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Helheim
Jan 4, 2009 13:24:08 GMT -1
Post by jez on Jan 4, 2009 13:24:08 GMT -1
Hel, in heathen tradition, appears as a beautiful lady on one side, and as a corpse on the other.
She welcomes the dead who die outwith battle, and restores them to health and strength, reuniting them with their kin in the Halls of the Ancestors.
Those who have lived a really selfish or un-worth-y life will have no people nor place to welcome them, and will end up in a pretty foul bit of Her realm, wading through swamp and foul mire.
--
A friend of mine has recently had a close encounter with Her, and has asked if it can be considered a message, and if so, of what?
I amswered him in this way.
"It is a hard thing, making sure people's appointments with death come at the right time, when there are things and people out there intent on getting them in early.
"But She, if it /is/ She, is actually on your side. She doesn't want unwilling guests any more than anyone else. She wants them entering Her halls late in life, stretching at Her gates and dropping years of illness and age just outside Her lands, and then jumping, running, well and strong for the first time in a long time, to meet their friends and kin.
"She wants you to win every battle, if you can.
"Maybe that's the message, if there is a message here.
--
"No one, in my opinion, loves life more than She does. She gives back youth, health and strength to the old and ill, joy and purpose to the suicide, direction and love to the lost.
"And there is no greater gift than that."
--
From the other pagan traditions represented here, and from the perspective of the emerging Brythonic community, what is the 'teaching' about death and beyond?
For me, the Halls are real and inclusive, with space and place for everyone according to their needs and beliefs. And I have no worries about walking to Hel's gates, at the appointed time.
--
Jez
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Helheim
Jan 6, 2009 22:06:48 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Jan 6, 2009 22:06:48 GMT -1
I wondered if anyone would respond to this and was interested to hear what might have been said. I'm reluctant ( as others might be) to offer a definitive Brythonic view. But I have addressed the issue before so will content myself with some considerations perhaps somewhat at a tangent:
The idea that 'I' (ego, the person I know as 'me') will survive death in some essential sense and dwell somewhere else is an integral part of orthodox christian doctrine. Consider the theological implications of the "Last Judgement'. For this to be possible individual identity must remain intact in some way in order to be answerable at that time, hence the whole christian paraphenalia of purgatory, Hell etc. Now consider the response of the Vatican to the Cathar 'heretics' which resulted in a 'crusade' in southern France in the 13th century to stamp it out. St Dominic and his order were assigned to to the task of eradicating their ideas and did so ruthlessly, resulting in the institution of the Inquisition. Why? Because the Cathars denied that the material body was sanctified, that is was anything other than a curse so what we do with it is if no account. But Catholic theology required that it was just this body that must account for itself account for itself at the Last Judgement. So the idea that the soul could pass on into another body (i.e re-incarnate) could not be condoned. If so, which of its subsequent incaranations would account for it, and what was it then went to Hell or Purgatory to be punished?
Now consider the heresy of the Brythonic christian Pelagius. He claimed original sin did not exist so peope were free to decide for themselves whether to live sinfully or not. St Augustine countered this by asserting that sin was the consequence of sex, which itself passed on sin. This is why virginity (of priests, nuns; the Virgin Mary who conceived Jesus without sex) is such an essential element in catholic thinking. By avoiding carnality it is possible to avoid sin. But none of us can because we were all conceived carnally. So we are inherently sinful. So one Brythonic rejoinder to this might be that of the heretic Pelagius.
It is said that the druids believed in re-incarnation, or even transmigration. If there is anything in this, it might be another rejoinder. Either way, the idea that we individually account for ourselves after death, or that we dwell somewhere with some elements of our current identities, memories, responsibilities, after death seems to be at odds with the idea that we might re-incarnate. What sense can be made of re-incarnation? Personally I see little sense in the idea that I can become someone else and still be 'me'. But I know that, though my ego may be obliterated by death, the rest of me will live on indestructible in the Universe that has always been my home and always will be. Because 'I' am currently fused together in a radiant point of consciousness, aware of the living world and the gods about me, that particularly unique and fortunate focus of awareness is unlikely to be repeated when my material stuff is dissipated. If I'm crossing a plain across which the axis of the gods is projected, and I have awareness, the opposite polar point of my axis is 'not me'. Call it Hel(l), Hades, The Underworld if you like. But it's a dark place - too dark to see anything, or hear anything, of have any sense of anything. Suddenly the mirror doesn't work any more. You are not there. Which is not to say you are nowhere. Rather you are everywhere. And always have been.
Personal testimony of Heron
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Helheim
Jan 7, 2009 14:47:45 GMT -1
Post by megli on Jan 7, 2009 14:47:45 GMT -1
Now consider the heresy of the Brythonic christian Pelagius. He claimed original sin did not exist so peope were free to decide for themselves whether to live sinfully or not. I was going to debate this, but on relfection I think you're right. Pelagius taught that we are able to choose the good and earn God's grace by merit, by the action of our will. He did not see the effect of Adam's sin as more than a stimulus, a propensity to sin, in Adam's descendents, to which they could resist or succumb by the power of their own will. Whereas Augustine saw Adam's sin as an incurable taint that overthrew our own ability to will the good and merit grace. To put it another way, Pelagius saw human nature as a glass vase with a nasty crack in it, which tended to leak but could still hold water. Augustine saw it as a glass vase that had been comprehensively shattered.
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Helheim
Jan 12, 2009 10:47:46 GMT -1
Post by Blackbird on Jan 12, 2009 10:47:46 GMT -1
Difficult subject, as until we're dead, there can be no definitive knowledge... and even then, we might speculate that people will end up in the places they think they deserve. (I've no idea how that would work though, and it's possibly the prime example of the 'everything you believe is right' philosophy.) I like the Xian Irish 'voyages' poems as a metaphor for the journey after death. A perilous journey to navigate if you don't know the way - or if you have not got one of the gods to help you. Along the way, lots of places where we can lose ourselves or become waylaid by temptations which may eventually be unfulfilling. But if we can hold the course true, we can reach the place of the ancestors. A place of orchards and singing birds, shining waters and good company
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Helheim
Sept 9, 2010 3:58:01 GMT -1
Post by bram on Sept 9, 2010 3:58:01 GMT -1
The good news is that Helheim is where people who die of old age/natural causes etc. go to. So a long life may be on offer! it is also not the burning pit of anguish that we may imagine it to be.
Sometimes I wish I could erase 2000 years of Christian indoctrination, it really screws with our understanding of the ancestral mindset!
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