Dream Weaver...Perchance to dream

The question of vivid dreams came up today.  I was asked to recommend a dream site.  Clumsily, I fear, I attempted to verbalize my disinterest in such.  Not disdain, or dislike, or disbelief.  I don't know enought about it to be able to get so far as any of those.  It is just that, in my head, is where dreams start and end.

Let me offer one caveat here.  Prophetic dreams are something about which I have a personal experience, limited and trivial, but quite real.  However, I knew it for such as it was happening.  There was never any confusion between those dreams and normal night dreams.  What I was being asked about were normal, very vivid, very telling, but all internally generated normal.  NOT something received from elsewhere.

Lucid dreams fall in here somewhere - those are the dreams where you KNOW you are dreaming, and can, in some cases, actually control the direction of the dream.  'Vivid dreams' is a phrase used in lots of disciplines, including negatively in the psychiactric realm.  I am not referring to PTSD Vivid Nightmares in this article - not at all - those are an entirely different matter and NOT to be sought out by any means.  So if the word LUCID makes you more comfortable, please read lucid dreams for vivid dreams throughout.

So what about those vivid dreams?  Here we go.  This is how my simple hobbit mind groks dreams.

While we are awake, our senses are in full operation, collecting data.  We see, smell, feel, etc. all day long, and each of those sensory impressions  needs to be identified immediately.  (That's why we pull back from a hot stove...we sensed heat, we have learned somehow that too much heat will hurt us... Simple reflex.)  But to process ALL of that requires significant thinking power/processing power, if you will.  Those sensory impressions that are not immediately actionable (don't present a clear immediate danger or reward) are stored to be processed later...when things are quieter and there is less input demanding instant attention - AKA when we are sleeping.  The  mind, of course, never sleeps.  It goes into other modes, but never sleeps.  Not even after the cessation of physical reactions.  But that's a LONG tangent for another time.

So, we put our sensory gathering organs (eyes, ears, etc.) into a period of disconnection.  Not totally divorced, a bright enough light, or loud enough noise will bring us fully awake, but maintaining only a minimal function  - what I call a monitoring level.  Part of the mind pays attention to that while the rest of it sorts out the new laundry that got accumulated during the day.  If the sorting continues into that period of time where our senses are closest to being awake (REM sleep), the vividness of the information 'crosses over' into our more conscious mind - that part we actively monitor.  There are your dreams - made from the left over data that you are still dealing with.  Couple that with any associated emotions - emotions being excellent triggers for memory/data recall, and you have a stage set for some wild mental rides.  But they are all of your own experiences, your own reactions to those experiences.  Dreams from elsewhere can happen - after all, cell phones send information without wires, and are we less capable than a cell phone?  Maybe our wiring requires far more modification than jailbreaking a cell phone - but if we are smart enough to build - and hack - cell phones, why do we think we have ANY limits when it comes to what our brains/minds can do?  Because we are stupid, that's why.  We choose to believe that we cannot do certain things, because we have been told that others have not been able to do them.

So what?

Try thinking your own head through when a vivid dream makes itself known.  Make notes, or tell someone immediately while the details are fresh.  They disappear in seconds.  Have a journal RIGHT there to make notes as soon as you are truly awake - or, like me, dream you have made those notes so vividly that you searched through every journal you owned for 2 days looking for them.

Like any tool, vivid dreaming can be mastered through mindful practice.  I have not been diligent with this - but I can say that on the few occasions that I have experienced vivid dreaming - it was absolutely amazing.  Completely unique and identifiable as a vivid dream.  And these lend themselves to some incredible self=portraits.  When you have an unquiet mind, a vivid dream will literally show you the maze.  No instant answers, but a whole lot of information presented so that you can assess and determine the best route forward.  IF you are paying attention.

To try and improve the dream channel - repeat to yourself in those last few moments before sleep - I will remember my dreams.  I will remember my dreams."  Use whatever mental imagery works best for you - imagine seeing those words on a blackboard, or carved into a mantlepiece, hear them sung by a single voice, or recited by your mental narrator.  Form them into putty and squish them between your mental fists.  Move your arms and legs in time to the beat.  However you make things stick, make it so.  Every night.  You won't need to ask me if it is working.  When it does, you know.

I am going to take a short cut here - link a couple of great sites with information on vivid dreaming.  I don't do this, unless someone else has already created the work that I would do, if I had taken the time to do it.  Celebrating the fact that I don't have to re-invent the wheel on this - check out these links.

http://www.lucidity.com/SleepAndCognition.html

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Articles/si91ld.html

Disclaimer - I read through these.  The science makes sense to me.  I have not independently researched the links within the articles.

Take time tonight, while you are in wind-down mode, to read, or at least skim those two pages.  They, of course, tend to support what I already wrote - be rather silly of me to link opposing viewpoints in an informational article - save that for the argumentative model of 5 paragraph essay writing  (sorry - teacher break through moment.  I'm better now.)

So, dreams, by and large, are just the movie that your head is making of what you experienced throughout the day.  Anything associated with those sensory inputs comes along for the ride - emotions, mainly.  Sometimes, physical pain...too often physical pain.  Pain in a dream absolutely sucks - you want to wake up because it hurts, but you know when you do, it will hurt...GAH.  Lucid dreaming skills can turn those thoughts around, but it takes practice, and concentration - and that is tough when the pain is flaring.  However, pain is ALSO only a mental sensation.  Really.  it is the firing of nerve endings, electrochemical transmission of shit along neurons, all that HS bio stuff...and it is in our brains where all that translates into PAIN and madness.  Think what a gift it would be to be able to think pain off in a dream - then carry that over to waking states?  Hey - why not??

A few final thoughts on dreams - pay attention to colors - or not colored.  Some people dream in black and white.  That would be amazing.

Pay attention to stuff that comes up over and over - your subconscious is trying to get through with an important word from your sponsor!  It might be the same thing showing up in weird places - the same number of odd things showing up - the same weird color...look for what is not usual, and what you see more than once.

Repeated dreams - well - if the data keeps repeating, there is a flaw in the program somewhere - a loop that is  not closed, a tag that is missing - something incomplete.  Until the program is complete, the dream will repeat.  I have no tried and true trick to 'cure' this - I can't even be sure it is something that needs to be cured - addressed, certainly, but if the repeating of the dream is in an effort to communicate vital information to the conscious mind, where it can be acted on, that is not a standard definition of curing...

I experience a number of repeated dreams - but only ever cured one.  The worst, the nastiest, the most horrific.  A true nightmare, if not a full blown night terror.  I had the dream for years, for as long as I could recall.  I don't remember a time I did not have it.  Small details changed, but the constant elements were always there.

There was a building - a two story structure.  Sometimes a private home, sometimes a motel, but always two stories with a porch/balcony/walkway on the second floor.  Always many windows in parallel rows on both floors.  Sometimes multiple doors on the second floor - but the first floor always has a single entrance - double doors that are massive.  Not always high - but stout, armored, and impregnable looking.

http://www.castlesandmanorhouses.com/architecture_06_domestic.htm

Those doors are very like what I saw in each dream. Always on the ground floor, always between me and the safety of the inside of the building.

I would recognize the dream going into repeat when I found myself at a distance from the two story building.  It might be across a parking lot, or at the end of a long driveway, but I was walking toward it.  I could stop anywhere as I approached, and did, to study the new details.  I have recall of many different facades, some I can identify as real world places I have actually been, or seen what I believe to be real photos of, and others that are either vague recollections of art/photos I have seen, or purely impossible, and completely invented.  That is actually a rather crowded file, come to focus on it.  Hm.  

Anyway - the front doors are always closed, and I know, bolted, chained, welded shut, ensorcelled, guarded on the inside by every mightynightmare that ever crawled through my head...I am NOT getting within 50 feet of them, much less through them.  I stop and look at the rest of the facade.  There are often windows on both floors, but they all seem to be barred.  And anything on the second floor is out anyway - no way can I, even in a dream, beat the deliberate consideration of climbing up anything taller than a step stool.  ( I use that disclaimer, because, when I am lucky enough to have a real flight dream - one of the biggest delights is that the heights don't scare me.  But when I am facing anything 'grounded' in a dream -  acrophobia still controls my actions, making it as impossible for me to scale an outer wall to a second story window in a dream as it is when I am awake.)  So I stand, staring at the building, for a while...but always, always, always, eventually, a bell begins to ring.  A single note.  It's actually the A flat - down there an octave below middle C...and a tetch more - a really abrasive note, for some reason, to me.  I absolutely cringe when it shows up in a piece.  The only explanation that ever made sense was its dissonance with whatever in my head gives me perfect pitch.  Somehow, there is an aural vibration that allows me to identify pitches. AND makes me react to certain sounds in very 'violent' ways - not hitting things, but explosive - WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT NOISE kind of thing.  Anyway - 

The bell sonorously doles out one lone peal every 28 seconds.  I know.  I count them each time.  It is a sound that absolutely zeroes out my heart, spirit, mind, etc.  I go completely numb with terror.  I can't move, I can't think, I can't breathe...and I wake gasping.  Each time.  For years.  This would recur 7-8 times a year.  I have no conscious recollection of ever making connections with waking life events and the dream - we moved house 4 times in my first 6 years -but I don't recall the dream with any of those occasions - I was hospitalized during that time, had surgery, had strange illnesses,  but can't swear the dream came along with those issues.

Finally, the one time I actually took control of things.  The dream happened one night when my father was away.  I woke up in a terror, as I always did after the dream, but this time, I made my way into my parents' room and fell back to sleep in there.  I was instantly back in the dream, with the bell ringing, and the paralysis, but I just knew I was in a place where I could not be hurt - I was inside the borders of my parents' room -a sacred, holy, do not even THINK about entering unless you're on fire kind of place, and that meant the creatures of the night were barred as well!  

That building - that night, it was a 2 story shore motel.  Very much like this - 

but far shabbier, decrepit and with paint peeling off in massive strips...and nothing but the single door on the first floor.  As I stood there, doors above the main door opened onto a 2nd floor balcony, and a demonic fire-wreathed figure emerged bellowing and spouting flames - varicolored flames - like gas stoves, there was as much blue and green in the fire as yellow, red and orange.  It was pyrotechnics as I have never seen them in real life - terrifying, stupifyingly, horrendously compelling, even as it overwhelmed me with a desire to run, escape, get away, move...and I could not.  I simply stood and watched as this figure raged and bellowed and fumed and the fire rose higher and higher, and I could not move, or breathe, and things got very black and distant...

And then the flames quenched themselves, sucked themselves back into the open doors, taking the demonic figure with them - and I realized that all of this time - the building I had been seeking to enter for safety was fortified to keep that thing INSIDE...and me out.  And that as long as I never tried again to find a way in - that thing could not find a way out.  I never again experienced visiting that two story building.  I had dreamed things through to a conclusion that was far better than the fear and terror of the unfinished dream - and it never bothered me again.

I woke in my parent's room, and lay there for a few minutes, making sure I was completely awake.  I had been fooled before, not really waking, just dreaming I was awake, and sometimes learning I was still sleeping came rather nastily when the monster of the week came at me from something normal.  I learned not to make sudden moves, because if I was still sleeping, this usually meant reality slipped a gear and sent me up down or sideways - and frequently there was something right there to grab me.  But all stayed calm this night, and I crept back across the hall to my room - unable and unwilling to believe that the dream was gone.  But I knew it was, and would never haunt me again.  All I had ever needed to do was go back and finish it out.  All those years of being terrified of a structure that was there for my protection, and my ignorance kept me in that terror.  It took the combination of being able to get right back to sleep - something that rarely happens, AND the fact that I had actually dared to enter my parents' room in search of security to allow my brain to finally stop worrying at - whatever it was - like a dog with a bone and put it away, properly.  Don't know what it was - don't need to know - don't want to know.  Anything nasty enough to scare me to death 7-8 times a year for 9-10 years - I know enough about already, thank you kindly.  But it was something that I created, something I was dealing with internally.  I was not under demonic attack.  As far as I know. 

(Those that have known me for a while might take issue with that last set of statements.  They will happily believe I am possessed.  Think so?        Feeling lucky?  :)

Ah - an all day entry - interrupted by awakeness...time to sleep meself...perchance to dream.  Ay, there's the rub.

Or, as we say nowadays - there's where the rubber meets the road - and time to go DREAM traveling! Nite nite!

Nun of that, now...

In his amazing work The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer turned a realistic, and somewhat cynical eye on his fellows...and what he saw has fed and delighted readers for 500 years.  Nothing about his characters seems out of place or alien to us.  We instantly recognize everyone from our day to day lives.  That is classic storytelling.  It still works.

Chaucer especially seemed to enjoy exposing corrupt, venal churchy types.  The monk, as looked at previously, is obviously not a stellar example of the religious life.  He keeps worldly goods, is far too impressed with his own good looks, and fails miserably at monkhood.  He is not alone.



Ther was also a nonne, a prioresse,
119: That of hir smylyng was ful symple and coy;
120: Hire gretteste ooth was but by seinte loy;
121: And she was cleped madame eglentyne.
122: Ful weel she soong the service dyvyne,
123: Entuned in hir nose ful semely,
124: And frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
125: After the scole of stratford atte bowe,
126: For frenssh of parys was to hire unknowe.
127: At mete wel ytaught was she with alle:
128: She leet no morsel from hir lippes falle,
129: Ne wette hir fyngres in hir sauce depe;
130: Wel koude she carie a morsel and wel kepe
131: That no drope ne fille upon hire brest.
132: In curteisie was set ful muchel hir lest.
133: Hir over-lippe wyped she so clene
134: That in hir coppe ther was no ferthyng sene
135: Of grece, whan she dronken hadde hir draughte.
136: Ful semely after hir mete she raughte.
137: And sikerly she was of greet desport,
138: And ful plesaunt, and amyable of port,
139: And peyned hire to countrefete cheere
140: Of court, and to been estatlich of manere,
141: And to ben holden digne of reverence.
142: But, for to speken of hire conscience,
143: She was so charitable and so pitous
144: She wolde wepe, if that she saugh a mous
145: Kaught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde.
146: Of smale houndes hadde she that she fedde
147: With rosted flessh, or milk and wastel-breed.
148: But soore wepte she if oon of hem were deed,
149: Or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte;
150: And al was conscience and tendre herte.
151: Ful semyly hir wympul pynched was,
152: Hir nose tretys, hir eyen greye as glas,
153: Hir mouth ful smal, and therto softe and reed;
154: But sikerly she hadde a fair forheed;
155: It was almoost a spanne brood, I trowe;
156: For, hardily, she was nat undergrowe.
157: Ful fetys was hir cloke, as I was war.
158: Of smal coral aboute hire arm she bar
159: A peire of bedes, gauded al with grene,
160: And theron heng a brooch of gold ful sheene,
161: On which ther was first write a crowned a,
162: And after amor vincit omnia.http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/CT-prolog-para.html



There was also a nun, a prioress (Priories were smaller monastaries, usually under the oversight of an abbey, so the prioress would be the head nun of her group)
Whose smile was both simple and coy (duplicity and deceit)

Her greatest oath was only "By Saint Loy!" (The most dreadful thing that she would say is "by St. Loy!"- St. Loy (St. Eligius, more formally)  is the patron saint of goldsmiths, coin collectors, etc.  Interesting saint to call upon in times of need.)

And she was named Madame Eglentyne.

She sang the divine service very well...seemingly all through her nose.  (Nasal singing is generally regarded as inferior, if not downright annoying, so Chaucer is letting us know that she is not as she represents herself)

And she spoke French very fairly and (fluently), in the style of the school of Stratford -at-Bowe, because the French of Paris, was to her unknown.  (Her French was as fake as the rest of her - she only knew how to speak ENGLISH French, not French French.)

When she ate, she was well-coached in everything.  She never dropped food from her mouth.  She never dipped too deeply into the sauces, and nothing ever dropped onto her breast.  She was the very soul of courtesy.

Her upper lip was wiped so clean, that there was never a trace of grease left on her cup after she drank. She reached for her meat with seemly grace, and certainly, she was of a playful nature, very pleasant and amiable of appearance.

She took pains to counterfeit the ways of court, to have a stately manner, and to be worthy of reverence.

But, to speak of her conscience, she was so charitable and pious that she would weep if she saw a mouse in a trap, whether it be dead or bleeding.  She had some dogs that she fed roast meat or milk and bread.  She cried when one them died, or if someone gave it a hard hit.  And all was conscience and tender heart.

Her wimple was creased perfectly, her nose was beaked, her eyes gray as glass, her mouth very small, soft and red.  Certainly, she had a broad forehead, almost a span across.  Truly, she was not undergrown.

Her cloak was neat, as I was aware.  She bore a small pair of coral beads about her arm, decorated with green, and thereon hung a broach of shiny gold.  This was inscribed with a crowned 'A' and the words amor vincit omnia.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To understand all that about the nun, let's go over Medieval eating customs a bit.  Meals were communal, with everyone gathered together in the biggest room to eat.  There was no place setting of silverware, plate and napkin.  You brought your own knife to the food fight.  In many cases, this was the only utensil you used.  In some upper class homes, forks were used, but again, only if you brought your own.  Eating with only a knife can be extremely messy, unless one is very fussy and fastidious.  As is our nun here.  She is prissy to the extreme!  Plates were basically slabs of whatever was handy and not totally disgusting.  Wooden plates and bowls were common, as were bread trenchers.  A large loaf of bread would be sliced horizontally, and the meal piled up on the bread.  As the juices soaked in, the bread became sloppier and more messy, but the nun remained pristine.  This means something a little more than just a picky eater.

Time to eat that slowly, and meticulously, was not usually available for the majority of laboring men and women.  Before Tesla, we worked basically on solar power.  If the sun was out, we worked.  If it wasn't, we didn't.  So any time during daylight hours that was not spent outdoors was wasted.  You had to eat - but you did not have to linger over the meal.  Run in, down the stew, rush back out.  Seems unlikely?  When was your last 2 hour leisurly lunch?  Our nun, however, is a lady of leisure.  She is a religious personage, and so need not rush through sustenance to get back to work.  Chaucer shows us her indolence with this description.  He also underscores his "deception and duplicity" theme.  She is counterfeiting her good manners.  She doesn't really come from that background - her French was spoken "after the school of Stratford".  If something is done "after" something else, that can be read as "In the manner of" or "copied after"...so our nun didn't have any real French studies in her background.  More duplicity, fakery, trickery.

Read through the physical description of the nun...and forget she is a nun.  Soft, small red mouth, gray eyes, a spotless breast (or two, one presumes) - now remember - this is a NUN who is being so verbally caressed.  Sounds far more like a sonnet to a potential lover!

And I note the detail of the perfectly creased wimple with cynical amusement.  Have you SEEN those wimple thingies, how they fold around the face, how they strap in the forehead like prep for ECT?  Just who do you think is responsible for all that perfect white linen, creased immaculately...NOT that prissy nun, whose hands are not meant for that kind of work...oh, goodness me no.  That wimple was no doubt the labor of some poor undernun or servant (and what is the difference?) who spent a good part of her day making her boss look like something she isn't.  And exactly what has changed about THAT in 500 years?

Chaucer begins to exude sarcasm when he described the nun's behavior, however.  She is besotted by her dogs, who get fed roasted meet and milk bread.  This may get a shrug nowadays.  But remember - in the Middle Ages, meat was a rarity.  The masses rarely got meat - holidays, maybe.  Why do you think that Sherwood Forest was such a poacher's haven?  That was the only way the lower classes ever tasted meat - catch it, trap it, kill it for themselves.  And of course, the nobles owned all of the land on which that meat roamed...therefore that meat also belonged to the nobles.  Men and women literally lost their lives for snaring rabbits to feed their families, because those rabbits were the lord's...and he never said they could have them.  

And this pious, holy conscience stricken woman feeds roasted meat to her dogs.  The cook that roasted that meat would be beaten, possibly to death, for snagging a sample in the kitchen...but the dogs eat under the table.  

Bread.  Bread deserves its own blog. but needless to say that fine white bread was something the average Middle Ages peasant would only dream about.  It was the nirvana of breads, the ultimate Maui-Wowie stash, the El Dorado of food stuffs.  Fine white bread required extra milling of special grains - something that takes time and effort that is not possible under "mass production" conditions.  For the masses - a plain heavy multigrain full grain bread was the usual fare.  Think artisan bread, seeds and all.  Not the most easily chewed chunk.  For older dogs, with bad teeth, the inability to chew frequently preceeds the inability to do anything else...and not by much.  But our tender hearted nun will soak bread in milk to feed to older, useless dogs.  One has to wonder if the wimple creaser will be entitled to as much when she gets old and toothless.

Chaucer's nun is every bit as venal as the monk - but where his love is hunting - hers is love itself.  That coral beaded bracelet with the crowned A broach?  Amor vincit omnia?  LOVE CONQUERS ALL - rather an odd sentiment on a gaudy, gold, coral bracelet on the arm of a nun?  Ummm - where are the rosary beads?  And the crowned A could be symbolic of either her family (the crown representing nobility) - or the family of her lost love (and who said he is necessarily all that lost?)...in any case, such extravagance in appearance is hardly what is meant by the religious life - where you cast off all worldy belongings and dedicate yourself to serving god in whatever way you are called...so far, it is worldly shit 2...religious fakes 0.

There will be another playoff round tomorrow.  Same bat time, same bat channel.

Catholic Church and Mind Control - perfect together.

Everything is connected.  Those three words are the basis for understanding it all.  Once you begin to see the patterns, the weave, so much more can make sense to you.

Let's go back in time...to the Middle Ages.  We could really look at any historical period, but I happen to like this one.

Think of a landscape dotted with tiny kingdoms.  On this hill, Sir Farmsalot.  Over there, Lord Goestowar.  Each little empire its own entity, with limited, if any communications between themselves.  Each self sufficient, with its own craftsmen, laborers, and administration.  For centuries, people lived this way, in rhythm with nature, the seasons, and a fundamental understanding that this is the only rock we have to stand on, and if we piss on it long enough, well...  somewhere we lost that concept.

In the Middle Ages, people were essentially condemned to spend their lives within the class into which they were born.  There weren't many choices.  At the top of society were the royals.  These were those families that had seized and held power long enough that everyone else became convinced that they were somehow 'blessed' or 'divinely inspired'.  They are still around today, although their actual political power is but a shadow of what it once was.  Their word was law.  They could, and did, have literal power of life and death over the people who worked on their estates.  Ordinarily, that was simply - go move that rock, plow that hillside, chop down that forest.  However...

There has always been a need for humans to prove their superiority over each other.  Men like this game a lot.  Women, not so much.  (Here is one of those generalities I referred to in the Forewarn.  Of course there are exceptions.  Now hush.)  In the never ending quest to prove who possesses/controls more, blood has been spilled over and over.  Not royal blood, by and large, but ordinary people blood.  No one ever thinks about the battlefields.  All over Europe, massive amounts of blood and body parts littered what were grain fields.  When the war moved on, what happened to those blood-soaked fields?  Where did people raise their grain once nothing would grow?  It wasn't the nobles who went hungry, although their orders were the ones that caused the devestation.  Think anything has changed in 500 years?

Battlefields exist wherever humans do.  And if humans can't find a worthy opponent close at hand, they will travel extreme distances to kill each other.  Hence, the Crusades.

Honestly, have you ever heard of anything so stupid?  One group of people WAY down here have a different name for their Pious Legend than we do...so let's go beat some sense into them!  Our Pious Legend simply cannot abide the idea of another Pious Legend having more followers...so lets travel a thousand miles and chop off the heads of everyone that doesn't say the right words!  God has ordered this...and we must obey.

And for two hundred years, this insanity continued.  Wave after wave of Crusader zeal ...well...let's be realistic.  In those armies of the faithful, marching to Jerusalem to rescue it from the infidels, exactly how many do you suppose knew where they were and why they were there?  When was the last time you went and did nasty things because the government ordered you to?  Been to DMV lately?  Nothing changes.  Granted, there are probably a few fewer heads rolling at a DMV office than on the battlefields of the Holy Land...but aside from that...

Holy Land.  Holy shit.  How can you possibly refer to a place as H-O-L-Y Land, then proceed to kill thousands of people there in the name of a loving god?  My god loves me, so I must kill you.  God is love, so I must kill you.  Exactly how was all this killing supposed to work, anyway?  Since the dead cannot be converted (except into compost)...obviously the goal was not to increase the word of god, to build up support for his teachings and rules...no, the intent was obviously to destroy the other side.  And their Pious Legend in the process.  And why not?  It worked so well 500 years or so earlier...

Let's go back even farther.  It is the Dark Ages ...and many, many groups are beginning to explore those islands off the coast of Europe.  Some find their way to what is now called the UK - what I once was taught were "the British Isles."  Many of the first peoples to establish themselves were from what we now call 'oral cultures'.  They did not carry written books with them, but kept their histories, stories, lessons, etc. in their heads, and recited them to share the information.  How many preachers would be successful if their professions required them to carry the entire Bible around in their heads?  The information carriers - sometimes referred to as Druids- were highly respected and honored.  They were responsible for the continuation of knowledge and were so valuable that it was said they could walk into the middle of the most heated battle and be assured that they would not be hit by either side.  Merlin, of the King Arthur legends, comes down to us with some of the Druidic characteristics, if you need a mental image.

What happened?  Religion happened.  Once the Catholic Church reached those islands, it was all over.  They systematically hunted down the Druids and dispatched them handily.  Once you cut off someone's head, all the information that was in there falls to the ground as well.  In one of those (seemingly) weird twists, it was also the Catholic Church that saved some of that Druidic knowledge.

One of the few beautiful things that the Church produced were illustrated manuscripts.  These were the pride of many, and a monk who could produce such was highly valued.  Monastaries all over Europe were cranking these out...well, at the rate of one every couple of years, hardly cranking as we understand the word...but making them, saving them, hoarding them, and now we have them.

One of the most beautiful of these handcrafted volumes has become known as the Book of Kells.  How beautiful?  Take a look...

That is the letter T.  T is for Tooth, obviously, and terrible, and terrific, and twisted!

And in seeking out material to illustrate (or illuminate, as it is also called), those crafty monks wrote down what had only been recited up to that point. They changed it up, naturally.  They worked for the Church, after all, and the Church has always felt that it was free to make it up as it went along.  The Church is infamous for stealing native or indiginous beliefs, throwing a little Christian Magic Dust on them, and handing them back.  Just look at the history of Oestara .  ( I will deal more completely with theft and the Church in a later blog...but for now, try and accept that they did these things.)

The epic poem Beowulf is the best example that I can think of, and I just realized that this topic needs its own blog...so let's get back to the oral tradition, and its destruction at the hands of the Catholics. When the Crusades begin, 500 years later, in the Middle East, the Catholics are STILL trying to decimate anything that is not in their worldview.  Kill people, kill their ideas, kill their god.  The Church has always known that ignorance is one of their most potent weapons.  Keep people from learning anything, and you have a captive mental audience.  Tell them on Sundays that being good and doing what, exactly what, they are told will keep them from suffering eternal tortures.  Remember, these lessons are being delivered to people whose present lives are pretty much shit.  Threaten them with worse conditions...forever...and you have the basis for mind control on a massive scale.  And the Church used that mercilessly.  All that 'tortures of the damned' stuff?  Propaganda, put there to keep the masses under control, terrified, and stupid.

So now, you are the leader of a massive group of sheeple.  Some nearer the top get the underlying issues, the economic and political reasons that the Church was so interested in that part of the world, but by and large, the masses who meandered toward the Holy Land in rag tag armies had no idea where they were going, just that when they got there, they were going to kill unbelievers.

Imagine that.  Just because you don't park in the same lot on Sunday - you deserve to die.  Just because you choose to slam your head on the ground instead of slamming one knee before the altar, you deserve to die.  Just because you refuse to accept that sour grape juice and failed bread magically become blood and flesh inside your own body - you deserve to die.  Just because you understand fucking, and how babies are made, and holy shit - if Mary was never properly fucked - she still had a hyman when it came time to give birth.  Just like a man.  Find her, Fuck her, forget her.  That must have been a BITCH! - and does the Holy Father give exactly one fuck?  Yep - that's exactly how many he gave.  One into Mary's ear...knocked her up...left her virgo intacto...then expected her to push out the kid in a fucking horse trough...with shepherds and kings all standing around gazing adoringly at Mary's ragged torn open pussy...and they expect women to WORSHIP this shit?  Should never have let us learn to read, fatherfuckers.

Anyway - that is the royals.  The apex of the pyramid that was Middle Ages society.  There were always more royals than thrones, which was a huge part of the problem.  Some of the royals weren't so much royal - the second, third, fourth sons, etc.  Under the laws of primogeniture, the first male heir got the whole taquito, and all those 'spare heirs' got bupkus.  Another form of female oppression - women have to birth all these offspring - under lethal conditions in many cases - and have to KEEP birthing them just in case one or two get lost along the way.  And when all the survivors grow up - only the oldest male gets anything.  All others have to make do with whatever else turns up - in many cases, this was the Church.

The Church became the refuge of younger sons, inconvenient daughters (basically ALL daughters were inconvenient if they could not be married off for gain) and those royal offspring unfortunate enough to be born "on the wrong side of the blanket."  More male dominated stupidity.  Of the two parents that each child requires in order to exist - only ONE can ever be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt (without elaborate and expensive DNA testing) and that is the parent from whose body that child emerged.  This simple natural fact has frustrated and pissed off men for centuries.  ESPECIALLY when they have that idiotic sense that their sperm is somehow superior to other sperms, and that only the result of THEIR sperm is worthy enough to occupy space at their table.  Insane.  This concept became much easier to explain after people got used to the character of Jon Snow, in Game of Thrones.  Bastard children were not accepted, regardless of skills, talents, or abilities.  But something had to be done with them, and in the Middle Ages, that often meant the Church.  The same applied to the younger children, who could not inherit anything on which to support themselves.  Again - generalities.

These people had no calling for a religious life.  They did not have a passion to serve.  They needed a comfy rabbit hole, and the Church enfolded them.  Their behaviors were not godly.  Their attitude was one of indulgence, and using the Church as a hunting ground was more common than not.  They had about as much business calling themselves "holy" as pedophile priests do today.

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote about Medival English society when he penned his great work "Tales of Canterbury", and he saved some of his most scathing condemnations for those people "of the church", whose behaviors are appalling.  For example, Chaucer speaks of a monk... (remember monks are those guys in the long brown robes with the chrome dome haircuts who are supposed to be out doing good works and begging for alms) - well...this represents the kind of monk that Chaucer saw around him...

Hardly the aesthetic religious personage existing on bread and water while he heals the sick, tends to the animals and makes all that trappist monk brand wine and jelly and all...

This is the kind of "religious" person that most ordinary people in the Middle Ages would see - not the Archbishops and High Up Muckity Mucks - but the lower echelon grandiose fools - who are NOT exactly representing well.  Chaucer has much to say of monks...



A MONK ther was,
a fair for the maistrie,
An outridere,
that lovede venerie,
A manly man,
to been an abbot able.
Ful many a deyntee hors hadde he in stable,

And whan he rood, men myghte his brydel heere
Gynglen in a whistlynge wynd als cleere
And eek as loude as dooth the chapel belle



Of course, he said it in Middle English. Let's see how much I remember... (there is a translation on the page I linked above, but, I like the way my head does it better. Phhhbt.)


There was a monk, who was fair (good looking) in the highest degree (He had mastered looking good)
A rider-out (monks usually did not leave their monastaries, but this one did)
That loved hunting (Monks aren't supposed to like to kill)

A manly man who was capable enough of being an abbot (kind of like a middle manager in a huge corporation)
He had many dainty horses in his stable (monks are not supposed to possess ANY worldly goods, let alone 'dainty' (expensive, fine looking) horses (plural)


And when he rode, men could hear his bridle (the hardware used to control a horse) jingling in a whistling wind as loud and clear as a chapel bell.


This set of lines is simply brilliant satire on Chaucer's part. This monk, who should be walled up in a monastary on bread and water, praying, is, instead, out riding through the countryside on his fine horses.

His gear for those horses is so heavy with metal (an indication of obscene wealth) that it jingles as he rides. Chaucer snarkily compares the sound of that heavy metal to that of a chapel bell - reminding all of us where that monk SHOULD be!!!


Chaucer does not spare other religious figures, and those will be dealt with in due course. However, this will be enough for now. Read up on the General Prologue if you can, as I will refer to it throughout these pages.

Forewarn

So - just to offer the over riding caveats of this blogstory...most of what I refer to will be based on my studies of Medieval England (and the area that is the present-day UK).

There will always be exceptions to any 'rules', which is why I freely acknowledge upfront that a lot of this information/expostulation/bloggation is expressed in generalities.  However, this blog is intended as a reference primer for early seekers, so generalities that lead to specifics will be used as a teaching tool - NOT as an expression of any kind of dogma.  Dogma is for those that are unable, unwilling or undemanding enough of their own minds to think for themselves.  When you smell the dogma, check the bottom of your shoes.  'Tis there, sure enough.

Dogmatics substitute hearsay for thought, opinions of others for their own, and, generally speaking are about as socially useful as xerox machines.  They do a great job of repeating stuff that others have put into them - but, just as with xerox machines, the moment they try to do something other than their preprogrammed function - chaos ensues.  The lucky ones, the smart ones, decide to go out and research other types of machines.  The stubborn, old fashioned ones stick to the old tried and true machines of their youth, calling the repair man to bring older and older parts every time chaos ensues.  Eventually, those older and older parts become harder to find, and more expensive to acquire.  The day arrives when that machine, as servicable and adequately reliable as it may, or may not have been, has to be dumped.  As I said... the smart ones, the lucky ones, the impatient, questioning seeking ones have been sampling new machines, new technologies, new concepts all along, and (this is where luck comes in), eventually stumble on an information processing machine that fits all of their needs, handles massive amounts of data, in color, with extreme resolution...their own brain.

Those dogmatics who end their lives with brains that handle the world like xerox machines often end their warranty period with nothing more than external information having passed through their processors.  That brings them fulfillment, I suppose, in the same sense that a washing machine that never fails to complete a spin cycle celebrates each year of that milestone...it has achived one of its functions adequately enough to be kept around another year.  Could that mere 'adequate fulfillment of one function' be a reason that so many dogmatic thinkers are so uncomfortable?  When that fundamental. root of all things thinking is challenged, they become unstable, often turning to anger, striking out, instead of calmly stepping back to receive new information.  Xerox machines do not like to have their buttons pushed too often.  That results in break downs.

So having read this far-  you get to decide.  Explore some new kinds of machines, or close down and call the old repair guy.  Again.  Who obviously fixed things so well last time that you never needed to call him again... oh...wait...