The overarching messages I've received, and the ones that are consistent with the greatest number of others I've heard from, are essentially these:
A storm is coming
Gather your kin
Get ready to fight and to survive
There have been many more messages, of course, and much more nuance, but these are the ones that come up consistently from many different people contacting me, and often in nearly the exact words.
I have tended to think about this as a message of warning for something that is to come; about the many signals of our decaying empire and the possibility of some form of societal collapse. I have tended to think about this as something we were meant to gather in preparation for, almost in waiting.
Today in my morning communion with Her I found my mind wandering, and asking a new question. What if the storm isn't coming. What if it is here, now?
We are in the midst of a failing empire. I know so many people who cannot find regular employment, who find themselves slipping down the economic ladder. Most people I know cannot see a doctor for their health care. All around us the social fabric is unraveling, while the elites who rule can seem to concern themselves with nothing but political advantage and wars of conquest. It has begun to seem to me that collapse is here - it's just a slow decaying collapse rather than the kind of cinematic catastrophe that the entertainment industry has taught us to look for.
And then I wonder, if the storm is here - if what we are feeling now are already its first lashings - how to make sense of these messages about preparation for something?
A couple of months ago, I was at a spiritual retreat in the Santa Cruz mountains. I found myself sitting up late in the hot tub with a fellow priest of the Morrigan, staring up at the stars between the towering redwoods and talking speculatively about our Queen's urgings and what they might mean. Asking each other that same question: What is She up to? What is the big picture? My friend asked me, "What do you think Her endgame is?"
I started talking without really listening to myself. Rambling speculatively. Then thought that what I was saying was starting to sound grandiose and mad, and I said, "But really, I sometimes think She's more concerned with specific issues, like restoring proper respect for the war dead. I don't know if She's really out to fix what's wrong with our civilization as a whole." I didn't finish the sentence though. In the midst of it, I found myself speaking into a sudden and overwhelming silence as the entire forest went dead silent on an instant: the million frogs and soft crickets and little night noises that had been all around us, all dead instantly. My friend and I stared at each other, and stared around, unnerved. Then, into that silence and stillness a vast wind came marching, sweeping down between the towering trees, as though the majesty of the sky itself was marching toward us. It approached down the contour of the land and swept over us and I felt Her presence overwhelmingly, the tall, haunting might of Her, vast and mighty as the sky itself, bearing down on us as that wind stalked through.
After it passed, the crickets and frogs found their voices before we did. Finally I turned to my friend and said, "I stand corrected. I'm pretty sure we just got told, DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE ME."
Today I'm wondering if perhaps, what She's stirring us to prepare for isn't the storm itself, isn't collapse, but a new society She's seeking to build within the decaying shell of the old one. That perhaps the urgings toward kinship and tribalism, toward self-sufficiency and autonomy, toward fighting ability and survival, are all directed toward making of us the kind of people who can form the kinship units at the core of a more tribal and localized civilization. The one that we all know must come after us. The one in which we hold our sovereignty in our own hands again and live within the capacity of the land to sustain us.
My friend who I hiked with last night said at one point that the Morrigan seems like a patron deity of our times, and maybe this is so. The great challenges we face are those of sovereignty and survival, of facing down a massive, corrupt, and war-hungry empire in order to restore the sovereignty of the people and of the land. Who better to arm us for this struggle?
What messages has She given you? What do you think Her endgame is?
The worst is yet to come, but yes the storm is finally arriving. I've expected this since I was a child. I've always believed something big and bad was coming, and prepared for it.
ReplyDeleteWe have lost our way and become out of balance with both nature and ourselves. This society is too polarized, with most everyone being either too hard/patriarchal or too soft/matriarchal. Or worse, utterly apathetic.
I dont believe she works alone in this, so it would be better to consider Their end game. All of divinity present upon the level where we are finding activity. Surely Morrigan is not a rogue actor.
I wouldn't even assume she has a specific "end game" in mind. How we weather the shit storm, is up to us. I imagine all she cares about, is that we lose that which impedes us, and we wake the fuck up to right living as Earth's most beautiful and terrible creation.
-Van
I agree, the term 'end game' is probably a misleading one. In the context of the conversation in which it arose, we were just asking each other what Her plans really are in the big picture. Speculating about the nature and goals of the campaign as distinct from a given battle, to use an analogy.
Deletethe endgame is the storm. it's an necessary winnowing. I got the message nigh on 20 years ago. It's a chess game,Her rules.(Sound familiar?)
ReplyDeleteSome mouth the words come all hallows eve...not even understanding...
I think you are dead on (pardon the expression) that the collapse is here and it will be a slow decay, not a Hollywood catastrophe. But it is far too early to speak of end games. The gods have a perspective of time far longer than humans. I do not expect the end game to come in my lifetime, nor, I imagine, in yours.
ReplyDeleteWe are laying the groundwork not just for the coming years, but for the coming centuries. Not just for our future years, but for our future lives. Not just for our children, but for generations upon generations.
We don't get to see the master plan... if there even is a master plan. We have tasks assigned to accomplish here and now: some for ourselves, some for our communities, some for our world as a whole - and some for our gods and goddesses whose calls we answered.
That doesn't mean we don't wonder what she and her fellow deities are up to...
Interesting ideas being expressed here as well. I would agree with what Van says about becoming polarized or apathetic. (Some might word this as moving beyond the Aeons of Isis and Osiris and into the Aeon of Horus). I've also got what I think are echoes of what Joel the Brewer says about Dagda as the cauldron. I haven't the connections at the depth either of you have, but I do have a feel of the work of the Morrighan is also tied with the long-term health of the land and the people. As I think I remember Morpheus speaking of at P-con - this also concerns the children.
ReplyDeleteI do think there is something to be said for the idea that the storm has been rising for awhile. Or that the storm builds in cycles - how many of the struggles happening now are continuations of the struggles of the 60's (civil rights) or the 30's (protecting the workers) or... Morpheus's previous post spoke of Rome - the "Decline of Rome" lasted longer than the United States has been a nation.
Huh - I find that I'm now going to challenge the idea of an Endgame. Is Lughnasadh to Samhain to Yule an endgame? Perhaps of a sort - but it is also the continuation of a cycle. Perhaps our job now isn't to view this as an endgame to be won - our job is to remember this is a cycle which incorporates decay as a necessary part. To minimize the harm and difficulties, keeping all well provisioned through the dark times, the land and ourselves prepared for a bright and fruitful planting in the Spring.
It's been many, many years... but it strikes me this was a theme in Asimov's Foundation series - the planting of what is to come next was occurring even before many were aware the fall was underway. (And speaking of Rome, I read recently that Asimov based ideas from the Foundation trilogy on occurrences during the decline and fall of Rome).
John, see my comment above in reply to Van. I agree, the term 'endgame' is misleading. It was just something that came up in conversation. Endgame refers to chess, and we were in a position of feeling like we are pawns viewing the early scene-setting moves, and wondering what the big picture strategy is. I have no illusions that there is some specific endgame to be won by the Queen though - I know that She works in a much more generational, long-term, and perhaps also timeless way.
DeleteThe message I've received is recurring:
ReplyDeleteThe storm is here.
It will intensify.
If you do not help each other, you will perish.
This is accompanied by an almost unbearable sense that the resistance necessary at this time has little to do with what we historically refer to as battle, and everything to do with shedding the cultural conditioning known as rational self-interest. This conditioning is our Achilles' heel. I fear its vast influence and believe it may defeat many efforts at resistance.
Images of communes recur as well.