Month: March 2022

While much of the content we produce at Halithaz tends to approach spirituality through the lens of perennialism, it is important to adjust one’s perspective to focus on both the purely theoretical aspects of spirituality, as well as the praxis that reflects its actual implementation.

Many of our followers are adherents of traditional* religions, and the simple fact is that, whether it is in vogue to acknowledge so or not, if a traditional religion is actually to be considered traditional (i.e. part of a lineage that links it to historical practices, regardless of how strict its reconstructionist quality is), it is inexorably linked to some particular ethnic group or body of ethnic groups — it is folkish in polity. Long before the modernist values of individualism and decentralisation of in-group identity in favour of a “kinder” world linked by international banks and availability of convenience products, religious and cultural traditions were at parity with the substance of the material body, and by proxy the substance of the tribe. The Chinese have their own mínjiān xìnyǎng, their folk beliefs; the Finns had suomenusko (literally Finnish faith), and the mosaic of Germanic peoples that populate northern and central Europe once belonged to a cultural continuum that revered a common pantheon. Of course, while some traditional religions, like those of the Jews and the Druze, have been mistrustful of outsiders and discouraged proselytism, there are several examples across recorded history of some of these groups being open to converts — the religions of the Romans and, again, the Chinese, respectively, being notable examples.

Even before Johann Herder, who encouraged various Romantic Nationalist movements that began to blossom across Europe with his vision of a pan-German identity for his own volk, it has always been easy to correlate ethnic and cultural groups with a geographical domain to which they are indigenous. Even to this day, the tapestry of aboriginal tribes that cover the Americas have a thorough understanding of what land constitutes their traditional territory — in spite of many centuries of Pre-Columbian in-fighting, conquest, migration, genocide, and subsequent societal re-structuring under European hegemony. The intellectual acknowledgment of “blood and soil” in polite society in the West in the 19th century was akin to the discovery of a “new” species of animal: it wasn’t written into existence, it was legitimised within the material structure of what the intelligentsia and the upper class in general considered identifiable phenomenologically — the same way that, when the mountain gorilla was finally acknowledged as being a real animal and not the stuff of legends in 1902, it didn’t suddenly drop into place on planet earth in time with the pen describing its biology.

A Russian Cossack man in full regalia enters the United States at Ellis Island

With the advent of modernity and an increasingly materially-obsessed world, human beings of all stripes have left their traditional territory, either under threat and duress or with the expectation of a “better life”, for all corners of the globe. Particularly, people have flooded the “New World”, that is to say the Americas, en masse. Of course, for those whose religious beliefs are not by necessity traditional, but rather universalist in structure, such as the beliefs of the Christians and of many Buddhists, mass exodus has never been a spiritual challenge. Christianity posits, depending on its denominational policy on the nature of grace, that salvation is available to almost anyone, and certainly never in any mainstream fashion has excluded people based on ethnic or cultural origin, or else made it particularly difficult for interested parties to assimilate spiritually and culturally. In effect, one of the foremost values of Christian thought is the commitment to spreading the word of the gospels. For many Buddhists, with the notable exception of Tibetan and Mongolian Lamaism, with its pre-Dharmic shamanistic and Bön influences, and of certain Japanese varieties syncretic to some extent with ethnic Japanese folk beliefs, there is an implicit commitment to making the road to enlightenment available to all sentient beings, especially within the Theravada school which is largely characterised by its commitment to good works (c.f. Methodist Christianity, for a Western analogy).

But what of those, like the Southeast Asian Hmong, whose religion is steeped in a cultural system inseparable from blood and soil? What of those who believe that the soul of an individual is doomed to roam the earth as a rootless, suffering ghost if their afterbirth is not buried at the foot of the family home’s lodgepole in their traditional village? This seems to present an issue, a fatal impasse in which the material realm and the spiritual one are no longer at parity, no longer in sync. This appears to be the ultimate spiritual crisis of modernity, to a greater or lesser extent, for those of us whose religious practices, in defiance of the “everybody welcome” attitude of the cross or the crescent moon, are linked to the blood and ephemeral substance of our forefathers, and presumably their lifestyles. While this is a common complaint and a source of debate particularly among modern adherents of “pagan” European religions, especially those of a reconstructionist attitude, it must be acknowledged that the “issue” itself is actually illusory: it is likewise a trapping of modernity to even be concerned with something as ridiculous as forcing a religious tradition to be at parity with one’s material circumstances. While they should reflect one another in essence, or perhaps more succinctly, the material world should follow the example of the spiritual one, attempting to sculpt the circumstances of one’s life to the letter of the “law” of ancestral practice is neither sustainable, nor reasonable under the lens of what constitutes a living tradition.

The assumption that, for example, the Germanic religion was an orthodoxy that was governed by a strict system of laws as opposed to a loose collection of tribal cults united by a common ethno-linguistic spiritual “language” is fallacy. There were no rules. There was no pope, no caliph, no fat patriarch firing off proclamations from a gilded and bejeweled throne somewhere on the Rhine or in a tower in Iceland. This presupposition is rooted, presumably, in the Medieval and Early Modern practices that define universalist religions as opposed to traditional ones. Perhaps to some extent, it also originates in modern, global society’s passive tendency to assume there were idealogues Tweeting miserably into the dead air of the Iron Age, with our ancestors scrolling away in their sacred groves the same way so many today wait with bated breath to see what the accounts with blue “verified” badges have to say about the fabric of space and time.

Hinduism is a fantastic example of one such tradition that, despite the full-scale displacement of effectively the entire body of original adherents, has managed to not only survive but thrive in light of a pantheon tied to soil that its worshipers haven’t set foot on in millenia. Originating among the Indo-Europeans, ultimately, in Central Asia (along with so many pre-Christian European traditions, as well as Zoroastrianism, among others), its intrepid faithful found themselves pressing further and further into the Indian subcontinent, eventually subjugating, mixing with, and engaging in spiritual syncretism with a network of people we assume were, at least mostly, Dravidian in racial and cultural origin (e.g. the ancestor people of the Tamils and other south Indians). The spiritual culture of these early Indo-European people evolved. They continued their ethnic faith. They broadened the perspective their ancestors would have had on what constituted the nature of the eternal, how to interact with it, and the way in which it is represented and manifested in the material world. At no point has a Brahmin thrown up his hands and proclaimed that, since Hindus hadn’t been affiliated with the Bronze Age Sintashta Culture since ~1800 BC, their ancestors were gravely disappointed and their religion was ruined and irreperably altered. They adapted to the shifting circumstances of their forebears’ righteous conquest of land ripe for the taking, subconsciously shifted as a body of people and allowed their spiritual traditions to move internally with all the persistence of ivy over a stone wall to meet the needs of a folk now settled, enjoying the well-deserved fruits of military supremacy like agriculture and real statecraft.

Thor will not mind if you don’t know how to address him in what you, as a layman, think that the western variety of Old Norse might have sounded like sometime during the 700’s. In fact, he would probably make fun of you trying to speak the modern Icelandic you feel is “authentic” for your cool, sexy Viking religion, since you’re almost certainly not doing a good job with that either, and speaking to him in a modern, foreign language makes about as much sense as speaking to him in English, or Cantonese for that matter anyways. When the Turks tore out of the steppes and mountain ranges of Northeast Asia, moving swiftly across the Eurasian continent as far afield as Anatolia, they brought their religion, their Tengrism, with them. Their god was invoked under an open sky, a god of wide spaces and wild fields. Not a particular field, but rather the same field over which his childrens’ chargers raced in their frenetic surge for spoils and glory. Blood and soil are inexorable; the deep relationship between people, their gods, and the land they are tied to is not able to be altered or minimised. But the belief that a folk, whose good fortune and resolute nature bring them to lands far from the  places our frozen snapshot of history-as-vignette leads us to obsess and masturbate over, must be destroyed. It must be cleansed from the collective consciousness as another fatal misstep in the process of navigating modernity. Where blood is spilled and people are buried, where living traditions secular and religious belong to a people group in lands on which they have established their bloodlines, through war or clever decisions, their gods are alive. Perun is in the blood, Perun is in the marshes of the Proto-Slavic urheimat in Belarus, and Perun is also in Alaska where so many Russian-Americans live, where some have undoubtedly returned to their Slavonic folkways and call on him again.

This article is dedicated proudly to the intrepid spiritual cosmonaut Ganapatyas, whose traditional beliefs lead them to throw a statue of Ganesha into a meandering river in a white cedar forest in southwestern Ontario, Canada. Your tradition is alive. Your god is listening.

* “traditional” with a lowercase “t” — i.e. “historically customary for a particular culture”, as opposed to “Traditional” within the framework of perennial philosophy, which seeks to identify authentic, pre-modern religions across the world as having sprung from one common source of immutable truth (see the work of J. Evola, R. Guénon, F. Schuon, et al.)

Few things poison the self quite like inactivity. This isn’t always our fault, perhaps maybe we have an injury which has limited our physical abilities. Maybe it’s simple exhaustion and we just need to recuperate. These are understandable. Things happen when we don’t expect or want them to. That’s a part of life. What I refer to is self imposed inactivity. Where you yourself made a conscious choice not to act, usually without any good reason. Unfortunately this can be a dangerous trap to fall into, and one which may prove difficult for some folk to escape. 

Among the lesser known deities of the Greek and Roman pantheons are Aergia and Agenoria. Agenoria was a Roman goddess associated with motion. She was seen as an important deity in childhood. Her association with children learning to walk, speak, and so forth. Her personification as motion and development even went on to inspire the name of a steam locomotive constructed in England in the early 1820s. Aergia (or Socordia in Latin) is the antithesis to Agenoria. Aergia was a Greek goddess associated with sloth, laziness, and indolence. Two deities with conflicting attributes, but both of whom relate to Inertia. 

Inertia is a widely known concept in the world of physics. Simply put it is the inherent property of something which opposes a change in its motion. This can be an object standing at rest refusing to budge, or something in motion where its directory and momentum are unchanged by outside forces. So it can be seen as both the unstoppable force, and the immovable object. Raidho and its merkstave counterpoint. One being of journey underway, the other a frozen standstill of the chariot that carries us. 

Aristotle’s theory on potentiality and actuality used the terms “energeia” and “entelecheia” the former meaning “being at work” and the latter “being at an end”. Aristotle’s belief would seem to be rather than being a theory of motion in a physics sense, to be applicable to being alive. Being at work means progressing through life, Being at an end being a stopping point or rather the halting of progress.

For those of us that seek something better in life, motion is second nature. It’s the thrill of the chase, the bliss of running across open terrain with the wind in our face. The thrill of success and experience further fuels our fire. Many forces within life will oppose you and get in your way, however this may manifest. But when in motion we remain in motion, unchanged by resistance or delay. 

But what of the flip side to this coin? If inertia states that an object in motion remains unchanged in its trajectory, what of something more static. What happens to the man who has a flat tire in his life so to speak? This is a situation many find difficult to break. Remaining motionless. Unmoving. When in this state, it can be very difficult to get the figurative ball rolling again. Many of us have been there at some point or another. Call it burnout, struggle or even worse just laziness. Burnout is something most struggle with from time to time, but naturally, we commit to overcoming it. Laziness however, to me is just a form of soul suicide. Many times this is due to the fact they see the necessary work to change something as not worth the effort. So they just give up, and accept the lesser. The adoption of the “That’s just the way it is” mentality only adds further weight to the ankles of those that adopt it. 

Most of us can recognize this, however not always the case. Some individuals are truly content with being static in their life pursuits. I suppose if someones perfectly fine going through the motions but never truly moving past their banal yet comfortable bubble they’ve put themselves in, all the power to them.

But are they really content when they could be so much more?

When events are put into motion, healthy momentum keeps the movement forward. Onwards and unchanging. Alternatively, when complete lack of motion is achieved it can be very difficult to initiate movement again. Momentum in life is a self feeding, self supporting process. Onwards motion in the form of personal achievements along with a rabid desire for growth and adventure. Friction from forces or influences which oppose that consistent momentum are easily overcome when our self shows no sign of wanting to slow down. 

I liken this to that feeling that we get during physical training. Once you get into the flow of movement, in the energy of the moment you are in full unchanging momentum. You get that feeling that you are unstoppable since nothing can slow or change your pace. When you achieve that trancelike state, and no force earthly or otherwise can dissuade you. 

Then you’ve got the other guy that decided to skip the gym today. Then maybe the next day as well. In terms of getting the ball rolling, this is like throwing a cinder block in the nearest river instead. It’ll just be harder and harder to get moving. Outside forces can’t move what doesn’t want to be moved in this case. 

Inertia being defined by unchanging momentum or stagnant cementation may not just be about the literal physical forces at play but in everything else we do. The longer you choose to not make a move on something, the harder it’s going to be down the line to finally do it. Whether this is through fear, uncertainty or just plain old “I can’t be assed” it’s just adding more weight to your ankles. Unstoppable force or immovable object? Aergia or Agenoria? That’s for you to decide. 

[He] who enters his mountain,
With or without sword in hand,
[He] who enters his mountainside,
He will learn.

To Enter your Mountain, Bathory (Twilight of the Gods, 1991)

In many Traditional cultures across the world, mountains are understood as implicitly spiritual places. Often believed to be the home of gods or spirits, the concept of heights-as-metaphor for the esoteric is common, and perhaps borders on a cultural universal, for human societies that inhabit mountainous regions, foothills, and flatlands where mountains can be seen from afar.

Mount Olympus is a motif that many are familiar with, upon which the twelve principal Greek deities, the dōdekátheon, were said to reside. The Stoney (Nakoda) people of the Canadian Rockies have a similar belief that Mount John Laurie (Yamnuska), as well as many other mountains with steep, vertical faces, are inhabited by Thunder Beings – a race of supernatural entities comparable to the Judeo-Christian concept of the angelic Ophanim (“wheels within wheels”). Both were considered taboo to summit by the respective cultures that honour them; Yamnuska still is by the Nakoda people. Both are easily accessible to anybody fit enough to endure a multi-hour hike, and are popular today with modern outdoorsmen and tourists, a clear desacralisation of what was once considered an act steeped in taboo and avoided out of fear of the almighty. It is the simple fact that, in pre-modern, agrarian or hunter gatherer societies, the underlying otherness of the mountain as a spiritual and mythic motif supersedes its status as an obstacle of material conquest.

Some, like the mountains described above, or others like Mount Zaphon, which was sometimes equated literally with the Canaanite god Baal, are easy to understand as clear representations of divine beings or their abodes. But what of mountains with less obvious, less explicit spiritual connotations? Nobody can deny, in looking at mountains of considerable height, with the tops sheathed in fog, clouds, or the obscurity of blue snowstorms, there is a majesty that approaches the tempered zeal of the monk, in silent, seated contemplation of the almighty. Evola noted this nature and man’s relationship with it in his Meditations on the Peaks. What of those who dare, in the case of mountains not governed by taboo, to summit peaks that pose real risk, that can’t be bested by weekend travelers and wives in Arc’teryx jackets? Think of the man of the mythical early age of mountaineering, leatherbound goggles fixed across eyes that would otherwise be assaulted by the glare of innumerable glaciers, turning away as Perseus from the Gorgon. Picture the heroic crossing of crevasses on ladders slung over abysses that so closely resemble hell, reflect unbeing, reflect failure so abject that nobody will ever find your bones.

Who can look on this character, teetering on precipices far above the mortal world, in the realm and the image of gods, and not see a cæsar? The atmosphere of the high peaks, the act of man rising from lowly holdings on the flatlands, speaks to the transformative action of vertical movement, speaks more to the spirit within the mountain, and within the man, than the material mechanics of body over stone, or boots over rock. In this way we see a mirroring of the stalwart spiritual stuff that informs both summit and summitter: while the intrepid climber finds himself growing in the atmosphere and under the influence of the mountain, there also existed a likeness in spirit before the mountaineer ever set foot on the scree, a likeness that was developed, nurtured by the self-transformative experience of his journey.

There is a medicine in the industriousness of self-sacrifice, of the disconnection from the middling, small worries and meaningless actions that bear no actual spiritual consequence, hold no objective transcendental value, yet almost exclusively inform the modern, profane world. There is nobility in placing the self on a pyre, and like so many corpses on the Ganges, floating internally to a state of greater spiritual development. This is the medicine of mountains, the doctrine of blue squalls and roaring gales, of alpine wastes that seem beyond death, yet bloom resplendent with wildflowers in the summer sun. The seemingly initiatory practice that so many modern people focus on, the simple material act of placing one’s feet at the pinnacle of a mountain, is lost in the background noise of a million other things to post about online, a million other things to check off the bucket list. With the simple acknowledgement of the notion that you could die, that in actuality even mountains of relative technical simplicity are chaotic places that exist in a realm of spiritual initiation rather than physical, the dichotomy becomes clear.

There is a place in the Canadian Rockies, on the edge of Kananaskis Country, where red petroglyphs decorate a secluded rock wall up the side of a mountain. Their creators were Hopi people, indigenous to the American Southwest, and they traveled across the continent, leaving a subtle and transient mark in a place most people will probably never see. Some competing theories posit that the cultural motifs may have been graphical spoils of war, the rights to use them having been won by a rival tribe. Though the area in which the markings are found is not at a particularly stunning elevation, given the locale, it offers insight into the spiritual significance of the markings. A medicine man, hand outstretched holding a ring, or a drum, show the triumphant posture of a hero made for the vertical journey beyond self-limiting materialism, through the rigors of spiritual tests, up the side of a mountain, with a thundering will that bore him 2,400 km to find mountain-nature within himself.

Do you remember when you first were learning how to ride a bike? 

This trademark experience of our early childhood is likely something we don’t even think about anymore. When it was time to take off the training wheels. You likely wobbled and fell several times as I did.The slow progress and scraped knees likely frustrated you, but you persevered. Eventually found your balance, kept your bike upright and you were in motion. This is something we likely never even think about anymore, but if we never achieved the proper balance on the two wheels, we never would’ve been moving at all. 

Into our adult lives we maintain a healthy balance in many other aspects. We have obligations in our personal, and professional lives, and we must maintain a healthy balance of both, careful not to neglect one too much in favour of another. We all love sharing a couple drinks with our friends, or relaxing with some form of entertainment media. However, we have work to do as well, so make sure that gets done first.

Life is a perfect synchronicity of forces from all directions, and achieving harmony with these forces is what keeps us progressing through it. 

I compare this to the art of Funambulism, better known as tightrope walking. Whether this is a performing artist in a circus, or a stuntman attempting a highwire stunt at a nauseating height. The precision and skill required for this practice is nothing short of astonishing. Tightrope walkers must keep their weight in balance with a literal thread being the only thing keeping them from possible death. Each step is calculated and executed perfectly, ensuring a safe passage from one end of the rope to the other. 

While failing to keep a balance in our lives might not have the same dire consequences as falling several hundred feet, it’s impact is profound nonetheless. The repercussions of what happens when one or more aspects of our life is uneven in regards to others. It’s a very natural feeling. Because we’re so naturally inclined to favour stability, this is something most of us feel automatically. We feel when things are out of whack in our own spheres, and from that we can adjust, as the Funambulist uses a long pole to stabilise his footing on the thin wire holding him up.

Charles Blondin, tightrope walking across The Niagara Gorge, June 1859

We need only look to our own natural world to see the balancing act in full effect. Call it the scales of Gaia herself, putting stones on either tray to balance the forces around us. Even when damaged and thrown out of equilibrium nature always finds a way to measure itself out, as a carpenter centres the bubble on his spirit level. This is certainly not always peaceful or gentle. 

The Rainbow Serpent is a deity appearing within the mythology of many Aboriginal Australian peoples. A mythological being embodying nature, rain, and storms. Many depictions of the Serpent show it as being a benevolent entity, bringing quenching rains to humanity during times of necessity. On the flip side, it could be seen as a powerful destructive force when angered. The serpent was said to be capable of conjuring powerful storms, and torrential downpours. Some myths even suggest it would devour human beings as a punishment for upsetting the natural order. A very powerful metaphor for what happens when man oversteps his boundary on the natural world. I see the Rainbow Serpent legends as a perfect example of nature righting wrongs, whether caused by man or otherwise. 

I’m looking out my window as I write this, and see the immense amount of snow on the ground. Snow drifts, many taller than me standing as a monument to how unrelenting this winter has been. But then I recall last year, where the province was under severe drought conditions. Many towns and small cities were declaring water shortages. Wetlands and sloughs I’ve always seen waterfowl swimming in throughout the years were completely dried up and cracking. Sure, there may be heaps of snow outside, but the melting of such will return much needed moisture to the soil. It will help towards restoring the natural equilibrium within the local ecosystem. 

Cave painting depicting the Rainbow Serpent, in Northern Australia

Throughout all cultures symbols and practices resonate this age old concept that ties all things together. The symbol associated with Libra is depicted as the beam balance scale. It was Described by the Roman Poet Manilius as “The sign in which the seasons are balanced, and the hours of night and day match each other”. Other symbols such as the Yin and Yang, showing the intertwining of opposing forces as being integral to the whole. The two halves of the Dagaz rune, a show of the opposing forces of dark and light being intertwined with each other.

Keeping all aspects of our lives in symmetrical unison is what makes us well rounded people. We can imagine ourselves as Charles Blondin, the man who walked on a rope across the Niagara Gorge. Our lives as the rope itself. Stabilising ourselves as we take each step. My favourite little detail of the Niagara Gorge tightrope feat, is that halfway through the walk, Mr. Blondin sat down on the rope, and signalled to a tourist boat below. He cast down a rope, and hauled up a bottle of wine, which he then proceeded to drink from. After imbibing, he stood back up on the line and continued across to the end. 

While reckless, and no doubt a display of showmanship, it serves as a good reminder to take care when moving forward, but don’t forget to have yourself a little fun along the way. It is a balancing act after all.