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moonvoiceI have finally decided, after a lot of thought, to make some of my Vilturj / shamanism entries public.
This is the first.
In many ancient spiritual cultures, those which are 'shamanic' in nature, crystals often have a seminal importance. They are the bestowers of wisdom to those who learn the secrets of knowing, and learning such secrets is not a matter of simply interpreting the wounded vibrations of a tumbled amethyst, but a matter of years of studying, interpretation, learning both anecdote and literal translation.
In Australia, there are reports of some Indigenous peoples swallowing crystals into their body upon the point of initiation; whereby the crystals will aid them and keep them permanently connected to the spiritworld. These crystals hum and vibrate and warn the wise and magical wise-men, of those who would do harm to a community. They advise of changing patterns in the earth and in the men and women themselves.
In some parts of the Americas, fragments of soul could be deliberately severed and stored in crystal amulets, sealed there to both soak up the wisdom of the crystal. Crystals could be used, perhaps those especially with terminated points, to find and locate souls and soul fragments in the otherworlds.
In Vilturj, and indeed in other cultures of the snowy climes, crystals had many special properties. To the Ilkara'te, or sky shamans, they were the tools by which the sky shamans came to understand the weather gods, and the tools by which they may - if necessary - work directly with the weather on behalf of a community of humans, or even a community of vili or animals; for it must be said that the Ilkara'te and Oraite were not just placed on this earth to serve those human bipeds. The community is more than just the Homo sapiens looking back at us, occasionally demanding service. A community is the gods, the spirits, the animals, the vili, the trees, plants and rocks - all respectfully gods themselves in many cases.
It perhaps seems strange, that one would find secrets of the weather not just in observing the weather itself, but also in the stones. Ilkara'te held that the stones were the oldest thing on our earth except for the weather itself. If one could understand the slow talkings and knowings of stones, one held the secrets of much of the land, its history, its future, and therefore the weather patterns inscribed upon both.
Granite and hardened stone, not generally made valuable now in neopaganism, was of great importance - in Russia, and here in Australia where granite outcrops are often gods, or the sites of gods and spirits. If granite whispered to you, you could know where the k'acze wolf and deer-men lived, or the svelte and sleek shifters, the schikala. If a slavae, the great bird from which gems fell from her wings, appeared on this earth to converse with a god and granite witnessed this event, one could learn from how the granite remembered that slavae the nature of a slavae, a great thing, for they do not ever visit humans in this world or the otherworlds.
Those small tokens of wisdom that some keep on their shelves; tumbled stones, heavily wounded stones taken away from their god-sites in the way that a fin is taken away from a shark can only give so much wisdom. It is true that sand blows off the mountain, but this is like fur blowing from the shedding wolf. To take great chunks is a greater slight, the difference between a leaf naturally falling and a human severing a great limb, the tree itself generally survives - but the limb does not.
Tumbled stones taken far away from their countries of origin and expected to gift us with their healing abilities are sadly misused. They can indeed be nursed back to life, they can impress us with their energy, but when you have the fingernail of a god... you will not hear exactly what the god has to say!
In this world I live in, I see gods not in archetypes or in amorphous ideas of transcendance. Gods are granite outcrops, the rain falling, the earth beneath my feet. I believe - like the Indigenous Australians generally believe - that when someone blows up a granite outcrop and destroys a god, they have destroyed a part of themselves that may never recover. When the land hurts, the people hurt.
The land can survive a great deal, so can gods, so can humans. We survive housing and mining and still look to find the deeper thrum of nature around us, how can we not when the crust and mantle thrums beneath us? Untouched by bombs, seething with bacteria and life, giving us its pulsing heartbeat, heat and activity; fuelling the weather and winds.
And so here we have it, an eventual explanation for how the Ilkara'te saw that connection between stone and weather. Without our shifting tectonic plates driven by heat and rock, it is very likely we would not have wind as we know it, and therefore it is also very likely we would not have our transient weather patterns moving across our lives. The weather moves with the secret of the rocks, for on planets without tectonic movements, the air is often non-existent, the atmosphere does not last long.
Do not turn to tumbled crystals thinking that you will find great secrets in a god's fingernail or worse, in something greater. Commune first with granite outcrops, limestone cliffs and shale if it has not yet been pulverised by the scientists who need to hold bones in their hands, instead of just touching the shale and waiting for the story of the animals to come to them hale and whole. Walk a rocky mountain and listen to the beat of whatever creatures may pulse deep within.
Then go back to the tumbled crystals, the shinies, the glowing colours that have been brutalised into glowing for the benefit of our meagre eyes. It is easier to appreciate a tiny part, once you have taken the time to appreciate and know the greater whole.
Keep up this pattern of learning, observation, listening and respect and one day you may learn something more about the weather that tumbles around us. One day the granite that once formed a particular plate that created a particular wind, will tell you exactly how to work that wind now if the need arises, and will tell you the gods in that wind, for before the weather, there were the rocks seeing the need to create those gods of wind and weather which in turn created us, who then proceeded to walk, command and deludedly tame the rocks, those who created us and gift us, are those which will gift us again if we stop taming the tumbled stone, and find the wilder places once more.
I believe it is a rare thing for stones to share such wisdom, but share it they will if you take the space. The time.
It is true, the roots of the underworld really do support the sky. :)
This is the first.
In many ancient spiritual cultures, those which are 'shamanic' in nature, crystals often have a seminal importance. They are the bestowers of wisdom to those who learn the secrets of knowing, and learning such secrets is not a matter of simply interpreting the wounded vibrations of a tumbled amethyst, but a matter of years of studying, interpretation, learning both anecdote and literal translation.
In Australia, there are reports of some Indigenous peoples swallowing crystals into their body upon the point of initiation; whereby the crystals will aid them and keep them permanently connected to the spiritworld. These crystals hum and vibrate and warn the wise and magical wise-men, of those who would do harm to a community. They advise of changing patterns in the earth and in the men and women themselves.
In some parts of the Americas, fragments of soul could be deliberately severed and stored in crystal amulets, sealed there to both soak up the wisdom of the crystal. Crystals could be used, perhaps those especially with terminated points, to find and locate souls and soul fragments in the otherworlds.
In Vilturj, and indeed in other cultures of the snowy climes, crystals had many special properties. To the Ilkara'te, or sky shamans, they were the tools by which the sky shamans came to understand the weather gods, and the tools by which they may - if necessary - work directly with the weather on behalf of a community of humans, or even a community of vili or animals; for it must be said that the Ilkara'te and Oraite were not just placed on this earth to serve those human bipeds. The community is more than just the Homo sapiens looking back at us, occasionally demanding service. A community is the gods, the spirits, the animals, the vili, the trees, plants and rocks - all respectfully gods themselves in many cases.
It perhaps seems strange, that one would find secrets of the weather not just in observing the weather itself, but also in the stones. Ilkara'te held that the stones were the oldest thing on our earth except for the weather itself. If one could understand the slow talkings and knowings of stones, one held the secrets of much of the land, its history, its future, and therefore the weather patterns inscribed upon both.
Granite and hardened stone, not generally made valuable now in neopaganism, was of great importance - in Russia, and here in Australia where granite outcrops are often gods, or the sites of gods and spirits. If granite whispered to you, you could know where the k'acze wolf and deer-men lived, or the svelte and sleek shifters, the schikala. If a slavae, the great bird from which gems fell from her wings, appeared on this earth to converse with a god and granite witnessed this event, one could learn from how the granite remembered that slavae the nature of a slavae, a great thing, for they do not ever visit humans in this world or the otherworlds.
Those small tokens of wisdom that some keep on their shelves; tumbled stones, heavily wounded stones taken away from their god-sites in the way that a fin is taken away from a shark can only give so much wisdom. It is true that sand blows off the mountain, but this is like fur blowing from the shedding wolf. To take great chunks is a greater slight, the difference between a leaf naturally falling and a human severing a great limb, the tree itself generally survives - but the limb does not.
Tumbled stones taken far away from their countries of origin and expected to gift us with their healing abilities are sadly misused. They can indeed be nursed back to life, they can impress us with their energy, but when you have the fingernail of a god... you will not hear exactly what the god has to say!
In this world I live in, I see gods not in archetypes or in amorphous ideas of transcendance. Gods are granite outcrops, the rain falling, the earth beneath my feet. I believe - like the Indigenous Australians generally believe - that when someone blows up a granite outcrop and destroys a god, they have destroyed a part of themselves that may never recover. When the land hurts, the people hurt.
The land can survive a great deal, so can gods, so can humans. We survive housing and mining and still look to find the deeper thrum of nature around us, how can we not when the crust and mantle thrums beneath us? Untouched by bombs, seething with bacteria and life, giving us its pulsing heartbeat, heat and activity; fuelling the weather and winds.
And so here we have it, an eventual explanation for how the Ilkara'te saw that connection between stone and weather. Without our shifting tectonic plates driven by heat and rock, it is very likely we would not have wind as we know it, and therefore it is also very likely we would not have our transient weather patterns moving across our lives. The weather moves with the secret of the rocks, for on planets without tectonic movements, the air is often non-existent, the atmosphere does not last long.
Do not turn to tumbled crystals thinking that you will find great secrets in a god's fingernail or worse, in something greater. Commune first with granite outcrops, limestone cliffs and shale if it has not yet been pulverised by the scientists who need to hold bones in their hands, instead of just touching the shale and waiting for the story of the animals to come to them hale and whole. Walk a rocky mountain and listen to the beat of whatever creatures may pulse deep within.
Then go back to the tumbled crystals, the shinies, the glowing colours that have been brutalised into glowing for the benefit of our meagre eyes. It is easier to appreciate a tiny part, once you have taken the time to appreciate and know the greater whole.
Keep up this pattern of learning, observation, listening and respect and one day you may learn something more about the weather that tumbles around us. One day the granite that once formed a particular plate that created a particular wind, will tell you exactly how to work that wind now if the need arises, and will tell you the gods in that wind, for before the weather, there were the rocks seeing the need to create those gods of wind and weather which in turn created us, who then proceeded to walk, command and deludedly tame the rocks, those who created us and gift us, are those which will gift us again if we stop taming the tumbled stone, and find the wilder places once more.
I believe it is a rare thing for stones to share such wisdom, but share it they will if you take the space. The time.
It is true, the roots of the underworld really do support the sky. :)
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One qualm
Date: 2007-08-25 11:17 am (UTC)To be fair, there are -very- few people who appreciate the life of the terrain more than geologists. As far as paleontology/archeology is concerned, I'd expect they coincide very closely with geology and preservation these days.
This is a really well-written essay; will you be posting it on Wildspeak?
Re: One qualm
Date: 2007-08-25 11:20 am (UTC)I'm not sure, do you think I should post it? I've been thinking about posting more on that site, and I never know exactly what sort of stuff people are looking for. :)
Re: One qualm
Date: 2007-08-25 12:42 pm (UTC)On your site, you have that plants and stones, in very rare circumstances, can be totems as well. There is also a section entitled, "Can Plants and Stones be Totems?" in which you have a page listing properties of six stones so far. This would fit in before the stones (on the site map), but under the same category (I'd imagine). It would be an easy title too: something like "The Role of Stones and Crystals."
Your essay is not on stones as totems, but the wisdom and use of stones in shamanism and specifically Vilturj... I think it's incredibly relevant. It's a fantastic overview of the care, use, and perceptions surrounding stones, not to mention that the subject is how the stone affects and is effected by the world.
Re: One qualm
Date: 2007-08-25 06:32 pm (UTC)Also, I am curious how you came to know these things. I'm certain it's not just from books, but if any books, could you tell us their titles and who wrote them?
Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
It struck a memory of when my family traveled across America and came upon the Crystal Fields in Montana. I recall how there was a hysteria of people digging into the earth for crystals of varying kinds. I was there with a woman who collects them to make dream catchers and adorn other things. I remember how the land was devastated by digging, despite the the rule about only being able to go once a year. My sister and another girl dug in a section together that my mother and the other woman were digging in. I had been walking about feeling bored and asked to join in the hole. That's when I found the biggest crystal I've ever seen in my own hands. I was overwhelmed with triumph, but was kicked out by the other girls who felt it was all their hard work that had given me such "luck." I was satified with this crystal, but walked off to dig in another hole and considered the consequences of this digging. This was a mountain at one point... a volcano that had erupted eons ago... that was being raped of it's natural form by our greed (pleasure seeking obsessions). I found a bunch of wonderful crystals in that spot when I considered this. What's more I found it difficult to not want these things. I even felt that with all the traveling and hard work we put in that we deserved these gifts.
We later brought them home in big buckets. I made a few dream catchers and keep the largest crystal on my altar. When my sister moved to the west coast of the US, she left her bucket of crystals behind. The crystals remained with the rest of our junk...except for a few that I had given away. I think mostly nothing came of them because there is a resonating feeling of guilt. I didn't feel that I stole from the land... the land seemed happy to give these things... but I did feel I left the earth unfulfilled... that maybe I didn't have the right purpose. I certainly don't feel that it is right for anyone to take these things to make extra money or to add crystals to make things look pretty. Still, I didn't have a purpose when I went there other than to go and get crystals. I have since been left wondering why I took something if I didn't want it or need it.
I've considered giving those crystals back to the land it came from, but 1) it's a long ways away and 2) someone else will come and take it as I did. Maybe that's not for me to worry about, so much that I return them.
Still... I contemplate a lot lately about the nature of all existence. Everything changes, everything takes, everything gives. What makes it special is how it is done. What makes it wrong is when there is not balance. But mostly these are things I learned as an American, influenced by Christian morals. It's about fairness. If I give you something, you give me something. Which evolves into not expecting a gift in return.
Sorry if that seemed to tangent off. Ya got me thinking a lot. :}
Re: One qualm
Date: 2007-08-26 02:45 am (UTC)However there's a good link about Aboriginals and the roles of crystals here:
acropolis.org.au/articles/InitiationRitesAborigines_GunerOrucu.pdf
A lot of the thoughts regarding tectonic plates and so forth are my own anyway, I had always struggled with the idea that rocks could be connected to the weather until I was researching the role of tectonic plates on the earth.
The thoughts regarding taking rocks away from sites etc. are also mostly my own. I don't believe many of my ancestors had too many problems with it - also because they weren't mining a site usually, just taking a stone or two as a remembrance of the god.
So some of these things I learn from people, those around me, those who write books, those who were in my family who I never see anymore. But some of these things I learn for myself. Some of them I learn from the spirit world. There's nothing especially academic about it, but I don't mind if people think the words are valuable. :)
As for the crystals, it's a shame, but you're also right - people would likely just take them again, and probably not even want to put them back. It IS possible to form a working relationship with crystals, to heal them, to help them find a new home. I have a few crystals, mostly gifts, but I find it very hard to buy tumbled stones and things like that these days. :/
no subject
Date: 2007-08-26 06:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-26 06:49 am (UTC)http://www.sacredcircle1.com/SMF/index.php
:)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-26 06:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-26 12:39 pm (UTC)xoxox
no subject
Date: 2007-08-26 08:10 pm (UTC)I have many in my collection that each serve a purpose to me, whether it be accompanying me on meditations or just to place on my third eye to circulate chi energy or try to ease tension and headaches. They really do have energies to them, and we are energy beings as well.
I was recently gifted with a pair of "record keeper" quartz clusters. They are living, growing forms too and I'm honored to have them with me in this life and wonder where they will go even after this body passes on.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-27 12:51 am (UTC)There sayings like 'if these walls could talk,' and I have been in houses where I have instantly felt wrongness, and other houses where I have felt nothing but healing and love.
The thing is, walls *can* talk, granite outcrops can, they can release their memories for those who wish to touch them and find out what memories they are. I know there have been some documentaries done on the 'memory' holding ability of rocks, but I haven't seen any. Just have my own beliefs on the matter. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-27 12:55 am (UTC)Sure thing, to a degree I believe a severed human limb would have a 'human' energy to it.
But I also think it's not necessarily appropriate to stereotype all purple amethysts (as a hypothetical example) as being great for the third eye just because they're 'purple.' It's to me one of the flaws of neopaganism, to stereotype instead of listening to the individual stone itself.
To buy rhodochrosite because it's good for relationships, only to take it home and find that it's been brutalised AND may be good for something completely different, may not - in fact - have even been put on this planet just to serve us like slaves that we dust off when convenient.
No human would want to be treated the way we treat most animals, no human would survive being treated the way most of us treat rocks and crystals.
Re: One qualm
Date: 2007-08-28 12:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-28 02:45 am (UTC)My plants didn't like it when I had a piece of Kyanite near them. I guess it had TOO much energy because 3 of the plants died off at nearly the same time. I've since moved the stone else where and the remainder Ivy, Purple Passion, etc. are doing fine now.