The Bitter Master

“Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.”

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Life itself can be a journey, a river, chaos, havoc and an intolerable mess. As we straddle our horse, camel, donkey or mule and ride out in the world we seek fortune. On the path towards fortune the river and road can turn into sandstorms and erratic currents bring us out of course. Any detour is a new experience and in every new experience lays growth and rejection. If we approach with interest the stations in life our choices takes us to we will find green pastures and poisoned apples. This is the thrill of living.

I believe we all manifest a complex set of planetary virtue fused and blended with the experiences we make in the world. Our starry soul gets conditioned by the world we live in and our innocent soul absorbs and follows, react and act. We swim in emotions and thoughts – and constantly we are hurled to the crossroad to make the good and bad decision. This is the way knowledge is accumulated. This is how we can know the bitterness as different from the sweetness – and on these two poles life dances back and forth – like a windy river of hope, love, despair and all forms of ecstasy.

Life is good, even when we swim in wormwood, because life is born from love- and medicine is often bitter – so in the lakes of wormwood, there is really just one thing to do and it is to declare, “I am ready! Give it to me! I can Fucking take it!” And as you swim on the pools of honey will surface as solace given miraculously. To resolve the bitterness in a spirit of interest will unleash the honey within and give the oasis needed for gathering Self – and move on. Hopefully stronger, more loving and more aware of whom we are...

Tradition, Truth & Toil

The idea of ‘tradition’ is subject for a variety of interpretations – and this is not puzzling given the various fields of human activity we see this word being used within. We can speak of a cheese receipt being traditional by the mere virtue of being passed down in generations. There is a succession stretching over time that passes down a given knowledge.  In this sense virtually anything passed down in history can be understood to be traditional.

When we speak of tradition in relation to cult, faith and doctrine – when we venture within the fields of the sacred and the caves of mystery a particular world view is what is subject for the succession or transmission.

The traditional world view is often called perennial and replicates an enchanted world view, typical for the pre modern era where the visible and invisible shared the same space. The clearest exposition of traditional doctrine in this sense is found in Plato and his neo Platonic successors; we might speak of a philosophical succession dating back to the beginning of time – but having a common reference in Plato and the world of Ideas.

Lilith Mashkim Ninanna

Contemporary neo pagan ideas of Lilith tend to see in her a sort of spirit of joyous ecstasy and female sexual potency. In the same vein there are also attempts of merging Lilith with Belili and Baalat given the motive of both names referring to a ‘beautiful maiden’. In fact these epitaphs refer back on Astarte-Ishtar as the Queen of these restless and disturbing spirits.

Lilith herself is a truly dangerous spirit, the Queen of lilins – she, herself the ecliptic daughter of Ishtar. Lilith is a volatile venusian potency balanced in itself, but prone to sow disharmony and frustration. She is a witch-protector, but is also a mother who feeds upon her own. Her mystery speaks of the beginning before beginnings and her grace is fear and tears. Her kindness is the black holes of exploding stars...

If we look at the Ugarit texts to our disposal, like Maqlû and of course the story of Gilgamesh it will appear that Astarte-Ishtar is in truth the Queen of the ‘beautiful maidens’ –the hostile as well as the benevolent ones – as they complete her totality.

Lilith, like Astarte-Ishtar possesses wings. The presence of wings suggests several matters; the relation with the winds being one – the connection with the Netherworld being another. The latter motive is found in the poem of Ishtar’s decent to the Netherworld where we read that the inhabitants are ‘clothed like birds, with wings for garments’. There is a agility to move between states and realms by spirits and divinities possessing wings.