The Golden Age, Upheaval, and Change

There is a recurring theme of the Golden Age in most mythologies surrounding the time before the fall of the old order.  What constitutes the old order can vary widely: to the Greeks it was the act of Prometheus stealing fire and delivering it into the hands of man, to the Norse it was the period following the end of Ragnarok, the Hindu have a 5000 year cycle (the Maha Yuga) with recurring Golden Ages that require a tearing down of their "iron age".  This extends even to the Abrahamic traditions with Adam and Eve being cast out of Eden for partaking of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil.

This Golden Age often alludes to nature being incredibly bountiful, providing everything that humanity could wish for and more.  There is a pronounced presence of the otherworldly.  In many cases, the gods dwelt in the same realm as mankind.  In Greece, Pan served as a mentor in Arcadia, living amongst his students in the trees.  The Eden myth is almost ubiquitous, depicting a paradise where the Abrahamic God resided alongside his creation.  The upheaval and fall of the old order always brings this Golden Age to an end, and humanity is left to struggle with the wilderness in a new and harsh environment, fraught with conflict, etc; you know the drill from there.

This is ultimately one of the myths that leads me to my unified theory about the myths and legends.  It is far from the only overlap (I'll likely discuss some of them at another date), but this is a rather striking point.  This Golden Age would imply that not only were the myths of the gods true, but might also imply the same for other myths and legends.  It is widely accepted that in the post-mythological era, magic and monsters are a thing of the past (albeit, this is an acceptance that took quite a while to be complete), at least in the sense that mythology demonstrates.  Depending on one's outlook, myth has either always been just stories, or a thing of the past.  The recurrence of the Golden Age concept seems to suggest the latter in my opinion; though it has little to no bearing on the present, the idea that this multi-culture spanning concept could stand as an example of where -- or rather when -- these legends originated seems like too great of a coincidence.

Most of these myths appear to be parallel to each other.  The numbers may not be reliable in any sense of the word, nor would they suggest anything remotely resembling the Golden Age returning any time soon, but the idea of a returning cycle seems to make sense.  Symbols of eternity are rampant throughout mythology, and much as the seasons themselves, humanity's path seems to move in a repeating circle.  The notion of falling and returning to this paradise, to this utopia of a Golden Age doesn't seem so far fetched when one considers how far we must fall and how quickly we climb in our scientific pursuits.

And yet, that poses another question, more philosophical in nature than theoretical contemplation of mythologies: If humanity flows through cycles of time, rising and falling to and from a Golden Age paradise, are we in our current path ascending or crashing down to earth?

12 Days 'til Samhain

My favorite time of year is just around the corner, and I for one can't wait.  Most of the people I know get excited about Christmas, regardless of whether they're Christian or not, but for me, this is the big one. Always has been, really.  At least, it has been since I grew out of the "Look at all these presents!" stage (which, probably not coincidentally, was well after I grew out of the "Catholicism isn't so bad" stage).

I was never really one to celebrate holidays, and I'm still not huge on it.  This time of year, that mindset really hits home.  Thanksgiving is up next, and I find that pointless, since we should be giving thanks every day for what we have in our lives.  Setting aside a single day to give thanks and treating that as something special just seems silly to me.  Obviously, I don't celebrate Christmas aside from how it affects friends and family members that do; in fact, I'm the only member of the family that has fully separated from that belief system so far as to abandon the religious holidays.

Samhain, however, has always held a special place in my heart.  Even as a child when I stuck with calling it Halloween, Samhain was one of my favorite times of year.  Part of it comes from my morbid sense of humor, since it's a time where skulls and bats become par for the course, but as I've explored my own spirituality, the deeper reasons have become more clear.  Samhain is a time associated with a thinning of the veil between the living and the Otherworld, brought about in part by nature's decline toward dormancy where the wilderness wanes and supplies become scarce.  It's an echo of an older time, of course, but one that still has meaning.  We may not be facing a winter where we have to sit on our personal supply stores and ration out food and drink until spring, but we still see the wax and wane of the wilderness; that ebb and flow that thins the veil is still well within our reach.

I'm not going to get into whether that veil really exists or not, or whether it thins or not, or any of those other questions here.  That's something that can be debated for days on end without reaching a definitive outcome.  The important thing is the metaphor behind the veil.  This is a time of remembrance and reflection.  This is a time to honor your ancestors and take into consideration all that has come to pass in the prior year.  This is a time of celebration of what nature has provided us.  Most of all, this is a time to meditate and prepare on the year ahead.

Sifting Through Ashes

Part of being a pagan in the modern age requires you to accept the fact that any heritage you might hold dear from the ancient age is going to be filtered by what laid the ancients low.  The simple truth is that most of the true myths of the Celts and the Norse, as with many others, have been twisted and changed without any reliable means of restoration to their original state.  Unfortunate though it may be, many of the ancients lacked a written history, and relied on the spoken word to relate their traditions and beliefs through the generations.  With the spread of Rome and its conversion methods, those spoken myths took on aspects of the Catholic belief and were subject to one of three fates; either they became vilified as sinister things, or they became remade as saintly figures, or they became fodder for simpler stories that had any sense of belief stripped from them.

The efforts of Rome were perhaps most successful in dealing with the Celts.  Not only were the mythologies obscured in the destruction of their oral traditions, but any trace of the mainland-Celts were reduced to interpretations of relics.  The druids of the ancient time were all but eradicated, and even the rare mention of them left so little information that we are held guessing as to what their entire purpose was (modern interpretations are certainly inspiring and have a sense of "right"-ness attached for me).  Those of us who want to follow in the footsteps of the ancients are forced to sift through the ashes for those bits and pieces left strewn among the remains.  We lack a full picture of the "truth" of the old ways.

It is for this reason above all others that I stress finding a personal truth when discussing the matter with pagans new to the path.  Belief is a very powerful thing, but if you're adhering to someone else's vision, that belief will never be as strong as its full potential.  Yes, there are certainly sticking points that we can all agree on -- the names of certain figures, their roles, their breadth of influence -- and those are points that won't get you far in terms of discussion with others if you ignore them (if you view, for example, Odin as a pink-haired punk rocker on an amplifier turned up to 11, most Norse pagans won't be too amused, even though they'd take that better than a Catholic viewing the same depiction of Christ).  The hazier details, on the other hand -- the symbolism, the emotion -- are far more mutable and are made more powerful if taken at a more personal level.

You have to sift through those ashes for yourself and make your own way into the path of your choice.  And really, that goes for anyone on any path; I would offer the same advice to Christians.  No one can take the journey of discovery for you, and you shouldn't want them to.  Use the myths as a starting point, take advantage of what has been pieced together in a reconstructive effort, but don't be afraid to let your mind wander into those uncertain details and ponder what makes the most sense to you.  Question everything and take nothing at face value.  After all, it wasn't in the spirits of the ancients to just blindly follow what was set before them.  They were imaginative, innovators, and creators that pursued their paths in a very honest and genuine way; they resisted the change in the world to resist losing their truth.  We, as their spiritual descendents, owe them the same honesty in our pursuit of their half-lost truths.