So to be a 'captain' and have leadership, it is necessary to have analysis and rationality to fully understand one's strengths and the strengths of others.
Saturday, August 18, 2007 A
"Early Morning Strangeness"
6:28am
Also, only one outlet works in the wall, and I needed it for the heating pad. My ear is still giving me trouble. I've figured out, however, that it isn't an infection, but impacted wax that is the cause of trouble. So now I'm having Julia apply softening oil to it, along with nightime heating pad and drinking hot tea and chewing gum during the day to help loosen it up.
It does explain much. I was puzzled why when we were on the plane to Washington D.C. and back, my right ear did not pop properly. Even then, the wax was building up.
It is perplexing that as we age, systems that we never took thought of start to inform us of their existence. In all of my forty eight years, I've never had any ear trouble, other than side effect of sinus infection. I suppose I should count myself fortunate, thinking of all the children who get ear infections easily.
Noisemaker off, this morning I woke to the sounds of a truck backing up and shouting voices telling its driver how to move. I got up to see what it was. It is a tree pruning service to give the palm trees 'a hair cut' of their aged stalks. After a while the bushy tops get all brown and must be pruned to reveal the green stalks below.
That awakening also allowed me to know of a strange dream I had. A friend was over who we haven't seen in a long time. (Actually this isn't referring to anyone who we know right now.) She was telling me she had a gift for me. She'd learned in therapy that she had a talent for tattooing and without further ado, she grabbed my right arm and started in on the upper half. I was startled, but immensely curious as to what would happen. I asked if she had a catalog of designs to pick from and told her it must not go below what a short sleeved shirt would cover.
She said it would be a great design, reflecting my true personality. Somehow I just trusted her to know what she was doing.
That would never happen in real life, not with something as permanent as a tattoo. The only thing I can relate it to in real life is my willing submission to Julia's skill in applying that ear oil. Its settling in the ear canal gave me strange sensations, and some of it made my eyes water. Apparently, everything is connected in those sinus/nasal/ear passages.
Saturday, August 18, 2007 B
"Morning Reading - Dionysos and Shiva"
7:40am
With my learning a little about the contrasts between Odinn and Tyr, how it relates to Set and Horus and then Dionysos and Apollo, it is clear the Princes of Dark and Light have many archetypes in the various cultures, always contrasting, disagreeing, but both essential to the balance.
(Now how does this fit with SHIVA?)
Hmm, I am just looking randomly at the thick book, (_Dionysos, Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life_) and I come across the following:
"'Throughout its development the Dionysian cult preserved the character it had when it first entered into history. With its sensuality and emphasis on sexual love, it presented a marked affinity to the feminine nature, and its appeal was primarily to women; it was among women that it found its most loyal supporters, its most assiduous servants, and their enthusiasm was the foundation of its power. Dionysus is a woman's god in the fullest sense of the word, the source of all woman's sensual and transcendent hopes, the center of her whole existence. It was to women that he was first revealed in his glory, and it was women who propagated his cult and brought about its triumph.'"
Kerényi is quoting J. J. Bachofen there on page 130
Wow, the feminine frenzy he elicited! I can't say this compares to Odinn, Set or Shiva, although I suspect a few females might feel some sort of sexual adoration that way.
But apparently this feminine lust for Dionysos is something only emphasized by Bachofen, as other scholars don't stress that. Otto and Nietzsche say things which are more like Shiva:
"In this context Nietzsche may be quoted to advantage: 'Dionysos is the frenzy which circles round wherever there is conception and birth and which in its wildness is always ready to thrust forwards into destruction and death. it is life." So it was for Otto, but life in only one particular state: 'life which, when it overflows, grows mad and in its profoundest passion is intimately associated with death,' not zoë, which is tested (though not affected in its innermost core) by its diametric opposite, thanatos." Page 132
"Setting aside Bachofen's picture of Dionysos, Nietzsche prepared the way for Otto's vision. I shall cite here those words of his account that deviate most radically from the path taken by Muller and by Bachofen, which might have led to a true understanding of the origin of the Dionysian religion. 'A tempest seizes everything that has outlived itself, everything that is decayed, broken, and withered, and, whirling, shrouds it in a cloud of red dust to carry it into the air like a vulture. Confused, our eyes look after what has disappeared; for what they see has been raised as from a depression into golden light, so full and green, so amply alive, immeasurable and full of yearning.'" page 134
Now, in comparison, I have some quotes from _The Presence of Siva_, which I was able to nab off of the Amazon Reader:
"Creation is an act of violence that infringes upon the Uncreate, the undifferentiated wholeness that is before the beginning of things." page 4, "The Primordial Science"
The brahman tells of the mystery and at the same time tells of its mode of telling. It shrouds and at the same time conveys His name in the form it gives to him by calling itself a raudra brahman, a wild creation, or Rudraic creation, for this poem and the creation are of Rudra, the Wild God. Raudra, an adjective from Rudra, means wild, of Rudra nature. Rudra as the name of the god would signify 'the Wild One', or 'the Fierce God.' According to later Vedic tradition, however, the word Rudra is derived from rud, to cry, howl (TS.1.5.1.1; MS.4.2.12;SB.6.1.3.19). While the words of the mantras conjure up the primordial action and evoke the entire myth, they also carry the effect of this action on the gods, that is, on the evoking consciousness." page 5
"The double meaning of the word raudra is intentional: the poem is about Rudra, the wild, formidable god, and it is itself a fiercely wild creation charged with many meanings.
"It is of the very nature of Rudra, who creates in order to destroy, for he will create again in an inexhaustible renewal of life on earth, where creation is the aeviternal answer to destruction, and both have their ground and antithesis in the Uncreate. This is the course that Rudra set. More truly than any other god he could have said of himself: 'I am not a puzzled-out book, I am a god with his contradictions." page 7-8
Now for me, the difference with Set, is that he destroys in order to _create_, for all that is "decayed, broken, and withered" must undergo its transformation so that it can be reborn anew.
(You will not be the same!)
Go now, find your vision,
I created a pdf of this. In it, and in the article at Pathmarking, I've fixed the typos!
I am that which takes you to the Wall,
I am that which pushes you to the wall,
opens your eyes, your mind, pushes...
Take now the knife to slash away the decayed and rotted...
(like the tree masters trim the tree...)
it is where you last left it...
Saturday, August 18, 2007 C
"Line Drawing of Tutu"
5:23pm
Tutu (Tithoes) was a popular god in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods of Egyptian history, with his origins in the earlier Egyptian religious tradition. The god provided protection against demons, and his appearance as a striding sphinx was often combined with symbols of his power and visual references to demons and other divinities. The god Tutu demonstrates the continuing vitality of the pharaonic religion under the pressure of foreign cultures and ideas. This monograph provides the first comprehensive study of the god Tutu. It is based upon a collection of attestations, largely unpublished, which derive from monuments in various parts of Egypt and from museum collections all over the world. Moreover, the results of recent archaeological field work in Shenhur and in the temple of Tutu in the Dakhla Oasis have been included in full. The catalogue of monuments is accompanied by an analysis of the god Tutu, his iconography and his place in the Egyptian religion.
I find it particularily fascinating that there was a "temple of Tutu in the Dakhla Oasis", as this was one of Set's regions.
A little net digging, and I turn up this, from writings about excavations at this temple:
"On the east wall south of the central niche are black ink
drawings of a cult image of Seth, a small figure of Tutu as
a sphinx and a vulture with wings outstretched. On the
south wall there is a single bust of Bes, bearded and
wearing a feather crown. These depictions confirm the
identification of the structure as a shrine; they are
discussed in this volume by Olaf Kaper and the classical
paintings are described by Helen Whitehouse." (page 199)
Olaf Kaper is the author of the earlier mentioned book.
Still more searching about the Dakhla area turns up the Dakhleh Oasis Project, where I learned a bit more. Not only is there a temple of Tutu there, a temple of Seth is there, too, but it is in bad shape, as this page explains:
"The site to-day is a temple temenos, a heavy wall enclosing the remains of a stone temple dedicated to Seth, and many associated mud brick buildings. Finds include blocks dating to Thutmosis III, Psamtik and several other Late Period rulers of Egypt and two hieratic stelae dated to the XXI and XXV Dynasties.
The temple has been largely destroyed by subsequent building activity in the modern town."
But the Dakhleh Oasis archeologists are doing their best to salvage it:
"Colin also gave an account of the work at Mut, which is anything but straightforward. Here there is much work to be done on the temple to Seth where the recovered material ranges from Second Dynasty to Mamluke."
[Peeters Publishers] about _The Egyptian god Tutu : a study of the sphinx-god and master of demons with a corpus of monuments_
Sunday, August 18, 2007
"Zorastrian Influence?"
8:57am
Glazed brick relief, palace of Darius I, Susa, now at the Louvre Museum in Paris
(This might be one that's at the National Museum of Iran?)
The appearance of this Zorastrian symbol is remarkable in its similarity to an Egyptian one, the winged solar disk often placed over temple doorways and at the rounded tops of steles. This is symbol of Horus Behdety, and is often associated with the pharoahs.
