The Arcane of Angelia:s Alchemy: Rattles in the Rice Paddies.

Remember this: Words live on the wind but there is one that amply describes and will eventually lite upon you; gracing you with its wisdom.

 
I found a special word. The word is arcane which means:
 
1. Hard to fathom; difficult or impossible to understand
2. Mysteriously obscure; requiring secret knowledge to be understood.
 
How this word plays into your interpretation of what I am saying to you remains to be seen. Some things you just can't explain; they just are.


I had traveled down the interstate until I came to an intersection that directed me to take a left off this sloping road at a caution light. I began to drive down the road which was littered sporadically with plantations hidden in the trees. The first one was Greenfield which consisted of two separate areas. The first was gated with threatening signs of how they would prosecute you if you were to trespass. I saw a guillotine sitting on a wooden structure with a hooded ax man somewhere on the property out of eyesight. The structures on the other side of the locked and chained wrought iron gates were cinder block houses painted white with black shutters.

The next one would be Black Bank which I just stopped and pulled up at the gate. I had the strange feeling that I was somewhere I had been before but there was this aura of being in love as I sat there at the gate. I could see a vehicle driving around in there because it was a pine plantation. The overwhelming sense of being loved which is fairly odd to me as I was just randomly driving around that day looking at different places but thought it was the sunshine. I shook it off and headed on down the road which became a straight shot of nothing but forest on both sides of the road for miles and miles. I finally came to the sign that directed me to turn right off the highway down this dirt road. I decided to get out of the truck and take a picture of this open place with some pine trees and straw grass. I walked up onto the bank then realized I had stumbled upon a game trail where the animals wore the grass down from walking it so much. I walked back to the truck to drive down the lane where I came out to Samworth Wildlife Management area. There were these two circular structures at the opening to the driveway leading to the house. I thought about circles or even cycles. People refer to the drama of life as a circle that goes on and on but circles are endless or infinite. Life is not infinity but a transition into death where what is left of the physical state is recycled back to feed other things.


People often used circles as a physical representation of arguing the natural and the supernatural in terms of God and the Universe. How can the two coexist? The line is the permeable membrane between the two where they mutually share information. It’s not black and white;  it’s all shades of grey. I drove down the lane and as always it had the ambiance of hundred year old oak trees with a plantation feel. Along the way were fields sectioned off planted with un-harvested corn for dove hunters to enjoy if they didn’t have a place of their own. Each plot had an electrical fence around it I presumed to keep the deer out or maybe even the hogs. If you did not know any better driving up you would not realize that you were on a marsh instead of an inland plantation farm. I drove to the back which was littered with DNR trucks because it was a DNR station. I parked over near the neatly kept boat landing. I got out walking around and taking pictures. This was a good place to hunt ducks. I heard a boat coming up the small waterway. I walked over to the boat house where one of the game wardens was pulling up to park his boat. He got out and started to tie things up when I asked him did he care if I took pictures. He told me yes then started to pull out his camera from a bag to show me the photos he had taken. He then directs me to this barge where I can take some good pictures and give me tips on where to go for the best view. He was exceptionally nice. I thanked him for his time and walked off to the barge which was not far away. It was yellow and rusty.

I walked up on the barge and took some pictures. I jumped off then strolled over to this small pond where a tree swing was dangling. It looked like it was waiting for someone to come enjoy it. I snapped off a couple of pictures of the house which was locked. I made my way back to the boat landing where I had parked my truck. I then decided to go down the nature trail. It led along the bank of the marsh. I followed it when I heard some other people loading a boat into the water. I eventually emerged from this woody area into an open marsh area. There was a raised road covered with dried brown grass that lead in snake like patterns out into some unknown destination. I could imagine that I was walking down this lane and out in the marsh from overhead were a lot of alligators all pointing their mouths at me while they watched me from the grass. I could hear unseen things moving in the beige and cream colored sweet grass.

On my left I could see where there was a lot of something that had wallowed in it until it was laid over like a bed. There was lot of scat everywhere. That side was deep so if something was going to come up at me from that side I would know it. The other side closer to the water was not that way. It wasn’t like a canal ditch. It was more even. I walked up on a hog that was resting in the muck and mire but really didn’t want to be chased because there was nowhere to go. The hog let me know with a bark that he was there so I just strolled on past.

The thought of being chased by a hog then run into the mouth of an alligator was not appealing besides I had no gun but probably should have at least brought a loaded shotgun. How I would explain that to the game warden as a fact of not actually hunting but as protection from wild beast would probably get me a couple of chuckles with a nice ticket accompanied with a fine.

There were a lot of red headed woodpecker drilling holes on twig-like trees. I saw a red bellied moccasin fall from a shrub into the water with a plop. I was on this endless path going nowhere to a place I couldn’t see and the mysterious was all around me. I began to doubt myself, the time, how long it would take me to get back and what if something happened to me out there because the only one that knew I was about was the game warden.

When you go on a journey always tell someone where you are going because no one will know if you are in trouble. I took into consideration that I was literally wondering around this place with no particular direction as that is what my life has turned into. I wonder around worse than a gypsy. I did have intended goals but they got lost along the way or weren’t what I had envisioned them to be compared to my mind or in real life. People were not what I thought they would be. Everything always falls short of what you expect and the unexpected turns out to be more glorious than what you imagined.


I was walking along when I felt like my eyes had changed because I could feel it. I slowed down then closed my eyes to walk along blind. I was aware of myself. I was aware of keeping to the path without straying because I couldn’t see but then I started to listen and sense the things outside of me. I began to hear the wind blowing through the marsh grass. The grass started to sound like a bunch of rattles being shaken at once but different times. It had a certain sequence to it that I heard a song in the sound. I started to hum the sound but it had no words.


I then pondered how rattles were used in ceremonies. I am a homeless person that finds shelter in the wild where there is no man-made structures.


Rattles are used to keep rhythm accompanied by music like sound that resonates to the soul of a person. It can incite in a person the trance of a spiritual experience. Rattles represent independence. Rattles are made of containers such as gourds, turtle shells, or anything you can enclose. The container is usually decorated with feathers and represents the animal or plant kingdom. Inside of the rattle you can put beans, rocks, or anything hard that will strike against the inside of the container. The rattle could have a handle or not.
 
As I walked along listening to the wind blow in the marsh grass I felt like the spiritual energy locked in me was unblock and the trance-like state I was in as I walked along was used to help my body respond to the healing I was searching for. Rattles have been known to break up stagnant energy. People can get stagnant in their lives due to stressors and pressure. Rattles help you focus and open your mind to a different emotional state. 


I was looking for a refocusing on my life.


I considered how much time I had walked the path but didn’t want the sun to beat me down. I still had one more place to go. I decided to turn around. I walked back to the end of the grass marsh road. I took a right which lead me into yet another strange looking place where cypress knees were jutting out in a muddy area. I noticed the hogs had been down by the edge of the muddy places rooting up a storm. I walked back up the hill past this small pond up into these camellia trees. The flowers on the trees were white and another was pink but the flowers were not so hardy. I saw this one huge white flower and pulled it off. It wasn’t diseased but felt cool and soft to the touch. White represented purity. I thought about sticking it in my hair but didn’t want to lose it. I usually do this with the random feather I find. When I use to work I would put pencils in my hair. It seems to be the ideal place to stab things.


Camellias are called the ‘empress of the winter’. They are known for being tokens of devotion. The petals reflect the spirit of a lady, and the holder of the petals represents the man entrusted by the lady as her protector. It’s the everlasting bond between lovers.

I could see just beyond them a large open area that was littered with ancient oaks. I wanted to get to the other side so I crawled through the bushes. I could hear a vehicle but didn’t know if I was trespassing on private property because there were no signs stating I was. Not that it mattered. I have the ability to act and look like a dumb lost female in need of rescuing; add my charm and I’m pretty deadly. Let’s call it survival ability.


I walked out into the open space and just wanted to run straight down it but didn’t. Just because you get a compulsion doesn’t mean you should do it. It was a big open well-manicured space. It kind of reminded me of that opening scene on Little House on the Prairie where Laura Ingles is spinning around in the meadow full of white flowers. Happiness at the most mundane thing and I didn’t own it. I basked in the beauty of turning a corner to find something even more spectacular.


So far I had traveled through three landscapes on that property. The first was a homestead where people use to dwell, a path that lead to open marsh area, and a previous homestead area where the only thing left was the land but no house. I walked back toward the pond then took a right onto another path that was labeled the Nature Trail. I followed it down into a sloping area but in this section the wooded area was humid and everything reeked of decay and composition. The trees lying all over the place with limited light and leaves everywhere made me think of the twilight of human life when old age followed by death occur. I really wasn’t thrilled about being down in that but as I walked along the path I realized I was paying less attention to my surroundings or even the trial itself.

I began to think how life was that way. You’re so preoccupied with your internal concerns that you forget the external. As I was mulling this over I then realized I was unconsciously keeping up with my footfall on the trail. I thought that is how people end up getting hurt. Being distracted by things that don’t matter or not letting things go. It’s also occurred to me how you can walk through life and not even notice what is going on around you until something jogs you out of your mental reverie. That mental reverie is living in the past or the future not the present.


I felt the creature’s presence before I actually saw it. I was two steps away from stepping right on this pit viper that blended with the leaves along the path. It was a rattlesnake. It never shook its tail. I moved back up on a hill thinking ‘Holy Shit’. I am not afraid of snakes but I wasn’t expecting the snake under the leaves. I didn’t even have my snake boots. I decided whether I wanted to try moving the snake or going another direction. Not wanting confrontation when I don’t have to I decided to turn around, cross the wooden bridge and cut through the woods on this path to a dove field. I started to laugh at myself because I had a sense of repulsion walking down into the mess when I should have just went with my intuition but the great unknown threw a pit viper down in my path to warn me away from going in further or deeper into the unknown of it. Even though it was a pit viper I didn’t look at it in a negative way. It was just there minding its business looking for food. I then thought how this was important to the scheme of things. I considered snakes.

Snakes are representative of patience, medicine, healing, transformation, and sexual passion (you could say the same thing for an apple but that might be sin. You couls say a snake is an instigator of sin?)

Down in the South it is an emblem for a tribe of indigenous people.


Keeping it positive; there is no devil worshiping going on here.

This snake was teaching me to hold my ground (it wasn’t moving), threaten/warn, then if the imposer keeps up with agitation then strike.


The rattlesnake has also been representative of the ancient grandfather with the ability to give fair wind or cause a storm. The Mayans believed the snake to represent rebirth.

It can also represent petty vengefulness usually in the form of unannounced and deadly strikes. This would be the more negative side. I would assume this is on the part of other people.....but I am human therefore can foul up too.


There is the infusion of poison to harm or kill but there is the upside of medicine. The poison or medicine could expand the consciousness through divine intoxication which was connected to the afterlife and immortality. It just depends on how one would use the snake in their spiritual journey. Everything is good and evil in equal parts. Medicinal wise you could look at the Aesculpian staff. Medicine and healing has always been a part of my life even though I turned my back on it because I felt rejected because no matter what I did it never seemed to work out otherwise for saving a ton of life, both animal and human. It was painful for me to do that but I did it anyway.


I then thought of the snake laying there in the forest. It is a natural guardian of treasures or sacred sites which cannot be easily moved out of harm’s way. I feel like I am guarding something or someone but stay in harm’s way. How I will ever be in a safe place is unknown to me. I also thought of the ancient oaks. I have read that snakes are around the tree of life that is situated in a divine garden. In the Old Testament the tree of knowledge of good and evil is situated in the Garden of Eden together with the tree of life and the serpent. The Tree of Life was represented by a wooden staff.

After walking down the side of this field without the worry of stepping into trouble I walked across the grass into this patch of clover. I found the largest clover I have ever seen. This being a sign of good fortune I plucked it from the ground to put with my white camellia I had pulled off the tree in the woods.


I had been going in circles and cycles but was never really lost. I got back to my truck, climbed in to head to my next destination.
 
Written by: Angelia Y Larrimore
 
~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Oh Hunter, Are You Worthy?

Remember this: Myths are part fact, untruth, and always a mystery. Stories go on forever.

Always striving to maintain some balance in my writings and on the heels of this negative view of hunting participants, I wanted to find a story from time where hunters were not considered societal deviants.

In the spirit of hunting, I found whilst reading up on Arthurian Legend, a couple of stories. I did note that when one is looking at Arthur in calligraphy it can resemble the word Archer where the cursive ‘t’ looks like a ‘c’ given the ‘ur’ and ‘er’ could sound similar.

Mythic stories are always entertaining and interesting when compared to reality. These same mythic stories could be symbolic of actual moments in time, given their interpretation to some truth or reality of the past.  There are those that do not believe anyone should dabble in fantasy but fantasy is rich in detail as long as you are not completely lost to insanity. 

Historical ballads are excellent places where the hunt and the hunter can once again be valiant, romantic, and to some degree self-contained in his endeavors. Depending how far back you go in the human archive and the level of societal organization toward proper behavior, you might find stories of glory and gore, savagery or uptight white sexual suppression.  Many of these tales are heroic versions of hunters overcoming some animal foe of epic proportion. Hunters at times are chasing after a woman much like a mythical beast in these stories. This magical woman is not a threat more a treasure to be won, saved, or overcome. There is also a villain, who is in the form of a beast or magical wizard. Throughout time, sympathy has been swayed toward the beast being the mistreated animal that is victimized. On one hand, you have the evil con carne beast that destroys all in its path. Then the victimized noble beast with savage tendencies that is at the whim of his trespassers until he fights back or dies.

Clan wars aside, there is always some creature that is hunted, as questing became a substitute for the word hunting. This activity was a hunt for something meaningful, wisdom, a solution to a great problem, or an object to end some deficit or mystery.

I ran across a story about a hunt, where the objects quested after were between a boar’s ears, given the boar was without testicles.  The passage never states what those objects were. I would need to investigate further to discover what these objects were. This boar symbolized a questionable fairy-like creature of utmost deviltry.

An example of a Finnian legend is as follows:

“They rose to hunt the pig we have told of, the boar of Formael. Each fian warrior of Ireland positioned himself, ready to fire, waiting in the breach of danger to attack the pig. They loosed the bounding dogs with their pleasant baying and agile feet to speed across woods and forests, deserts and sloping valleys, and they made traps in the clearings and plains of the land. They startled the warlike boar from its lair and dogs, hounds and warriors all saw it. The sight of this huge boar was enough to strike terror in the heart. It was dark blue, covered in bristles, rough, horrible, earless, tailless. It had no testicles, but long fearsome tusks which jutted out of its massive head. Then dogs and warriors charged from all sides, like a whirlwind and surrounded it. The watchful beast with its red mouth made a great massacre of dogs and Fiana on the field.” (Markale 174)

“When the valiant and warlike Oscar saw the warriors, dogs and men who had fallen under the pig’s blows lying on the ground, a great surge of anger, and a turbulent and terrifying storm rose in the heart of the great warrior at the sight of the way the wild and fierce boar had crushed dogs, men and the great chiefs of the Fiana. And the royal warrior Oscar thought it right and honorable that he alone should avenge the evil done. Great had been the fear and dread of the armies, and great were the horror and terror of Oscar. Yet once he had seen it, he had no choice. As he approached, he carved out a passage towards the red-mouthed beast which resembled nothing so much as a snarling bear, a spectre of waterfall was each blood-red and saffron-yellow fleck of foam which came from its mouth and its jaws, biting and rough as it gnashed its teeth against the great warrior. The mane on its back bristled so that a great wild apple could have stuck on each of its rough, bristly hairs. Oscar brandished his spear, hurled it straight at the pig and struck it. The spear looked as though it had pierced the animal’s chest, but bounced back as though it had struck rock or horn. Oscar strode towards the beast and struck it so furiously with his sword that the weapon broke on the pig’s shoulder. The boar made to attack Oscar, and he broke his shield on it and seized it by its bristling mane. The pig rose on its huge hind legs to tear at the royal warrior from above. Oscar stretched his hands over the boar and pulled the mane sharply and fiercely, so that the animal fell to the ground. Then he placed his knee on its back and gripped its mouth and jaws from behind so that the Fiana warriors could disembowel it. So the huge beast fell under Oscar’s blows and the battle was done.” (Markale 175)

Another reference to the Arthurian legend of Guinevere is as follows:

“Guinevere, under whatever name she may appear, comes from the Other World to marry the man worthy to assume the responsibilities of sovereignty.  Just as the mare goddess Rhiannon prowls around the mound of Aberth until King Pwyll follows her and asks her to marry him, so Guinevere ensures that Arthur will meet her and succeed in the initial trial of replying to the riddle. He has then to pay for her help by undergoing another trial which, for a warrior like himself, may be even more difficult. For he has to marry a woman who appears hideously ugly.  But he does not hesitate to pay the price, and Guinevere, having found a man worthy to bring new life to her flagging powers of sovereignty, becomes the beautiful woman she once was.

But the god from the Other World, the figure of the Black Druid, continues his watch from outside, waiting till the woman who still belongs to him and his world ventures out of the shelter of the fortress. Then he can reassert his rights over her, put her back under his spell or take her to his own fortress, the city Mardoc, the kingdom of Gorre or the Citadel of Glass which only the “seers” or Druids can find in the many clearings of the Celtic forest.

A comparison of the adventures of Finn and the adventure of Arthur explains a great deal. We can see the origins of Guinevere’s fairy-like quality, which she lost in the 12^th-and 13^th- century romances but regained in some of the later romances like Yder, the Marvels of Rigomer, and the Wedding of Gawain, which are older in spirit. Then there is her abduction by a god from the Other World, her sovereignty of the city  in the shape of the sacred flame were, like Rhiannon, Macha, and Sadv, the defenders of that fire so essential to the survival of the primitive tribe. And all these women are liked with the sun and the sun goddess of the ancient Indo-Europeans, whom the Greeks knew as the Scythian Diana.

So we can briefly summarize the links between Finn and Arthur as follows: both marry fairy queens who represent their own supremacy, and whom they must therefore keep with them even if it means turning a blind eye to their infidelities or pursuing their abductors. Both are also hunters of supernatural monsters which are threatening the internal stability of their kingdoms. The power invested in them by their union with their fairy wives makes them the only warriors qualified to combat these menacing creatures from the Other World. They have become divine huntsmen.” (Markale 178-79)

Huntsmen have always showed up in Epics, fairy tales, and folklore as the person that represents the hero.  Huntsmen cross some magical woman isolated in the woods, a cave, or in the guise of an animal.

This evolution toward the Huntsman experiencing some form of magic or divinity was written in many tales over time but the exclusion of women, from hunting at certain times to present, is indicative of a coming and going of the female form in hunting itself. When I compare the online conversations of people saying women were having a hard time getting into the sport, being taken seriously or usurped by other male hunters, and not being considered just arm candy, spoke to the evolution and de-evolution of the female form in the mindset of society, as it pertained to hunting. Worthiness seems to be an important aspect of hunting as only the worthy would be ‘chosen’.

Hunting in the epic tale above are used as:

• Rites of passage to mandate worthiness of sovereignty.
• Test one’s morals, mental, and physical state for good or evil.
• Save the heroine or accept a wife who is less than divine after being defined through magical traits.
• Huntsmen in league with magical beings become divine or magical themselves
• Magical female beings are not so divine due to indiscretions.
• Have special requirements to overcoming adversity.

Epic tales can be reread for entertainment or used as a reference for rotating perspectives, in time, of men and women in regard of the hunt. Females appear in differing roles or disappear altogether. Either way they should be remembered and enjoyed.

Written By Angelia Y Larrimore

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Literature Cited:

Markale, Jean. King of the Celts, Arthurian Legends and Celtic Tradition. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1977. Pgs.  174-75; 178-79.