Category: Myths

a never-ending quest

Posted On by bertie

 

Ignorantly wandering through the dark forest in search of a clearing from which I can see the bright star-stained night sky, to see a glimpse of the sky and thus to see the infinity of the cosmos and its existence. In the hope of creating this miracle I acquired a starglass, but it was too often cloudy, or psychologically and physically too heavy to go out. Moreover, under the pressure of feeling being watched and watched, it has only been three times managed to observe the light points in the dark firmament, from Mother Earth, who holds me firmly in her grasp, as I travel through the universe.

No way up, back home, but on the contrary a descent into the pits of my presence here, in a vain quest to find my dear soul, which it seems to me, an eternity ago, has fallen away from me. Often despondent I wander around on this planet which God seems to have been forsaken for a long time. Then again I fall into a pitch black abyss or am overwhelmed by an untimely all-clearing heavy sleep over my books asleep.

Where is the path between those roses filled with thorns to the pinnacle of bliss? Once, a long time ago as a young man, I was daily, tireless, without sleeping, I was focused on this apogee, which seemed to me at that time, still to be achieved in this life. Unfortunately, it was different. During my climb on the mountain without top I lost magical beam, never to find my way back.

Where has that love gone, the sweet smell of flowers in the spring sun, the honey that was my daily comforting diet and which pushed me to higher thoughts and vibrations as if I was a cabbage white that swirled from flower to flower, without having to account for or be able to give me any account of why.

Occasionally, I think with a sometimes melancholy but often hopeful desire, of this clear inspiring revelation, which presented itself that night as I sat down along that broad river and scattered the clouds and the moon lighted the water exuberantly. For a short time, I now take courage and energy to swim further than one direction and then another until the next inevitable obstacle rises. Until that moment in the delusion that a redeeming catharsis will pour on me like a violent hot waterfall, which will completely wash me clean and light like a feather, so that the wind will blow me up to the highest point of the zenith. Unfortunately, the wind blows around without purpose and messes with my words.

Once, however, I will manage to rise to greater heights and hover the earthly below me, so I will hold.

de Citadel

Posted On by bertie

 

 

Long ago there was a beautiful forest. It was there, as it was a good forest, not too dark and not too light. On sunny days the rays of sun shone between the leaves and the tribes and you could see the plants and animals grow and move. It was a nice place for a king to live and was worked on a fortified city with a citadel. A forest remains a forest and a king must also be able to be protected.

They started building the citadel because it seemed the right beginning. It became a very nice citadel, slim, but with volume, white plastered walls, a nice gate that ran up in an arch. The door that should be able to be made from the sturdy thick wood of a few large oaks in the forest around it. Furthermore, the citadel had four turrets with on it, just like on the middle roof, a total of five golden spheres with a small tip on it, almost like tears.

Unfortunately, as often in the world, the tide turned. Bigger and smaller natural disasters broke out, it became dark, the sun was no longer visible in the forest, where he had previously shined and lit the citadel so beautifully. The forest that slowly but steadily turned into a jungle. The inhabitants moved away, at so much insecurity, and the king mysteriously disappeared, never to be heard from again. Wild animals moved into the citadel without a door and vermin settled wherever possible. The white plaster became grey and then almost black the golden bulbs became dull and gray.

For many decades, it seemed like erasans, later a bold wandering wanderer discovered as by chance the citadel. It rained hard, very hard, as it did every day. The wanderer moved under the gate to rest and dry. The wild animals and the crawling had already left the citadel. The citadel stood there as a sad ruin and nothing reminded of his luster and glow of old times. Soon the tired wanderer fell into a deep sleep. And he was visited by a dream.

The next morning, it was softer raining, gently broke a ray of sunshine through the heavy foliage and fell on the face of the sleeping wanderer. This one first slowly opened an eye and then the other. He couldn't remember dreaming, let alone anything. However, he stood up with surprising resilience and looked straight into the sun. His eyes sparkled, it was not clear what color these were. He had a plan. At first he walked around the old fallen citadel a few times, while he took her into his eyes. Then his decision was made. He would stay here in this quiet deserted environment, but he would redecorate and clean the citadel and build the fortified city around it so that there could be life and beautiful things could be made for those who wanted to see it. Of course he thought that there should also be a king, but he realized that it really had to be found first. For the time being, he appointed himself a builder warrior warrior and began with good courage to the heavy not to underestimate job.

warrior goddesses

Posted On by bertie

 

 

This week I came into contact with Durga (Doerga), a Hindu goddess and the goddess of anger, just to let her in. After reading about her, more about that later, I began to think about warrior goddesses, as I immediately started to call them. I don't have much knowledge of the many religions, but I'm going to try to tell you something here.

De godinnen Artemis, Pallas Athena en Aphrodite, met wat later de tegenhangers Diana, Pallas Athena en Minerva in Rome, schoten mij direct te binnen. Het valt mij op dat moment ook op dat er geen Christelijke godin van de woede is, zover ik weet tenminste. Het Christendom kent wel een aanzienlijke legerschare van heiligen en ik moet direct aan Jeanne d’Arc denken en hoe zij zich offerde in de Honderdjarige oorlog voor Frankrijk tegen Engeland. Met haar komt er ook een ingang in mijn tekst.

Jeanne was behalve een jonge vrouw met de nodige compassie en visioenen, een vasthoudend en eigenzinnig strijder, en ze was maagd. Het valt op dat dit op gaat voor alle bovengenoemde krijger godinnen. De Oud – Griekse godinnen van de jacht, wijsheid en liefde waren ook al onverschrokken strijders, en maagd. Ook Durga, wat de Ondoordringbare betekent en ook wel bekend als Devi Chandraghanta, is een echte onvervalste Moedergodin die verschijnt wanneer de destructieve krachten op aarde te grote vormen aan nemen. Ze kent natuurlijk net als haar collega’s geen angst en blijft haar spirituele kracht trouw, hoe zwaar het ook wordt. Op deze wijze verlicht zij het lijden. Door haar loyaliteit aan rechtvaardigheid is zij mede door haar vrouwelijke oer-energie niet te stoppen. Haar boodschap is: gebruik je kracht, kom voor jezelf op, laat je geen rad voor de ogen draaien en spreek je uit.

Doerga, in het Sanskriet दुर्गा), wordt ook vertaald als “zij die moeilijk benaderbaar is” en is belichaming van de woede van de goden. Zij wordt afgebeeld zittend op een leeuw of een tijger met tien tot twaalf armen met daarin haar regalia, die variëren van de lotusbloem, discus, bliksemflits en meerdere oorlogswapens waaronder een groot zwaard, waarmee zij tegen mannelijke demonen vecht, die de rust op aarde willen verstoren. Zij is begenadigd met een derde oog in haar voorhoofd. Zij blijkt een verschijningsvorm van Shakti, die voor haar volgers de Hoogste Werkelijkheid is. Zij is autonoom.

Het is voor mij een groot genoegen haar op mijn zoektocht tegen te komen en deze, weliswaar korte getuigenis van haar, het licht te doen zien.

 

the whale and the mirror

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How the unconscious sometimes tells you a mirror or how to live in the belly of a whale like Jonas or as the creator and creator, father Geppetto, of Pinocchio.

Pinocchio of the Italian Pinocchio, which produces translated piece of pine, is a puppet that comes to life through the intervention of a fairy, but remains of wood. He's a machine. It's only a matter of time until our hero experiences a number of adventures, in which he repeatedly comes into contact with mischief, with the self side, until he slowly turns into a donkey. His conscience, Japie the cricket, gives Pinocchio the insight that he better choose a different path and together they go home. The house has been abandoned and empty and dusted for ages. They go looking for Geppetto and learn that he lives in the belly of a huge and notorious whale, Monstro. Finally, they find Monstro, let Pinocchio swallow himself up and free Gepetto from the whale's belly by igniting a large fire in Monstro's belly, which then all sneezes out. Saved. As a reward for his righteous behavior, the fairy Pinocchio rewards him by turning him into a boy of flesh and blood.

A transparent story that shows everyone a mirror, which takes time to reflect on this.

the bee and the passion flower

Posted On by bertie

 

 

An hour later I took the picture above. To stay on the previous subject, the Passion, the state in Christian symbolism for zeal, well organized, cleanliness, courage, common sense, cooperation and of course sweetness. Furthermore, virginity is an attribute, because it used to be thought that bees did not reproduce via a form of coitus. The bee also stands for rebirth in the Christian context and is that not the theme of Christianity, if not all liberating religions and salvation teachings?

the passion flower

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The passion flower, in Latin: Passiflora incarnata, is a beautiful flower to photograph on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Passio whose name Passiflora is derived means suffering, Flos flower. The missionaries from Spain, arriving in South America, see in the flower the symbolism of Christ's suffering. His agony is also called "the Passion" . The ten green leaves, on the back of the stalk towards the three pedigrees, would symbolize the ten apostles. The missionaries had already written off Judas and Peter for convenience. The three dark, wine-red pistils represent the three nails with which their Messiah was nailed to the cross. It is and of course remains a very beautiful flower that has been blooming on my balcony for years at the beginning of the summer.

archetype II

Posted On by bertie

Last time I wrote that the experiences in my relationship to the three most important women in my life, at least it has long looked like they were, actually a product and a result of a archetype And that there may be a lot of men with similar experiences. The word archetype originates from the ancient Greek, where "arche" means "old" or "original" or "type" of "s" or "model" or "model" is an old pattern. What exactly is an archetype and how could it be so powerful?

Especially pioneer, founder and scientist in contemporary psychology Carl Gustaf Jung has studied and tried to describe this, based among other things on experiences with many patients in his forty-year analytical practice in Switzerland. According to Jung who has also compiled a huge private library with all kinds of manuscripts and portfolios, an archetype is part of a structure, also called the collective unconscious, an a priori, so to speak, within which it facilitates the possibility of an image. Think of Plato's cave. That image can bring and evoke intense emotions. Often this happens as a compensation for a unilateral psychological activity with the aim of correcting it. This happens regardless of the human will, as long as the latter already has a chance.

In dreams, myths and fairy tales, old patterns occur independently of time, place, culture and race. There is evidence that there have been developments throughout the world in different times and continents, which could not have taken place apart from each other, as there was no Internet linking the whole world 2000 years ago. There was something else, the collective unconscious, that has developed and expanded over the years and centuries. It's our psychic legacy as humanity. The archetypes, which are part of the same subconscious, are empty molds, which can be filled with an image and then live and are usually projected outside of their own psyche. A good example is the anima, the female soul of the man (animus with the woman) that he projects young on his mother and later often on other women around him. This can get quite out of hand when this leads to the idealization of a woman, for example, who has provoked an intense interest in her, also called being in love. She consequently gets an enchanting, attractive, fascinating, but at the same time terrifying greatness, as if she were a queen, a goddess, which, however, often turns into the opposite. The mould then flows full of images related to the idea, resulting in emotions and experiences and for true experiences, which can reinforce each other. An obsession is born, but with it also a dependence and an addiction.

In dreams, myths and fairy tales, old patterns occur independently of time, place, culture and race. There is evidence that there have been developments throughout the world in different times and continents, which could not have taken place apart from each other, as there was no Internet linking the whole world 2000 years ago. There was something else, the collective unconscious, that has developed and expanded over the years and centuries. It's our psychic legacy as humanity. The archetypes, which are part of the same subconscious, are empty molds, which can be filled with an image and then live and are usually projected outside of their own psyche. A good example is the anima, the female soul of the man (animus with the woman) that he projects young on his mother and later often on other women around him. This can get quite out of hand when this leads to the idealization of a woman, for example, who has provoked an intense interest in her, also called being in love. She consequently gets an enchanting, attractive, fascinating, but at the same time terrifying greatness, as if she were a queen, a goddess, which, however, often turns into the opposite. The mould then flows full of images related to the idea, resulting in emotions and experiences and for true experiences, which can reinforce each other. An obsession is born, but with it also a dependence and an addiction.

pancreas

Posted On by bertie

Let's split this word up. It clearly falls apart in the words Pan and Trec. Pan translated from Latin means everything or everything encompassing and increase translated from Latin as creation. The words used separately mean from Latin translates: make a pan. But most famous is Pan probably from the Greek and Latin myths about him, see my earlier blog about Pan. Here, however, we can read pancreatic with some good will as to create all of them.

When I go one step further in my analogical thinking or so you want to create analytics, I get to Prometheus. I'll explain how I took that step. Prometheus steals the fire, the creation of the Gods of the Olympus of those same gods to give to the people. In some ancient Greek myths, Prometheus is even the creator of the first people. He created man from clay.

Stealing fire from the gods is, in my opinion, the same thing as creating, making something out of nothing. Fire used to arise from the beating of pebbles, which gave a spark by which persons who were in it could make fire. Fire is the light of the soul of man, the universal spark given us or not by God, or vice versa, the fire in man is his soul. But there's something else.

As punishment for his deed, the Gods, by mouth of Zeus, ensure that Prometheus is chained to a mountain in the Caucasus where the eagle Ethon comes to pick his liver from Prometheus' body and then eats it. In the night the liver grows again, after which the eagle returns in the morning to pick up the liver again and to eat it. This continues until Herakles ends as one of his twelve works, with the approval of Zeus, the eagle death and the eternal punishment. Is it a very big step to replace the liver with the pancreas, a similar organ?

Pancreatitis or pancreas inflammation (fire) can be caused by, among other things, excessive alcohol consumption (firewater). This inflammation can repeat which can lead to chronic pancreatic inflammation. It may also lead to pacreas carcinoma in some cases. Part of the pancreas is sometimes surgically removed. Life expectancy should not be overestimated. Unfortunately, the idea of creating everything will then be taken away from and eventually put out of the fire.

Cyperus papyrus

Posted On by bertie

Yesterday afternoon I got a new roommate, a papyrus plant, which I baptized Syrinx. Of course I'm talking to her. It is still very small, a place only in a large high battery with earth and white stones.

The Cyperus papyrus is a marsh plant found in the wild in subtropical Africa. It is a grass or reed with long stems that result in a star-shaped top of thin green grass-shaped blades. The most famous application of the plant is of course the papyrus roller, when it grew along the banks of the Nile. The plant is seen in the swamps of Sudan as weeds and the triangular stems can easily grow four to five meters high. There, and for example in Botswana and Uganda, the wetlands each cover an area the size of the province Utrecht.

In ancient Egypt the plant was used as the well-known forerunner of the paper, but also as food and roofing and for all kinds of household crockery and even for making boats. When the Egyptian architect Imhotep made natural stone buildings for the tomb of Pharaoh Djoser (27th century BC!), he made the structure of the papyrus stems in stone. This became the forerunner of the pillar with capital, as we know well from the ancient Greek and Roman ruins. The use of the plant to write down is dated to about 5,000 years ago.

Nowadays, or actually for a long time I had a papyrus plant in a battery box with white stones in 1976 it is a decorative plant that does well in the house. This plant, which I got, is actually related to the Cyperus alternifolius. The two are often confused. This room variant can be 2.5 meters high, so almost to the ceiling. It can become very wide in number of stems or very high, depending on the size of the pot or container in which it is located. You can't really water her too much as a swamp plant, although the roots shouldn't be constantly wet. The leaves can sometimes get brown tops, especially near a central heating. It must then be sprayed with a plant syringe. It can bloom with small brown flowers that can carry seeds. She needs a lot of light. Not only do people love this plant, cats like to do too well. She can also thrive outside in the garden along the pond. Most commonly known as the Cyperus parchment.

In ancient Egypt the papyrus plant (mehyt) stood for joy and joy, it was the wand of the goddesses. The plant was also associated with youth. The new life that rose from the primordial water. It was a royal crop there. As the plant grew lush, she became also the symbol of fertility. She formed the pillars of heaven where the god Hapi stayed. But there were more gods with which she was connected, like Bastet (fertility goddess represented as a cat) and Neith (mother goddess and sometimes seen as creator of the world) and Isis bore her son Horus in a papyrus field, as she had to hide from her brother Seth. That made the plant symbol of birth and rebirth. All in all, Syrinx has a colourful history.

Bees

Posted On by bertie

Binnenkort is het lente en zien we hopelijk weer meer insecten. Wat weten we over het insect de bij en wat zijn er voor mythes over de bij te vinden?

De oudste nog existerende jager-verzamelaars in de Kalahari woestijn, de ‘San’ of ‘Bosjesmannen’, voornamelijk nog levend in zuidelijk Afrika, geloven dat de mens is ontstaan uit een zaad dat een bij in een bidsprinkhaan had gepland. Dit nadat de bij de bidsprinkhaan over een rivier had gedragen en de uitgeputte bij de bidsprinkhaan op een drijvende bloem had achtergelaten. In de uit het oude Egypte overgeleverde mythe groeiden bijen uit de tranen van de zonnegod Ra toen zijn tranen het zand van de woestijn raakte. In de Griekse mythologie was Aristaios, een satyr en een zoon van Apollo en de nimf Kyrene, de god van de bijenteelt. Nadat de nimf Eurydice gestorven was doordat ze op een slang stapte terwijl ze Aristaios probeerde te ontsnappen, doodden haar nimf zusters al Aristaios zijn bijen. De hevig huilende Aristaios raadpleegde de voortdurend van gedaantewisselende zeegod Proteus, die hem aanraadde vier stieren en vier koeien te offeren. De sater doet dit door de beesten te laten rotten. Uit de overblijvende karkassen komt een zwerm bijen die zijn bijenkorven weer vult. In Homerus zijn lofzang op Apollo schrijft deze dat Apollo’s gave van voorspelling door bijenmeisjes is gegeven aan Apollo. Bijen waren dus belangrijk in de oudheid.

Wat zijn de feiten heden ten dage over de rol van de bij? Tegenwoordig kennen we de bij vooral als de nijvere maker van honing. Bijen maken deel uit van de familie van vliesvleugelen, maar zijn de enige veganisten in die familie. Ze leven van nectar (suikerrijke vloeistof), en stuifmeel en honingdauw. Het is niet zo dat alle bijen in volken leven, er zijn vele alleen levende, solitaire bijen. Het aantal soorten overstijgt waarschijnlijk de 20.000 in kaart gebrachte soorten. Ze leggen een wintervoorraad van hun voedsel, de honing, aan dat dan weer deels door imkers wordt weggenomen. Om zich te verdedigen tegen hoornaars, de grotere en sterkere wespen, kunnen bijen hun vliegspieren heel snel laten trillen, zo snel dat hun middensegment warm wordt. Wanneer twaalf of meer bijen dit samen doen verhoogt hierdoor de omgevingstemperatuur opvallend, zo opvallend dat de aanvallende hoornaar onder de warmte bezwijkt. De nog niet verklaarde bijensterfte in deze eeuw is een bedreiging voor het milieu en de menselijke levensbehoeften zoals appels, tomaten, aardbeien, maar ook koffie. Bijen dragen door de bestuiving van planten voor dertig procent bij aan de keten van menselijk voedsel. Mogelijke verklaringen voor de immense bijensterfte zijn de pesticiden, het eenzijdige voedselaanbod op het platteland en het slechte weer.

Wat kunnen we doen om de behulpzame en hardwerkende belangrijke bij te redden van een teruglopende populatie en te voorkomen dat de bij een mythe wordt? Je kunt meer bloemen planten op je balkon of in je tuin in plaats van er grijze tegels in te leggen Staat ook een stuk leuker en mooier. En laat vooral de uitgebloeide stengels staan, bijen kunnen daarin overwinteren. Ga ze in ieder geval niet voeden met suikerwater, goed bedoeld misschien, maar funest voor de bij, een bakje vers water is beter.