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The Hunger
Once I rescued a little elephant shrew from a pond, close to death. It recovered and I let it go. Two days later I find the same elephant shrew floating in the same pond. This time I was too late. I wondered about fate. You would think it would learn from experience but instead it seemed to be drawn back, as by fate, to its death. Some would nod their heads sagely and say: "It was its time." But does it have to be so?
Destiny, fate and freedom have fascinated me for much of my life. How free are we? Rudolf Steiner likened destiny to a hunger: "The human being, when he is born, hungers to do what he does, and he does not give up until he satisfies this hunger." When we feel a physical hunger, it dominates our choices. When we long for the fulfilment of sexual desire, an appeasement of hunger, there can be no denial of our orientation. Real spiritual desire is a raw as these. We are born with a hunger of some kind that needs fulfilment. It is this hunger that steers our destiny.
In early civilisations and cultures fate decreed all. Personal destiny was subordinate to the greater destiny of its tribal society and to the gods, Even the gods, if we look at the myths were subjected to the "Norns", the sisters Wyrd. Personal freedom as we know it today, in larval state. The word "wyrd", is generally translated as "fate" or "destiny". The three Norse sisters of Wyrd are called Urdr, Verdani and Skuld; past, present and future. Urdr is a past form of the verb 'verda', to become, to have to.' - that which is already established. Verdani, is another part of the same verb - becoming. Skuld represents necessity - a debt due. In Afrikaans "skuld" still means debt.
There are some that speculates that in tracing the etymology of and history of the word Wyrd, there appears to be a connection between Wyrd as the powers that determine the future, and the "word" as spoken, and as written. In Old Saxon Wyrd was spelled "Wurd". In old German it was "Wurt". These words derive from a verb that comes into Old English as "weorthan", meaning "to become", or "turn into". "War", an Indo-European root word developed into the verb "weorthan". "War" was recorded to have the meaning; choose or will to, to speak, and to wind or turn. Winding and turning are the motions of spinning, the symbolic employment of the sisters of Wyrd. Through its meaning of "to speak" "war" developed into "word". It seems that at an early stage of conceptualisation "willing", "speaking", and "becoming" were in a sense synonymous. Perhaps once recognised intuitively when language still reflected the meaningful relationship perceived between things in the world. (Rune Games - Marijane Osborn and Stella Longland)
One could then see destiny as comprising out of three elements; will, word and becoming or internal desire, expression of that desire, impression of that desire on the external world. "Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being Who knows but that which seems omitted today Waits for tomorrow? Even your body knows its heritage and Its rightful need and will not be deceived. And your body is the harp of your soul And it is yours to bring forth sweet Music from it Or confused sounds - Kahlil Gibran
The hunger becomes the 'intent' because it directs the awareness (the focus) as well as the activity. Focus brings into awareness what you choose to experience. This automatically makes your awareness selective, to fulfil the intent. It is only when we understand the underlying laws of cause and effect that we can achieve any kind of freedom. In the world we live, we are constantly reminded that ignorance of the law does not free you from the penalties you have to pay for breaking it. So logic would have it that the more knowledgeable we are of the laws, the more freedom you will have. The laws of transformation, that demand that we do indeed grow, govern us all. Whether we do it consciously or unconsciously The degree of our freedom depends on the level of our consciousness.
When we blame the external for our challenges,' just fate, bad luck', we put ourselves at the mercy of the external, in the hands of fate. If, however, we except responsibility for all that happen to us, we can become the masters of our fate. Freedom comes from inside of us, from the seeking of self-mastery through self-knowledge.
"Self-evolution converts fate into freedom… From a spiritual mind's eye, history is far from being a random interplay of individuals, societies, and events. Deep below its chaotic surface runs a subterranean river of evolving, ever transforming consciousness, It is this rhythmic, flowing stream which carries humanity from egoless primitivity through cultural complexes towards higher stages of individuality. Thus the sovereign self dips itself time and time again into this river of becoming, continually cleansing the past and adding to its treasure of experience and planetary participation… The I is incontrovertibly committed to its own progress and the world's evolution - … Time and time again we are free to attract and grasp experience as we ascend the ladder of being and convert potential into actual, imperfection into perfection… Human biography is the transformation of experience into psychological and spiritual growth… Our corporeal body is the magnificent instrument by which soul and spirit express the themes of our destiny. Could Rudolf Nureyev dance in the body of George Bernard Shaw, or Sarah Bernhardt speak through the larynx of Madam Curie? Destiny… is the process whereby we gradually fill eternity and make it personal. Moment by moment, we select for action some of the possibilities swarming out of the future…" William Bryant - The Veiled Pulse Of Time (Life Cycles & Destiny)
Whatever our personal interpretation of fate and destiny, one thing we can be sure of, that in the present lies our freedom to shape our destiny. The patterns of our past will shape our destiny if we allow it. In the present we have the opportunity to change our ideas and therefore the effects of the past; and to change the future by changing our current patterns. Today is Freedom Day in South Africa. Along road to freedom it has been and still a long road ahead but the journey of real freedom has begun and is recognised.
The Way of Wyrd
There is a fascinating novel written by Brian Bates: The way of Wyrd - Tales of an Anglo-Saxon Sorcerer. The story centres around a young Christian missionary, Wat Brand, sent ( as he thought) to convert and re-educate the anglo-saxon 'pagans'. But at the very outset, he is met by the sorcerer, Wulf, who sweeps him into another world and proceeds to expand the mind and understanding of the erstwhile converter.
In one incident, while cooling themselves in a river, they witness the flight of two ravens. Wulf makes a prediction of future events based from an observation of their flight. The tale is told in the first person by the young missionary:
"I snorted with derision, … 'How can the mere flight of
birds tell us about events distant in time and place?'…
I turned to wade
ashore, but Wulf suddenly gripped me by the arm and I looked at him in
alarm; he was looking at me piercingly, his eyes clear azure blue through
lashes sparkling with river water. He spoke with conviction: 'It is a
mistake to assume that events far apart in time are thereby separate. All
things are connected as in the finest web of a spider. The slightest
movement on any thread can be discerned from all points in the web. The
flight of those ravens trembled the threads that connect invisibly with the
affairs of men.'
My sceptism must have been plainly visible in my expression … With the hint of a smile, Wulf released his grip on my arm and splashed on to the river bank. I stood in the water watching him. 'Imagine you were to witness a raven swooping from the sky to peck out the eye of a warrior,' he said, stretching out on the grass. 'You would say that the flight of the bird was connected directly with the wound. But if you had observed the flight of the same raven half a day before the attack, you would see no connection with the warrior's injury. Nevertheless the pattern of a raven's flight at noon is bound to the pattern of its flight at dusk, just as surely as the progression of day and night. One can read the pattern and thus see what the future has in store.'
He sat up and stared at me intently. 'You are labelling pieces of the world with words, then confusing your word-hoard for the totality of life. You see life as if you were viewing a room by the light of a single moving candle; then you make the error of assuming that the small areas you are seeing one at a time are separate and cannot be seen as one. Since the small areas of your life are thus seen as separate, you have to invent ways of connecting them. This is the fallacy of the ordinary person's view of life, for everything is already connected. Middle-Earth is one room, lit by a thousand candles.'
Wulf leaned closer to me and spoke into my ear as if sharing a secret:' You are strangling your life-force with words. Do not live your life searching around for answers in your word-hoard. You will find only words to rationalise your experience. Allow yourself to open up to wyrd and it will cleanse, renew, change and develop your casket of reason. Your word-hoard should serve your experience, not the reverse.'
He smiled gently. 'Words can be potent magic indeed, but they can enslave us. We grasp from wyrd tiny puffs of wind and store them in our lungs as words. But we have not thereby captured a piece of reality, to be pored over and examined as if it were a glimpse of wyrd. We may as well mistake our fistfuls of air for wind itself, or a pitcher of water for the stream from which it was dipped. That is the way we are enslaved by our own power to name things."
From the "The Secret Of The Creative Vacuum" - John Davidson
