Jenny Nyström’s depiction of the Germanic hero Sigurd

Traditional accounts of early medieval England, including the Anglian Chronicle and even the writings of the Christian monk Bede, posit that several early rulers of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms ultimately descend, quite literally, from the gods. Likewise too are many of the men who rose to rule the first incarnations of the Scandinavian nations said to trace their ancestry to the god Odin. This is a motif that, though particularly common amongst Germanic cultures, can be seen in historical accounts in many traditional cultures the world over: the Japanese imperial house of Yamato traces their lineage to the deified sun, Amaterasu-Ōmikami (天照大御神); the Sumerian King List, first scribed on clay tablets around the year 2000 B.C. describes “kingship” as having been “lowered from heaven”. 

These royal characters share a pedigree that supersedes normal earthly reality and instead forces a distinction between them and common people, even those of noble birth, that cannot simply be attributed to their political station. Even the emperors of traditional Japan, once literally considered to be personifications of the sun by their subjects, are not really divine in the sense that beings of myth or orthodox religion are in a cross-cultural sense, as Emperor Hirohito himself proclaimed plainly at the end of the Second World War in his Ningen-sengen (人間宣言), or Humanity Declaration.

But what about those individuals whose lofty deeds furnish the folklore of so many cultures, whose divine ancestry is more direct, more recent? Those that the Roman poet Ovid termed semideī – demigods? Those characters endowed with abilities whose mysterious ancestry included more recent connections to the world of the supernatural, such as Hercules-son-of-Jupiter, the Finnish Gandalf-equivalent Väinämöinen, or the Irish hero Cú Chulainn, the progeny of the god Lugh? More intriguing still are those that Greeks such as Homer or Hesiod called hemitheoi (cognate with semideī), who were so considered not due to traceable divine ancestry, but rather due to their exemplary behaviour that mimicked the heroic powers of heaven so acutely that other mortals had no logical course of action but to consider them as existing in the image of gods.

At Halithaz we freely admit that spirituality from around the world, particularly Indo-European traditional beliefs – specifically those of the Germanic cultures – inform our perspective on all things. Perennialism, that is, the notion that genuinely Traditional spiritual customs from all cultures stem from a common source of divine inspiration, that universal monomyth motifs can be found that underlie parables much greater than the sum of any of the systems they stem from, is one of the core values that colour the Halithaz worldview. However, in certain instances, it must be acknowledged that there is an intersection between the common man, and that of the heroic one: a veil that, once crossed, can act as the impetus to catapult an individual of seemingly ordinary material substance into the realm of the divine, onto the hero’s journey. This is the same bridge over which Achilles and Hector travelled, that does not require the lineage enjoyed by Swedish kings or Japanese emperors, or the recent divine ancestry of Hercules or Cú Chulainn in order to be traversed. 

Among these men is the greatest and most inspiring substance of myth. Some – through factors beyond their own control – find themselves endowed with divine power that sets them apart from mortals, while so many others are pressed by the duress of necessity and the daring that compels men of mettle to inject themselves into the trials that go beyond that of an ordinary life. Who can look upon the substance of these true demigods and deny their destiny as being anything but equal in mythic status to those whose lineage stems from the gods? The Italian Perennialist philosopher Julius Evola speaks extensively on the contrast between the chaotic, illusory state of becoming versus the predestined, autotelic and eternal state of simply being, and there is no greater example of the latter than in the mortal hero whose path could never have been anything less than finding himself a peer of the likes of Hercules. What makes such men, these hemitheoi, pass from ordinary reality into legend, and legend into myth, wherein they find themselves among peers of celestial origin? What makes a hero, a true demigod whose origins lie in the dirt of the earth rather than the dust of the stars, yet still ultimately of internal substance that vastly exceeds his phoenix origins in the ashes?

While the great monomyth, the hero’s journey, has been studied extensively and its process described in rigorous detail by philosophers, writers in the field of comparative mythology, and pundits of psychology like Lord Raglan, Otto Rank, Carl Jung, and most recently Joseph Campbell, one must also examine what traits these mortal demigods had in common, the substance of the internal alchemy that they underwent as they rode the whirling wheel that separates wheat from chaff, and turns ordinary men into beings fit to sit amidst the gods:

Courage – the spiritual fortitude to rise against adversity, to embrace the process of being in an Evolian sense, as if on a predetermined track, as opposed to the intentional state of becoming, of making some conscious attempt at waxing into something greater that the hands of fate clearly have not allotted oneself.

Will – that “thoroughbred quality” that, like the guards frozen at their posts in the ash of Pompeii that Oswald Spengler wrote about in his Man and Technics, is related to but far greater than the similar but inferior trait of duty, as it stems from an internal condition rather than an intentional adherence to an external norm or obligation. 

Honour – the code of value-adherence, mutual and self-respect that led to such acts as the carving of one passage from the Swedish Sjörup Runestone, detailing in commemoration that one hero called Ásbjörn “[…] did not flee at Uppsala, but slaughtered as long as he had a weapon”.

Selflessness – the embrace of the destiny, and the acknowledgment that the spoils of war, the fruit of the other values, the glory and the ascendance to a level of notoriety and spiritual, heroic substance that supplants the status of ‘virtuous, competent man’ is simply a consequence of the process of being, and a supplementary balm to the frank act of embodying one’s heroic destiny.

When all of these exemplary traits are allowed to exist in the Uranian and static condition of simply being, similar in its quietude to the state of transcendental detachment that Buddhists of the Japanese Zen school might call Kenshō, or divine insight, those who look with speculation at the titans of the past will judge one’s life accordingly. No man of mettle, no hemitheoi of earthly body and aristocratic soul, ever asked for his lot, ever fought for the express purpose of becoming a fellow of those whose blood roils with the mercury of heaven, but rather found himself in the grip of the scales that measures renown and individual mythopoeism against the traits discussed above. The hero, the man destined to become myth with not a drop of material god-substance inside of him, does not look outward. Heroism was never truly the goal, and never should be. There was never an Achilles that killed Hector for spoils, that laid waste to Troy for the glory of doing so, but rather found himself compelled by his adherence to simply embodying the condition of his soul. 

Those who cannot rise, those who mythify, venerate, and may eventually come to deify and to worship the cleverest shoots of this earthly loam, are those who, quite retroactively, decide who has won the right to join the rank of the divine. Through deeds and traits, through the ghastly and beautiful substance of heroism that drips like blood from the wounds of Christ, the wheels that make heroes from men simply being are greased and made to turn. There is no choice, there is no recourse, one must only answer the call of their own blood, and find that within the annals of genealogy, descent from the gods does not matter – so long as the seed of heroism rests inside the mortal body. Who can say that there is not some sense of parity between those like Hercules and those like Sigurd? When they sit next to each other, the blood of both teaming with the same celestial nature, potentiality or origin is no longer in question. There is only the fulfilment of the heroic soul’s destiny. . 

One of the most interesting feelings I can think of is when I walk into a room full of people I don’t know for the first time. Maybe you got invited to a gathering of sorts, or maybe you’re giving a performance or lecture of some kind. You walk in and when everyone’s eyes lock upon you, you can feel the immediate thoughts of others. You can sense the minor emotions that seeing your presence for the first time invokes, or doesn’t. 

Subsequently, let’s say you are part of that same crowd. A person you are unfamiliar with walks in. What do you immediately think upon seeing them? Does the way they present themselves whether in appearance or character generate a feeling within you? Maybe you’re impressed by them. Something about their overall persona or their physical appearance makes an impact on you before a single word is spoken. On the flip side, perhaps, it’s like they never even walked into the room at all. 

The difference lies in presence. The first thing people feel when their path crosses yours. Many people are extremely intelligent, and extremely skilled. Perhaps they’ve had great success through hard work, or have led a life of adventure and ardour. Perhaps they have certain motivations which align with your own which could lead to a friendship, or something even bigger down the line. 

But if you never felt so compelled to converse with them to begin with, then you may have never discovered those desirable traits, rendering them, to yourself anyway, moot. If the first immediate interaction didn’t spark that childish sense of wonder and intrigue within you, then they might just blend right into the wallpaper. 

Being present, and being a presence are not one and the same. 

Euhemerism is a theory from the works of the Greek mythographer, Euhemerus. This was in the sense a theory of apotheosis. The deification of mortals into the echelons of divinity. Euhemerus proposed that the gods were in fact a product of real human beings; of real human achievements. Royalty and conquerors alike, who through time, legend and tales ascended to godhood. 

Early Christians however embraced, and began using this theory as a means of discrediting polytheistic pagan faiths. Even in more modern times, oftentimes Euhemerism is a way for atheistic views to try and justify their beliefs. That the gods our ancestors worshipped are little more than exaggerations of the undertakings of men. 

I’ll leave it up to you to draw your own opinions from that last section, but I truly like the core idea Euhemerus was getting at. 

The idea that through individual pursuits we can become something relatable to that of a god. The demigod, an individual of flesh and bone which carries with him an aura of something bigger. 

Imagine the immense presence folks of this calibre would need to exude. From ancient heroes, to Kings, Emperors and Jarls alike. The respect they would have commanded from their people. The fear they would instil in those who opposed them. Wherever their feet would tread soon others would know their name. Know of what they accomplished. Their names resonate throughout the history books and mythological tales. 

Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs were believed by their people to continue their rule long after their own death. That they would reign onwards within the afterlife. Their very graves were a sight to behold. Lined with riches and relics to ensure a life of lavishness even beyond this plane. 

 Look at the Apotheosis of Washington, a painting within the United States Capitol building, which depicts George Washington among the heavens, seemingly becoming a god in his own right. The first president of a nation now sitting alongside the divine.

That is what I call having a fucking presence. 

Many men are content with merely being present. They have their group of buddies they go to the bar with on the weekends and think that’s enough. I mean they are included in the group after all, right? They may have a sub-average yet comforting love life, and decide that’s good enough. They think that merely having a bland exchange with newcomers to their life is a fine introduction. That it’s all just “good enough”. That’s all going to reflect in their outward persona everyone else sees. 

This kind of guy may approach a woman at the bar on a night out, and after stumbling over his words to order a drink for her, she ends up accepting it. But after some flaccid conversation it stops there. But meanwhile you have a man with something much grander about him, to the point where she’s fidgeting in her seat after the first words alone. That’s having a presence. 

I pity the man who says “I wish I was as cool as that guy”. Well, what’s stopping you? 

This sounds like a copout to my ears. Yearning to be like somebody you automatically assume you have no chance of measuring up to. That’s just shooting yourself in the foot. You’re comfortable with walking into the room I mentioned earlier and having nobody notice. You’re fine with some casual small talk about nothing and people forgetting your name once they’ve all gone home. 

Everywhere you go in the online world now, you see guys calling each other “Kings”. On the one hand I like this. It’s good to see men giving each other encouragement, picking each other up and providing constructive criticisms. I hope that kind of positive reinforcement continues. However we should not forget the sheer weight that a word like King carries. Many do, and that’s why it’s thrown around so unjustly in some instances. Traditionally speaking to act as a king requires image as well as leadership. They are the face of their people, and therefore should show the mettle of their people through their own aura. They had skills of leadership, and often many achievements under their belts, but the best kings carried those on themselves as magnificent uniforms. 

Because a strong presence is a necessary component to regality. You have proven to people you’re worthy of being called a king. Otherwise it’s simply a masquerade. A shallow attempt by a lesser man wearing a transparent crown. 

The world may have changed from the historical periods of old but maintaining a strong, powerful presence wherever you go is eternal. Many try to mimic those who have this kind of energy but why would you undermine yourself like that? Why quash your own potential and automatically assume that some people are just inherently better? You’ve likely got that chad you wish to be within you, he just needs to shake off the dust and wake up.

Cultivating a powerful, striking presence wherever you go takes some cultivating, and no matter how good you think your outward persona is, chances are it could always be improved. Doing so requires effort, genuine courtesy, and above all honesty. Honesty with yourself. Let your own inner king grow and wear it as a badge of honour. Won’t take long before people begin to appreciate your presence rather than the fact you were simply present. This is your Praesentia Regia.

“He struck a violent blow upon the monster’s head” by C. E. Brock, 1890

If you were told tomorrow that you had one day left to live, what would your first few thoughts be?

Life is a puzzle to be solved, and it’s a tough one. Whether you want to try and ‘solve it’ is entirely up to you, but like it or not, it’s been placed on your table, and there’s a timer. Much like when something is planted in front of you as a child, there is not much likelihood you won’t grab it, feel it, look at it, and sense it in any other way that your curious brain might be so inclined to do. This is an impulse that consciousness imposes upon our mind and flesh. If you don’t believe me, then I ask you to try and remember any important memories under the age of three. In a sense we exist as non-playable entities for quite some time on this planet. I mean, three years to someone who had just been diagnosed with a terminal illness is a long time, and yet nearly all of us must admit—at least to some extent—that we cannot manifest any true first-person meaning from our lives in that state of being, which I say again, is no length of time to scoff at. If you want to go further into this idea, then we need only look at this state we call ‘auto-pilot’. True, it’s not something we all do regularly, but it is legitimate enough for me to say, and then for you to understand what I’m talking about. 

Time is precious, but our true understanding of this only crystalizes the further we move into the uncertain. 

We cannot know everything all at once, in fact various fictional and mythological outlets warn us against too much knowledge too fast. This is not a coincidence. It’s a curious subject for humanity to explore. Especially those who have an inclination for exploring the hidden, or for uncovering new pieces of reality to fit into their artistic vision with the intent to share their boons with the rest of us. It is in this way that man might reenact, or rediscover the Holy Grail, or discover Nirvana. These are not concepts to be indulged alone. These are states and forces that are necessary for us to share with all of those who have not yet found the truth, which in theory is every other living being in that moment of your finest discovery; the revelation of your Philosopher’s Stone.

Forbidden, eldritch, esoteric, mad, schizophrenic, demonic, sacrilegious: these are all terms that decorate our invisible forcefield away from the void, the frontier. These are terms that are dripping in both ambrosia and poison for any man willing to hear them, or stare at them in greater detail than his neighbor or co-worker. 

In many ways this ‘puzzle’ of life is a puzzle in and of itself. To most people alive today, it undergoes a transmutation throughout their calcification process; which is in direct contrast to their ‘answering of the call’. Those who retain the understanding that this is a ride, puzzle, story and myth have a great burden to undergo. They have Pisces up the sword, they have seen through the looking glass, and they have found that their world is entirely different to all of those around them, for most people have almost entirely forgotten this life to be a puzzle at all. In fact, there is a great number of people that have invested a great deal of effort into the negligence of this call to action.

You can solve a Rubik’s cube; we know this because people do it all the time, and it’s fucking annoying if you want to, but don’t know how. You could attempt it for hours and get nowhere. In fact, you could even invoke some sort of primal rage that drives you through time like a bullet shot from a gun… still to no avail; until one day you simply leave it on the counter to collect dust, and it becomes part of your décor, like everything else you have ever purchased with excitement and watched blend in to the mosaic that comforts your blurry tired eyes as you return home from your job: ‘Ah yes, I’m home’. 

But ‘home’ to the vast slew of people who refuse to understand the self, is a rather hollow place indeed. Is it any wonder that the same apartment owned by some city dwelling sycophants would have been akin to a prison to many of our ancestors? Is it any wonder that the analogy and theme throughout Palahniuk’s Fight Club insinuates a sickness residing in the main character’s obsession with home décor? 

But with all hypotheticals aside, there is no doubting that this existence is unabashedly filled with excruciating turmoil outside the walls we call ‘home’. I truly sympathize with those who fear; I mean, the idea of leaving comfort, and certainty behind is entirely unnatural… When we are talking about the comfort of the herd, when we were talking about the animal. It’s easy to corral that which does not think for itself, easier still if that entity believes it knows everything, and that anything beyond is taboo or madness.

Yet, as much as I understand, I cannot abide. Saying ‘no’ to true sentience, gritty sentience, growth-driven sentience, is us caving into fear. ‘Caving in’ is a funny term, right? It’s an act of receding. That’s a concept in direct opposition to ‘venturing‘ or ‘going forth’; additionally, it’s admitting there is nothing you could have done to stop it from happening. ‘I can’t do ___ because ___.’ 

‘No I won’t be able to do _____ until ______ it _______’

To cave is to delve deeper into your cell. At least you get three meals in there, and you are protected by iron bars. 

So, why on earth would we go ‘out there’? Why are some of us mad enough to go ‘beyond the frontier’, especially if we are safe and have things here? As rhetorical as these questions might be, we all understand that this is in fact a driving narrative for how many of our fellow humans walk this earth. I dare you now to ‘go fishing’ in a sense, for the good of experimental observation. The next time you find yourself around anyone who gives off this sort of stagnant aura, I implore you to voice an intention you have for the near future of your life, on how you are going to shape the world, and not be shaped by it. 

This could be a simple ‘I’m going to stop smoking weed’ or as grand as ‘I’m going to become a professional musician’. Depending on the depths those suspects have caved into, you will see a certain type of response. 

‘I’m moving out and going to live in ____ where I have always wanted to live’

“I’m quitting my job in pursuit of ____ job instead’

You are going to be greeted by some strange responses if you have fished in the right areas. 

You will notice that many of these stagnant figures will use the knowledge they have garnered to try and cave you in from within their own self destructive ruins. This isn’t because they are base, and nor are they entirely sheep. It’s because they are trying to forget about that unsolved puzzle, and you just alerted them to its old noises, and its mockingly bright colors. 

What is it that makes them forget? Its not like they are all stupid, in fact many of them are quite the opposite, these are intelligent people we are often talking about, especially the ones that know exactly where to toss their rocks at you. So what is it they rely upon as their ramshackle fortification?

Oh yeah, distractions. Sentience and self-actualization are terrifying, and this terror will often manifest as distractions. It’s so much easier to toss the worm back into the pond and go fight in a crusade, only for the sheepish knight to come back and fight the dragon later. If you are not familiar with this tale, I implore you to read ‘The Lambdon Wyrm’. 

You see, stupidity is low hanging fruit for us who wish to think beyond. Its entirely false to believe all of those who wish to tear you down have not also had the exact same thoughts. Yet, what you might do is what they must fear in order for them to continue on.

More soon. 

Centuries before Christ, in the fog that separates the border of myth and reality, on the isle of Crete in the Ægean Sea, lived a shepherd named Epimenides. Once, while following the trail of a lost sheep, he took refuge in a cave sacred to the god Zeus, on the slopes of Mount Ida. Weary from the labour of his trade and the exertion of searching for the animal, he lay down and soon fell asleep. When he awoke, he found the day still new, and continued his search. The wayward animal, and the flock from which it wandered, were nowhere to be found. He returned to his father’s farm, sick with shame to know that he had let his family’s livelihood evaporate, only to find that his family too was conspicuously absent. Coming by chance across his younger brother, now old and almost beyond recognition, Epimenides learned that he had slumbered not for an afternoon, but for fifty-seven years. His former life, every shred of what was normal and edifying to him, had evaporated — seemingly randomly. He was left only with the memories of his past, and a gift from the patron god of the cave in which he fell asleep: 

The faculty of prophecy. 

What are you doing right now? Really — sit for a minute, and think about it. What have you done with your day so far? I hope, sincerely, that you’ve spent time today doing something productive. Not productive for the sake of your boss, or productive in the sense that you’ve managed to check off an arbitrary box on your to-do list that makes you feel like you’ve met the expectations of modern society and its collective body of opinions on what “it” happens to be. I hope that you’ve spent time on something edifying to your soul, made an investment of time and effort into a goal that reaches beyond instant gratification at the very least, and even more preferably, into an uncertain future wherein people you will never meet will sit under the shade of the trees you have planted.

For the majority of us in the west, we live a life that has transcended objective chaos. While we all experience the internal hardships that come part and parcel with consciousness, survival in a material sense — the process of exerting oneself over an environment, natural or human, that is blatantly hostile — is no longer an issue. From the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and its more distant economic roots in the mercantilism and burgeoning corporatism of the Early Modern Period, life has slowly been commodified. Life-for-the-sake-of-life has been slowly turned on its head: the principle of individual and collective struggle, the mother of satisfaction and fulfillment, has been replaced with a rolodex of meaningless options to satiate and pacify a body of people who, seemingly by the decade, are content with pacification, and devotion to the twin deities of bread and circuses, at the expense of genuine risk, and the burden of choice. Normal life, normal in the sense that almost every generation of humanity has ever experienced it, has become a commodity. We spend money and time to “disconnect” from the life-support machine of modern society. We drive far too far to spend weekends under stars we no longer know the names of, send videos to our friends of the quaintness of cabins built in harmony with the natural environment, as if this is novelty. We put off marriage and children indefinitely, sometimes to focus on careers that take precedence, other times due to financial instability in a climate where vocation no longer necessarily means expertise or a wage capable of supporting a legacy. Every year the wheel of industry spins faster, and our experiences have become so vastly different from that of our parents and elders that the common human right of hereditary wisdom has been eroded, since granddad doesn’t know how to use an iPhone and doesn’t know what TikTok is. Why bother?

Already in the late 19th century, less than a hundred years after the beginning of the corporatisation of the world, continental philosophers in Europe were sounding the alarm. Existentialists like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche cried out in anguish or triumph for a missing God, scrambling for the athem of some ghost in the machine, or the consequences of His unbeing. Materialist political philosophers like Marx and Engels, their ideas still firmly rooted in the post-Enlightenment modernism of equality, began to pen praxis for the exploited soul beneath the shackles of emerging industry, itself a consequence of the materialism they posited. The acceleration from this period to present has been exponential, and now more than ever, the voices at the vanguard of public life are conspicuously absent in their criticism of the grey stasis that most of us are held in. On the contrary, we are bombarded from all sides by a glistening wall of right-think, and the implied pressures, social or corporeal, that come as an  accessory to its refusal.  “Look into your scrying glass,” the man on the television proclaims, as you instinctively pick up your phone. “Purchase today’s hot item, live the lifestyle, internalise the opinions,” he commands, one stuffed-suit-or-spray-tanned idol, as the case may be, in a constellation of demigods whose mere existence demands our collective attention.

To what end? For whose benefit? Make no mistake: I am writing this article comfortable and warm, my stomach full, as I enjoy my morning coffee. I will not argue against the security that we enjoy or the balm of consumption that we are fortunate enough to take advantage of: only the extent to which it is attainable, and its analgesic nature as a result of our collective obsession with it. The bigger picture demands our attention. The consequences of our collective lifestyle, in a mythopoeic sense, according to the internal and ancient laws of passion and satisfaction, from which no man is free of obligation, is worrying, and requires analysis and specific and judicious action in order to combat the quicksand of modern life. 

Meaning exists in struggle; struggle is the catalyst for meaning. These two concepts stand as pillars at absolute parity with one another, and one cannot be changed without affecting the authenticity of the other. Struggle without the triumph of meaning, of identity, of the righteous ego that stands up as a flame from dim ashes to overcome and incinerate that which would hope to extinguish it, is nothing but base torture. The receipt of a reward with no lead in the soul having been transmuted to gold, is worth nothing in a spiritual sense, is the end game not of the superior man, but of a spoiled child given cake even after behaving poorly. The awareness to understand the yawning chasms that flank the road of the man we might call Halithaz, on one hand the toil of exploitative materialism, and on the other the opiate nature of overindulgent materialism, is the key to breaking the cycle.

Like Epimenides, we have been asleep. We, the generation who have been forged not in the fire, or honed against the stone, but rather raised like cattle fit for slaughter to expect nothing but our “rights” and “privileges” and think never of the trials and responsibilities that earn or defend them, or of our potential to live supramaterially. We are generation Epimenides. Our father’s lot is lost in the deafening murk of a past that we never experienced as the present, our brothers nearly unrecognisable as they wade through the duress of dopamine slavery. Our impetus to live intentionally, to live honourably, has not disappeared, however. It has not been sold, it has not been extinguished. It has not run away like the cattle of our fathers. We, Generation Epimenides, have been endowed with the gift of prophecy. Unlike so many demographics who have come before us, the destructive drug of our present condition has come with the perspective to understand our place in the world not only today, not only in a mythical and symbolic sense, but diachronically too. We understand history, we understand the arc that connects the pastoralism of our forebears to modern life. We can isolate, learn to comprehend, and emulate the values that, cross-culturally, shone meaning into a life that without it would be needlessly violent and beyond pointless, the life of a dumb animal.

With our gift of prophecy, we have the ability to launch ourselves individually, as families, as tribes, and as a cohort of people on earth sharing the same Sisphyean burden of Amazon Prime and happy face stickers, into a world beyond the cosmos, a world enlightened by perennial wisdom untouchable by the shackles of the perfectly planned and curated world of 2022. With our gift of prophecy, we can count ourselves among the generation who, with the wisdom of the past spread out on a silver platter, launches itself into a future once again seasoned with the uncertainty that makes risky life worth living. We can disconnect from the program and launch ourselves like Icarus at eternity, with wings etched with runes, that will not melt. We can and will summit countless peaks, external and internal, in merino wool and sunwheel pendants, in a day that, triumphantly and tragically, the sun may set on again. This gift of prophecy means that we, more than any generation before, are in a position to forge either the destiny we wish to befall us and our descendents, or the chains we will wear in life. This is the best time for the man of action to be alive.

Epimenides, you must only wake up. 

Everything that lives lives on the death of something else. Your own body will be food for something else. Anyone who denies this, anyone who holds back, is out of order. Death is an act of giving.”

― Joseph Campbell

Midway through January and the bitter Manitoban cold has surely been a stern reminder of it. Many of you other fellow North-Dwellers can most certainly relate. The solstice has since passed and the cycle continues. Winter seems to be a rather harsh teacher sometimes. Quite often hardships and strain go hand in hand with the season.

While this week’s article is a rather personal and cathartic one, it has a message I hope everyone can take something from. I aim to inspire, after all. The idea for this week’s article came to me one evening in particular. My shivering hand clutched my pipe as I tried to enjoy a smoke. A windchill of -48 makes that a tad difficult, but alas it planted the seed of inspiration. A concept further cemented in my head by the current turns of fate and the frigid jaws of winter itself. 

Nourishing Destruction. Death and Rebirth. Destruction of something to spur the growth of something else.The serpent devouring its tail, the phoenix from the ash.

To swallow down your own death, and let it birth new life within you. 

:ISA : ASHES : OUROBOROS :

The Isa rune stands front and centre often this time of the year. A very challenging rune at that. It’s very name is “Ice”, and it embodies it. Imagine yourself as a river or creek, once running and flowing. The river is frozen over. The water once in motion now waits, stagnant. 

It shows energy of restriction, of stillness and the lack of movement. As with any rune none are inherently bad or good, however this one truly outlines one of the harsher parts of life we must deal with. 

Oftentimes the harshness of winter and Isa’s cryogenic touch do wonders to slow down our momentum, oftentimes stopping us in our tracks completely. We often very easily succumb to it as well, but it’s not necessarily bad. 

Just as death is the cessation of life in a literal or figurative sense, the freezing over of our river is also a potential to break free. The ice will always melt in the spring, or can be broken by our own means. 

Next we come to the idea of the phoenix. The mythological creature who is reborn anew from it’s own ashes. It achieves new life through its own death. 

The stillness of the ice has us in a state of either a slow trudge or immobile entirely. The reasons for this are entirely down to the individual. Whether tragic, self imposed or thrown upon unjustly, the reasons are there. 

But alas, we need to continue forward. Certain aspects of ourselves must now, for lack of a better term, die. 

As challenging as it may be, it’s a critical step in this collection of ideals I’m getting across here. Certain things may be a massive part of our lives. They may carry a lot of weight whether through nostalgia or memory. Perhaps even by blood, or by friendship. 

It’s seldom an easy task to put major parts of your life to rest. But would you not prefer that as to your total identity crashing and burning entirely? 

Certain dead weight oftentimes must be shed. Some events happen without warning. It is the volatile nature of the human condition. However regardless when those chunks of ourselves are burnt to ash, they can be seen as fertile. A birthplace of the new and the strong, the bird born from the ashes of its former self. 

Where there is death there is rebirth. The serpent devours itself to create itself. 

As it exists in nature. A creature dies, it’s body is broken apart to feed the earth once again. From the nourishing death new life springs from the soil. 

This cycle of death and rebirth exists within ourselves. It is a component to our development in all stages of life. Parts of us die, and are recreated. Elements once dear to us depart and we come back stronger through the struggle. 

The cold stasis we find ourselves in leads to glorious and fiery recreation, to continue on the cycle symbolised by the Ouroboros. 

We are all different. We all have our own demons, our own struggles, and most important our own achievements and badges of honour. I may not know what you’re going through, and I don’t need to. 

You yourself understand the key to growth. The key to new life where the old has grown stagnant and foetid. 

Shake it off, man. Let the old shit burn. A little piece of yourself that needs to die isn’t worth killing yourself over.

Is this the cathartic ramblings of a madman or something more? Perhaps both. 

But I’m already climbing from the ash, and let me tell you, my wings are gonna cleave the skies. 

You’ll become better, friend. I promise you that. 

Now let’s get after it. 

:𐍅𐍉𐌳𐍃:

Are you familiar with the Goddess of the Harvest? Demeter was her name, as she was known by the ancient Greeks. Demeter presided over the crops and the fertility of land. Her daughter, by Zeus, was named Persephone: a truly intriguing name when compared to the powers of her mother, for the Indo-European roots would demand the meaning to be something akin to ‘female thresher/striker-down or corn/crop’. Thus we have here the relation between growth and thresh, or life and death. 

There are many mysterious aspects to the nature and practice of the various rituals our forebears chose to partake in, but there is one that stands taller, shimmering within the rest like a white pine in its prime. There is one ritual/festival/cult that even enamored the later Roman Empire and many of its greatest names and heroes. The Eleusinian mysteries, a festival or collection of events that took place within the town of Eleusis, which predates even the Greek language and can be assumed to have some connection with the name Elysium (afterlife). The cult that upheld the traditional ritual were predominantly female, and followed a strict flow of events which were said to have mimicked the descent, search, and ascent of Persephone’s capture by her Uncle Hades, God of the underworld. 

Not only does this resonate the same flow of Ragnarök/death of Baldr to all of those who understand, but it should be clear that this is a timeless metaphor for the flow of blood through time. This is the tale and revelation of immortality through one’s bloodline. It parallels the constant flow and care we must give to our crops and livelihoods if we are to continue on. To withstand the trials of earth we must find duty, and we must serve that which serves us. Without crops we have no civilization, no need for time, no strength to protect nor serve those we love. As Zeus the skyfather seeded Demeter, so too must the offspring grow and die, and then be born again, only to die again, etc… 

A crucial aspect of the Eleusínia Mystḗria (Ἐλευσίνια Μυστήρια), was that one must be silent as the priestesses hurled terrible insults at those who passed into their domain, despite one’s social standing beyond the confines of this sacred ground. In the normal world, within the waking world, you might be something —, but here and within the ritual, all were treated as nothing. It is in this way, rituals such as this have a meditative ‘knack’ for cracking our various and surprisingly feeble social constructs; much like ‘sharing is caring’, until a big flu comes along, and then all of a sudden we need to grab as many boxes of cereal as our little pink hands can carry away from the store… but I digress. This practice of ridiculing those who entered the sacred space would obviously be quite a humbling experience for many. It was designed to bruise as many egos as possible, and render those with astronomical wealth and power down to the same social level as all other attendees.

It is said that the rites mimicked the flow of the story, and thus would be extremely grueling and stressful, to the point where many would die. Convulsing was quite common after ingesting this secret elixir,  that was so important to the rites held within Eleusis. This mysterious potion would be passed around, ingested, and the trials would begin by immediately carving off those whose bodies rejected its powers. The almost random effects of those the potion would kill would be enough to throw many of us today into a state of mind that our decadent lives have sheltered us from almost entirely. Thus, once again, the trial demonstrates a deliberate chaos that mimics true equality among humanity, and further buckles us to the whims and mercy of natural selection/ nature. 

There are many theories that have arisen as to what this potion contained, but it is entirely agreed upon that it had psychedelic and poisonous properties which elicited varying results from person to person. It is important to note that Eleusis was an agricultural hotspot, and there is great proof to be found that rye was grown there on the fields of this domain. Rye has a rather daunting potential about it, and grows a mold known as ergot. Ergot is black, and appears to the human eye as a sort of dense sludge which forms on the head of the plant. The mold from corn is considered, even today for the highest classes among humans, to be a delicacy known as ‘smut’. Yet if ergot is ingested in a large enough quantity, it has been known to cause visions, sickness, and even convulsions which in some cases lead to death. 

To the medieval peasantry, the touch of this sludge afflicted thousands. It left them bruised and eventually limbless or dead due to its poisoning. ‘Antonius fire’ or ‘The fire of Saint Antonius’ was the name given to this affliction. An interested juxtaposition, indeed when contrasted with Ergot’s importance to the decadent rituals of mystic Greece. The bane of the peasants was the height of aristocratic inspiration. 

Great men and women from throughout ancient history would visit the fields of Eleusis and return to their daily lives with a notable vigor or ‘aura’ about them. In fact this can be taken as far as to say that once they return they were notable greater individuals, and were propelled into events which more or less made them known in the history books. Julius Caesar can be noted among them, as can Alexandros The Great. 

The mystery manifests itself in strange places and people for all time. 

To the Germanics, we see Baldr as he sits upon his throne of ash at the top of the world tree in a very similar light. The Ash is the ANSUZ, and the ANSUZ is the inspiration at the end of all things. The estuary has formed from the larger body of water and now carves its own path away from the ‘always has been’. The youth use this power as a means to ‘go their own way’ and they sit atop the highest point in the land and understand it all amidst the chaos, after all the dross has been burned away. 

Coal-black char descending like ravens black; quick like rushing shadows. 

I AM THE SPEAR THAT GUIDES THE WAY
THE EDGE OF GAR THAT DOES NOT SWAY

Where the peasantry burns at the mere touch, one might be rewarded in being mad enough to ingest the black rot. This is the trial of death and the healing. There is nothing more mysterious than those places others dare not go. 

Above all Gods did the Germanic people crown ‘The Rage’ as King over all. Not the sky but the storm. Not the thunder, but the madness found within. There are gods of steel, war, harvest, sex, sea, mud, earth, and sky. But there is nothing more ferocious and all knowing than the mysterious frenzy. The Christians saw all gods and made them bow to the TRUTH, but that truth was an answer. So clean was the answer, so satisfyingly simple. But life and death is anything but. We are, all of us, animals waiting to die. Despite what we cling to, despite what we acquire and accumulate, we are all of us beasts that have made ourselves something more through the heroin of this TRUTH.

I have a truth for you, and it is that we know nothing more than the mystery. That is where you will find your god, beast. It is ugly, formless, inspiring and terrible. As if on a rollercoaster with no safety belt do we ride up and down, around and around, until we fly from the seat into the unknown from whence we came, crying and naked from our mothers’ portals. And there is nothing more beautiful and Godlike on this earth aside from that fact; that joke, that lonesome truth. The holy mystery is always around, and if you choose to pretend, and fend it off with your feeble amygdala, then you will never know God on earth, nor after. 

Those grail-knights that seek the mysterious belong to he, Wüetung Der Mysterium. It is by this name that we children of this era should know Wodanaz. Is it not so very clear to you that he is the shepherd of goats? Do you not see that he seeks you out and demands your company? ‘With words of madness, and water of fire’. The Allfather is the ergot that poisons those that dare drink from his well without the proper level of madness to traverse through the poison and reach greatness upon the distant shore. His favors wear no armor, and speak no tongue of man. ’Static is the common language’ to those who have thoughts like hammers. 

Art is the language and weaponry of true magicians, those undead amidst this fetid world. They are those that would dare create where no one asked for creation. In a world where everyone and their mothers considers themselves artists, the true seekers understand that it is time to create new paths. You have created nothing of worth unless it turns the heads of those sound-minded buffoons who would find comfort in spiritual chastity: monks that tend to the idol known as ‘watercooler’, where they might discuss games and weather. You will find true art on the lips of these sheep as they whip it with forked tongues and scorn. 

Any time you wish to think rationally, and follow the more ‘logical’ path towards anything you wish to create, smack yourself in the balls and remember that you only have them for a fleeting moment in time and space. So start using them, and forget about all rational thought. Remember the paths you saw goblins laughing upon as a child. Remember where you saw a path that led off deep into the unknown trees of your local forest, and prey there. Sit for a moment amidst the stones of broken logic and find the fungi of madness as your mind wanders home towards Wüetung Der Mysterium, and you will find God quicker than you could say ‘I don’t care who else understands’. 

Drugs are the modern man’s key, crutch and excuse to become childish again, and most would rather be high than put in the legwork themselves. But there is nothing stopping you from being that mad without psychedelics either. Nothing rather than your own brain that has created henchmen to Yaldaboth within; they guard the spring of youth from you. If you are anything like me, whenever you find the breadcrumb trail that leads back to the madness and fantasy I could so easily find in my youth, you often find that something stops you from drifting into that realm now. I have often discussed with colleagues that this is most definitely brought on through the loss of virginity, or the pubecent bomb which replaces goblins with tits and cunt. 

Oftentimes I wonder if we are truly never meant to return, lest we find ourselves drifting into madness without even a small anchor within this world for us to use that madness to our advantage. For when I say ‘return there’ it is not as a means to escape from the hell we live amongst. But rather, to find the holy rail that we so often drank from as children, and bring its potions and powers into this world with us now. Not an escape, as it is seen to the soulless masses but a weapon of incomprehensible ability to all those who do not live amidst the splendor of Wüetung Der Mysterium’s great powers and majesty. 

It is of utmost importance for us to build our bodies into titanous machines that are capable of ripping the heads from evil torsos. It is important for us to learn the logical and temperamental skills of our forefathers also. But as children of Wüetung Der Mysterium we have the highest duty to uphold and that is to cast off the disguise of human flesh and become powerful and barbarous berserkers that are capable of wielding a magic that all others believe impossible. It is not enough to bench press and eat well. It is not enough to read and understand the philosophies that repel us away from the weakness of modern life. It is mandatory that we discover the ancient passageways which only children know. We must become immortal through magic and wonder, and rediscover the land of elves if we are to become something more, and something of a force to be reckoned with against our most mortal foes. 

They wield horrible magic that must be undone and can only be undone through true art and madness. We possess the key, we need only turn the lock.

The Ash Yggdrasil, F.W. Heine

In the northern tradition of Germanic mythology, there lies a well beneath the world tree, Yggdrasil. Located at the lowest reaches of the Nordic peoples’ understanding of the cosmic order, it sits in the shadow of a root that reaches into Jötunheimr, the land of the giants, associated with the ungovernable aspects of the natural world. The well is watched over by a mysterious being known as Mímir (roughly, “the remember”), whose origin and nature are decidedly obscure, but is noted in the  Völuspá as being potently enlightened (compare the symbol of the character Tom Bombadil in the Tolkien mythos). It is stated explicitly that his wisdom is derived from the influence of the wellwater.

As is the case with many of the themes present in mythology, the character of Mímir’s Well can be understood as being primarily symbolic. The situation of the well in an area that is so suprachthonic, beyond even a material concept of obscurity, and existing on a plane so spiritually devoid of light that it sits beneath the roots of all of creation, is no accident, and can likewise be interpreted as a nod to the nature of Ginnungagap — the primordial state of nonbeing from which all phenomena, both material and immaterial, emerged at the beginning of time. The mutable quality of the water as a force that takes on the shape of the vessel in which it is contained (be it cistern or body), its association with sagacity and freeness of thought, and its place in the structure of the universe, also speaks to the Jungian concept of the collective unconscious: something available to anybody brave enough to descend to the darkest roots of the inner and outer worlds in order to sample its quality. This is a theme also echoed in the symbols of two other wells present at the roots of the world tree in Norse myth, Urðarbrunnr (the well of wyrd), tended by the three Norns, goddesses of fate, and Hvergelmir (the boiling spring), from which all waters originate.

Reciprocity is the highest law of the universe. The material and decidedly positivistic field of physics teaches us that every action begets a reasonable reaction at parity with the original impulse. Hermeticism teaches us, echoed in the outstretched palms of the Magician of the Major Arcana, that there is congruence both “above and below”. Naturally, when the reputation of Mímir’s well aroused the interest of the gods Óðinn and Heimdallr, they were not exempt from this rule. Óðinn, having hanged himself by the neck already in the very fabric of the universe, was no stranger to the doctrine of self-oblation, and cast his eye, a powerful symbol of his sensory relationship with the external world, into the depths of the well. Heimdallr, the guardian spirit of the realm of the divine, whose conservatory nature binds him to the blowing of his signal trumpet, the Gjallarhorn (roughly, “yelling horn”) at the end if the world, likewise sacrifices his ear. Óðinn finds the influence of the well and its curator so tempting, that after his death, he carries Mímir’s severed head around, consulting it for advice.

A similar anecdote, perhaps derived from a common source, comes to us from the part of the Prose Edda known as the Skáldskaparmál (the “language of poetry”), is the story of the fabled mead of poetry, from which Óðinn derives his creativity and aptitude at composing verses. After the war that pitted the two tribes of gods in the North Germanic tradition, the Æsir and Vanir, against one another, peace was sealed by way of  a communal ritual of spitting into a cauldron. The saliva, imbued with the power of the now-united pantheon, grew into a man of considerable wisdom, skill, and intelligence, known as Kvasir, whose name is probably derived from a Proto-Indo-European root, to ferment or crush, *kwh₂et-, a stem that brought us Latin cāseus (cheese) and the Slavic beverage kvass. Kvasir travels among mankind, spreading the consequence of his intellect, and is eventually killed, ostensibly through misadventure, his blood being mixed with honey and turned into mead — thereby ensuring his abilities will last thereafter through the effects of alcohol. This process of beverage-as-currency-for-inspiration is echoed in the Indo-Aryan tradition of soma or haoma, the Vedic botanical ritual beverage, the origins of which are still debated.

In all of these paradigms, there is a common theme of sacrifice, of appendages that represent connection with the material world, of old grudges being laid down for common good, and the balm both of creativity and alcohol serving to unite pantheons and inspire humanity both. Not even supernatural beings are permitted to receive wisdom as gratuity. Certainly, you are not permitted to receive inspiration for free. The internal process of invigoration that allows us to transform our inner feelings and perspective into tangible results, artistic or practical, are not spontaneous (though they sometimes may seem to be), and cannot be created from nothing. Before the external work to spur results into existence is undertaken, inner work must be undertaken, and inner work must start with a catalyst that comes from without, however obscure or unconscious its origin may be. There can be no blood from Kvasir without the impetus of the spit from different mouths, there can be no wisdom without the removal of the part of the ego that thinks it already possesses the awareness to see what takes place in front of its face.

 And likewise, without the courage to descend, in the Jungian fashion, to the depths of the darkest places of the world, whether they be war or the reaches of the mind lowest and closest to the proverbial roots of the tree, there can be no opportunity for these gifts to be received. As the Medieval alchemical maxim was applied to the psyche of man by Jung himself, in sterquiliniis invenitur, or, put simply, “in filth, it will be found”. That which one seeks is often derived from its situation in the darkest, least tolerable places. These are the only waters from which the mead of life can be made:

The waters of sacrifice.

Before there were Gods, there was but one.

Before there was a middle-realm, there was but ice and fire.

Before there was spring, there was winter. 

Before there was light, there was an unimaginable dark. 

Before there was rebirth, there was death.

Before there was freedom, there was oppression. 

We need no science to explain this. We need no logic to wrestle with this deeply embedded truth. 

Chaos is not the opposite of Order. Order exists in many forms, and it is the nature of all things to adapt to the order of its time, or risk rebellion against such. 

It is the duty of youth to rebel against this state of stagnation.

As many books as religions might burn; 

As many truths a government might withhold from its peasantry;

The way of all things reminds us of this noble law, for it is the immortal call to arms. 

Winter is the end of a dynasty and era. 

It is the final motion of the earth as it completes its annual cycle.

It is the pantomime’s final act as the old clings to life before finally letting go in a bitter fall towards the unknown. 

What this leaves is the burning hearts of youth as they climb to the top of the charred mantle and claim the realm for themselves. Their new ideals were destined to usher in a new ‘perfection’. 

‘I’m the son of rage and love. The Jesus of suburbia’

Said Billie Joe Armstrong as he sung a timeless anthem to the youth of the modern world. 

Yet what he truly chants is the same timeless story that even the seasons scream to us. 

This is Baldr as he cries out for his fate to unfold. For he is literally the son of RAGE (Odin) and LOVE (Frigg).

Yet Baldr faces no true danger, or so he thinks. Like many youthful souls we believe ourselves to be immortal, and we also have an inherent venom for the safety we have been provided. 

It is often the thing we see coming the least that takes out the youth in their blind attack upon the world (i.e living the highest/most energetic life they can)

Rebellion in youth is an exhaustion of easy life, for it is nothing that our blood remembers. We are inherently hardwired as a people to undergo stress in order to become something more. 

This is Zeus as he trains to conquer his father Cronus.

The myth of Saturn / Cronus, father of the Greco-Roman Pantheon, is deeply troubling for any youth to digest because it is the cannibalistic oppression of the new from the upper hand for their paternal master the old. 

Zeus is the only son left after his father devoured all of his powerful, noble, and talented offspring. 

It is the darkest night that yields no hope. 

It is the soil which refuses to be harrowed nor house any seed the farmer plants to feed his people.

“City of the dead

At the end of another lost highway

Signs misleading to nowhere

City of the damned

Lost children with dirty faces today

No one really seems to care”

I imagine very vividly Baldr singing and understanding these Green Day lyrics the same way any punk might have when it was first heard by their ears. 

It speaks to the way the divine youth might see his surroundings. Especially now within this Kali Yuga. The world has turned to ratshit and concrete. The youth understand this.

Odin himself conquered the old state of the world as Ymir walked in solace between the ice and fire of two unkind worlds. 

The three brothers clearly said ‘how very boring this is’. Where the old simply strides. The youth juxtaposes them with an obsession with turning raw materials into useful and powerful new forms. 

Odin conquered there with his brothers and used the giants bones and flesh to shape the world you now read these words upon. Or so it is said. 

Where Ymir used his body, organs and lifeforce to simply exist for himself for aeons, the three divine brothers sacrificed his selfish form and blossomed him through a spell of rage and love into the world that now exists. 

So you see, there is every reason to burn a sunwheel in the heart of winter because of such tales gifted to us by earth, time, space and blood. 

To burn a fire in the heart of winter is the ultimate rebellion against the old. 

It is the ‘fuck you’ that man has always given to the foliage that the old become when they have clung to this realm for to long. 

For if the conqueror sits for too long, he will always see himself become the conquered. 

The spirit of youth and rebellion is the highest power that has ever existed, and it is a power that is fleeting for those who become too wise too soon. 

The Koryos conquered in chariots of fire, and a noble pursuit of manhood through chaos.

The chariot wheel burns forever.

As we ignite this symbol we keep the rebellion alive.

The rebellion against stagnation. 

The vegetation is stagnant, and we are the scythe of the reaper deep in the heart of winter. 

Go forth and conquer, go forth and raise chaos upon the dormant and dark. 

We spring forth from the maypole/Saturn/hagal and create powerful patterns that continuously multiply and conquer more space.

This is our duty to the flame of youth.

Photography taken at Oathbloods ritual 2021 by S.Riley