Sharing out — by Author Maria Kvilhaug

Shar­ing out — by Author Maria Kvil­haug

“Due to var­i­ous respons­es, I feel the need to clar­i­fy what I mean by unbro­ken tra­di­tions, the way I see them here in India ver­sus how these lack in Europe and Euro­pean-descend­ed cul­tures like the USA and so on.’

‘The direct lines to the pagan past have been bro­ken over and over and active­ly so. That sort of lack or near-lack of direct con­nec­tion to the past is also present in many oth­er places in the world, with only a few, local excep­tions.… ”
Author Maria Kvil­haug

·Due to var­i­ous respons­es, I feel the need to clar­i­fy what I mean by unbro­ken tra­di­tions, the way I see them here in India ver­sus how these lack in Europe and Euro­pean-descend­ed cul­tures like the USA and so on.

The direct lines to the pagan past have been bro­ken over and over and active­ly so. That sort of lack or near-lack of direct con­nec­tion to the past is also present in many oth­er places in the world, with only a few, local excep­tions.

India is actu­al­ly quite unique because the main reli­gion is a blend of extreme­ly old tra­di­tions that were nev­er sup­pressed suc­cess­ful­ly. Not that the Mughal or the British Empires did not try their best, they just did not suc­ceed in most places. Myths and leg­ends of the past are still told and present every­where, even in mod­ern action movies the heroes may sud­den­ly turn out to be pos­sessed by a god or an incar­na­tion of said god, replay­ing an ancient bat­tle with the rak­shas (demons) in the mod­ern world. The ancient lore is lit­er­al­ly every­where. Chil­dren learn ancient dance and texts in school, on TV, and in soci­ety as such.

What sort of ancient, spir­i­tu­al lore were you most­ly exposed to, in turn? In school, in the streets, in the neigh­bor­hoods, on TV…

Paganism?

No, you were’nt.
Although all cul­tures always do change inter­nal­ly with his­to­ry, even India, there are count­less direct, unbro­ken links to trib­al, Vedic and Har­rap­pan (Indus Val­ley) reli­gious and spir­i­tu­al tra­di­tions here, still alive and thriv­ing with­out ever hav­ing been sup­pressed or shut down.
And here is why we just can­not say the same for the West­ern world (or for most oth­er places). I will ask you some ques­tions:
Did you grow up in a home where altars to the pagan gods and oth­er pow­ers were present because every­one around you believed in them?
No, you didn’t.
Were these every­where in the land­scape, remem­bered with the same sto­ries as a thou­sand years ago?
No, they were’nt.
Did all your neigh­bors also have such altars and beliefs?
No, they didn’t.
Did you grow up and live in a world where all the ancient shrines and tem­ples to the pagan pow­ers still exist and there are unbro­ken lines of priest­hoods or spe­cial­ists attend­ing them, know­ing the old lan­guages and able to recite thou­sands of chants and poems and epics going back thou­sands of years?
No, you didn’t.
I mean shrines and altars and tem­ples that were nev­er demol­ished and replaced by church­es, and nev­er for­bid­den, nev­er replaced with saints and vir­gins in an attempt to for­get the orig­i­nal pow­er resid­ing there?
No, you didn’t.
Did and do priests reg­u­lar­ly bring stat­ues of the gods in char­i­ot proces­sons from house to house to give bless­ings and receive offer­ings?
No, they don’t.
Have peo­ple rit­u­al­ly been paint­ing up that Frey­stone down in the field reg­u­lar­ly for the last thou­sand years to invoke the god’s pres­ence in that stone, like the Shi­va stone in this pic­ture?
No, they have’nt.
Did you grow up with a rit­u­al moon-based cal­en­dar for wor­ship and offer­ings that every­body in your cul­ture fol­low and know by heart, that every­body attend to? No, you didn’t.
Are stat­ues of the gods every­where to see? Shrines and altars? Not the for­got­ten ones. Not the ones that were replaced with church­es, saints and chapels. Not the ones Tuva and I and obvi­ous­ly archae­ol­o­gists keep find­ing for­got­ten in the wild, nec­es­sary to dig up in order to fig­ure it out. No, I mean the ones that were nev­er for­bid­den, nev­er for­got­ten, nev­er replaced — how many of those sur­round you?
None. Not a sin­gle one. They are either dis­cov­ered and dug out by archae­ol­o­gists or hid­den beneath church­es and chapels.
The line back was broken.That does not mean that your sense of con­nec­tion with the past or with ancient gods and pow­ers is invalid. But no, it is not a part of your unbro­ken cul­tur­al her­itage. Because that cul­ture was bro­ken, and vio­lent­ly so, more than a thou­sand years ago, and replaced with new her­itages over and over after that. To think there are direct lines back, in no need of redis­cov­ery, beneath the lay­ers of cen­turies of changes, such as the con­ver­sion process, Medieval Catholi­cism, Protes­tantism, witch­hunts and heresy hunts, feu­dal­ism the Renais­sance, puri­tanism, indus­tri­al­ism, cap­i­tal­ism, sec­u­lar­i­sa­tion and all the oth­er lay­ers of cul­ture that lay between you and the pagan past, is utter delu­sion.
Do the young peo­ple seek appren­tice­ship and men­tor­ing from elders who learned it from their elders who lear­rned it from their elders going back thou­sands of years with­out stop, with­out oppres­sion?
Obvi­ous­ly not.
Do men in your cul­ture gen­er­al­ly, active­ly seek knowl­edge from women?
Obvi­ous­ly not. Chris­tian­i­ty put an end to that pagan tra­di­tion a long time ago. Each and every misog­y­nist out there rep­re­sents a direct line to noth­ing but an active and bru­tal break with pagan cul­ture, involv­ing the aggres­sive sup­pres­sion of an ancient tra­di­tion of wise woman teach­ers for men in favor of reli­gion-based spite towards women’s intel­lec­tu­al capac­i­ties and roles.
Is knowl­edge and learn­ing appre­ci­at­ed and respect­ed as an inte­gral part of your­self and the cul­ture sur­round­ing you?
No, it is not.
Are the peo­ple who ded­i­cate their lives to trans­mit­ting the ancient lore respect­ed?
Nope.
Are peo­ple respect­ed for their knowl­edge and learn­ing?
No way.
We are often called retards or nerds or waste or even ridicu­lous­ly enough accused of try­ing to sup­press the very knowl­edge we have ded­i­cat­ed our lives to trans­mit, like witch­es and heretics of the time of inqui­si­tions, because that knowl­edge dan­ger­ous­ly expands rather than shuts down the mind. And only pagan gods like Odin are into all that expand­ing the mind and seek­ing knowl­edge and humbly learn­ing from oth­ers-thing. Only fools need to pre­tend they know it all.
Do peo­ple gen­er­al­ly believe that trav­el­ing expands your mind and makes you wis­er?
Not any­more. Today, the peo­ple who are heim­s­ki, who nev­er knew any­thing but what they grew up with, are full of igno­rant con­fi­dence, unaware of the old pagan impor­tance of explor­ing and seek­ing knowl­edge.
Will you all weigh your words and nev­er hurl out an abu­sive slur unless you are pre­pared to die from it because every­one is hell­bent on defend­ing hon­or and integri­ty to the death?
Nope. You can spread your hate­ful spite every­where and whine about peo­ple stand­ing up to you all you like with­out get­ting killed or cursed. That is an absolute break with the pagan past.
Is every­body appre­cia­tive of learn­ing and knowl­edge?
No. It is not as if we have that sort of cul­ture any­more.
Peo­ple who nev­er stud­ied the old lan­guage of the Eddas and of the sagas will think they have just as equal under­stand­ing of that lore from trans­la­tions and mod­ern TV series, a sort of con­fi­dence in igno­rance that would have been ridiculed end­less­ly in the past.
You may have valid expe­ri­ences spir­i­tu­al­ly, but you will nev­er real­ly know the lore that was trans­mit­ted with­out know­ing the lan­guage or the his­to­ry of these trans­mis­sions.
The gen­er­al rule is that if knowl­edge of the past does not fit in with one’s dog­mat­ic beliefs in a one-truth-one-path sys­tem, one will rather throw slurs at the knowl­edge-trans­mit­ters. And that, my friends, is a com­plete break with ancient pagan cul­ture and a direct result of the total­i­tar­i­an, monothe­is­tic reli­gion that active­ly and vio­lent­ly sup­pressed it.
When peo­ple despise knowl­edge and learn­ing because it fails to feed their lit­tle dog­mas about them­selves and their ideals, they are active­ly con­tin­u­ing the oppres­sion and the total break with the past.
All in all, the line back was bro­ken both cul­tur­al­ly and spir­i­tu­al­ly, first with vio­lent oppres­sion and then with the oppres­sion of mem­o­ries, and then with the oppres­sion of the minds and lives of peo­ple for a thou­sand years.
No mat­ter how much the pagan pow­ers and lore and tra­di­tions speak to you per­son­al­ly, you are not a part of an unbro­ken tra­di­tion. You have a real sense of con­nec­tion, but you are not part of a tra­di­tion.
You are some­thing new, dig­ging up and deal­ing with what­ev­er you expe­ri­ence and learn.
And that is ok. It is still as real and mean­ing­ful and pow­er­ful as you think it is.
Your sense of con­nec­tion is valid.
You can stake up the old paths anew, but you are going to do that in your own way, not in an unbro­ken way.
Unlike the old pagans, you can pick and choose and adapt the beliefs you want, because that is how the mod­ern world works.
You con­sciosly choose rit­u­als, they were not impart­ed into you by the thou­sands of peo­ple who impart­ed these into you by con­stant exam­ple every­where.
To think the line back is direct and unbro­ken is absolute delu­sion.
That does not mean you can­not try to mend it, or that your mend­ing is invalid. It is valid. But it is not unbro­ken. Most of it has to be dug up.
There.

mayet

Author:

Mirror Mirror on the wall, Who is the Faerest of us all? The Truth are we in the skies you see, The Balance of Fire And Water is Elektricity.

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