Category: Uncategorized

The following is excerpted from Do You Like Jesus—Not the Church?

There is only one race and that is the human race whose divinity is its unity and its humanness is its diversity. Hate and conflict based on a certain pigment color of skin is encouraged and propagated by a dualistic consciousness reinforced by dogmatic religions and cultural, social and material inequality.

Our individual sense of reality (of separateness or duality) is just an extension illusion of our basic core sense perceptions. Our eyes perceive separation between us and all things viewed. This constant reinforcement tricks us into thinking and believing we are separate and islands unto ourselves. Reinforced by messages from childhood, we build stronger and thicker walls around our islands to protect us (the unhealthy ego). This core belief leads to behaviors and actions based on fear and protective neurosis of the unhealthy ego. Constant vigilance is needed to overcome and release our dualistic thinking, dualistic believing, and behaviors that are attached to this false paradigm of dualism.

Oneness Equals Mental Tranquility

When the two hemispheres of our brains are united in an interpenetration of the logical and the intuitive, we experience reality not as separate from us but as a part of us and us as a part of it. This breaks down the barrier between our ordinary minds and our enlightened minds. The mirror of our minds will then reflect things in their true, original state.

There still may be dust on our mirrors, but we will see clearer than the ones that remain stuck in a dualistic reality. When we realize that reality is not based on an either-or, us-them paradigm of duality, we will finally discover a great peace within ourselves. There is great solace in knowing that we may be both enlightened as well as deluded. We do not have to be one or the other. We do not have to win or lose. This shift alone will transform us from self-centered beings into divine human beings that are participating in a journey of life and experience along with all other humans and all other creatures of the earth.

Our minds become purer and calmer when we view and sense reality as united, not as a separate thing that may threaten our egotistic sense of safety and security. When we can see ourselves in all other things, not only another human being, but animals, moths, trees, and so forth, we achieve a state of being that is peaceful, benevolent, and compassionate. This is something not just achievable in meditation, but more importantly, in every waking second of our lives.

A follow-up to Blending, Death and Rebirth

Over the years, I have resisted referring to myself as a shaman. Basically, I didn’t want to be lumped in or identified with all of the workshop neo-shamans who feel that shamanism is nothing more than journeying. This implies that anyone can be a shaman, which makes it very attractive to the consumer. But why not call yourself a shaman or druid for material gain and status as the average person will accept you at face value just as the majority of people will accept organized religion and their mouthpiece at face value without using their common sense, just as with politicians—no research just acceptance.

In reality, it takes years and years of apprenticeship with an indigenous “person of power” to be considered a shaman. Traditionally, this is only after having been identified as a “chosen one” for training either by the current practicing shaman, the ancestors (through dreams), and/or a medical/soul crisis. With this set of criteria, you couldn’t get many people to qualify for a neo-shamanic workshop.

Even though my wife and I are holders of a Northwest Coast shamanic or medicine way’s lineage, I choose not to label myself as a shaman until recently. I am not seminar or workshop trained; my knowledge of shamanism flows from my firsthand experience of it. And there is the adventure that is a part of the seeking such as being shot at around midnight outside the ruins of Teotihuacan, barely escaping arrest on the streets of Lima, Peru, and feigning sickness to escape the clutches of a Yakuza and his lady.

The truth is that I have not been an observer but an active participant, initiate, and carrier of shamanic lineages, ranging from my shamanic initiation in a sacred lagoon in the Andes after having walked the Inca Trail in 1988 (pleases see the story below: Journey of Initiation: The Wizard of the Four Winds—February 1988), to my wife and I apprenticing with Mom and Vince Stogan, Northwest Coast Salish shamans, who passed on to us their shamanic lineage of bathing, burning, and healing. In line with the criteria above, Mom and Vince asked us if we would like to learn their “ways” only after having observed us doing our spiritual work. Moreover, our deeds of shamanic power have been witnessed and felt by others.

And then there is the subject of the exorcism. This is not an exorcism where a spirit is taken off of a person but where a spirit merges with the person. This is a descending spirit exorcism such as the one experienced by Jesus during bathing in the Jordan River when spirit in the form of a dove descended into Jesus.

My descending spirit exorcism, Ko Rei, occurred in Japan in front of Kobo Daishi’s mausoleum at midnight on the sacred mountain Kōyasan in October of 1987. Kobo Daishi was the founder of Shingon esoteric Buddhism. The exorcism was conducted by Sakano-san, an esoteric or shamanic priest from Osaka who had a dream about me. He had come to the mountain to find me even though he had no formal connection with the temple where I was staying. This otherworldly experience, an experience that thrust me through a tear in the fabric of dualistic reality, was the initial quickening of my awakening mind and resulted in a knowing of radical nondualistic interpenetrating reality.

With my decades of experience, it then makes sense that I approach this subject of shamanism not solely from an archeological or scholarly approach but from my direct experience of the subject matter.

Shaman – a word that births a prism of images and connotations. Of course a shaman would be a practitioner of shamanism, which Mircea Eliade defined as a “technique of religious ecstasy.” This is a definition that is problematic just as the terms shaman and shamanism are wrought with a magnitude of problems when applied cross-culturally. Let’s for the time-being refer to a shaman as a “wise person.” This reference cuts across all cultures. All cultures have been known to have and still have wise individuals within communities. As with the term shaman, we are once again faced with settling on a definition for wisdom. Let me explain my pondering thoughts on wisdom.

Wisdom derives from the following formulas: information without experience remains just information: I = I; information combined with experience results in knowledge: IE = K; wisdom flows from the combination of knowledge and its experience: KE = W. Experience is the source. As we may see, we are in the information age but not close to an age of knowledge. Furthermore, we are light years away from an age of wisdom. You can’t achieve individual wisdom if the majority of your time is spent staring into a box (smartphone) of information. A focus on information separates a person from nature—the source of knowledge and experience. But why is experience so necessary to the practice of shamanism?

Neuroscientists provide a glimpse into its importance. They have been exploring the varying anatomies of individual brains and have discovered that “genes, environmental exposures, experience, and disease help wire our neurons differently.”[i] Let’s explore each of these subjects individually:

• Genetic: there is a theory called “gene-culture co-evolution.” Basically, it is research into how culture shapes our genetic makeup. According to Herbert Gintis: “Human characteristics are the product of gene–culture coevolution, which is an evolutionary dynamic involving the interaction of genes and culture over long time periods.”[ii] If this is true then it would make sense that the neurons of a Lapland wise person would be wired differently than a Peruvian wise person.
• Environmental exposures: mythology, folklore, ceremonies, and ritual are highly environmentally driven and influenced. It stands to reason that a wise person living in Iceland would perform rituals and ceremonies based on their cosmology, mythology and folklore different than an Amazonian wise person.
• Experience: This is a key to our intrinsic self and experience is our personal gateway to wisdom. A wise person in the Pacific Northwest would have different environmental experiences than a wise person in the Amazon.
• Disease: In the past centuries certain diseases have been attributed to supernatural causes such as the tuberculosis outbreak in late 19th Century New England was blamed on Vampirism.

As witnessed above, a wise person is molded by their genes, environment, experience and possibly disease as are all of us (one of the traditional means of a “calling” to shamanism is a medical crisis). Within a community we would be subjected to the same environmental influence. Each of us would have a different genetic makeup, and each of us would have similar but different individual experiences. However, what has not been considered is each individual’s soul and its level of evolution. Of course for this to be a consideration as a viable addition, reincarnation would have to be ones belief.

It stands to reason that a wise person for his/her community could be considered one or more of the following: philosopher, mystic, visionary, healer. Any of these abilities witnessed by deeds would identify a person as a wise one. At this point we could identify the wise one as a shaman whereas a shaman, in a general sense, would be at the very least a healer. A wise one or shaman would have a culturally influenced genetic and environmental makeup with unique and intrinsic personal experiences. These aspects cannot be replicated by participating in a workshop/seminar on neo-shamanism.

This leads us to the fact that the term shaman and shamanism cannot be broadly painted in the same tones across different cultures—as the neo-shamans would want you to believe. Shamanism is not and has never been an organized religion with dogma and doctrine. But this is exactly what the neo-shamanism movement has attempted to do by establishing a cross-cultural doctrine of cosmology consisting of an upper, middle and lower world and assessing these worlds through the sole method of drumming. This cosmology and the process to reach this trinity of worlds would seem strange and foreign to Vince Stogan and other elder shamans such as Zinacantec shaman Anselmo Perez. He journeys in his dreams to the meeting place of the Ancestors to learn the powers of the shaman such as the prayers that are needed to be recited when curing his patients. “The Ancestors represent the first people who learned how to plant corn, praise their creator, and live as proper human beings… they are not anyone’s direct ancestors but supernatural beings who guard the entire community.”[iii] Are these supernatural unseen beings in an upper or lower world? No, they reside in the nearby mountains. In other words the unseen otherworld blends with our world; and in their specific case—in the mountains.

I’ve participated in ceremony with Anselmo. There was no drum beating or lying down with a cloth over our eyes—just prayers, incense, candles and sharing many liters of posh (alcohol). To a certain extent, posh represents our struggles of life. It “is considered a powerful healing substance and also a cause of sickness for the hangovers are unbearable. Everyone who drinks offers the spirit of all that is joyous and terrible in life.”[iv] In my case, I was not inebriated and without any hangover the next day; in fact during the ceremony, there was no real effect on my usual state of nondualistic consciousness.

One of the key factors of a shaman’s proficiency is his or her level of sensitivity, to be open and aware of the intertwining forces of the otherworld and the earth, and the ability to access both knowledge and wisdom. At any time, a person with this level of ability may access the otherworld without outside stimulus. The reason why this is possible? Radical nondualism is their reality. Shamans experience life as being simultaneously ordinary (rational) and non-ordinary (non-rational). This is a consciousness of radical nonduality that is the fundamental principle and foundation of perennial philosophy.[v]

Altered State Consciousness Is One of Radical Nonduality

The true and narrow path to becoming a “wise person” – a person of power—whether that person is called shaman, druid, wizard, goði or mystic—is difficult and takes years to achieve. But do not equate the tools with the state of being.

It is also important to know that there are no bad or evil spirits that we need to protect ourselves from their potential harm. Protection is physical and/or mental separation, which only influences and promotes the continuance of a dualistic consciousness. Energy is energy; however, there are unseen energetic forms that may attach themselves to our bodies, which may cause physical symptoms and problems that traditional medicine is not able to diagnose or heal. These vibrational energies are, in most cases, not compatible or in harmony with our vibrational bodies and minds.

As a final note, our shamanic heritages are important and their knowledge and purity needs to be respected and maintained. Each heritage is unique and intrinsic to its own culture and cosmology. There cannot be “a one size fits all” mentality.

[i] Melissa Healy, The Seattle Times, Sunday, June 23, 2013, A7.

[ii] Herbert Gintis, “Gene–culture coevolution and the nature of human sociality,” February 14, 2011, (http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/366/1566/878)

[iii] Walter F. Morris, Jr., Living Maya, 153.

[iv] Ibid, 160.

[v] I have traveled for thirty-five years to different parts of the world, seeking wisdom and the myth, magic, and lore of elders and indigenous people. I have sacrificed self to self. My experience of listening, looking, and learning flowed from indigenous elders, healers, and shamans from all over the world. It also comes from my interactions with the young and old of other races and cultures, and emanates deeply from my own soul wisdom. This knowledge is what I refer to as “first knowledge.” It is knowledge that is woven throughout and found in all the first people’s spiritual/religious traditions on this earth. This first knowledge has been referred to as primordial knowledge or the Primordial Tradition (perennial philosophy). As such, it portrays universal themes, principles, and truths. In other words, “the term Primordial Tradition is utilized to describe a system of spiritual thought and metaphysical truths that overarches all the other religions and esoteric traditions of humanity.” (http://www.primordialtraditions.net/.) Furthermore, “the perennial philosophy proposes that reality, in the ultimate sense, is One, Whole, and undivided—the omnipresent source of all knowledge and power. We do not perceive this reality because the field of human cognition is restricted by the senses. But the perennial philosophy claims that these limitations can be transcended.” (G. Philippe Menos and Karen A. Jones Menos, 14^th Annual Conference of the Academy of Religion and Psychical Research: “Revelation and Inspiration: Paranormal Phenomena in Light of the Kundalini Paradigm,” May 21–23, 1989, 3.)

Decades ago when I did wellness consulting to government and major corporations, I used the following analogy:

I’m standing on a river bank and I hear a cry for help; I dive in and save the drowning person; soon as I get back on the river bank, I hear another cry for help; I swim out and save another person; this sequence keeps occurring one after another; saving one and then having to save another…

Instead of saving one person after another, what I need to do is go upstream and see who is pushing people into the river…

Band aid approaches are easy (the solution for decades); progressive transformation is not…

This is our situation today. The roots of our problems are the corrupt institutions: Government, Corporations/Banks/Wall Street and Organized Religion.

And it seems like the “sheep” are staying asleep as we have two corrupt and lying potentials for POTUS. The only hope of progressive change and the only one not pushing people into the river is Bernie Sanders.

 

It is in the west of the Four Winds where we experience the blending of light into dark, the “I” merging with the “We.” It is here where we symbolically face death—the death of the old dualistic ruled self. The west is the territory of the heroic earth warrior and the shaman. “It has often been observed that nearly all religions have arisen out of the ‘supernatural’ traditions of Shamanism, a set of beliefs common to virtually all tribal peoples, and known to have been practiced since the dawn of human culture. The shaman is a magician, mystic, healer and poet….”

My knowledge of shamanism flows from my firsthand experience of it. I have not been an observer but an active participate, initiate and carrier of shamanic lineages ranging from my shamanic initiation in a sacred lagoon in the Andes after having walked the Inca Trail in 1988, validation of my power by Anselmo Perez, a Zinacantepec shaman from the mountainous city of Chamula (please see my page on Chicken, Candles and Posh), to my wife and I apprenticing with Mom and Vince Stogan, Coast-Salish Shamans, who passed on to us their shamanic lineage of bathing, burning, and healing. Our deeds of shamanic power have been witnessed and felt by others. My shamanic knowing is from firsthand physical-sensory experience. Thus, I approach this subject not from an archeological, scholarly, or “workshop” approach but from my direct experience of the subject matter. Vince once stated that I had the strongest hands (healing) that he had ever seen. Since there is always an imperfection to perfection, he also said I was impatient and too fast in healing. Patient is a trait I am continuously working on.

Traditionally, Shamanism has been identified as a journey of the soul conducted by the shaman known as a master of the spirits. A shaman is a person with the ability to connect the profane or earthly existence to the sacred, the otherworld and thus provide a link between the otherworld and earth. He or she is a visionary and what I call a ‘pathfinder to the soul.’ Shamans are dreamers, philosophers and non-dogmatic religious guides and teachers.

A shaman is also a ‘person of power’ who dream-voyages to the otherworld for knowledge and freedom. This is the freedom from our ego-self—the unhealthy ego. The shaman helps others, and themselves, escape from the imprisonment of anger, guilt, resentment and greed. This gives one freedom to love and to be loved.

 

There are indications of Óðinn and Þórr’s connection to shamanism. The accepted “text book” on shamanism is Mircea Eliade’s Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. “In Shamanism, Eliade cites Óðinn’s Hávamál ordeal, his eight-legged horse, his shape-shifting ability (as described in Ynglinga saga ch. 7) and that of other wizards who depart their bodies and perform actions in animal shapes, and the various descents to the underworld in Norse literature as all being typical of shamanic practices… Likewise, Þórr performs several types of activity characteristic of shamans in his travels to the otherworld.” For example, Þórr protects the community (humanity) from supernatural beings and brings back objects of power which are of use to the community. Even Frigg and Freyja have their shamanic feathered clothing—their falcon-dresses; a motif of flying to the Otherworld.

Additionally, people of power such as shamans may be termed “galdra smiðir, ‘smiths of incantations.’”[i] The traditional view of a smith is the blacksmith or swordsmith. What they both have in common is fire. Fire is a transformational agent that can turn raw iron into a sword. Water is also used by the smithy in the transformational process. Our bodies are mostly composed of water and, when combined with our inner heat and the power of our voice, magic happens.

One of the Old Norse words for “spell, incantation”[ii] is galdr, “derived from a word for singing incantations.”[iii] One of the most recognizable incantations is abracadabra. In Aramaic, the phrase is avra kehdabra. The chant is as follows: aaa-raaa-kaaa-daaa-raaa (a pronounced ah). It means “I create as I speak (resonate).” Galdr, singing incantation or song, is fundamental to rites of transformation and assessing power. In shamanic cultures, galdr is referred to as a “spirit song.” These are quested for and intrinsically unique to the individual shaman. However, there are set songs to accomplish such things as opening a stream or river for the rite of sacrificing self to self of bathing. In the Northwest Coast tradition, the quest is for four consecutive days. My wife and I both carry a spirit song. I assisted Vince Stogan once when a few people were questing for a song. None received a song. As I stated: “Fate: power, is consistent with one’s inner nature. It can be sought, but seeking does not guarantee that one will attain it.”

The most commonly recognized song of spirit or spell songs are Óðinn’s. His spell songs are recorded in Hávamál and begin with stanza 146: “I know those spells no noble wife knows or the son of any man. One is called ‘help,’ and it will help you against strife and sorrow and every grief.”[iv] The spells end with stanza 163: “I know an eighteenth, which I never tell a maid or any man’s wife: much better if only one is aware (the last it is of my chants), except only her my arms enfold, or perhaps my sister.”[v] Óðinn’s spells only tell us the purpose of the spell. The song that activates the spell is not revealed, as this knowledge of power would only be orally taught.

For many people, the most recognizable section of Hávamál is the one that precedes Óðinn’s spell songs—his sacrifice self to self on Yggdrasill and his discovery of runes. “I know that I hung in the wind-torn tree Nine whole nights, spear-pierced, Consecrated to Odin, myself to my Self above me in the tree, Whose root no one knows whence it sprang. None brought me bread, none served me drink; I searched the depths, spied runes of wisdom; Raised them with song, and fell once more thence.”[vi] Once again, we see the importance and the need for a song of spirit—galdr.

One concluding point concerning Óðinn’s sacrifice on Yggdrasill, it seems from the description that Óðinn is hanging upside down (“I searched the depths…”). This would indicate that a person seeking hidden knowledge would need to “inverse” their view of the world and reality as it is commonly viewed. Furthermore, in this head-down position the view is not of the sky but of the earth; the depths of the earth where the knowledge is hidden.

 

Shamans or physicians of the soul are known as ‘wounded healers ’ Their ability and power to heal and perform feats of magic and psychic/spiritual wonders is due to their own personal healing and ascetic training and sacrifice.

Having experienced their death and re-birth as well as the healing of their wounds through the earth, the shamans become the guardians and the protectors of the earth. The earth, the symbolic mother, is the teacher and the sacred source of vitality for the shaman as he/she develops a living, nurturing relationship to all of Mother Nature. The landscape of the Great Mother provides the shaman with the opportunities to face fears and to become a person of power.

Questing in caves and purifying in streams and the ocean, the shaman experiences the death of the old self and the re-birth of the new as a child, guardian of the earth and a person of love and power. To the shaman, the veil between this world and the Otherworld is at its thinnest near running water. Being fluid, mysterious, purifying, life-giving, as well as life-taking, living water is sacred and a source of spiritual power. This is the reason why one of the earliest forms of symbolic death and re-birth, full immersion bathing, was and still is performed in swiftly flowing streams and rivers. This is the original type of spiritual baptism, not bringing with it membership into an organization such as the Christian church, but rather purification through a symbolic birth from the ‘womb of the earth.’

 

As masters of the otherworld and earth, shamans are sensitive to the wood, the stone and all the elemental forces that surround them. They look to the stars at night and to the four winds during the day. They listen to the magic roar of the streams and moaning surge of the oceans to learn the truth of the great mysteries of life. The shape of the clouds reveals the secrets of life and death. And the cry of the owl reminds them of their ancestors and the dark knowledge and wisdom of the earth.

Unlike priests, they are not gatekeepers between you and the otherworld. They are messengers not gatekeepers. Shamans have a knowing about the mysteries of the unseen otherworld (world of spirit) and the earth whereas the institutionalized priest deals only with heaven and then only secondhand. The most commonly known process of the shaman to reach the otherworld is through an altered state of consciousness brought about through various means such as extremes of temperature such as bathing, repetitive movement and repetitive sound such as drumming and chanting.

More to the point, one of the key factors of a shaman’s proficiency is their level of sensitivity, to be open and aware of the intertwining forces of the otherworld and the earth and the ability to access both for knowledge and wisdom. At any time, a person with this level of ability may access the otherworld without outside stimulus. The reason why this is possible? The answer: Radical non-dualism is their reality as spirit and matter interpenetrate. In other words, there is no longer a need for a stimulus induced altered state of consciousness. An altered state all along meant a consciousness of radical non-duality but, and this is a large but, with the addition of a person’s own unhealthy ego issues, which to a person with a dualistic consciousness is an altered state from their normal dualistic state. When my wife and I conduct a “feeding the spirits” burning, we are not in an altered state of consciousness induced by outside stimulus but accessing our radical nondualistic consciousness as we “call in the spirits.” No beating of drums or drugs just the power of our consciousness.

Altered State Is – One of Radical Non-duality

Over the past few decades, the surge of New Agers and Neo-shamans has resulted in misinformation and ignorance to the underlying fundamental knowledge and belief of shamanism. The accepted ‘text book’ of shamanism is Mircea Eliade’s Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. It is a scholarly work. However, Mircea Eliade was an observer not an actual participant of what he observed to the level of an apprenticeship with the many cultures he observed. Subsequently, other scholars or professors who participated in a few altered states of reality ceremonies and then promoted theories and practices based on their few experiences; bring a disservice to an ancient paradigm of spiritual, religious and healing thought.

As I stated previously, altered states of consciousness occur through repetitive movement (dancing, running, walking, etc.), repetitive sounds (drumming, chanting, singing, etc.), hallucinogenic plants, breath control, fasting, isolation, and extremes of temperature (sweat lodge, cold water asceticism, etc.). But these are only tools to achieve a paradigm shift in one’s consciousness. This is to shift from a dualistic consciousness, where spirit and matter are separated to one of radical non-duality where the Otherworld of reality and this world of reality interpenetrate each other. A master shaman may then access the Otherworld at any time without any outside stimulus.

In other words, a great disservice has been conducted by leading people down a path (based on of one’s own lack of knowledge and power) where beating a drum and closing your eyes qualifies you to become a shaman or druid for that matter of fact. Of course, the true and narrow path to become a person of power whether that person is called shaman, druid or mystic is difficult and takes years to achieve. But do not equate the tools with the state of being. The only way to be a true person of power of mastery is to awaken to a radical non-dualistic consciousness.

For additional knowledge on this subject: Return of a Green Philosophy

[i] Mindy MacLeod and Bernard Mees, Runic Amulets and Magic Objects, 15.

[ii] Incantation also refers to chanting. Mantras are Buddhism’s chants. One of the best known is Mahayana Buddhism Heart Sutra. A lesser-known chant is the lesser spell of the Shingon Esoteric Buddhist deity Fudo-myoo. These chants have a singing quality to them and provide insight into galdr.

[iii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galdr.

[iv] Andy Orchard, The Elder Edda: A Book of Viking Lore, 37.

[v] Ibid., 39.

[vi] Elsa-Brita Titchenell, The Masks of Odin, 126.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…” IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

As the Declaration of Independence states: “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness….” But what is happiness? Ask a hundred different people in different parts of the world and most likely we would get one hundred different answers. Happiness is very intrinsic to each individual. I was happy when I discovered the link between Bohm’s cosmology theories and the Norse-Germanic myth of the Well and World Tree. But that’s me. Happiness flows through me with the togetherness, wellbeing and love of my wife, children and grandchild. But that’s me. I’m happy visiting new and old lands with my wife ever seeking primordial knowledge. But that’s me. How about you?

According to Timothy J. Shannon, chair of the History Department at Gettysburg College, “Jefferson and other Enlightenment thinkers came up with was that happiness had its roots in humankind’s inherent capacity for reason and desire for material security.”[i] I would have to partially disagree as there is more to happiness than reason and material security. However, we may understand their thinking as the wheels of capitalism were just beginning to gain “steam” with the invention of the steam engine by James Watt in 1765. Watt’s invention powered the Industrial Revolution.  Eventually, the desire for material security would lead to the concept of the “Great American Dream.”

Since many people are driven by base level desires of safety, security, power, and sex, the common consciousness is material security—wealth and power. Our physical, emotional, and spiritual security is seldom focused on family, friends, and ancestors. It’s all about money (wealth) and the so-called power that goes with it.

The common vision is towards the future not the past. But the future is not real; the past is (this is another whole blog in itself). This future oriented consciousness drives the engines of capitalism. As is very evident today, this drive for the Great American Dream is fool’s gold for the majority.

The premise of capitalism has nothing whatsoever to do with happiness. The capitalistic paradigm is not based on equality. On the other hand, it is a doctrine of exploitation of people and natural resources—i.e. research the current situation in Puerto Rico[ii] concerning The Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, or PROMESA.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders slammed PROMESA in a heated speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday, June 29. It’s important to note that Hillary Clinton has previously expressed support for the colonial-style bill. The following are segments of his speech:

“I rise in very strong opposition to the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act, the so-called PROMESA Act. This is a terrible piece of legislation, setting horrific precedent, and it must not be passed…

“This legislation strips away the most important powers of the democratically elected officials of Puerto Rico, the Governor, the Legislature, and the municipal governments as well. We must not allow that to happen…

“The bottom line is that the United States must not become a colonial master, which is precisely what this legislation allows. This legislation, I should add, is not just about taking away the democratic rights of the people of Puerto Rico. It is about punishing them economically. Since 2006, Puerto Rico has been in the midst of a major economic depression. In the last 10 years, Puerto Rico has lost 20 percent of its jobs. About 60 percent of Puerto Rico’s adult population is either unemployed or has given up looking for work. Over the last 5 years alone, more than 150 public schools have been shut down and the childhood poverty rate in Puerto Rico is now 58 percent.

“In the midst of this human suffering and economic turmoil, it is morally repugnant that billionaire hedge fund managers on Wall Street are demanding that Puerto Rico fire teachers, close schools, cut pensions, and lower the minimum wage so that they can reap huge profits off the suffering and misery of the American citizens on that island.

“We have to understand that Puerto Rico’s $70 billion in debt is unsustainable and unpayable. That is just a fact. You cannot get blood out of a stone. The reason — or one of the major reasons that it is unpayable — has a lot to do with the greed of Wall Street vulture funds. In recent years, vulture funds have purchased a significant amount of Puerto Rico’s debt. In fact, it has been estimated that over one-third of Puerto Rico’s debt is now owned by these vulture funds that are getting interest rates of up to 34 percent on tax-exempt bonds they purchased for as little as 29 cents on the dollar. Let me repeat that. Vulture funds are getting interest rates of up to 34 percent on tax-exempt bonds they purchased for as little as 29 cents on the dollar…

“Let us be clear. This issue is a significant part of what the entire debate regarding Puerto Rico is about. Billionaire hedge fund managers who purchased Puerto Rican bonds for pennies on the dollar now want a 100 percent return on their investment, while schools are being shut down in Puerto Rico, while pensions are being threatened with cuts, while children on the island go hungry.

“That is morally unacceptable. That should not be allowed by the Congress.”[iii]

The bottom line: Ask yourself—are the people of Puerto Rico happy?

 

[i] Timothy J. Shannon, What it means to pursue happiness, Seattle Times, July 4, 2016, A15.

[ii] Sanders Blasts ‘Colonial’ Puerto Rico Bill and Wall Street Vulture Funds in Powerful Senate Speech concerning The Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, or PROMESA, http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/watch-sanders-blasts-colonial-puerto-rico-bill-and-wall-street-vulture-funds-powerful

[iii] Ibid.

 

“Organic denoting a relation between elements of something such that they fit together harmoniously as necessary parts of a whole. Of, relating to, or derived from living matter.”

Divine Humanity is an organic religion. It is a natural religion, full of the experience of life from the awe of a sunrise to the first kiss of spring. The earth is Divine Humanity’s temple.

There is no doctrine only experience with Divine Humanity. The religions that are based on textural books are artificial—there is no beating heart to them, only guilt, doubt, and false hope. When a religion is based on a “sacred text – a book” and not on one’s heart and personal experience of life and mysteries of life, the only conclusion to be derived is that these religions are a stain and blight on humanity which permeates throughout the earth affecting all living things.

Divine Humanity is not based on a sacred text. This allows personal freedom in establishing one’s personal spiritual beliefs and practices drawn from the experience of life and nature. This is heart-based religion where we are in partnership with nature. A biosphere that is alive and conscious that extends throughout all of creation. This consciousness is divine consciousness (the sixth element), which permeates and connects all things together.

Within the totality of creation there are six elements: earth, water, fire, air, space, and consciousness. Things that arise by dependent co-origination from the six elements fall into two categories: physical things and things of the mind. Physical things arise from the first five elements while mental things arise from the sixth element, consciousness. All six elements are mutually pervading. The first five elements wholly permeate the sixth, consciousness, and consciousness in turn wholly permeates the other five elements. In other words physical thing and mental things interpenetrate without hindrance.

Consequently, all things have consciousness, not just humans, and will respond accordingly to our consciousness. This is the reason that human’s physical acts of pollution of the environment are not the totality of the problem. Nature and creatures are affected by the fear and anger of humans. Furthermore, humanity’s mindset of separation, where humans are superior to all other things of the earth, is caustic to nature and the environment. This is humanity’s mind pollution. Instead of fear and separation, what nature needs is a nurturing spirit of unity, loving kindness flowing from our hearts, and our sincere gratitude for nature’s beauty and its garden paradise. As we nurture nature, nature will nurture us.

Is there any proof to this theory of an all pervading consciousness? There is according to new research from the Aerospace Institute of the University of Stuttgart in Germany. It supports the theory that water has memory (thus consciousness). “This theory was first proposed by the late French immunologist Dr. Jacques Benveniste in a controversial article published in 1988 in Nature as a way of explaining how homeopathy works.”[i] Think how this supports our theory on consciousness. “More than 70 percent of our planet is covered in water. The human body is made of 60 percent water; the brain, 70 percent; the lungs, nearly 90 percent. Our energies might be traveling out of our brains and bodies and into those of other living beings of all kinds through imprints on this magical substance. The oceans and rivers and rains might be transporting all manner of information throughout the world.”[ii] Now, you may see the connection between human’s mind pollution and its effect on the earth.

We may view this knowledge from a spiritual perspective. In the ageless sanctification rite of bathing, a person enters a river to submerge themselves three or four times in an attempt to access the Otherworld. However, entering into a river does not unto itself provide access to the Otherworld. It is the spirit song sung at the beginning of the ritual by a person of power—a shaman (in Jesus’ time a Chasid—a Jewish shaman) and his/her intention and strong mind that “opens” the river and provides the access to the Otherworld.

 “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

This great teaching reflects our theory of divine consciousness. Love in its truest sense means unity or oneness. All other shades of love flow this foundational meaning. As an example, sexual love is the unity of two humans, which may or may not include emotional love or oneness between the two. In other words, love your neighbor as yourself means there is no separation yourself and others. And love of self means unity of body, mind, emotion, and spirit.

We must realize that our divine consciousness underlies but blends with our dualistic consciousness which makes the actual mindset and practice of this teaching difficult. The quest is to make this great teaching simple—part of our daily consciousness; keeping in mind that our thoughts flow from our consciousness.

“The great interpreter of Torah, Rabbi Hillel, was challenged to recite the entire Torah while standing on one foot. Hillel responded: “Do not do anything to your neighbor that is hateful to you. This is the entire Torah. Go and learn.” And the greatest expositor of Jewish law, Rabbi Akiba, taught that the central principle of Torah was, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”[iii]

According to Bernie Sanders, religion “essentially comes down to ‘do unto others as you would like them to do unto you.’ And what I have believed in my whole life (is) that we are in this together. … The truth is, at some level when you hurt, when your children hurt, I hurt. And when my kids hurt, you hurt.”

The Key to the Kingdom—The Oneness of Self and Other[iv]

Today’s cultural mantra is me, me, me! There is no consideration of others—human or the earth and its creatures. It’s all about me—a shallow and highly self-oriented and self-focused worldview. Recognizing this worldview and the unhealthy egos of people who are totally focused on the I, the corporation marketing geniuses who are focused on maximizing their greed through the bottom line have subtly reinforced people’s unhealthy egos through the names of their products—think iPhone, iPad, and iTunes.

To the majority of people, life is nothing more than an obsessive, materialistic philosophy of consuming. In our so-called democracy, it’s hard to believe, but people seem to be more focused and concerned about the style than about the substance of a political candidate’s debate, even a presidential one. Wealth and external status rule the day. “But what would happen if someone refused to define himself or herself by his or her economic status? What if someone came along and insisted that there’s nothing ultimately valuable in material progress? What if someone were to treat the getting and spending of money, neither with contempt, nor with respect, but with indifference?”[v]

That someone was Jesus. The key to the kingdom was not to be found in external wealth and power. It was not to be uncovered in the rules and regulations of finite institutions. It was unearthed by discovering the oneness of self and others and following natural law. Accordingly, the secret to a peaceful and fulfilled life, one resulting in happiness and love, is to be found within our relationships to our own selves and to others—others including the world at large (animals, etc.). Love and forgiveness begin with self and then expand out to others. This was, and still is, the mystery of transformed consciousness—the mystery of our kingdom within and the mystery of self and other. When Jesus taught “love thy neighbor as thyself,” he was referring to the metaphysical realization “that you and that other are one, that you are two aspects of the one life, and that your apparent separateness is but an effect of the way we experience forms under the conditions of space and time. Our true reality is in our identity and unity with all life.”[vi]

[i] Satyapriya, New Research Supports The Theory That Water Has Memory, July 25, 2013, http://collectivelyconscious.net/articles/new-research-supports-the-theory-that-water-has-memory/

[ii] Ibid

[iii] Michael Lerner, The Left Hand Of God, 84.

[iv] Rev. Dr. JC Husfelt, Do You Like Jesus—Not the Church?, 107 – 108.

[v] Duncan Holcomb, The Gospel According to Us, 92.

[vi] Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, 110.

Excerpted from Do You Like Jesus—Not the Church?

For eons humans have gazed at the night sky with feelings of awe and wonderment. For the earliest religious leaders and philosophers, the stars and the moon, as well as nature, were teachers and seen as a source of knowledge and wisdom. To these wise ones, the night sky was a starry script that could reveal the mysteries of life and death. With creative imagination, these wonderworkers assigned symbolic names for the various groupings of stars with the realization that “as below, so above; as above, so below.” This was the knowledge of the oneness of heaven and earth—the one a reflection of the other.

In the night’s angelic script, there were thirteen groupings of stars known today as constellations. Two of these were named Leo and Virgo—the lion in the night sky was followed by the maiden. These two constellations and their symbolic images are the gist of the eleventh tarot card—the Tamed Lion—Power. Modern tarot decks have a propensity to use the exoteric name for this card and call it Strength. Additionally, in some modern decks, it is tarot card eight, not eleven. But the esoteric number placement was eleven, and the card’s name was Power.

And what is the greatest power? Love. Love conquers all, even the king of the beasts. The eleventh tarot card symbolizes the transmutation of the energy of the beast within—through love. This is the card of the mastery of one’s self and one’s own actions. It portrays a maiden with her hands on the open jaws of the lion, symbolizing that she has tamed the beast. It is only through the maiden’s “loving acceptance of its bestial nature that the animal is not only tamed but is transformed as well…when human consciousness recognizes and accepts its untamed, primitive nature, it not only frees itself from the instinct’s autonomous power but liberates and transforms the instinctual side as well.”[i]

As the eleventh tarot card, the Lion and the Maiden are connected with the eleventh letter of the Greek alphabet—lambda, which symbolizes balance. In this case it means a balanced use of power. This is the ability to know when to let our lion roar, when to let it be silent, and when to “unleash” its power.

When we tame the beast within, we open the “book” of natural law as our behaviors become empathic and altruistic—prosocial behavior.[ii] We become responsible for our actions and our behaviors. The key is once again the relationship of self and other—being responsible and caring means that we will not consciously hurt anyone else through our actions.

However, we do not metaphorically become a saint. We still have the basic primal survival, safety, and sexual wants and needs. Through the process of taming our beast, we are able to let go of some of our destructive behaviors but not all. When we don’t let them go, we symbolically “press them down” or “bind them.” (For this “binding knowledge” please see Return of a Green Philosophy)

[i] Sallie Nichols, Jung and Tarot, 203.

[ii] A term used by psychologists referring to empathy leading to helping activity.

We are in transitional times leaving the Age of Pisces and entering the Age of Aquarius. There are those that look at this transition as the “The End Times.” These three simple words cause fear and terror in the minds of many people, as they open a portal to dogmatic manipulation based on interpretations of the last book of the Bible, Revelations. Ironically enough, we are in the end times, but not in the way that the religious manipulators want you to believe.

The End Times means, simply, the end of an age—the Age of Pisces. Over the past thirty years, I have been privy to various indigenous prophecies concerning earth changes. They are all similar and don’t paint a pretty picture of humanity’s future. The elders all said that “man” must stop destroying the earth through their greed and need for power. One of these elders was Vince Stogan, a Salish Indian doctor. He didn’t call himself a shaman, but if you needed a label, he preferred to be called an Indian doctor. However, he did refer to his uncle, alive during the early part of the twentieth century, as a shaman. In fact, a “strong shaman” was his term as in “strong heart, strong mind, and strong hands for healing.” Vince told my wife and me about the prophecies of his uncle:

“My uncle predicted all the events that would happen, and they all have been or come true (bombs, World War II, TV, cars, styles, etc.). If things don’t calm down over in the Middle East, it will be another war that will be big, World War III—a part of the earth will change. Uncle said it would be like a little boy picking on another little boy; then, one of their big brothers will join in, and then another member, until the whole family is fighting, and it will spread to everybody joining in and choosing sides.”

Ragnarök

The change of Ages in the Norse-Germanic tradition is known as Ragnarök. It is the most critical time in history and a fateful moment for those who reign. For the majority who read the myth the reigning ones are the gods. But in reality the hidden meaning points to the reigning humans (and institutions) who by their actions cause destruction leading to destructive earth changes.

Ragnarök cannot be stopped. The best advice – flow with it and use common sense not fear. The destruction is cyclical. Ragnarök as the time between Ages is directly connected with the Norse-Germanic myth/concept of the Well and Tree. I’ll explain in very simplistic terms the knowledge of the Well and Tree as it is extensive and – deep as the Well (further explained in the Return of a Green Philosophy). Yggdrasill, the Norse World Tree, is feed by three primary roots that have their source in three wells. However, the three wells are really one well with three layers—Hvergelmir (origin; ON “bubbling cauldron”) lowest level of well, then Urðr (fate – nornir), last layer Mímir (wisdom).

The well is the unseen realm (Otherworld) and the tree is the seen realm (Universe). The well holds the logs or layers (strata) of the past and non-past (present). Symbolically when the well is full and overflows—Ragnarök occurs—the tree “shakes.” However, though the world tree shakes (ponder this) it does not fall.

There are certain logs (events of the past) that are larger and displace more well-water. One major log of the past was Constantine’s creation of the Nicene Creed which led to many other logs placed in the well through the destruction of indigenous people and their cultures by the Church. Another major log was the birth of Capitalism and the resultant destruction of the earth and the environment. There are many, many others such as the neoliberal reign of the Clinton’s (one example, his repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act).

Now to the present day and we have Brexit as a major log within the well. How close is the well to overflowing? No human knows. But there is a way to determine the cycles of Ragnarök. As I said, Yggdrasil, the axis mundi, does not fall as it is the measurer of time and fates. There are two time cycles—the procession of equinoxes and the cycles of the Pole Star. With the equinoxes and Pole Star there is a Great Year cycle of 26,000 years. Approximately every 2100 years there is a different constellation on the vernal equinox (different Age)—approximately as some Ages are shorter and/or longer. Each shift between Ages would be a Ragnarök. The other cycle, cycles of the Pole Star, is connected to the tilt of the earth on its axis.

During the 26,000 years, the orbit of the earth around the sun expands and contracts. In other words at various times the earth is closer or further from the sun. Additionally, the earth tilts on its axis over time until it reaches an extreme tilt and then begins tilting back the other way. Extreme tilts of the earth’s axis and orbiting at the most extreme distance from the earth occurs approximately every 26,000 years and results in drastic changes to the face of the earth.

The Pole Star shifts once about every 3700 years. During the Great Year the Pole Star moves through seven different constellations. Presently, the Pole Star is Polaris known as the North Star.

Mythically the Pole Star is attached or “nailed” to the top of Yggdrasil. Twice during the Great Year the twelve stations of the procession and the seven stations of the Pole Star intersect: middle and end/beginning. These two are the most intense and destructive of the change of Ages or Ragnarök. The end/beginning is the most destructive.

We are at that point. This most destructive Ragnarök will usher in the Age of Aquarius and begin a new 26,000 year cycle.

 

When reincarnation is not one of the beliefs of a religion then the metaphoric “gates of hell” are flung wide-open. The present day most vivid result of this is exemplified by Islamic jihad and is equated to a one way ticket to paradise even though you may have blown up innocents while achieving jihad. JC

One of the great mysteries of life is not about life at all but death. Mystery swirls around our physical death, even though it is inevitable. The question that enters everyone’s mind at some point in their lives is: What happens after we die? Do we spend an eternity with seventy-two virgins? Or do we wait somewhere (not sure where) for the Rapture or the resurrection of our physical body?

Organized religions have utilized resurrection to their benefit by keeping people in fear and servitude. If people believe this propaganda of their church, temple, or mosque, then they are locked into being a slave of the religion. If they are Christians, then their behaviors will take on a philosophy wherein it doesn’t really matter who or what they hurt and abuse through their actions, as they are guaranteed resurrection and a place in heaven due to their professed belief in the redeeming power of Jesus Christ.

A Christian’s emphasis is on words, prayer, not on action, deeds. A deranged gunman can kill nine people while reloading his gun five times while no one physically stops him but only attempting to talk him out of his intrinsic evil rampage. We can see the dangers inherent in the church’s emphasis on words/prayer not deeds and their concept of resurrection.

If resurrection is not reality, then what is? Reincarnation is a philosophical paradigm that causes shock and awe in Christian and Muslim circles. It is a threat to the power of organized religion. Early on, the Church of Rome saw the danger in people’s belief in reincarnation. Consequently, “Those early Church Fathers who taught or believed in reincarnation were declared heretics, excommunicated, and their books were burned. Other heretics faced horrible deaths, such as being burned alive. Why? Think about it. If you believe you will reincarnate in another body, you cannot be controlled by fear of an eternity in the fires of hell.

“The church existed to hold power over the people, to tell them what to believe rather than have them think for themselves. Control by fear is not possible if an individual knows who she/he is (astrology) and that he will reincarnate again and again. There is nothing to fear when we know Truth; therefore, Truth must be hidden from the people.”[i]

There are indications of a belief in reincarnation/rebirth within the Norse consciousness. Within the Poetic Edda, there are references to rebirth in the Helgi poems. The lovers Helgi and Sváva are said in the prose note at the end of Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar to be born again, while at the close of Helgakviða Hundingsbana II there is a reference to a similar tradition about the later Helgi:

“It was believed according to ancient lore (í forneskju) that folk were reborn; but this is now said to be old women’s lying tales. Helgi and Sigrún are said to have been reborn; he was then called Helgi Haddingjaskati and she Kara Hálfdanardóttir, as is related in Káruljóð; and she was a Valkyrie.”[ii]

One of the most detailed accounts of Norse funeral rites was by the Arab diplomat Ahmad ibn Fadlán. Hidden in his account is the Norse belief in rebirth. Part of the rites involved the sacrifice of a servant girl. Before she was to die, she “was given a hen. She cut off its head and the body was thrown into the funeral ship. It is possible that birds of this kind symbolize rebirth…We may also think of the cock, Salgofnir, awakening the fallen warriors in Valhöll.”[iii]

It makes sense to recognize rebirth in the mind of the Norse. This “conception of rebirth combines, as it were, the idea of the indestructible soul and the close connection of this with the body after death.”[iv] Thus, we see the importance of grave mounds and sacred hills such as Helgafell Mountain in Iceland. “Landnámabók gives a number of references to certain Icelandic families who believed that after death they would pass into some particular hill or mountain near their home, showing that this belief, if it really flourished in late heathen times, was closely bound up with special localities, and with the unity of the kindred.”[v] In regards to the grave mound, it seems possible “that the emphasis on the help and wisdom to be won from the world of the dead by the seeker who knows the way is based on a belief in the nearness and potency of the other world, prevalent in Scandinavia in pre-Christian times.”[vi] Furthermore, it was believed that “One can recognise a hero of the past in one’s contemporary, by his courage, and by the contents and strength of his honour, but also his career provides its evidence, and this perhaps of the clearest, as to the connection between past and present.”[vii]

Of course, the Norse weren’t the only ones who believed in reincarnation. Even in the New Testament, Jesus relates that John the Baptist was the reincarnation of the prophet Elijah. A belief in reincarnation is extremely important. It frees us from dogmatic religious beliefs and practices that seek to control people through fear, coercion, and intimidation. From a practical as well as a spiritual/religious viewpoint, believing in reincarnation is paramount to our soul’s well-being and to the welfare of the earth and all its creatures.

[i] Nancy B. Detweiler, History of Astrology in Judaism & Christianity, http://jhaines6.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/history-of-astrology-in-judaismchristianity-a-fantastic-article-that-helps-to-correct-some-of-our-falsehistory-j/.

[ii] Hilda Roderick Ellis, The Road to Hel, 139.

[iii] E. O. G. Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion of the North, 273.

[iv] Hilda Roderick Ellis, The Road to Hel, 149.

[v] Ibid., 87.

[vi] Ibid., 199.

[vii] Vilhelm Grönbech, The Culture of the Teutons, 153.

Go to the seas and listen with heart and mind; go to the mountains, sit by a tree, and listen with heart and mind; walk in the valleys with the winds caressing your soul, and listen with heart and mind; lie by a river with its soothing lullaby, and listen with heart and mind; skip a stone in childlike innocence across the mirror surface of a lake, and listen with heart and mind; feel the fire of the sun on your face, and listen with heart and mind; let the moonlight blanket you with its beauty, and listen with heart and mind; stand and gaze at the night sky with its star-studded tapestry, and listen with heart and mind to the sound of angels; and let the rain cleanse you of pain and suffering, and listen with heart and mind. Rev. Dr. JC Husfelt

“In Scandinavia, nature is peopled by powers in human shape. Up from the earth and out from the hills, elf and dwarf peer forth, a host of giants bellow from the mountains, from the sea answer Ran’s daughters, those enticing and hardhearted wave maidens, with their cruel mother, and at home in the hall of the deep, sits venerable Ægir. Over the heavens go sun and moon; some indeed declare that the two drive in chariots with steeds harnessed to their carts; the sun is chased by two wolves eager to swallow its shining body. Of the sun and the moon, it is said, both that they were given and taken in marriage, and that they have left offspring.”[i]

Have you ever taken the time to go out into nature, away from human encroachment, and just sat on the earth and felt the beauty and love surrounding you? Have you taken the time to see elf and dwarf peer forth from field and stone? Have you ever considered that you have no other reason than to just be part of and in partnership with nature; no smart phones or tablets, no hiking from point to point, but just you, and the Great Mother—Freyja, seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling, and even tasting the essence of the kingdom of nature?

Earth is a paradise of wonders all wrapped up in myriad colors. It is alive with a consciousness that responds to all the things that call it home. I believe in a partnership with the earth and feel at one with it. I do not believe in being superior to nature, acting as its steward, but instead acting as one with nature and in partnership with the earth in cocreating a paradisiacal state of life for all life.

When was the last time you viewed the miracle of sunrise; the wonder of sunset; the magical rise of the moon in its fullness, reminding you of the interpenetration of light within dark? Have you ever been in awe of the darkness of a new moon, knowing that all growth is born out of darkness? When are you going to awaken to the paradise spread before you—the kingdom of Óðinn as Allfather?

When I talk about Mother Nature, I’m referring not only to the earth but also to the whole of the seen and unseen universe. Mother Nature is wondrous, magical, and a miracle of creation. The universe as Mother Nature is a great concept to embrace. It expands our concern and consciousness for the well-being of all things out to the stars. This takes the religious philosophical concept of the kingdom of Óðinn from just being earthbound out to the stars—the totality of the universe!

Having our heart and nature as one essence is essential for our well-being of body, mind, and spirit. Our heart will assist us in connecting with nature, and nature will help us be connected to our heart—a blending of both. We may metaphorically consider Yggdrasill the heart of the earth and the heart of heaven, pumping the lifeblood of creation through all things of existence.

 

[i] Vilhelm Grönbech, The Culture of the Teutons, 129.