Solemnis Solitaire #1
By Staff Writer: Paganus Greybeard
Greetings.
Hail & Well Met.
Blessings Be….
In the Beginning all was dark, shapeless and without form.
In the Beginning there was no function, point and/or purpose.
In the Beginning there was nothing.
Then the Primal Event occurred -
and came forth the ALL and with the ALL came the Whole of Creation.
The basic, universal Creator and Creation myth.
Myth not because it is fiction phantasia - but because it is
the first story ever told and recorded. Recorded not in a written
form - but in spoken word oral history and tradition.
Oral tradition passed down father to son - mother to daughter,
generation to generation - down through the millennia.
Because this Creation Myth is so ancient - and so primal - it is
found in nearly all of the Major Faith’s, Cultures and Societal
Histories. It even appears - in slightly varied forms - in
indigenous aboriginal peoples myths - including such as the Australian
and North and South American Natives’s. It even appears in the Edda’s of the
ancient Norse and Celtic peoples.
Being originally oral history and tradition the Creation Mythos
was not ‘written’ and ‘recorded’ till around 3000 BCE.
This was not ‘written’ as words on papyrus scrolls.
This was ‘written’ as pre-Egyptian cuneiform of the Sumerian,
Assyrian and Babylonian temple and burial chamber inscriptions and
carvings. While by our current era’s historical and cultural
frame of reference Ancient Egyptian is archaeic - there are and
were vastly older societies and cultures.
In the beginnings of ‘faiths’ and ‘religions’ all peoples were
essentially pagan. There were as many male as female deities and
divinities. Male and female deities and divinities covered the
lands and the cosmos. It was not until after the death and crucifixion
of the Christos that a ‘new’ faith came forth into the chapels and temples
of the land. Formulation of the nascent ‘Christian’ ‘religion & faith’ -
in it’s earliest years - depended extensively upon vastly older
Zoroastrianism from Persia and selected elements from the Egyptian
pantheon as well as other selected elements from the Greeks and Romans. It could,
therefore, be argued - in a limited sense - that in many of its core basics
‘Christianity’ is itself pagan derived.
Writing down the myths, teachings and wisdom of their respective
faiths on papyrus scrolls is - in the long view of human history - a
relatively recent development. Even the oldest of the known scrolls only
date to after the death and crucifixion of the Christos. This is - at
best - circa 1800 to 1950 years old. Well under 2000 years ago.
Some of the oldest of the Persian/Sumerian inscriptions/carvings are
somewhere in the realm of 4 to 6 thousand years older than that - making
them 6 to 8 thousand years old from our present date.
Ancient oral traditions are many multiple millennia older still.
In my own individual and personal beginnings I was not Pagan.
I was a “mainstream denominational". I did the Sunday services.
I attended Sunday School. For a summer I even assisted in Summer School
classes. I graduated from a “denominational” High School in Denver, Co.
After High School I enrolled in - but did not complete - classes
at a church based and operated seminary school. I then enrolled
in and graduated from Metropolitan State in Denver, Co. I last attended
’services’ in the ‘denominational church’ somewhere in the mid
to late 1970’s. I still had my ‘faith’ - I just had no physical ‘church’.
I was open and ready for a drastic and very dramatic change.
A change that was already happening - but since it was
happening so very slowly and incrementally - I never noticed it.
I never knew the ‘change’ was happening.
Time changes everything. Everything changes over the years.
In the 1950 circa years since the ‘birth’ of the so-called
‘Christian’ ‘religion & faith’ many of its integral tenets,
teachings, ritual and ceremonial services and structures and
‘essential’ core beliefs have become ‘official canon’ instead
of the Zoroastrian paganistic ‘borrowings’ they clearly
originally were. So too I am no longer who and what I once
was. Once I sat in a cold, hard, uncomfortable wooden pew
attending Sunday Services hearing the pastorally delivered
‘Word of the Lord’. At that time I also assisted with Sunday
and Summer School classes. Today I sit under a tree - provided
I am sitting anywhere other than at a ‘puter somewhere - quietly
and personally communing with my Guides, Guardians. Muses and
the Lord & Lady. The years have passed. Changes have been
made….
I am nearing the start of my 3rd Year of Readings.
I am starting to read of the Shamans and the Druids.
I am also starting to read “The Supernatural".
It’s a series of Time-Life-like picture & text
books from the 1970’s. I know they may not be
accurate or reliable on many things - but they are
good for what I am going to use them for. I see them as
sign posts to thoughts, topics, ideas and concepts
that may yet be new and as yet unexplored by this Paganus.
New ways - new thoughts - new patterns and forms.
New authors, new readings and new writings.
Moving forward from where We were to where We will be.
Let’s together begin with a simple analogy….
I am building my new life.
I may not yet be a Witch - but I do work for one!
I work for M’lady Mistress Ravenfyre.
I work and serve as Her Site Administrator & Group Moderator
for Her Mystic Witch Forums
I am a Writer and Editor for Her MysticWitch.com.
I am the “Owner” of a Google Group - MagickalMystics.
I am a Guild member of the ‘Science & Arts’ Guild at the
“Koroneburg” Renaissance Festival in Corona, CA.
I also serve and tend this household.
My life is complicated, often confused and contradictory
and emotionally, psychologically and metaphysically busy.
I serve many people in many different ways.
For the Mistress I am Her Paganus - Her Site Administrator
{spam killer!} and Group Moderator {Forum’s ‘traffic cop’}.
I also serve Her as a Writer and Editorial Contributor.
It is in that role that I write and post these thoughts….
I also “own” and “manage” MagickalMystics on Google Groups.
In the ‘physical’ and often quite tediously mundane ‘real’ world
I am this household’s ‘house-tender’. Yes - that does indeed
include some inevitable and inescapable ‘parent-tending’.
I also serve the ‘Science & Arts’ Guild out at the “Koroneburg”
Renaissance Festival. This coming season I am again blessed with
the opportunity to work for Tom & Pat - producers and presenters
of the Festival.
Let us not ever forget I also serve the Lord & Lady.
I serve not only a very masculine God but a very feminine
Goddess.
I am building my ‘new’ life.
In a very real way it quite similar to building a structure.
You first select the site and location for your project.
You clear and prepare the ground.
You take out all the old dead stumps and rocks.
You keep as many of the living tress and shrubs as possible.
You then dig out for the foundation.
A life - nor physical structure - is never built from the
highest level downwards.
A life - as well as all physical structures - is/are built from
the lowest levels upward.
I am ‘building the foundation’.
One digs out for the foundation -
lays in the electrical and plumbing -
and then builds the basement level.
That is what I am doing.
I am gathering materials - the metaphysical & metaphorical
electrical conduit, copper pipe, wood, plaster, concrete and
rebar and other component stuff - and am busy ‘building’ and slowly
‘outfitting’ my ‘basement/foundation’ level.
Shamanism, Druidism, Wicca, Magick and Mysticism are all going
into that Foundation Level.
The process is slow.
It is meant to be slow.
You are not meant to do any of this quickly.
Building Your physical ‘real’ world home may take years.
So too it may take years to ‘build’ and ‘outfit’ Your
metaphysical, metaphorical, spiritual home.
I no longer sit in a wooden, cold and uncomfortable pew
listening to a pastor deliver “God’s Word".
I no longer ‘pass the offering’ down the aisle.
I no longer drop a dollar into that insatiably greedy golden bowl.
I no longer serve as a ‘Candle-Lighter’ for the Sunday Services.
If I light any candles at all it is for my own personal workings.
I can - and do - wear to Renaissance Festival an outfit/costume very
similar to that which I once wore as ‘Candle-Lighter’. I once wore
black and white for ritual and ceremony - I wear shades of tan and brown
now.
I have moved far, far beyond the restrictive and intentionally
limiting constrictures and confines of a “mainstream liturgical
denomination".
I have seen that so very much - if not in a very real way nearly all of
what the ‘mainstreamer’s’ believe in & do on their Sundays - is merely a
‘Christianised’ & ‘De-Paganized’ variant version of what Druids,
Wiccans, Witches do in their circles and in solitude under their favorite
welcoming and sheltering tree.
There is also the real matter of now having a cosmic ‘mother’ as well as
a cosmic ‘father’.
“Mainstream” reduces - if not eliminates - the feminine.
For years I knew something was not in balance.
Something was very much missing.
It is missing no longer.
I serve the God.
I serve the Goddess.
I serve the Lord & Lady.
I serve the Mystress RavenFyre.
I serve the Readership & Membership of both MysticWitch.com but
Mystic Witch Forums.
I serve my family, household and its inhabitants.
I serve myself.
Finally - most importantly - I serve The ALL from which
everything else derives…..
As I do my Readings -
As I gather my Learnings -
I shall Share.
I will Share of the Readings.
I will Share of the Learnings.
I will Share of Questions and Answers.
That is how we Grow & Develop.
That is how we Be & Become - Become & Be.
So thus it was -
So thus it is -
So thus it be…..
In Perfect Love -
In Perfect Trust -
So Mote It Be.
Blessings Be