-------------------------------
The Call of Nature
-------------------------------
Should you be so lucky
To hear
whisperin'
It is an invitation
For you
- Clutch
Drink to the Dead
“Beware... beware....”
- Susan Cooper
The Dark is Rising
-------------------------------
Louis de Lyon stood on the lip of the rock outcropping, overlooking the cluster of huts below him at the base of the mountain. It had been an extraordinarily long, strange day in a long series of extraordinarily strange days. He flexed his neck and stretched, twisting his torso from side to side, before reaching back with his right hand and kneading his shoulder muscles awake. Finished with its work, his right arm dropped to his side. He shook it loosely, to stimulate the blood flow. Maybe it was the island air, maybe it was the effect of the strange cakes the woman had given him; whatever the reason, Louis’ vision was clearer than it had ever been before. His mind felt equally clear and sharp. He felt as if he not only saw everything around him, he could see through everything around him, inside everything around him.
Louis stood on the lip of the cliff and looked out over the village. The huts – constructed of timber, mud, and reeds – reminded Louis of domed bee hives or the overturned hulls of ships raised on stilts. The gnomes busily buzzed in and out of their huts, busy with the normal tasks of an ordinary day. A pair of lovers embraced and kissed before they climbed down a ladder and separated, heading down different paths on their way out of the village.
Louis’ thoughts turned to a faraway woman he would probably never know again, had probably never truly known at all. Despite all the mysteries and revelations around him, there were many moments when Phoenix’s smile was the only thing on his mind. He felt his heart flutter like the wings of a songbird as the foreboding growl of a feline stomach grows ever louder. A purring began to nudge against his awareness.
Wait. Am I really hearing this? Louis cocked his head, and listened intently to an almost imperceptible humming. As he focused on the sound, he could feel it gaining intensity, until it sounded like distant rolling thunder. Oddly, the roaring came from all around him and, seemingly impossibly, from betwixt the seams of time-space itself. The sound came from everywhere and everything, yet the when Louis focused on the peak of the mountain above him, the sound grew more insistent. Some thing called to him.
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The Murrinh-Patha conducted a bullroarer ceremony,
known secretly as Karwadi, and publicly as the Punj.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murrinh-Patha
Karwadi is a secret name for the Mother of All,
alternatively known as The Old Woman
and the core of the ceremony consists in revealing to them
her emblem, the ŋawuru (bullroarer).
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murrinh-Patha
In Ancient Greece,
bullroarers were especially used in the ceremonies of the cult of Cybele.
A bullroarer was known as a rhombos (literally meaning "whirling" or "rumbling"),
both to describe its sonic character and its typical shape, the rhombus.
(Rhombos also sometimes referred to the rhoptron, a buzzing drum)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullroarer
They are used in men's initiation ceremonies,
and the sound they produce
is considered in some indigenous cultures to represent
the sound of the Rainbow Serpent
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullroarer
His voice can be heard
through the medium of the bullroarer
which is whirled
through the air during initiation ceremonies.
He now lives in the trees of the bush,
particularly in the burls or growths
which are found on the trunks of trees, and only leaves
them for initiation ceremonies.
The bullroarer must be cut from a tree which
contains his spirit for it to work.
- https://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/57431
In the general context of aboriginal religion,
such initiations instill the idea
that in the dreamtime, extraordinary events once took place
which set the fundamental pattern of man's life in his given environment,
and the living must commemorate and keep actively in touch with
the symbolic truths and paths
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murrinh-Patha
Anyone caught breaching the imposed secrecy
was to be punished by death.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullroarer
in terms of a pattern he discerned
underlying the more general rite of sacrifice in other cultures,
consisting of (a) something of value consecrated to a spiritual being,
and whose aim lies beyond the common ends of life;
(b) the object of sacrifice undergoes transformation;
(c) The object of sacrifice, whose nature has thereby been transformed,
is restored to those who made the offering;
and (d) and then shared by the community,
allowing their loss of the earlier state to be offset by a gain.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murrinh-Patha
-------------------------------
A tiny hand touched Louis'. Delicate fingers wrapped around two of his, and tugged gently for his attention. Louis stopped focusing on the purring thunder, and squatted down to look the child in the eye. The toddler's face lit up with delight. The tiny child leaned away from Louis, pulling on his hands. Louis understood. The child obviously wanted him to follow. The gnome child pulled more insistently.
"Mama."
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The ultimate adventure,
when all the barriers and ogres have been overcome,
is commonly represented as a mystical marriage
of the triumphant hero-soul with the Queen Goddess of the World.
This is the crisis at the nadir, the zenith,
or at the uttermost edge of the earth,
at the central point of the cosmos,
in the tabernacle of the temple,
or within the darkness of the deepest chamber of the heart.
The meeting with the goddess
(who is incarnate in every woman)
is the final test of the talent of the hero
- Joseph Campbell
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Jill’s costume suddenly changed.
“Isis!”
- again.
- R.A. Heinlein
Stranger in a Strange Land
“Cybele!”
- R.A. Heinlein
Stranger in a Strange Land
Phrygian: Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya “Kubeleyan Mother”,
perhaps “Mountain Mother”;
Lydian Kuvava; Greek Κυβέλη Kybele, Κυβήβη Kybebe, Κύβελις Kybelis)
was an originally Anatolian mother goddess
- www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybele
- again.
“Frigg!”... “Ge!”... “Devi!”... “Ishtar!”...
“Maryam!” “Mother Eve!
Mater Deum Magna!
Loving and Beloved, Life undying -”
- R.A. Heinlein
Stranger in a Strange Land
Romans knew Cybele as Magna Mater (“Great Mother”),
or as Magna Mater deorum Idaea
(“great Idaean mother of the gods”),
equivalent to the Greek title Meter Theon Idaia
(“Mother of the Gods, from Mount Ida”)
- www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybele
Which was thus presumably so named after "The plain of Ida,"
which in the Gothic Eddas
was the chief seat of the Van or Fen Matriarch
and her Serpent-worshipping dark-complexioned dwarfs.
- L. Austine Waddell
The Phoenician Origin of Britons Scots and Anglo Saxons
Caxton stopped hearing.
Jill was Mother Eve, clothed in glory.
Light spread and he saw that she was in a Garden,
beside a Tree on which was twined a great serpent.
Jill smiled, reached up and smoothed the serpent’s head
- turned back and opened her arms.
Candidates moved forward to enter the garden.
- R.A. Heinlein
Stranger in a Strange Land
(“Gate of God”
or “Gateway of the God”).
In the Bible, the name appears as Babel
(Hebrew: בָּבֶל, Bavel, Tib. בָּבֶל, Bāvel; Syriac: ܒܒܠ, Bāwēl),
interpreted in the Hebrew Scriptures’ Book of Genesis
to mean “confusion”, from the verb bilbél (בלבל, “to confuse”).
The modern English verb, to “babble”,
or to speak meaningless words,
is popularly thought to derive from
- www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon
private rites with a chthonic aspect
connected to hero cult
and exclusive to those who had undergone initiation,
though it is unclear who her initiates were.
- www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybele
One theory, possibly the best known
but also the most criticized,
comes from the reports of Marco Polo
during his travels to the Orient.
He recounts a story he heard,
of the “Old Man of the Mountain” (Sabbah)
who would drug his young followers
with hashish, lead them to
- www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassins
the mystic,
Angkor Apeiron,
and his mad cabal
- Edward Saberhagen
Green John in the Paper Town
cabal (n.)
1520s, “mystical interpretation of the Old Testament,”
later “society, small group meeting privately” (1660s),
from French cabal,
in both senses, from Medieval Latin cabbala (see cabbala).
- www.etymonline.com/?search=cabal
Gubla or Gebel, it had grown to become a key
port and city of the ancient Canaanite coast.
It was the Greeks who called it Byblos,
when it served as the center of a lucrative Papyrus trade with Egypt
(bublos is the Greek word for papyrus).
Likewise the reader will recall from Chapter Thirteen
that “Phoenician” was the Greek name for the Canaanites
and that the Phoenicians referred to themselves as Canaanites.
For simplicity’s sake, I will continue
to use the terms “Phoenician” and “Canaanite” interchangeably here
and continue to refer to ancient Gubla/Gebel as Byblos.
- Graham Hancock
Magicians of the Gods
Arabic qaba’il, plural of qabilah “tribe.”
- www.etymonline.com/?search=Kabyle
cabbala (n.)
1520s, from Medieval Latin cabbala,
from Mishnaic Hebrew qabbalah
“reception, received lore, tradition,” especially
“tradition of mystical interpretation of the Old testament,”
from qibbel to receive , admit, accept.”
Compare Arabic qabala “he receive, accepted.”
- www.etymonline.com/?search=cabbala
the symbolic truths and paths
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murrinh-Patha
-------------------------------
Louis followed the child up one of the many winding paths through the deep forest that covered the mountain. The canopy of leaves was dense enough to block out the sun, and soon even the occasional glimpses of sky were gone as the two climbers entered a long tunnel of tangled growth. The humming sound grew in intensity as they wound around the mountain, up and up and up, until up and down were the only directions of which Louis was still certain.
The child continued to lead upward until they arrived at a plateau of sorts. They were still surrounded by trees but the trees were in orderly and evenly spaced rows. Louis momentarily forgot about the hum as he marveled at the organic architecture surrounding him. The trunks of the trees arched and interconnected, joined, fused together almost ten meters off the ground. A sense of deja-vu gnawed at the periphery of Louis’ consciousness. The realization dawning on him gradually. These weren’t the trunks of trees; these were all roots of one ancient tree, a gargantuan strangler fig much like the mystery tree on the-haunted ship from his dreams. He couldn’t see the tree’s top; the accumulated mass of the gigantic tree blocked it from view. Light still filtered through, though only faintly. The shadows were far deeper than anything he had experienced before, bordering on otherworldly.
He had entered a realm of eternal twilight, eternal dusk, eternal dawn... all happening at once, ever in flux. The spirit of the place was awe-inspiring. He spun in place, marveling at the grandeur of the arboreal cathedral. Louis couldn’t help but feel dwarfed by such a magnificent living being. The gnome-child had always felt small — he’d never having been anything else —, and giggled while impishly mimicking Louis’ impromptu spiraling dance.
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imp (n.)
Old English impe, impa “young shoot, graft,”
from impian “to graft,” probably an early West Germanic borrowing
from Vulgar Latin *imptus, from Late Latin impetus “implanted,”
from Greek emphytos, verbal adjective
formed from emphyein “implant,”
from em- “in” + phyein "to bring forth, make grow,"
from PIE root *bheue- "to be, exist, grow."
Compare Swedish ymp, Danish ympe "graft."
The sense of the word has shifted from plants to people,
via the meaning "child, offspring"
(late 14c., now obsolete), from the notion of "newness."
The current meaning "little devil" is attested from 1580s,
from common pejorative phrases such as imp of Satan.
The extension from this to "mischievous or pert child" (1640s)
unconsciously turns the word back toward its Middle English sense.
Such appereth as aungelles, but in very dede they be ymps of serpentes.
[Wynkyn de Worde, “The Pilgrimage of Perfection,” 1526]
- www.etymonline.com/?search=imp
The belief in diminutive beings such as sprites, tree spirits,
elves, fairies, pixies, gnomes, Japanese yokai,
the Spanish and Latin-American duende and various Slavic fairies
has been common in many parts of the world,
and might to some extent still be found within
neo-spiritual and religious movements
such as “neo-druidism” and Asatru.
The belief in spiritual beings, particularly ghosts,
is almost universal to human culture.
- www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprite_(creature)
The concept of small powerful beings is a nearly universal one,
from the eponymous elves and pixies of fairytale England
to the songlines of aboriginal cultures in Australia.
- http://freakyphenomena.com/article/reality-being-controlled-machine-elves
Kobold beliefs mirror legends of similar creatures
in other regions of Europe,
and scholars have argued that the names of creatures
such as goblins and kabouters
derive from the same roots as kobold.
- www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobold
The kobalos (pl. kobaloi) was a sprite from Greek mythology,
a mischevious creature fond of tricking and frightening mortals.
Greek myths depict the kobaloi as “impudent, thieving, droll,
idle, mischevious, gnome-dwarfs”,
and as “funny, little tricksy elves” of a phallic nature.
They were companions of Dionysus and could shape-shift
- www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobalos
The kobalos is related to two other Greek sprites:
the kabeiroi (pygmies with large phalluses) and the kerkopes.
The kobalos and kabeiroi came to be equated.
- www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobalos
On the island of Utupua,
there are legends of diminutive hominids known as kakamura.
The local language (known as Aba or Amba by its speakers,
and Neba or Nemba by neighboring language groups)
includes a not uncommon speech pattern
where a “b” is pronounced like the “mb” in timber.
If we speculate that the “m” in kakamura is a softened “mb” sound
derived originally from a “b”, then kakamura becomes *kakambura,
which in turn becomes*kakabura,
an almost exact match for the kubera found in Sanskrit writings
or the kabeiroi of the ancient Greeks.
Once we see the worldwide myths of little people
appear to be related linguistically,
we then ask ourselves the question, “why?”
- Thomas Mal’Akh’I
private interview with W.H. Kidder 5/5/2005
All these spirits,
of hiding, helping, singing and dancing,
together with serpents,
dwarfs,
personified gem- and jewel-spirits,
and "wizard"-spirits,
are under Kubera.
- E. W. Hopkins
Sanskrit Kabdiras or Kubdiras and Greek Kabeiros
Kubera (Sanskrit:कुबेर, Pali/later Sanskrit: Kuvera)
also spelt Kuber, is the Lord of Wealth
and the god-king of the semi-divine Yakshas
- www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaksha
Yaksha (Sanskrit: यक्ष yakṣa,
Tamil-யகன் yakan, இயக்கன் iyakan,
Odia-ଯକ୍ଷ, Pali yakkha) are a broad class of nature-spirits,
usually benevolent, but sometimes mischievous and sexually aggressive
or capricious caretakers of the natural treasures
hidden in the earth and tree roots.
They appear in Hindu, Jain and Buddhist texts,
as well as ancient and medieval era temples
of South Asia and Southeast Asia as guardian deities.
- www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaksha
Nineteenth Century classicists proposed that
other European sprites may derive from belief in kobaloi.
This includes spirits such as the Northern English boggart,
Scottish bogle, French Goblin, Medieval gobelinus,
German Kobold, and English Puck.
Likewise, the names of many European spirits
may derive from the word kobalos.
The word entered Latin as cobalus,
then possibly French as gobelin.
From this, the English goblin
and Welsh coblyn may derive.
- www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobalos
A duende is a fairy- or goblin-like mythological creature
from Iberian, Latin American, and Filipino folklore.
Duende also have some traits similar to goblins and kobolds.
The word is often considered to be the Spanish and Portuguese equivalent
of the English word “sprite” or the Japanese word yokai
and is used as an umbrella term
for any fairy-like being such as goblins, pixies, and elves.
- www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duende_(mythology)
The cult of Dionysus was closely associated with trees,
especially the fig tree,
and some of his bynames exhibit this,
such as Endendros “he in the tree”
or Dendrites, “he of the tree”.
Peters suggests the original meaning as
“he who runs among the trees”,
or that of a “runner in the woods”.
Janda (2010) accepts the etymology
but proposes the more cosmological interpretation
of “he who impels the (world-)tree”.
This interpretation explains how Nysa
could have been re-interpreted from a meaning of “tree”
to the name of a mountain:
the axis mundi of Indo-European mythology is represented
both as a world-tree and as a world-mountain.
- www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus
According to the elf who dwells in the Hollow Tree,
the secret of Mr. Keebler’s Golden Pecan Sandies
is that they are baked by elves.
Mr. Keebler’s firm seems to be
in closer cooperation with miraculous beings.
- Linda Degh
American Folklore and the Mass Media
The conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories,
in other words, the true source of the Illuminati.
Jones apparently believes that the machine elves are the ones
silently whispering into the ears of those in power,
telling them what to do (and whom to kill).
- http://freakyphenomena.com/article/reality-being-controlled-machine-elves
It had all become very convoluted,
but the complications arose from human interpretations,
not from the entities themselves.
The same held true for less well-known intermediary beings.
The inhabitants of folklore were reported
in a multitude of differing forms, from elves to elementals,
but could reasonably be classified as spirits in their essence.
Thus, daimons remained daimons
and, as we shall see,
daimon spirits were everywhere.
- J.H. Brennan
Whisperers: The Secret History of the Spirit World
The Demon of Socrates was a daimonoion,
a “divine principle or inward oracle.”
- www.etymonline.com/?search=demon
they gave the first impulse to civilizations,
and directed the mind with which they had endued men
to the invention and perfection of all the arts and sciences.
Thus the Kabiri are said to have appeared
as the benefactors of men, and as such
they lived for ages in the minds of men.
- H.P. Blavatsky
The Secret Doctrine
As spirits changed their form
of manifestation down the centuries,
one thing remained constant:
the flow of reports that claimed humans could
and did communicate with these whisperers.
- J.H. Brennan
Whisperers: The Secret History of the Spirit World
I’ve got friends on the other side
(He’s got friends on the other side)
That’s just an echo, gentlemen.
Just a little something we have here
- Dr. Facilier (& friends) in The Princess and the Frog
“Beware... beware....”
- Susan Cooper
The Dark is Rising
Absolutely goddamn right!
Unless you were goin' all the way…
- Captain Benjamin L. Willard
in Apocalypse Now (movie)
Don't you know
there's part of me
that longs to
go
- Elsa singing Into the Unknown
Frozen II (movie)
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