RED DEER:

you guys here for Wicca 101?

Lukherne:

So, this is the place..

RED DEER:

yup...

RED DEER:

Lady Shakti is having computer problems and can't be with us today...I'm standing in with an offering on Symbols & Symbolism

Lukherne:

Yes, that's what I'm here for

Lukherne:

My favorite subject, symbols!

RED DEER:

great!!!

RED DEER:

you folks want to wait a few or go ahead?

Lukherne:

Let's jump right in

PAniteowl:

lets go RD .. we'll make it a short one if attendance is low

gloomndoom:

just dropped in, is there something special about to begin?

Lukherne:

Always

RED DEER:

PA - would you watch the door and IM all newbies?

PAniteowl:

Wicca 101 .. class

PAniteowl:

sure

gloomndoom:

oh

gloomndoom:

:)

RED DEER:

thanks...

RED DEER:

What are some commonly used symbols in the Craft?

PAniteowl:

pentagram

Lukherne:

sun, moon, earth, stars

RED DEER:

yes...

gloomndoom:

Phallus symbols? fertility stuff,.......

PAniteowl:

spirits of N E S W

PAniteowl:

personal icons

RED DEER:

athame, cup, wand?

Lukherne:

crescent, athame, cord, cup

PAniteowl:

visuals

RED DEER:

God/dess/es?

PAniteowl:

just to name a few

RED DEER:

(my answer to that comes at the end)

Lukherne:

almost anything having psychic relevance

RED DEER:

OK...all please remember that this is symbolism IN MY OPINION...OK?

gloomndoom:

ok

RED DEER:

WHAT?? (rhetorical question)

RED DEER:

Symbols as "real" objects...Blade, Cup/Chalice/Cauldron, Torq/Pentacle, Staff/Wand...Many of us use them as "real objects" in ceremony...Yet we call them symbols, and have a rich lore of all they represent...South, West, North, East...Fire, Water, Earth, Air...The use of any one of

Lukherne:

Is there any such thing as objective symbolism? (g)

RED DEER:

subjectively speaking? (beg)

RED DEER:

them triggers more subconscious associations than our waking minds can manage...There in lies their importance...

Lukherne:

oui

RED DEER:

Symbols as concepts/images...Each sacred symbol, when used in ritual, calls forth hundreds and perhaps thousands of associations not processed by the intellect, but available to all of the other centers of being...When simple concepts or images are used repeatedly with knowledge of their lore, and entire epoch of the Great Myth is summed up into a few SYMBOLIC ritual actions... Symbols as recurrent nodes of the Web...Due to the great age of primary symbols, they exist as recurrent nodes on the Web...The same chalice has been used in many lands, through many eras, by many peoples under names in many languages...But the primary symbolism remains relatively constant...These symbols, therefore, may serve to attune us to the Song of the Web (picture it as an infinite, polynodal stringed instrument...each connection between two nexi or nodal points vibrating with its own harmonies)...

RED DEER:

any questions / comments so far?

Lukherne:

1 sec

Lukherne:

When you refer to a polynodal stringed instrument my mind draws nothing but a Japanese atonal kai'jin (g). Can you expand?

RED DEER:

ok...stringed instruments as we know them...each string has a node or point of attachment at each end between which it vibrates...Now, imagine a spider web as a stringed instrument...

PAniteowl:

Harp with cross ties

RED DEER:

the string between EACH pair of nodes vibrates

RED DEER:

YEAAAS!

RED DEER:

Thanks, PA

Lukherne:

Ok... The closer to the center of the Web the higher the frequency

RED DEER:

I don't know that physics as we now it holds...I perceive each strand as independent, with its own full harmonic complement...regardless of position in the Web...after all, where is the center of that which is boundless?

Lukherne:

An ascending series of pitched chords, if it were. The Oumphalos

Lukherne:

Bo tree

RED DEER:

Bo Tree

Lukherne:

World Navel

Lukherne:

Yggdrasil

RED DEER:

any further ?'s

PAniteowl:

comment??

RED DEER:

go

Lukherne:

Please continue

PAniteowl:

I don't picture a center ... almost a grid, like a harp

RED DEER:

oh, I thought PA had a comment

RED DEER:

yes...

PAniteowl:

as you cross between strings as established, you create a secondary string

RED DEER:

yes, except the grid is four (at least) dimensional and NON LINEAR

PAniteowl:

each of us creating part of the web, but on the existing structure

RED DEER:

I see each of us as a nodal point, seeking expanded connections with the Web

Lukherne:

We are each a note in the chord?

RED DEER:

We are each a node...notes and chords arise from our connections with other nodes and many things are nodes, not just humans

Lukherne:

More connections would give a richer symbol

RED DEER:

OK, that was basically my answer to WHAT??? Now, HOW???

RED DEER:

Symbols as foci for use in altering consciousness (metaphor/language)...Because our waking minds, which tend to linearize and classify input, cannot deal with "true reality" which is nonlinear and chaotic (from our vantage) we use symbols to help us speak a deeper language...That of our own weavings within the Web...This symbolic vocabulary stills the waking mind to the possibilities which exist... Symbols as transition points from the "real" to the "abstract" to the direct subjective experience of the Web...As we become open to processing multiple data simultaneously, we experience the connectedness of the Web...We can be no or all places/times...But a direct jump from waking consciousness into the Web takes a life-time of training, for those who can attain that level of practice...The Cup (tangible) is of the Waters (tangible to abstract) which are of the West (abstract)... Symbols as nonlinear mappings on the Web... Thus, in noting the symbols we cast the circle - invoking the four quarters - we allow our nonlinear minds to move outward...At the same time that we define within and without, relative to the circle, we define the circle as in all places and at all times...And, by association, the symbolic tools we used to cast the circle...This constitutes nonlinear mapping...The Chalice is used in its multiplicity of times/places/ways...It exists simultaneously at MANY nodes of the Web, as only something that has been used repeatedly for between thirty and sixty THOUSAND years could...

RED DEER:

OK, that's What??? and How??? Any ?s/comments before WHY???

Lukherne:

I've always thought of the use of symbols to connect to larger realities as analogous to sympathetic vibration (to hark back to the musical analogy.

RED DEER:

You anticipate me WELL, Luk

RED DEER:

OK

RED DEER:

WHY???

RED DEER:

Symbols used personally and repeatedly facilitate our ability to focus...Working with symbols in some ways resembles the patterned breathing learned for childbirth...They provide a focus for the conscious mind that is predictable and comfortable...Thus allowing the entire mind to be accessed...Therefore, regular use of specific physical and mental symbols strengthens them as facilitators of the frame shift or change in consciousness involved with entering the Web...Symbols used through time (at different nexi of the Web) when reused my call up resonances within the Web...Remember the Web as a stringed instrument?... When the Chalice is used, that ritual act seeks harmony with all of the uncounted millions of ritual uses which both precede and follow it in linear time...Words may have similar power, thus, part of the reason for the Catholic Church's use of Latin until very recent times...The idea is that the more nodes of the Web that you set to singing in harmony with your own working, the stronger a cone of power you may raise... Are the God/dess/es symbols?...Yes...Only symbols?...NO!...Every image of the Lady and the Lord that we perceive within the Web are the many aspects of Them with which we are presented...They are so ineffable that we MUST reduce them to (even extremely complex and personal) symbols...Our waking minds, though hard at work in the rapture of ritual, demands to be brought along into the Web...Into the divine experience of our Mother and our Father...Therefore, as the ritual symbolism focused upon the transition for the waking mind into the Web, symbolism of deity focus for that mind the multitude of perception that is our subjective experience of divinity...

RED DEER:

Well, so much for my thoughts...what about you folks?

Lukherne:

I weary of the phrase 'only symbols'. Everything we perceive is a symbol, there's nothing diminutive about them. They are the basis of Mind, IMnsvHO

Otterjoy:

I experience symbols as language of the 'soul'

RED DEER:

I agree, Luk...as the mind uses language (symbols) to function

gloomndoom:

I see symbols as a physical description of what we experience spiritually

RED DEER:

Jung postulated that there is an ancient language which is all our heritages that of the archetypal SYMBOLS

Otterjoy:

true, myth is the language of the "psyche"

Otterjoy:

myth = archetypal symbols

RED DEER:

Aye!

gloomndoom:

:)

PAniteowl:

hadn't thought about the symbols themselves carrying leftovers from others use ... but I can see that now thanks

Lukherne:

Red Deer, do you find that the use of a powerfully symbolic ritual carries spiritual 'momentum', ie hurries you toward a specific state of mind?

RED DEER:

set in prosaic relationship to each other

Otterjoy:

the tarot is a perfect example of how we borrow this symbolism

RED DEER:

For me, yes...although the "power" lies in my own associations with the ritual, not in whether others "say" it is powerful

PAniteowl:

(blush) should have realized that Otter

Otterjoy:

luk, the force of will I believe is the propellant in this case

Lukherne:

I took *that* for a given (g)

RED DEER:

Yes, the Tarot represent the root symbols of the alphabet in which the Great Myth is written

RED DEER:

agreed, Otter

RED DEER:

the use of the symbols, the ritual, propels the will

PAniteowl:

I guess, since I personalize the tarot symbols, did not think how they were used by others

gloomndoom:

Very good! Red ,cause a child brought up to recognize a known symbol as representing something else will not have the same usages for that "symbol"

RED DEER:

Yes, G&D...rather like Christmas and Halloween!

gloomndoom:

:)

Lukherne:

That's why a translation can never capture the 'feel' of the original - the 'map' of associated symbols changes

Otterjoy:

Do you know that in Germany, the moon is masculine and the sun is femm8inie ?

gloomndoom:

Ahhh the FATHER land!

RED DEER:

That has been true in more than one language/culture

Otterjoy:

Ya Vaterland

Otterjoy:

really Deer which?

Pixelite:

Yes Luk, that's why to really understand a culture you have to learn to -think- in their language....

RED DEER:

but the FATHERland is separate, a result of the Patriarchal revolution about seven thousand years ago Chinese have, in one system, a moon god and sun goddess (or maybe Japanese)

Lukherne:

The moon is more commonly female because of the obvious symbolic connection to menstruation

Otterjoy:

Interesting that the Japanese culture and German vibrate so closely in other areas as well

RED DEER:

Yes...which is far more than symbolic, Luk

Hugmiester:

YOU FORGET ALSO ITS SOFTER LIGHT MORE PALE

RED DEER:

Most of us know that a group of women in CLOSE association tend to synchronize their cycles

Otterjoy:

Yes luk and tides

RED DEER:

what most do NOT know is that before the advent of electric lights, when the moon was the brightest nighttime object

Otterjoy:

the ocean being the primordial womb

RED DEER:

those synchronized cycles occurred under the full moon, via modulation of pineal hormones

Lukherne:

Well, you know me... symbols are all. Yes. tides of Mother Ocean.. good point Otter

Otterjoy:

I am completely synchronized to the moon cycle

RED DEER:

Blessed Be, Otter

Otterjoy:

I keep it that way by walking skyclad in the moonlight

RED DEER:

Any particular phase?

gloomndoom:

also in ancient of human times the phase of the moon was the sole factor in determining great military advances

RED DEER:

Full?

Otterjoy:

yes dark, I mens, full i ovulate

Otterjoy:

Even further to that lunacy that happens at full moon, imaging if all women were synchronized the smell of the pheromones in the air would cause a LUNACY of unknown proportions

Lukherne:

Oddly enough, I find that I write most prolifically when the moon is full. I'm a mere man BTW (g)

RED DEER:

You mean when we sensed the pheromones, Otter?

Otterjoy:

Yes Red

RED DEER:

Can you imagine all pagans in estrus at the same time?

Otterjoy:

it is natural to breed at the full moon

Otterjoy:

and perhaps our full moon craziness is a leftover

RED DEER:

Especially for the more visually oriented sex

RED DEER:

(us, I mean (lol))

Otterjoy:

LOL

Lukherne:

? Don't know about that... I'm rather tactile

Otterjoy:

Lovely chatting with you all...nice writing red deer, i think i came in late, but I got the gist of it

Otterjoy:

Must run.....Merry Part

gloomndoom:

mp

Lukherne:

MP

RED DEER:

Thanks, otter

Lukherne:

The Fatherland thing keeps reverberating in my head.. What are some of the other

gloommndoom:

Gattago also ,Gonna go see my baby sis's 2nd lil' baby boy today mp all PEACE

Lukherne:

similarities between Japanese and German cultures you were thinking of Red Deer?

RED DEER:

Not sure of other similarities, just knew of the male/female "reversal" in sun & moon

Pixelite:

It would be a fun project to check out though....

RED DEER:

yes, it would

Lukherne:

I was thinking that their versions of the World Symbol are phallic rather than lingic, but I'm not sure. I'd have to research.

Pixelite:

Well, Japan at least was very male oriented.... look at Samurai etc....

RED DEER:

Most versions these days are, Luk...world tree, etc. As was medieval Europe

RED DEER:

with its knights, Pixe

Lukherne:

Yes, but then we're pretty patriarchal too

RED DEER:

Since the revolution, patriarchy has spread like wild-fire through most of the world. But even so, symbols of the prior matriarchies remained strong in many cultures

Pixelite:

Wasn't japan's samurai around a long time before knights.... like for some reason I get the feeling of remembering that they were around when most everyone else was still matriarchal...

RED DEER:

Nope, starting, I think, around 8 or 9 hundred AD

Pixelite:

O.K..... must have it mixed up with something else....

RED DEER:

Remember, matriarchal vestiges still remain in most cultures, but the Patriarchal Revolution began NINE THOUSAND years ago

PAniteowl:

Thanks for good thoughts RD ... have to leave now ..talk to you later ... MP & BB All

Lukherne:

The lotus and ocean symbols seem to congregate amongst more matriarchal societies.

RED DEER:

and the Cauldron

Lukherne:

It would be a really interesting project to classify belief systems by symbol use (rather than ritual or cosmology). don't you think? Don't think it's been done before.

RED DEER:

Yes, and I also think that Jung's work would provides a good basis for this approach

Lukherne:

Yes! Oh, how I wish Campbell were still around...

RED DEER:

Don't we all!?!

Shekki:

Campbell?

RED DEER:

Joseph

Shekki:

(s) Who was he?

RED DEER:

Master Mythographer for the 21st century

Shekki:

Ah

RED DEER:

Campbell wrote volumes on myth, transformations of myth through time, and the future evolution of mythology

RED DEER:

Well, folks, I've enjoyed it...Thanks for the many thoughtful questions and comments

RED DEER:

Will post this class on the BB as per usual

RED DEER:

Brightest Blessings & Merry Part