On Original Nature
That we have an original nature (orlog) is of the greatest import.
How we meet events (wyrd) is also of import. Those events we are able to meet with the force of our orlog, so they co-shape each other in activity rather than passivity, bring out our original nature in better ways than when we are passively molded. This factor makes every bit of difference --- thus, the emphasis on daring, boldness, etc. The attitude with which you meet events is decisive.
Some say events are mirrors of ourselves. This is not precisely true. Often they are distorted "fun house" mirrors, and must be reshaped by our hands, our cognition, our memory, to take their proper shape. Events reflect not only our personal history, but the history of those to whom we connect ourselves (friends, family, neighbours, associates, region, nation). This is the realm of the influence of lineage. Wyrd is elliptically concentric in its flow-forms, and thus both personal and collective.
It is important to keep returning to the original layer (orlog), or original nature. If we return only to events, we remain superficial. Recollection and reminiscence may serve us if we recall empowering times and good events to glean not only their developmental history, but the quality with which we met these events, and how our own nature touched, shaped, and made these events the good experiences they were. In this way, events may lead us back to our original nature rather than orienting us as entirely externally-locused beings. Good times were not just times that happened to us -- they were times when we were able to bring a good quality of ourselves to events, and in so blending, to make them somewhat our own. True, some events and people allow or welcome this to happen, and some don't, but those who don't reveal themselves as foreign to us in the strictest sense, and therefore those with whom we have no business interacting.
Learning those boundaries --- where we belong and where we don't (and assuming we belong everywhere is an imperialist folly) --- would seem to be essential in cultivating luck. Events or people who are truly foreign to us (not in an external sense, but an internal and essential sense) therefore come to us as tests of discernment, to see whether we will alienate our own natures in meeting them.
We often blend with others. The chemical combinations, if you will, can be empowering, interesting, and altogether enhancing, or they can be destructive, corrosive, and subtly but gradually disconfirming. The experience of difference itself, therefore, is not inherently alienating, although sometimes we must shift our perspective or preconceptions in order to meet it properly. Difference may change us in a transformative sense, drawing out new qualities in our original matrix we never knew or faintly suspected, and these can be wondrous. This is an example of becoming (wyrd) birthing or greening our original matrix (orlog). But if we must actually alienate our own natures in order to meet something or someone, then it is too foreign, and we have put ourselves into peril. That we have a nature does not mean we are inflexible, but it does mean we are not infinitely elastic. Things have their limits. Some things are too far for who we are.
Things that are foreign to our very nature are not bad in and of themselves per se, but they are bad for us, and to be kept at an appropriate distance, even if intriguing, alluring, or in fact lovely. Some things were fated for us and some were not, and if we violate our own nature out of coveting --- a desire to grasp that which is not essentially or properly our own --- it is we who will suffer the consequences, and they can sometimes be severe.
How will we know? The little voice, those slender, subtle feelings spoken by the fylgia. That inner sense we so often, so habitually and regularly ignore, suppress, explain away. It is not the sense of good or evil per se. It is the sense, to sound a little stuffy in a modern context, of propriety : of belonging or not-belonging. Our ability to sense and navigate boundaries is highly relevant here. Event-potentials foreign to our own nature may be lovely, but not for-us all the same. Therefore, the other may not radiate ill intent or ill nature, but the outcome may still be ill for us (or both of us) if we do not listen to that sense of belonging or not-belonging. Things co-belong or they do not co-belong. The proper perspective here is that expressed by Captain Kirk : "There are a million things you can have in this world and a million things you can't. It's no fun that way, but that's the way it is." This is the proper perspective precisely because it expands our sense of all that truly is waiting out there for us to discover, which is within our proper and lawful grasp, while at the same time separating us from that which is not in our lawful and allotted grasp. Here our concept of "lawful grasp" connects to the sense that orlog is our original law, laying out what is lawful for us and what is not, what belongs and what does not, which is the nature of having a nature.
Now when we find those with whom or which we do co-belong, there is a synergy which is very akin to what we call luck. Mutual enhancement of powers and possibilities takes place. This has aptly been called "mutual aid". Gronbech, rightly in my opinion, points out that this synergy could be formed with animals, plants, stones, indeed, the very land itself, and in fact, it might be said that luck with the land is the very character and essence of odal, the strongest land-rights known to the Teutons, kindred-land subject to no superior power or taxation. When beings synergistically share their properties, their powers of fruition become greater than the sum of the parts.
The guiding animal whispers, "This is your nature." She sings, "This is your song." This will be your nature (orlog) : can you cleave to it despite the vicissitudes of experience (wyrd) which will test you? Can you hold to it so wyrd brings out rather than warps your true nature? And can you heal from hapless happenings that warp you? And if you will listen to her soft, still voice, she will guide you to those beings with whom you belong, where you will find your luck. It may take time, but if you follow your original nature, you will prosper eventually, in that way meant just for you, and those with whom you belong, for nature, if we will follow her (we, the easily distracted and enchanted), is bounteous.
How we meet events (wyrd) is also of import. Those events we are able to meet with the force of our orlog, so they co-shape each other in activity rather than passivity, bring out our original nature in better ways than when we are passively molded. This factor makes every bit of difference --- thus, the emphasis on daring, boldness, etc. The attitude with which you meet events is decisive.
Some say events are mirrors of ourselves. This is not precisely true. Often they are distorted "fun house" mirrors, and must be reshaped by our hands, our cognition, our memory, to take their proper shape. Events reflect not only our personal history, but the history of those to whom we connect ourselves (friends, family, neighbours, associates, region, nation). This is the realm of the influence of lineage. Wyrd is elliptically concentric in its flow-forms, and thus both personal and collective.
It is important to keep returning to the original layer (orlog), or original nature. If we return only to events, we remain superficial. Recollection and reminiscence may serve us if we recall empowering times and good events to glean not only their developmental history, but the quality with which we met these events, and how our own nature touched, shaped, and made these events the good experiences they were. In this way, events may lead us back to our original nature rather than orienting us as entirely externally-locused beings. Good times were not just times that happened to us -- they were times when we were able to bring a good quality of ourselves to events, and in so blending, to make them somewhat our own. True, some events and people allow or welcome this to happen, and some don't, but those who don't reveal themselves as foreign to us in the strictest sense, and therefore those with whom we have no business interacting.
Learning those boundaries --- where we belong and where we don't (and assuming we belong everywhere is an imperialist folly) --- would seem to be essential in cultivating luck. Events or people who are truly foreign to us (not in an external sense, but an internal and essential sense) therefore come to us as tests of discernment, to see whether we will alienate our own natures in meeting them.
We often blend with others. The chemical combinations, if you will, can be empowering, interesting, and altogether enhancing, or they can be destructive, corrosive, and subtly but gradually disconfirming. The experience of difference itself, therefore, is not inherently alienating, although sometimes we must shift our perspective or preconceptions in order to meet it properly. Difference may change us in a transformative sense, drawing out new qualities in our original matrix we never knew or faintly suspected, and these can be wondrous. This is an example of becoming (wyrd) birthing or greening our original matrix (orlog). But if we must actually alienate our own natures in order to meet something or someone, then it is too foreign, and we have put ourselves into peril. That we have a nature does not mean we are inflexible, but it does mean we are not infinitely elastic. Things have their limits. Some things are too far for who we are.
Things that are foreign to our very nature are not bad in and of themselves per se, but they are bad for us, and to be kept at an appropriate distance, even if intriguing, alluring, or in fact lovely. Some things were fated for us and some were not, and if we violate our own nature out of coveting --- a desire to grasp that which is not essentially or properly our own --- it is we who will suffer the consequences, and they can sometimes be severe.
How will we know? The little voice, those slender, subtle feelings spoken by the fylgia. That inner sense we so often, so habitually and regularly ignore, suppress, explain away. It is not the sense of good or evil per se. It is the sense, to sound a little stuffy in a modern context, of propriety : of belonging or not-belonging. Our ability to sense and navigate boundaries is highly relevant here. Event-potentials foreign to our own nature may be lovely, but not for-us all the same. Therefore, the other may not radiate ill intent or ill nature, but the outcome may still be ill for us (or both of us) if we do not listen to that sense of belonging or not-belonging. Things co-belong or they do not co-belong. The proper perspective here is that expressed by Captain Kirk : "There are a million things you can have in this world and a million things you can't. It's no fun that way, but that's the way it is." This is the proper perspective precisely because it expands our sense of all that truly is waiting out there for us to discover, which is within our proper and lawful grasp, while at the same time separating us from that which is not in our lawful and allotted grasp. Here our concept of "lawful grasp" connects to the sense that orlog is our original law, laying out what is lawful for us and what is not, what belongs and what does not, which is the nature of having a nature.
Now when we find those with whom or which we do co-belong, there is a synergy which is very akin to what we call luck. Mutual enhancement of powers and possibilities takes place. This has aptly been called "mutual aid". Gronbech, rightly in my opinion, points out that this synergy could be formed with animals, plants, stones, indeed, the very land itself, and in fact, it might be said that luck with the land is the very character and essence of odal, the strongest land-rights known to the Teutons, kindred-land subject to no superior power or taxation. When beings synergistically share their properties, their powers of fruition become greater than the sum of the parts.
The guiding animal whispers, "This is your nature." She sings, "This is your song." This will be your nature (orlog) : can you cleave to it despite the vicissitudes of experience (wyrd) which will test you? Can you hold to it so wyrd brings out rather than warps your true nature? And can you heal from hapless happenings that warp you? And if you will listen to her soft, still voice, she will guide you to those beings with whom you belong, where you will find your luck. It may take time, but if you follow your original nature, you will prosper eventually, in that way meant just for you, and those with whom you belong, for nature, if we will follow her (we, the easily distracted and enchanted), is bounteous.
posted by SiegfriedGoodfellow at 2:24 AM
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