Chatter with the Old Man
Apr. 2nd, 2012 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emberleoLast night for various reasons I had Odin on the line for some automatic writing/heavy shadow.
I also had a friend on IM. It's always easier to hold onto a line with a deity if there's somebody to interact with Them instead of me, so they chatted.
Friend: Good luck.
Odin: Luck is not the main factor in this case
Friend: Well, sure.
Odin: It's considerably easier to do this with someone to talk to, should you wish to oblige
Friend: Oh, OK. I was trying to keep out of the way. Anything in particular? Or shall I just ramble on?
Odin: *laugh* Questions are generally the most helpful, actually. But the work is nearly done. Unless you do have questions, in which case, by all means ask.
Friend: Well, glad to help.
Odin: *chuckles*
Friend: So, you've wandered extensively.
Odin: *laughs* So you've read a bit of Lore
Friend: heh. Well, yes. There was little else to do in my teen years.
Odin: Small Talk with Gods 101. ;)
Friend: But I had a specific question. Have you met with Dionysos in your wanderings?
Odin: Ah! Several, yes.
Friend: Several wanderings, or several Dionysos'?
Odin: Both, in fact. Several wanderings AND sevearl Dionysos' And a few typos, it seems.
Friend: Well, inter-dimensional typing is rough.
Odin: Especially when the hands aren't sure they like the typist. Not that I'm a any stranger to typing. heh
Friend: Travel broadens one. How did you get on, you and Dionysos.
Odin: Usually quite well. At times he objected to my .... stridency of opinion. He is, perhaps, a better guest in our halls than I am in his, overall.
Friend: Ancient Greek for "Dude, you're harshing my mellow?"
Odin: Ha! More like Ancient Greek for "This is my house, don't make me hit you with a stick." But then there is an art to being a poor guest.
Friend: Depending on what reaction one wishes to provoke, yes.
Odin: Exactly
Odin: She is torn between letting my hands type my reply to her query, and blushing. How does she continue to be able to blush at all this? You must find her very amusing.
Friend: Oh? What's she blushing for? And, I do.
Odin: She wondered loud enough for me to hear her whether I found Dionysos a good lay.
Friend: Oh, my. *laughs*
Odin: "God of Ecstasy." Sex is the least of it, in either of our cases, but neither of us are likely to leave it behind, eh?
Friend: It's in the contract. Or, at least, it's always going to be something we with bodies will understand more clearly than other things.
Odin: Yessss. Skalds understand it in other ways, useful ways.
Odin: You're a Skald.
Friend: Am I?
Odin: Tell me why you are researching Victorian Spiritism
Friend: OK. For a role playing game.
Odin: And what is that? (Which isn't to say I don't know, but I want your words)
Friend: heh. It's a conversation among friends, conducted by formal rules, about the adventures and world of a set of imaginary people. Kind of like a light guided visualization to which all participants contribute and which isn't expected to have any degree of reality. Beyond being a real story.
Odin: So you sit in a room holding several people enthralled as you build whole worlds entirely out of words, and chances.
Friend: Yes.
Odin: You are a Skald.
Friend: Heh. Fair enough.
Odin: You are more a Skald than my writers, though I love them, for most writers today have lost the art of enthralling the audience directly, and few performers write their own words.
Friend: Well, it's a trade.
Odin: It is, and I appreciate the expanding options. I particularly appreciate blogging.
Friend: Makes sense.
Odin: I am not by any means complaining that my many writers create books and files, especially when they put me in them. Nevertheless, what you do is closer to what Skalds once did than what they do.
Friend: I can see how the lack of immediate connection changes the energy of the exchange, though. Sure. It's also that people have learned different ways to receive stories, today. Audiences are less active participants.
Friend: I don't believe you to be malevolent.
Odin: No, just a bastard.
Friend: A magnificent one, at least.
Odin: *laughs* That is precisely what she said.
Friend: More, it's that I realize that the scale you work on is much vaster than that of my life, or any mortal's, and I don't like the idea of being a pawn in a sacrifice play.
Odin: Why does my existing on a greater scale necessarily make you a pawn any more than the galaxy existing makes you a pawn?
Friend: The galaxy hasn't dedicated its cunning and power to preparing for a war.
Odin: Are you entirely certain of that?
Friend: Entirely? No.
Odin: Heh. You do understand that I prepare for the war in order to protect your kind from obliteration, yes? I'm on YOUR side. That's the whole point. That's why they call me a god, and the Thurses enemies.
Friend: Oh, sure. I'm just not convinced that the war is inevitable. Thurses? Not familiar with that term.
Odin: Jotnar. Giants. Titans. Fomorians, perhaps.
Friend: Ah, yes.
Odin: The great uncaring ones who move mountains by shrugging.
Friend: I tend to think of them as elemental forces. Not in the neoPlatonic sense, more in the storms and earthquake sense.
Odin: Essential forces, yes, I understand. It is not actually a function of their generation that makes thurses what they are, by the way.
Friend: Their generation? As in their creation, or their genealogy?
Odin: Well, both, but I was emphasizing the latter. Some of your mythologies imply that the great uncaring ones begat the caring ones begat the lost ones, and so forth.
Friend: Ah, yeah. Well, with the Greeks, it's not so clear cut. There are Titans who sided with the Gods in the beginning. And forces that are neither god nor Titan that never picked sides.
Odin: It is nowhere so clear cut. I am also the wind. Skadhi also cares.
Odin: Loki cares with the force of exploding suns, which is often the problem, frankly.
Friend: That, I got. Regarding Loki. Sometimes he drives faster than he can see, in his rush to do things.
Odin: Not at all. He sees quite well. He even understands. But his understanding is entirely alien to what yours would be in his place.
Friend: Ah, OK. That makes sense.
Odin: And he is not even slightly afraid of pain
Friend: Well, no, he couldn't be, and be what he is.
Odin: What then would cause him to hesitate?
Friend: What I meant was that it sometimes seems like he doesn't always see the ramifications of his actions. And paints himself into corners trying to play all sides.
Odin: Because they are not what you would have chosen in his place.
Friend: Hmm. That's a big think to have.
Odin: I like the way Mr. Gaiman wrote Dream. His writing of Loki wasn't quite on in that one, but his manner of showing how one such as us might go about committing suicide is... useful.
Friend: Yes. That's part of what I mean by the scope of your actions.
Odin: The difference, usually, is that unlike his Dream, we do know that we're doing it, how, what, and especially why.
Friend: I think that there is a significant difference between Dream knowing and Morpheus knowing.
Odin: Ha! Yes, touche.
Friend: Morpheus was just one facet of Dream. The human user interface, if you will. tip of the iceberg.
Odin: Yes. A path. It served the purpose of the story to imply that only one path walks at a time. We know this is not a limitation of Gaiman's understanding because he wrote otherwise in American Gods.
Friend: I was just about to ask about that.
Odin: If it wasn't already obvious, Gaiman listens to me - although he might be very disturbed to realize just how many of the voices in his head are mine.
Friend: Heh. "I am Mr. Wednesday, but Mr. Wednesday is not me."
Odin: That implies a descendancy that isn't usually the case - again, it serves the purpose of the story. I am Mr. Wednesday and Mr. Wednesday is indeed me, but that is not MY name, that is another of my names.
Friend: Interesting.
Odin: Or perhaps, the name of my another.
Friend: I took it to be an acknowledgment that the Icelandic Odin was the older of the two. Further up the family tree, before the Mr. Wednesday path branched.
Odin: Certainly. And in that story we have bodies that can die.
Friend: Yes.
Odin: As a metaphor, it's excellent. Taken literally it's not *quite* right. Still, it's a damned sight more useful than average, which is why I like storytellers so much.
Friend: Sure. Makes perfect sense. This is why Alan Moore is one of my favorite living magicians. He is a storyteller, and his understanding of magic is thus informed. It fits better than some other descriptions, for me.
Odin: Indeed. *chuckles* Ordinarily this is where I start saying things like "You know, In addition to being a god of ecstasy and madness, I'm a god of poetry and storytelling...." But that gets me dire looks from several people, including the horse...
Friend: Those are aspects of you not normally stressed, these days.
Odin: Which are? Poetry and storytelling? Who have you been speaking to such that these are not emphasized about me? They may not be the most overtly acknowledged, but trust me, they are the most often employed! Pun intended.
Friend: In a way, they might not be as effective if they were more well known.
Odin: I have never restricted my wanderings to known worlds, or even "real" ones. If you seek me you will find I am everywhere. Authors minds are so very easy to inhabit :)
Friend: But, it seems that among Heathens online, the war-god and magick-god aspects are most popular.
Odin: How many people admit to wanting to worship a god who sits very still and writes, or wanders through worlds of fiction?
Friend: Not many.
Odin: Kemetics devoted to Djehuti, perhaps....
Friend: At least, not many who aren't writers.
Odin: Precisely. Yet more of my truest followers are writers who simply don't know that the muse they find so demanding is me.
Friend: Hmmm. Does this wandering in fictional worlds make you the patron of Fan Fiction?
Odin: Fan fiction is no different from any other fiction to my mind. Fan fiction is folktales in a world where people know lies better than their own histories.
Friend: Oh, damn. That is a perfect way to put that.
Odin: I am the patron of fiction.
Friend: I feel the edges of a subtle distinction between you and Loki in that statement.
Odin: Loki?
Friend: Both of you use language to do what you do. Both of you play with the boundaries of truth and fiction.
Odin: Oh, you are thinking of Loki as the lie-smith.
Friend: Yes.
Odin: Ha! He lies by telling the truth. I tell the truth by lying.
Friend: There's some serious mirroring going on there.
Odin: He IS my blood brother, and when I wander, my most frequent companion.
Friend: But is that causal or an effect?
Odin: You're thinking linearly again, human.
Friend: Fair point.
Odin: You are a charming one! But that is to be expected, given your patronage.
Friend: Back to the Skald package.
Odin: Mm! A different implication of Charming, but yes.
Friend: They're related.
Odin: And is this where I ask if you know runes and spells as well, knowing full well that you do?
Friend: I'm a bit rusty.
Odin: Nine and nine times nine and so forth.
Friend: I know the runes through Edred Thorson, by way of Ralph Blum.
Odin: Blum! That poor man, flogged six ways from Sunday for honest foolishness even while rewarded more greatly for his lies.
Friend: Yes.
Odin: The only thing rewarded better than the prettiest lies are the ugliest
Friend: Too sadly true.
Odin: Ha! She thinks I'm being cryptic. You understood me perfectly.
Friend: Anything can be cryptic, if it's not spoken in language one is familiar with.
Odin: She understood me too, but she can hear me inside her head, which is different from how we put it into language.
Friend: yes
Odin: I can't make her speak Old Norse, for example, not without pushing harder than would be comfortable.
Friend: And why bother, to make her speak in words no one around her would understand?
Odin: What is ridiculous is that she knows quite well it's possible because she's seen people speaking in tongues, both human and esoteric, but she does not allow us to take her out that far because she fears there's nothing there.
Friend: I understand that.
Odin: There are two ways around that fear. One is much easier, but a poor path, yet the more common one by far. The other is much, much harder, and all we could ever ask of a follower, but when it is reached, so, so sweet. Both are submission, of course.
Friend: Self hatred?
Odin: That's the easier path, the poor path. Those who find us too easy to submit to are usually fine with the possibility of losing themselves. They'd rather get lost.
Friend: That makes sense.
Odin: The higher path, the harder path, the sweetest path is to trust us that much, not because it doesn't matter anyway, but despite the fact that it matters tremendously. To have one such as you trust one such as me, knowing what it means, knowing what you could lose, fearing it, and trust me anyway? There is nothing sweeter.
Friend: Yes. It's hard to do.
Odin: You're telling me this? *laughs* I'm the god of doing it.
Friend: Well, more agreeing with you.
Odin: Ah, fair enough.
Friend: I suspect there's not much I could tell you about self sacrifice.
Odin: That doesn't make it not worth trying ;) After all, if you did, you wouldn't be telling me about self sacrifice, you'd be telling me about your self, which IS a sacrifice, in the literal sense.
Friend: Making sacred, rather than giving up.
Odin: Precisely. And what do you sacrifice to hold onto yourself? What do you sacrifice to find yourself? What of yourself do you sacrifice?
Odin: Ahh, are you the sort who considers us thought patterns overlaid on people's minds?
Friend: More like human minds are an access point to our world from where you live when we aren't looking at you. I don't want to say that you are *merely* thought patterns. Hell, I'm a thought pattern, too. I'm just anchored in meat. Words and memories spun in a fractal web.
Odin: Precisely. And if you are open minded about where the thought patterns may run I won't disagree with you that I am one, although in my case you might say I'm hundreds of them. ;)
Friend: There are scientists who study consciousness that argue that an individual human self is the product of dozens of non-sentient functions of the brain, becoming self aware as they watch each other. So that a single consciousness arises from the functions of the meat monitoring itself.
Odin: Scientists have a fantastic way of making simple things extremely complicated because they're focused on mechanism instead of meaning.
Friend: Well, yes. Meaning is for the poets and the priests and the mystics.
Odin: Which is fine when they're aware of that, but sometimes they forget that and then things get amazingly stupid very quickly. Of course, it's worse when the poets and mystics consider themselves politicians, so I suppose I shouldn't throw any stones about it.
Friend: My point being, that why should there not be superhuman consciousnesses that arise from the interactions of individual human consciousnesses?
Odin: Why restrict the assumption to humanity? You're hardly the only ones with consciousness out there. Ecosystems think a lot like brains do.
Friend: Well, it's my easiest to hand example. Of course it's more complicated. Dionysos is partly the awareness of the grapevine of itself and its environment, as much as the relationship between the vine and the vintner and the drunk.
Odin: I'd have said the drinker, but I suppose the wine does get drunk. ;)
Friend: heh
Friend: So, how is the horse? I'm not familiar with her limits for holding one such as you.
Odin: She is mildly irritated that she let me post a reply to one of the threads asking stupid questions about ouija boards. Not so irritated she would stop me, just the immediate rush of concern that it was a mistake she can't take back. I swear you humans make anxiety a recreational activity.
Friend: heh. No, it's a survival trait.
Odin: It is when you have serious things to be anxious about, perhaps.
Friend: And, the cost of guessing wrong about which things are serious is pretty steep. I didn't say it was a universally applicable adaptation.
Odin: I am fairly certain replying to a thread about ouija boards on a social networking site is fairly trivial.
Friend: And you're right.
Odin: Hence my observation about recreational anxiety.
Friend: I'm just pointing out that it's not recreational. And being a bit pedantic.
Odin: Ha! I should hardly complain about pedantics.
Friend: So did you suggest alternate methods of communicating with the dead because Ouija boards are dangerous, or because someone asked?
Odin: Because someone asked. Ouija boards are no more dangerous than any other open-ended divination method. If you choose to ask a specific individual, make proper precautions in setting the space, and have actual talent at operating the thing, it's as safe as any other. It does not matter how a divination was created, nor its reputation. What matters is how it is operated, and the abilities - talent and training - of the people using it at the time. *sometimes* it matters the history of the thing, but not in the case of objects like a Ouija board. That's more often when there's symbols involved that are attached to entities and such like runes, tarot trumps, etc.
Friend: OK, that's what I thought. Never hurts to check from another angle.
Odin: It might matter the specific instance of any given board, mind you, the history of that *particular* thing, but that's different.
Friend: Yes
And that's not the whole conversation! But the rest was too personal.
-E-
I also had a friend on IM. It's always easier to hold onto a line with a deity if there's somebody to interact with Them instead of me, so they chatted.
Friend: Good luck.
Odin: Luck is not the main factor in this case
Friend: Well, sure.
Odin: It's considerably easier to do this with someone to talk to, should you wish to oblige
Friend: Oh, OK. I was trying to keep out of the way. Anything in particular? Or shall I just ramble on?
Odin: *laugh* Questions are generally the most helpful, actually. But the work is nearly done. Unless you do have questions, in which case, by all means ask.
Friend: Well, glad to help.
Odin: *chuckles*
Friend: So, you've wandered extensively.
Odin: *laughs* So you've read a bit of Lore
Friend: heh. Well, yes. There was little else to do in my teen years.
Odin: Small Talk with Gods 101. ;)
Friend: But I had a specific question. Have you met with Dionysos in your wanderings?
Odin: Ah! Several, yes.
Friend: Several wanderings, or several Dionysos'?
Odin: Both, in fact. Several wanderings AND sevearl Dionysos' And a few typos, it seems.
Friend: Well, inter-dimensional typing is rough.
Odin: Especially when the hands aren't sure they like the typist. Not that I'm a any stranger to typing. heh
Friend: Travel broadens one. How did you get on, you and Dionysos.
Odin: Usually quite well. At times he objected to my .... stridency of opinion. He is, perhaps, a better guest in our halls than I am in his, overall.
Friend: Ancient Greek for "Dude, you're harshing my mellow?"
Odin: Ha! More like Ancient Greek for "This is my house, don't make me hit you with a stick." But then there is an art to being a poor guest.
Friend: Depending on what reaction one wishes to provoke, yes.
Odin: Exactly
Odin: She is torn between letting my hands type my reply to her query, and blushing. How does she continue to be able to blush at all this? You must find her very amusing.
Friend: Oh? What's she blushing for? And, I do.
Odin: She wondered loud enough for me to hear her whether I found Dionysos a good lay.
Friend: Oh, my. *laughs*
Odin: "God of Ecstasy." Sex is the least of it, in either of our cases, but neither of us are likely to leave it behind, eh?
Friend: It's in the contract. Or, at least, it's always going to be something we with bodies will understand more clearly than other things.
Odin: Yessss. Skalds understand it in other ways, useful ways.
Odin: You're a Skald.
Friend: Am I?
Odin: Tell me why you are researching Victorian Spiritism
Friend: OK. For a role playing game.
Odin: And what is that? (Which isn't to say I don't know, but I want your words)
Friend: heh. It's a conversation among friends, conducted by formal rules, about the adventures and world of a set of imaginary people. Kind of like a light guided visualization to which all participants contribute and which isn't expected to have any degree of reality. Beyond being a real story.
Odin: So you sit in a room holding several people enthralled as you build whole worlds entirely out of words, and chances.
Friend: Yes.
Odin: You are a Skald.
Friend: Heh. Fair enough.
Odin: You are more a Skald than my writers, though I love them, for most writers today have lost the art of enthralling the audience directly, and few performers write their own words.
Friend: Well, it's a trade.
Odin: It is, and I appreciate the expanding options. I particularly appreciate blogging.
Friend: Makes sense.
Odin: I am not by any means complaining that my many writers create books and files, especially when they put me in them. Nevertheless, what you do is closer to what Skalds once did than what they do.
Friend: I can see how the lack of immediate connection changes the energy of the exchange, though. Sure. It's also that people have learned different ways to receive stories, today. Audiences are less active participants.
Friend: I don't believe you to be malevolent.
Odin: No, just a bastard.
Friend: A magnificent one, at least.
Odin: *laughs* That is precisely what she said.
Friend: More, it's that I realize that the scale you work on is much vaster than that of my life, or any mortal's, and I don't like the idea of being a pawn in a sacrifice play.
Odin: Why does my existing on a greater scale necessarily make you a pawn any more than the galaxy existing makes you a pawn?
Friend: The galaxy hasn't dedicated its cunning and power to preparing for a war.
Odin: Are you entirely certain of that?
Friend: Entirely? No.
Odin: Heh. You do understand that I prepare for the war in order to protect your kind from obliteration, yes? I'm on YOUR side. That's the whole point. That's why they call me a god, and the Thurses enemies.
Friend: Oh, sure. I'm just not convinced that the war is inevitable. Thurses? Not familiar with that term.
Odin: Jotnar. Giants. Titans. Fomorians, perhaps.
Friend: Ah, yes.
Odin: The great uncaring ones who move mountains by shrugging.
Friend: I tend to think of them as elemental forces. Not in the neoPlatonic sense, more in the storms and earthquake sense.
Odin: Essential forces, yes, I understand. It is not actually a function of their generation that makes thurses what they are, by the way.
Friend: Their generation? As in their creation, or their genealogy?
Odin: Well, both, but I was emphasizing the latter. Some of your mythologies imply that the great uncaring ones begat the caring ones begat the lost ones, and so forth.
Friend: Ah, yeah. Well, with the Greeks, it's not so clear cut. There are Titans who sided with the Gods in the beginning. And forces that are neither god nor Titan that never picked sides.
Odin: It is nowhere so clear cut. I am also the wind. Skadhi also cares.
Odin: Loki cares with the force of exploding suns, which is often the problem, frankly.
Friend: That, I got. Regarding Loki. Sometimes he drives faster than he can see, in his rush to do things.
Odin: Not at all. He sees quite well. He even understands. But his understanding is entirely alien to what yours would be in his place.
Friend: Ah, OK. That makes sense.
Odin: And he is not even slightly afraid of pain
Friend: Well, no, he couldn't be, and be what he is.
Odin: What then would cause him to hesitate?
Friend: What I meant was that it sometimes seems like he doesn't always see the ramifications of his actions. And paints himself into corners trying to play all sides.
Odin: Because they are not what you would have chosen in his place.
Friend: Hmm. That's a big think to have.
Odin: I like the way Mr. Gaiman wrote Dream. His writing of Loki wasn't quite on in that one, but his manner of showing how one such as us might go about committing suicide is... useful.
Friend: Yes. That's part of what I mean by the scope of your actions.
Odin: The difference, usually, is that unlike his Dream, we do know that we're doing it, how, what, and especially why.
Friend: I think that there is a significant difference between Dream knowing and Morpheus knowing.
Odin: Ha! Yes, touche.
Friend: Morpheus was just one facet of Dream. The human user interface, if you will. tip of the iceberg.
Odin: Yes. A path. It served the purpose of the story to imply that only one path walks at a time. We know this is not a limitation of Gaiman's understanding because he wrote otherwise in American Gods.
Friend: I was just about to ask about that.
Odin: If it wasn't already obvious, Gaiman listens to me - although he might be very disturbed to realize just how many of the voices in his head are mine.
Friend: Heh. "I am Mr. Wednesday, but Mr. Wednesday is not me."
Odin: That implies a descendancy that isn't usually the case - again, it serves the purpose of the story. I am Mr. Wednesday and Mr. Wednesday is indeed me, but that is not MY name, that is another of my names.
Friend: Interesting.
Odin: Or perhaps, the name of my another.
Friend: I took it to be an acknowledgment that the Icelandic Odin was the older of the two. Further up the family tree, before the Mr. Wednesday path branched.
Odin: Certainly. And in that story we have bodies that can die.
Friend: Yes.
Odin: As a metaphor, it's excellent. Taken literally it's not *quite* right. Still, it's a damned sight more useful than average, which is why I like storytellers so much.
Friend: Sure. Makes perfect sense. This is why Alan Moore is one of my favorite living magicians. He is a storyteller, and his understanding of magic is thus informed. It fits better than some other descriptions, for me.
Odin: Indeed. *chuckles* Ordinarily this is where I start saying things like "You know, In addition to being a god of ecstasy and madness, I'm a god of poetry and storytelling...." But that gets me dire looks from several people, including the horse...
Friend: Those are aspects of you not normally stressed, these days.
Odin: Which are? Poetry and storytelling? Who have you been speaking to such that these are not emphasized about me? They may not be the most overtly acknowledged, but trust me, they are the most often employed! Pun intended.
Friend: In a way, they might not be as effective if they were more well known.
Odin: I have never restricted my wanderings to known worlds, or even "real" ones. If you seek me you will find I am everywhere. Authors minds are so very easy to inhabit :)
Friend: But, it seems that among Heathens online, the war-god and magick-god aspects are most popular.
Odin: How many people admit to wanting to worship a god who sits very still and writes, or wanders through worlds of fiction?
Friend: Not many.
Odin: Kemetics devoted to Djehuti, perhaps....
Friend: At least, not many who aren't writers.
Odin: Precisely. Yet more of my truest followers are writers who simply don't know that the muse they find so demanding is me.
Friend: Hmmm. Does this wandering in fictional worlds make you the patron of Fan Fiction?
Odin: Fan fiction is no different from any other fiction to my mind. Fan fiction is folktales in a world where people know lies better than their own histories.
Friend: Oh, damn. That is a perfect way to put that.
Odin: I am the patron of fiction.
Friend: I feel the edges of a subtle distinction between you and Loki in that statement.
Odin: Loki?
Friend: Both of you use language to do what you do. Both of you play with the boundaries of truth and fiction.
Odin: Oh, you are thinking of Loki as the lie-smith.
Friend: Yes.
Odin: Ha! He lies by telling the truth. I tell the truth by lying.
Friend: There's some serious mirroring going on there.
Odin: He IS my blood brother, and when I wander, my most frequent companion.
Friend: But is that causal or an effect?
Odin: You're thinking linearly again, human.
Friend: Fair point.
Odin: You are a charming one! But that is to be expected, given your patronage.
Friend: Back to the Skald package.
Odin: Mm! A different implication of Charming, but yes.
Friend: They're related.
Odin: And is this where I ask if you know runes and spells as well, knowing full well that you do?
Friend: I'm a bit rusty.
Odin: Nine and nine times nine and so forth.
Friend: I know the runes through Edred Thorson, by way of Ralph Blum.
Odin: Blum! That poor man, flogged six ways from Sunday for honest foolishness even while rewarded more greatly for his lies.
Friend: Yes.
Odin: The only thing rewarded better than the prettiest lies are the ugliest
Friend: Too sadly true.
Odin: Ha! She thinks I'm being cryptic. You understood me perfectly.
Friend: Anything can be cryptic, if it's not spoken in language one is familiar with.
Odin: She understood me too, but she can hear me inside her head, which is different from how we put it into language.
Friend: yes
Odin: I can't make her speak Old Norse, for example, not without pushing harder than would be comfortable.
Friend: And why bother, to make her speak in words no one around her would understand?
Odin: What is ridiculous is that she knows quite well it's possible because she's seen people speaking in tongues, both human and esoteric, but she does not allow us to take her out that far because she fears there's nothing there.
Friend: I understand that.
Odin: There are two ways around that fear. One is much easier, but a poor path, yet the more common one by far. The other is much, much harder, and all we could ever ask of a follower, but when it is reached, so, so sweet. Both are submission, of course.
Friend: Self hatred?
Odin: That's the easier path, the poor path. Those who find us too easy to submit to are usually fine with the possibility of losing themselves. They'd rather get lost.
Friend: That makes sense.
Odin: The higher path, the harder path, the sweetest path is to trust us that much, not because it doesn't matter anyway, but despite the fact that it matters tremendously. To have one such as you trust one such as me, knowing what it means, knowing what you could lose, fearing it, and trust me anyway? There is nothing sweeter.
Friend: Yes. It's hard to do.
Odin: You're telling me this? *laughs* I'm the god of doing it.
Friend: Well, more agreeing with you.
Odin: Ah, fair enough.
Friend: I suspect there's not much I could tell you about self sacrifice.
Odin: That doesn't make it not worth trying ;) After all, if you did, you wouldn't be telling me about self sacrifice, you'd be telling me about your self, which IS a sacrifice, in the literal sense.
Friend: Making sacred, rather than giving up.
Odin: Precisely. And what do you sacrifice to hold onto yourself? What do you sacrifice to find yourself? What of yourself do you sacrifice?
Odin: Ahh, are you the sort who considers us thought patterns overlaid on people's minds?
Friend: More like human minds are an access point to our world from where you live when we aren't looking at you. I don't want to say that you are *merely* thought patterns. Hell, I'm a thought pattern, too. I'm just anchored in meat. Words and memories spun in a fractal web.
Odin: Precisely. And if you are open minded about where the thought patterns may run I won't disagree with you that I am one, although in my case you might say I'm hundreds of them. ;)
Friend: There are scientists who study consciousness that argue that an individual human self is the product of dozens of non-sentient functions of the brain, becoming self aware as they watch each other. So that a single consciousness arises from the functions of the meat monitoring itself.
Odin: Scientists have a fantastic way of making simple things extremely complicated because they're focused on mechanism instead of meaning.
Friend: Well, yes. Meaning is for the poets and the priests and the mystics.
Odin: Which is fine when they're aware of that, but sometimes they forget that and then things get amazingly stupid very quickly. Of course, it's worse when the poets and mystics consider themselves politicians, so I suppose I shouldn't throw any stones about it.
Friend: My point being, that why should there not be superhuman consciousnesses that arise from the interactions of individual human consciousnesses?
Odin: Why restrict the assumption to humanity? You're hardly the only ones with consciousness out there. Ecosystems think a lot like brains do.
Friend: Well, it's my easiest to hand example. Of course it's more complicated. Dionysos is partly the awareness of the grapevine of itself and its environment, as much as the relationship between the vine and the vintner and the drunk.
Odin: I'd have said the drinker, but I suppose the wine does get drunk. ;)
Friend: heh
Friend: So, how is the horse? I'm not familiar with her limits for holding one such as you.
Odin: She is mildly irritated that she let me post a reply to one of the threads asking stupid questions about ouija boards. Not so irritated she would stop me, just the immediate rush of concern that it was a mistake she can't take back. I swear you humans make anxiety a recreational activity.
Friend: heh. No, it's a survival trait.
Odin: It is when you have serious things to be anxious about, perhaps.
Friend: And, the cost of guessing wrong about which things are serious is pretty steep. I didn't say it was a universally applicable adaptation.
Odin: I am fairly certain replying to a thread about ouija boards on a social networking site is fairly trivial.
Friend: And you're right.
Odin: Hence my observation about recreational anxiety.
Friend: I'm just pointing out that it's not recreational. And being a bit pedantic.
Odin: Ha! I should hardly complain about pedantics.
Friend: So did you suggest alternate methods of communicating with the dead because Ouija boards are dangerous, or because someone asked?
Odin: Because someone asked. Ouija boards are no more dangerous than any other open-ended divination method. If you choose to ask a specific individual, make proper precautions in setting the space, and have actual talent at operating the thing, it's as safe as any other. It does not matter how a divination was created, nor its reputation. What matters is how it is operated, and the abilities - talent and training - of the people using it at the time. *sometimes* it matters the history of the thing, but not in the case of objects like a Ouija board. That's more often when there's symbols involved that are attached to entities and such like runes, tarot trumps, etc.
Friend: OK, that's what I thought. Never hurts to check from another angle.
Odin: It might matter the specific instance of any given board, mind you, the history of that *particular* thing, but that's different.
Friend: Yes
And that's not the whole conversation! But the rest was too personal.
-E-
