drunkonstolenmead

[drunkonstolenmead]

when i started my last director job at a university, they told me one of my duties would be to write all the chancellor’s letters. me: “cool. but why though?” them: “English isn’t the chancellor’s first language.” me: “I’m aware of that.” them: “the chancellor likes the suggestions that autocorrect gives him if he misspells something.” me: “Ah.” them: hands me a copy of a letter the chancellor sent to a donor who had just given a million-dollar gift to the university, which includes the following: ‘The profundity of your gift fills us with the greatest horror. In recognition we have prepared a special plague to compromise you and your family’. 

Which is why to this day when I’m struggling to communicate in a different language, i remember the chancellor, who was Doing His Best, and i try to give myself a break.

[drunkonstolenmead]

Stress, Accent, and Syllable Length

The problem

We English poets have a peculiar disease: when we hear a stressed syllable, our hearing automatically treat it like a musical downbeat. When we write in meter, therefore, we hear a regular rhythmical ictus with measures of equal length, and we cannot hear stressed syllables as anything but the first beats of the measure. We consequently falsely hear the spaces between stressed syllables as equal to each other.

But this need not be so. It is not an inherent property of the English language. There is a rhythm in speech that has little to do with which syllables are stressed and everything to do with how long they actually take to say: for there are long and short syllables as there are half notes and quarter notes, regardless of where the stress falls.

Consider a nonsense line like this one:

Little critters eat red atoms.

If you were to transcribe the accentual rhythm musically, you would probably come up with something in 2/4 rhythm like this:

𝅘𝅥𝅘𝅥 | 𝅘𝅥𝅘𝅥 | 𝅘𝅥𝅘𝅥 | 𝅘𝅥𝅘𝅥

Equally, if you like swinging triple rhythms more, you might put it in 3/4 rhythm as

𝅗𝅥𝅘𝅥 | 𝅗𝅥𝅘𝅥 | 𝅗𝅥𝅘𝅥 | 𝅗𝅥𝅘𝅥

But in neither case do you take account of how long or short the syllables of the line actually are. If you do that, dividing the syllables into short and long, you get

𝅘𝅥 𝅗𝅥 𝅘𝅥 𝅗𝅥 𝅗𝅥 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥 𝅗𝅥

The reality of syllable length defies the idealized regular metrical pulse of the earlier two rhythms. It is revealed that there is no natural downbeat that the stressed syllables fall on -- the perception of such a downbeat is an illusion.

Conversely, you can construct an actual rhythm by regulating long and short syllables but ignoring stress. For example, consider this line:

Ample shit on the announcement board.

If you ignore stress and look only to syllable length, you get something in good 4/4 rhythm:

𝅗𝅥𝅘𝅥𝅘𝅥 | 𝅗𝅥𝅘𝅥𝅘𝅥 | 𝅗𝅥𝅗𝅥 | 𝅗𝅥 𝄼

If you learn to hear this rhythm in the line above, you'll notice something interesting: the stressed syllables (am-, shit, -nounce-, board), though not downbeats, are higher than the syllables around them. Stress or accent is thus heard as an aspect rather of melody than of rhythm. But it is very hard to make yourself hear the line this way, because of our ingrained habit of imposing an idealized rhythm based on stresses onto how we hear the rhythm of language, thus deafening us to the rhythm of syllable length.

The solution

How do we train our ears to hear the rhythm of syllable length and to stop making all accented syllables downbeats? I suggest this: start talking to yourself aloud. Come up with a phrase narrating or describing what you're doing or noticing in the world or in your mind. Repeat the phrase ad nauseam, making long syllables half notes and short syllables quarter notes but keeping the stress where it is. Repeat one phrase until it no longer seems to have any meaning, just like the way a word sounds strange and wrong if repeated over and over. Note that you now hear the phrase as sound rather than language, and get into the rhythm of the sound. Then, after a while, change to a different phrase. You might make this practice more advanced by singing instead of speaking: put the stressed syllables on one tone and the unstressed syllables on a tone a step below it, but take care that you make the short syllables quarter notes and the long ones half notes, no matter the tone. As an example, consider the line from above sung on D and E:

[drunkonstolenmead]

How to deal with shame

Here are thoughts on shame. This is all based in my own experience and speculation, and is expressed according to my own models of my own psyche. It is expressed in my own mythological or theological idiom with which I tend to think about the human psyche, which may not be the right idiom for you. Therefore do not accept it at once as right, but consider for yourself whether my advice is good and whether the ideas seem helpful or harmful to you. We can talk about them later tonight.

---------

SHAME, known by various emotional and physical symptoms like embarassment, a cringing feeling, a desire to tighten the muscles of the face, heat in the face and head, and other symtoms reminiscent of those of impending diarrhea, is best conceived of as a kind of herald-goddess of social pressure. Her power is to guess what the unkindliest thoughts of others might be with respect to something about you or your behavior. When you feel her, know that that feeling is her message of counsel, saying, "This is the worst way others might react to you." In this way, she is much akin to Fear: both forecast the worst case scenario, Shame in more in the social realm, Fear more in the bodily realm. For this reason, Shame should not be rejected or banished, but one should keep in good communication with her. She rightfully sits on the divine council of the inner intelligences that make up your mind. But she often forgets that she is there to give advice, not orders, and she often drowns out the words of other inner beings like Reason, Doubt, Admiration, Curiosity, Fairness, et al.

Therefore, when you feel shame, stop and consider what she is saying about social pressure, and thank her for the lesson. But if she is too harsh or too loud, say to her, "Teacher, thank you for your lesson, you who know how to guess the unkind thoughts of others; but remember, Wisdom bids you rather teach about others in a kindly voice than to command me with harsh words, least of all when I am alone. Therefore, gentle your heart and depart in peace."

[drunkonstolenmead]

I saw something the other morning, which I wrote down. I slipped into epic diction while writing it because I was so moved by it.

When Easter reaches forth her fingers of rosy light, she touches the trees. Look carefully and behold! For she sets ablaze in the spaces between these mortal leaves the radiant leaves of Yggdrasil! First she kindles them as fire, as rosy fire; and then she cools them slowly down, blowing cool, sweet breath of dew upon them. Then they become purple, and ever closer to blue; for she, by her skillful hand, has kindled a fire and made it turn stony as it cools, stony like the face of her father. Such are the leaves of Yggdrasil, which Dawn makes manifest for men.

[drunkonstolenmead]

A woman made of golden light told me, in the most beautiful voice I've ever heard, that I'm a dipshit. Then I woke up.

[drunkonstolenmead]

pretty much all pro-life arguments boil down to women accepting punishment. you were careless and irresponsible; accept your punishment. you indulged your sexuality too much; accept your punishment. you are hateful of x group and seek abortion due to malice; punishment. and it goes on and on… you were a victim of incest and rape, that’s unfortunate, but it’s no reason to harm an innocent child. unfortunately you’ve got to accept that punishment too, even though you’re not at fault (or…?), after all if you victimise an innocent child it is just as bad. it’s just the unfortunate scenario we’re left with, I’m afraid.

but women don’t need to accept that and don’t need to be left with that. with abortion, women are offered a way out of the punishment of being forced to bear children. women become free to be careless, irresponsible, indulgent, ‘hateful’, ‘victimising’ towards x or y group. women are free to be everything we are told we can’t be or shouldn’t be, and the threat of being so is this punishment. it’s very easy for a group of people who will never be able to experience forced pregnancy for ‘bad’ behaviour to say women deserve it. nothing stops men from being careless, indulgent, or hateful. there is no unavoidable punishment for this, no, ha, this trick of nature really served him right for talking or thinking or behaving like that! 

even the apparent pro-choice, slippery slope arguments are always about this: ‘I’m pro-choice but women shouldn’t be careless’, ‘I’m pro-choice but there’s something so wrong about suggesting disabled people shouldn’t live’… all thinly veil the question: shouldn’t women receive some retribution for this if they did not do everything in their power to avoid it? falling pregnant for bad behaviour when one doesn’t want to be is nature’s last laugh to these people. it’s understandable consequence to keep women’s behaviour in line. when the ability to do away with this consequence arrives, what will keep women from behaving in all these ways we deem unsanitary?

I am yet to see a pro-life argument that is solely about life and not about punishment. I’ll keep waiting but I don’t think I’ll ever see one. I don’t think one exists

[drunkonstolenmead]

I said this to the gods this morning, modelling my speech on what Brunhild said when Sigurd woke her.

*****

Hail to the Day; hail, children of the Day!

Hail to Easter, to Dawn the early-born.

Hail, ye Horsemen, ye healers o'er the swells!

Hail to the Sun, the golden-handed one.

*****

Lately I have been more careful in my versification. The meter above is somewhat ideosyncratic, but is firmly rooted in the most ancient principles of Indo-European verse. It is isosyllabic, comprising two cola. The first, of four or five syllables, is unregulated as to quantity. The second is more regulated. So the verse can be either of these:

x x x x | x x u - u -

or

x x x x x | x u - u -

I allow (C)VC$C(-) (e.g. in handed one," hæn.dɪ.dwʌn) to scan as a short syllable, so long as the resulting consonant cluster is a valid onset for the following syllable. This is a freer definition of a short syllable than most ancient languages allow; but English is poor in short syllables, and this technique readily allows conventionally long syllables to sound short when sung.

I think literary English poets have placed too much faith in accentual stress alone. Consider how difficult it would be to quickly sing the line

John smiled with glee, then raised his strong right arm

according to the rhythm 𝅘𝅥. 𝅘𝅥. | 𝅘𝅥. 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥𝅮 | 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅘𝅥 𝅘𝅥𝅮 | 𝅘𝅥. 𝄽 𝄾 ||

But it would be far easier to sing

Odysseus, the shepherd of the folk

according to the same rhythm, even prestissimo.

Look at the best-known folk ballads in the English language, which everyone says are just accentual-syllabic verse; and you will find they actually pay attention to syllable weight. Consider the following:

Our ship she laid in harbor,

In Liverpool Docks she lay,

Awaiting for fresh orders

And her anchor for to weigh.

We can scan this as follows:

- - / - - / u - / u

- uu / - - / - -

u - / - - / u - / -

uu - / u - / u -

This makes for a rather clearly quantitative verse form, something similar to Roman iambs. It allows all long syllables to be resolved to two short ones (e.g. in "Liverpool Dock"), and furthermore allows unstressed positions to be -, u, or uu. These are in fact the exact quantity requirements of many Old Norse verse forms. Therefore, underlying the above stanza is a type-verse that can be expressed thus:

Odd lines:

|x -|x -|x -|x

|uu-|uu-|uu-|x

Even lines:

|x -|x -|x -|

|uu-|uu-|uu-|

Here is an excerpt from another ballad:

"Oh light, oh light, Earl Richard," she said,

"Oh light and stay the night."

It scans as follows:

- - / - - / - u u / - -

- - / - - / u - /

Not only is the verse thoroughly quantitative, but it even uses the rules of syllable resolution of Old Norse and Old English poetry, in which (C)V.CVCC and (C)V.CVV can both be scanned as uu, as in

wuldres wealdend, woroldare forgeaf

which, taking account of this rule and of vowel elision, scans thus:

- - - - // u u u u - -

The underlying form is essentially this:

- - - - // - - - -

úx úx úx úx // úx úx úx úx

Anyway, I'll wrap up my rambling. The many quantitative meters with which the Proto-Indo-Europeans and their descendents sang of their gods and heroes still work. We need not confine ourselves to the accentual-syllabic meters of our English teachers.

[drunkonstolenmead]

Throughout the scholarship dealing with magic, not just in the ancient Greco-Roman world, but for cultures in various times and places, magic is often set up in opposition to religion, but the opposition of magic to science often also appears. Intuitively, it seems, we tend to define magic as that which is not (real) science or that which is not (real) religion. Such a negative definition, I would argue, contains an important insight, but applied uncritically to the ancient evidence, as it often has been, this etic definition is not very useful, largely because the discourses of religion and science are likewise modern etic constructions, so distinguishing between them creates divisions that are often alien to the ancient emic distinctions. We must probe further. (…)

J. Z. Smith points out that if magic is defined in opposition to religion as well as in opposition to science, then, logically, religion and science should share some characteristic that stands in opposition to magic. I would suggest that this shared characteristic is normativity, since both science and religion function as normative discourses in our contemporary society; that is, they are held up as models of the normal ways to relate to the divine and to the material world. 

- Drawing down the moon by Radcliffe G. Edmonds III

[drunkonstolenmead]

The Sundering of Ymir

From Ymir's girth the gods framed Middle Earth

And from his skull fram'd Heaven over all.

From Ymir's brain they framed the helms of rain,

And from his blood they framed the foaming flood.

From Ymir's eye they framed the Sun on high,

And Ymir's mind they set the Moon ashine.

From Ymir's bones they framed the hills and stones.

And from his sigh, they set the wind afly.

[drunkonstolenmead]

Baldrsdraumar

Here is an English version of Baldrsdraumar I prepared.

Together met the goddesses in moot;

Together met the holy gods in moot;

The bright ones spoke of Balder's baleful dreams.

Woden, father of gods and men, arose.

He saddled leaping Sleipner, best of steeds.

He rode to Hell and saw the hound of Hell:

Three-headed Spot had blood upon his chest,

And he howled like a wolf within the woods.

Woden rode on; stones rattled underfoot,

And soon he reached the lofty hall of Hell.

Then rode he to the western door of Hell,

And there he found a witch's barrow mound;

And Woden, god of battles, shrieked a spell.

The witch's lich awoke and rose and spoke:

"Who is this man or god unknown to me

Who's brought me back to loath and longsome life?

Long lay I dead beneath the driven snow;

Long lay I dead 'neath rain and hail and dew."

Woden spoke words of answer to the witch:

"Road-tame am I, and I am Lich-tame's son.

News from above I'll tell for news from Hell.

For whom are all the benches strewn with straw?

Why is the floor all strewn with goldwn straw?

Why is the board arrayed with meat and mead?"

Then spoke the witch beside the door of Hell:

"The mead is brewed for Balder, best of gods;

A shield covers the honey-hearted mead.

Unwillingly I spoke. I'll say no more."

Then spoke Woden: "Lock not thy hoard of words.

I'd ask thee more and understand it all.

Who will become white Balder's deadly bane?

Yea, who will take the life of Woden's son?"

Then spoke the witch beside the door of Hell:

"Hoth bears a heavy, shadow-spreading spear;

He will become white Balder's deadly bane,

And he will take the life of Woden's son.

Unwillingly I spoke. I'll say no more."

Then spoke Woden: "Lock not thy hoard of words.

I'd ask thee more and understand it all.

Who will wreak evil wrack on Balder's bane,

Giving to him his rightful share of fire?"

Then spoke the witch beside the door of Hell:

"Rind will bear Vali in the Western Halls;

Vali will wreak black wrack on Balder's bane,

Vali, the newborn babe but one night old.

He'll neither wash his hands nor comb his hair

Till he puts Balder's bane upon the pyre.

Unwillingly I spoke. I'll say no more."

Then spoke Woden: "Lock not thy hoard of words.

I'd ask thee more and understand it all.

Who are the women weeping bitter tears,

Skyward throwing their necklaces of gold?"

Then spoke the witch beside the door of Hell:

"Thou art not Road-tame as thou toldest me.

No, thou art Woden, eldest of the gods."

Woden spoke words of answer to the witch:

"And thou art neither seeress nor witch.

Thou art the mother of three fearsome fiends."

Then spoke the witch: "Ride home and gloat for now.

Thoul't come again when Loki breaks his bonds

And comes bringing the twilight of the gods."

[drunkonstolenmead]

The pendulum method, though I am not sure of its history, is in essence exactly how most official divination was performed in the ancient world. It was how the will of gods was determined. Pendulum, augury, runes, lots, etc. -- almost all of them worked on the same basic principle as a Magic 8-Ball does.

Prophesy, on the other hand -- the kind of direct, revelatory contact between gods and mortals that we associate with oracles, shamans, dreams, possession, and in modern times mediums, scrying, and so forth -- was much rarer. That's why figures like the Pythia were so renowned, because they could communicate with the gods in an immediately personal way.

The latter kind of contact is still available -- it's just much harder. The easiest way to go about it is through certain drugs. The ancients knew this, as do various peoples who have preserved their traditional spiritual heritage, along with those who learn from the. As I see it, they allow that kind of communion with the divine; but one must be highly careful when interpreting that communion afterward. The same problem also arises when one uses other means of altering consciousness, such as meditation, chanting, hypnosis, and sleep. There remains the same obligation of thinking critically about the experience.

Note: I am not encouraging anyone to use drugs. I am merely describing the various techniques used throughout history for interacting with the sacred and reflecting on the nature of each.

Hey so like… you know how you see conversations with deities/spirits/etc described on tumblr like a conversation?

That’s not usually how it actually works. Especially not right away. It’s okay if you struggle to communicate with spirits. It’s okay if you have to ask for clarification.

Remember that you’re not seeing the whole of someone’s practice on social media.

[drunkonstolenmead]

For someone who has based a large chunk of their time around ancient wizard esoterica, you spend a large amount of time writing about/parodying the corporate world. This is not a dig, I just think it's kinda funny.

Oh Lord you wouldn't believe how much crossover there is between modern occultism and silicon valley. All these startup dickheads lead utterly vacuous lives and they try to fill the void with the same tired orientalist mystic native 5D Ascension tripe that's always captivated the disposable income of the American Petit-Bourgois.

The rich want answers and meaning, and are especially vulnerable to specific sorts of woo and charismatic mystic con-men. In the game of historical rock paper scissors, wizard beats wealth.

[drunkonstolenmead]

[drunkonstolenmead]

KIMBERLEY CHRISTINE PATTON, from the essay ‘“Myself to Myself”: The Norse Odin and Divine Autosacrifice’ in Religion of the Gods: Ritual, Paradox, and Reflexivity

[drunkonstolenmead]

Came up with a good description for battle while I was walking home from class today.

As young Dawn dances in her saffron gown,

The golden hem atwinkle with the dew,

And Dawn, dancing, sheds dewdrops on the grass,

A glinting mist on glade and hill and dale;

So did the dance of spear and hafted sword

Shed misted blood upon the battlefield.

Grim and greedy to glut upon the slain,

The ravens flew in rings above the fray,

Where men were killing and were being killed.

[drunkonstolenmead]

Some of my favorite quotes from the Iliad

Achilles:

"Do you not see how magnificent and mighty I am?"

"Lie there now with the fish, who will lick you."

"I hold it at the value of a splinter."

Odysseus:

"What kind of word has escaped the barrier of your teeth?"

"Madman! Be still, and heed the words of others, who are your betters. You are craven and cowardly, and count for nothing in war or council."

Athena:

"Idiot."

Agamemnon:

"Let me not see you, old man, near our hollow ships, either loitering now or coming again later."

Menelaus:

"Cowardly bitches!"

Narrator:

"And Erinys, who walks in darkness, heard her."