Michaelmas: Time of Binding

Today, we stand at Michaelmas (though the original sate wasn’t until October 11).  This is the day the Western Church traditionally honours all the Angels, but more specifically the Archangels, and most specifically the Archangel Michael.  It is traditionally the day Michael kicked Satan (or Lucifer) from Heaven.

This is a time of year for binding, for reducing, for constricting.  The days shrink, just as the moon shrinks following the full moon.  The spring, heading toward the Summer Solstice, as the days increase, is a time for loosing, for increasing, for expanding.  But now we bind, not loose.

Michaelmas (under the current Western calendar), falls one week after the Equinox.  It’s significant that it falls at this point in the year, after harvest, heading toward Samhain.  At this point when the days are shortening, when winter is coming.

This year, the full moon lands on Michaelmas this moon.  Tonight is the height of the Tide of the current moon.  The energy flows strong, from that white mirror, that whole in the black sky.  A dark night full of light.

Half a moon has passed since the Sage Brush Moon ended.  Half way to the next Dark Moon.  This is a moon of changing, of turning.  The Moon of the Equinox, half way to darkness.  The Moon of Michaelmas, of Lucifer’s fall from heaven, the Bright and Morning Star.  The leaves changing, the season changing.    This is truly the Changing Moon, a moon for bringing change into the world.

The main story of Michaelmas, of the Archangel Michael overcoming Lucifer and casting him from Heaven, is of course paralleled many places.  One such is Hera kicking Hephaestus, the smith of the gods, from Olympus, the fall giving him a limp the rest of his life.  Looking at that, we see Bran, wounded in the foot in the battle with Ireland, and eventually dying, but his head living on, speaking for a year.  We see the Fisher King in Arthurian Legend, wounded through the thighs, unable to walk, so spending his time fishing in a boat.  We find Odin, pierced through the side with his out spear, hanging upside on the Tree, then falling to the depths of the roots.  Jesus stabbed in the side, then descending to Sheol.  The Fall of the Watchers is also the Descent of the Watchers, also, the Descent of Inanna, of Ishtar.

We find this motif also in our myth cycle of the year.  At the equinox, the power was in the balance, but now it’s tipped.  The Horned Child has grown in power, and he confronts the Winged Serpent, challenges him.  The Serpent has never know how to back down from a challenge.  He rises to that challenge, the two fight.

But the Serpent is weakening and the Horned Child is stronger.  The Serpent is God of the Vegetation, and with the harvest, his power waned.  The Horned Child is God of the Beast, and with the Hunt, he grows strong.  As the cold Northern Wind, he howls, the howls of wolves.  His is the call of ravens, gathering around the dead and dying.  He is strong and only getting stronger, heading toward his height at the time of the Wild Hunt.  He wounds the Serpent, but does not kill yet.  He casts him down, and this time of the year, he does not heal.

He who was once a vibrant young man, happy in love, without a care in the world, is now old, now weak, now wounded.  He walks with a limp, in old rags that were once royal robes.  He walks hunched over, a lantern in his hand, staring into the growing darkness with eyes that are failing him, unsure what the future holds where once he could see the path laid out before him.

And so Michaelmas passes and we rush towards Samhain.

FFF,

~Muninn’s Kiss

 

Snows of Winter, Heat of Summer

Image from SodaHead

Snows of Winter, Heat of Summer
By Muninn’s Kiss

Snows of Winter, heat of Summer,
Two times, two worlds.
The Twins, they dance.

Winter King, in darkness reigns,
Death and darkness, ice and cold.
A crown of thorns upon his head,
Clothed in shadows, hidden light.
Magic dark and waning sun.
Tettens, Woden, Hermes stalks,
From the Castle of Weeping comes.

Summer King in brightness reigns,
Life, rebirth, light, and heat.
Winged crown, light rebounds,
Clothed in fire, born in light.
The sun it rises, warms the land.
A Child is born to warm our hearts.
Lucet, Lucifer, Morning Star,
Riding forth on wings of the morning.

The Twins, they dance,
The passing year.
Light, then dark, then light again.
Two Kings reign, both to die,
Two grooms for oh blessed Night.
Life and Death, Light and Dark,
Ever changing, ever the same.
Snows of Winter melt and thaw.
Heat of Summer takes their place.
Out of darkness shines the brightest light.

 

The Adversary: Enemy or Test

In response to my last post on fallen angels, I was asked what I thought about the Advisory in the Book of Job being the same as Lucifer/Sammuel/Christian Satan, and whether their purpose is the same, whether they are the same or not (my paraphrase of the question).  My response was very long so I decided to post it as a new entry in addition to as a reply.

At least in how he portrayed in Job verses how he portrayed in Christianity (at least after a certain point), he is very different.  Christianity portrays Satan/Lucifer as the epitome of evil wanting nothing more than to destroy the souls of man and to take God’s place.  The Advisary in Job seems much more as a servant of God there to give the other side, the legal term of “Devil’s Advocate”.

Satan in the New Testament is very different than HaSatan, the Adversary, in Job.  I have read Jewish sources that describe him similar to the New Testament as well, so I don’t think the version in the NT was made up later and stuck in or edited in, but there’s no way to prove that either way.  Satan in the New Testament is definitely fallen, not a servant of God like in Job.  And the demons are said to serve him, demons being another topic.  The idea of Satan has definitely evolved and taken in other ideas since then, though.  There is a large mythos of Satan in Christianity that is much larger than what is in scripture.

Lucifer, of course, is hard to pin down, since the gulf between the Roman Light Bearer and the Christian Satan, Father of Lies, Lord of Air and Darkness, is so great.  Lucifer was the planet Venus as the Morning Star, a name used for Jesus in Revelations.  In fact the Roman Lucifer, Greek Phosphorus, is much more like the figure of Jesus in Christianity than Satan.

Sammuel is similar, and some of the stories overlap, but “feels different” to me than Lucifer/Satan (the feel from reading, not from working with).  He is definitely proud like Satan and Lucifer are shown, but it feels like the pride of a general, rather than a king.  Sammuel never desired to rule, just to have his way.  And Lucifer/Satan tend to be seen as the opposite of God in our dualistic modern society, whereas Sammuel was the opposite of Adam.  Rather than the being the evil enemy fighting God, Sammuel is the dark side of humanity, our Twin.

Azazel, the leader of the Watchers, is also often associated with Lucifer/Satan.  It’s hard to separate the fall of the Watchers from the idea of a rebellion and war in heaven, an idea that definitely came later for a few short verses.

And there’s Iblis in Islam, who is the “devil” figure in Islam.  He more than likely came from an older Mesopotamian story, but I haven’t studied him much.  The interaction of Jews, Christians, and Muslims throughout history, plus the interactions before Jesus and Mohammad, have cause bleed over and borrowing between cultures.

And of course, Melek Ta’us is equated with Ilbis by Muslims and has been taken to be Lucifer/Satan by many Christians, so the Yezidi are often called Devil worshippers by Muslims and Christians alike.

Of course, all three are often associated with the serpent in the Garden of Eden, depending on who you ask or which myth you read. And the lines of other myths have blurred over time as well.  Whether the original names referred to same being or not, they have merged with time.

There is power in the use of a name, and in the belief of humans.  Maybe we’ve created a being to go along with our myths or maybe not.  But I’m pretty sure the original beings were separate and distinct.  Or, which is always a possibility, that all of these similar myths are echoes of a far earlier myth.

As far as purpose, is the purpose of HaSatan the same as the Christian Satan?  I don’t think so.  Christians tend to not see Satan as a test to overcome as much as an enemy to defeat.  Though the role in the New Testament seems much closer to that of in Job than the modern view.

FFF,
~Muninn’s Kiss

 

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!

Fallen Angel carving on tree on the Laramie West Side, carved by  Eric Tkachenko

Fallen Angels are scorned by some and trumpeted by others. But they seem to always stir up strong emotions. There are many stories and myths about fallen angels and about similar beings, in many cultures. Most people know just the following two verses, one from Isaiah and the other from Jesus:

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!  For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.  Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. ~Isaiah 14:12-15 

 And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. ~Luke 10:18

There’s debate about the first one, but I won’t go into that here.  The point is, people assume that first of all Lucifer and Satan are the same, and second of all that the only fallen angels are the third of the angels that are said to have followed him in rebellion.  But there are many stories of fallen angels besides this story that seems to have eclipsed the rest.  This post isn’t meant to be exhaustive on the subject, just a rambling of my thoughts and an excuse to post the picture above that I’ve been meaning to take for years.  For a good, more exhaustive, source on fallen angels, I would recommend The Book of Fallen Angels by Michael Howard.

Take the Watchers for instance.  They appear in Genesis as follows:

And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them.  That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.  And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.  There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.  And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.  But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. ~Genesis 6:1-8

This story is paralleled in Sumerian legend, and expanded in the Books of Enoch.  In the Enoch, there are 200 Watchers who fall.  In the Islamic version, there two Watchers, who are watching human kind and complain about how they are acting.  Allah rebukes them and tells them in the same situation, they’d do the same and they took this as permission and went to live as men.  The Watchers and other fallen angels figure high in many Luciferian strains of witchcraft.  In Feri, the Feri Guardians, the Lords of Outer Space, are said to be the same as the Watchers.  Some witch traditions say witches are the descendants of the Nephilium, the children of the Watchers, translated giants in the passage above.  To read a little more about the Watchers, see the following two links:

The Lords of the Outer Spaces: Notes on the Unusual Guardians of Feri Witchcraft
The rise of the Watchers

Another important story related to the Watchers is that they taught mankind sciences and magic.  When the Flood was coming, Tubal-Cain or someone else carved two Pillars, one of wood so water wouldn’t hurt it, and one or stone so fire wouldn’t hurt it, since it was unknown how judgement and destruction would come.  On the Pillars, he carved the secrets of science and magic as taught by the Watchers, specifically Azazel.  After the Flood, the pillars were found and the knowledge learned.  The Freemasons relate these two Pillars of Boaz and Jachin in King Solomon’s Temple and the Two Pillars figure highly in Freemason mythology and ritual.  Though I haven’t personally read it, I recommend The Pillars of Tubal Cain by Michael Howard and Nigel Jackson.  I’ve talked to Mike on lists and highly respect his knowledge and scholarship on history and myth in general, and witchcraft it particular.

Another fallen angel, though with a different twist, is Melek Ta’us, the Peacock Angel of the Yezidi, and seen as the Blue God, Dain y Glas, in some parts of Feri.  According to my favourite version of the tale, God created seven angels.  Melek Ta’us was one of them.  When God created Adam, he told the angels to bow down to him.  The rest did, but Melek Ta’us refused.  This story is paralleled in Jewish legend with Satan or Sammuel, and in the Qu’ran with Iblis, who seems to be an angel in the verse, but a djinn other places.  The difference is that in these other stories, God is mad and kicks Satan/Iblis out of heaven.  In this story, God is pleased with Melek Ta’us.  It was a test.  But God wanted to test him once more.  He throws him into hell.  Melek Ta’us, rather than dwelling on his suffering, seeing the suffering of others in hell.  He has compassion on the people suffering and cries for them, and his tears put out the fires of hell.  Pleased once more with Melek Ta’us, God rewards him by putting him over all of creation and over man.  God then left and left Malak Ta’us to rule.

Sammuel, who I mentioned, is seen kind of as the dark Adam, with his mate, Lilith, as the dark Eve.  In many Jewish legends, he is the leader of the fallen angels, and would be a better parallel for the modern Christian view of Satan/Lucifer than HaSatan, the Advisary, in the Book of Job, who is there seen in the court of heaven and as part of it, not an outcast.  Sammuel is often seen as the serpent in the Garden of Eden.  Volumes could be written on Sammuel and Lilith and how they have been viewed in different places and different times in the history of the Jewish people.  I’ll leave them for a later post.

FFF,
~Muninn’s Kiss