![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(With apologies to Matthew the Evangelist.)
[ This will be rambly and disjointed, because the DayQuil is mighty. ]
Okay. Definitional blither first. "Right-hand path" and "Left-hand path" are the sort of things that people bicker over all the damn time. Some of the divisions (okay, that's the second word I've had to go back and add letters to to fix; I suspect I'll miss some of these) I've seen are group or society-organised vs. individual-focused, ascetic vs. hedonistic, conformist vs. transgressional, light vs. dark (in both ways related to the way I use those words and more moralistic ones), absolutist vs. relativist, heavenly vs. worldly, uh. . . stuff in that vein.
Me being me, I think of Herw-Wr and Set.
S'a fascinating dualism, Them. But I think the heart of that Mystery is remembering that the Nisut is crowned by both Herw and Set, one on each side: that this needs both. And Heru organises, brings people together, contains kingship within Himself, the capacity to bring people together into large groups, that sense of heirarchy and order and union. And Set brings personal strength, the power of the individual, the sense of loneness and separateness and the quiet of the desert.
And Nisut needs both. Both red and black, both community and individual.
It was commented on the HON boards recently that redheads and the lefthanded are considered particularly under the protection of Set. (Redheads I knew. Left-handed doesn't surprise me.)
Which brings me back to RHP and LHP again, conveniently enough.
An organised community, a set of ways, an orthopraxy, those all strike me as being intrinsically RHP. These are Heru's ways, the joining of these variety of elements into a coherent whole, having union among them, identity, organisation, rulership: the assembly of these disparate elements into something larger, grander, more capable.
And Set will test those structures for weakness, overturn the ones which are not capable of meeting His strength, acknowledge the ones which meet His standards of competence, test Himself against Himself every day, and against His brother too, become ever more Himself even at the cost of communiion with others, and every so often say, "Fuck the lot of you" and go off into the desert to do His own thing. Left-handed Set.
Too much of the right hand will stagnate, will become hidebound and reactionary, will break or drive away innovators, will not be able to match outside challenges. Too much of the left hand accomplishes nothing; there is no space for working-with, only working-at or working-alone, and perfect solitude is perfect solipsism.
All religions, all new philosophies, begin on the left hand; they challenge something, they reshape, they find something inadequate and go out into the desert to find a new oasis. They are responding to an inadequacy, either challenging it or finding something else entirely. Some of these new things remain there, individual, unexpressable, going off into wordless spiritualities or philosophies that are too distant from the group to be conveyed or shared. And some change hands, smooth as a juggler, accumulating others, going from the wilderness to a track to a way to a paved road, and settle comfortably on the right, on the way of Horus, where there is that union around the principle.
And from that right-hand way, there grow left-handed paths, challenging the deficiencies of the old vision, going forth into still-uncharted or perhaps forgotten territory and bringing back new treasures. And perhaps the right-hand way can incorporate these things comfortably and become richer, wealthier in assimilated ways; many do, of the strongest, of the most nuanced, layering way upon way as they develop space and thought and meaning. But some of those, following the call of their vision, will go off on their own and find and forge something different, a counter or an evolution or a transformation or leaping out into the darkness from the ledge built by Heru's mighty hands. There would be no left hand without the right.
If this is working well, this growth and enfolding becomes a part of the cycle of living, of thinking. People will find points of union; it is in the nature of people. (Dua Heru!) People will find points of disagreement; it is in the nature of people. (Dua Set!) The interlacing of these things is where true strength comes from, and true leadership; knowing which is which, knowing when the ways of solitude and difference fold into the ways of union, and knowing when pooled resources split forth to each gather their diverse ways. It's an intricate dance. (And no, I didn't need the visual of Set and Heru tangoing, thank You Guys very much. Put the rose down. Augh.)
It breaks down in a whole variety of weird and messy ways. Enforced conformity and various forms of assault on those people who don't fit the established system. People breaking themselves to fit in. Those folks who are always down on "religion" as a bad word. "Wicca is whatever you want it to be", denying any sort of systematisation or shared meaning. Dissolution.
Alienation in general. That's the thing with Set that I think is a tricky nuance to get a hold on. He challenges, He isn't the "team player". He's on the edges, the fringes. But He still brings back what He can, his strength, and puts it forward into the system; the system includes Him, He still stands against Apep in the sun barque. The left hand is still a part of the body.
Also, Heru cannot gather the strengths of many into union unless they have strengths. And having strengths isn't something that other people do, it's something that's settled in the inside. The strength of the community must rest on the backs of the strengths of individual contributions. The right hand is still only a part of the body.
I tend towards the left-hand side of things, the path out on my own; I know this. But I also know, and occasionally have to recognise again, that I can't do that without a structure that I can bring with me, without a right-hand path to define at least what is known and what is not. If I don't have that, I just flail around uselessly, grabbing ideas and not having ways to arrange them, discarding concepts without having a clear sense of why they don't work.
Keep dancing.
Have a rose.
Dua Heru-Ur!
Dua Set!
[ This will be rambly and disjointed, because the DayQuil is mighty. ]
Okay. Definitional blither first. "Right-hand path" and "Left-hand path" are the sort of things that people bicker over all the damn time. Some of the divisions (okay, that's the second word I've had to go back and add letters to to fix; I suspect I'll miss some of these) I've seen are group or society-organised vs. individual-focused, ascetic vs. hedonistic, conformist vs. transgressional, light vs. dark (in both ways related to the way I use those words and more moralistic ones), absolutist vs. relativist, heavenly vs. worldly, uh. . . stuff in that vein.
Me being me, I think of Herw-Wr and Set.
S'a fascinating dualism, Them. But I think the heart of that Mystery is remembering that the Nisut is crowned by both Herw and Set, one on each side: that this needs both. And Heru organises, brings people together, contains kingship within Himself, the capacity to bring people together into large groups, that sense of heirarchy and order and union. And Set brings personal strength, the power of the individual, the sense of loneness and separateness and the quiet of the desert.
And Nisut needs both. Both red and black, both community and individual.
It was commented on the HON boards recently that redheads and the lefthanded are considered particularly under the protection of Set. (Redheads I knew. Left-handed doesn't surprise me.)
Which brings me back to RHP and LHP again, conveniently enough.
An organised community, a set of ways, an orthopraxy, those all strike me as being intrinsically RHP. These are Heru's ways, the joining of these variety of elements into a coherent whole, having union among them, identity, organisation, rulership: the assembly of these disparate elements into something larger, grander, more capable.
And Set will test those structures for weakness, overturn the ones which are not capable of meeting His strength, acknowledge the ones which meet His standards of competence, test Himself against Himself every day, and against His brother too, become ever more Himself even at the cost of communiion with others, and every so often say, "Fuck the lot of you" and go off into the desert to do His own thing. Left-handed Set.
Too much of the right hand will stagnate, will become hidebound and reactionary, will break or drive away innovators, will not be able to match outside challenges. Too much of the left hand accomplishes nothing; there is no space for working-with, only working-at or working-alone, and perfect solitude is perfect solipsism.
All religions, all new philosophies, begin on the left hand; they challenge something, they reshape, they find something inadequate and go out into the desert to find a new oasis. They are responding to an inadequacy, either challenging it or finding something else entirely. Some of these new things remain there, individual, unexpressable, going off into wordless spiritualities or philosophies that are too distant from the group to be conveyed or shared. And some change hands, smooth as a juggler, accumulating others, going from the wilderness to a track to a way to a paved road, and settle comfortably on the right, on the way of Horus, where there is that union around the principle.
And from that right-hand way, there grow left-handed paths, challenging the deficiencies of the old vision, going forth into still-uncharted or perhaps forgotten territory and bringing back new treasures. And perhaps the right-hand way can incorporate these things comfortably and become richer, wealthier in assimilated ways; many do, of the strongest, of the most nuanced, layering way upon way as they develop space and thought and meaning. But some of those, following the call of their vision, will go off on their own and find and forge something different, a counter or an evolution or a transformation or leaping out into the darkness from the ledge built by Heru's mighty hands. There would be no left hand without the right.
If this is working well, this growth and enfolding becomes a part of the cycle of living, of thinking. People will find points of union; it is in the nature of people. (Dua Heru!) People will find points of disagreement; it is in the nature of people. (Dua Set!) The interlacing of these things is where true strength comes from, and true leadership; knowing which is which, knowing when the ways of solitude and difference fold into the ways of union, and knowing when pooled resources split forth to each gather their diverse ways. It's an intricate dance. (And no, I didn't need the visual of Set and Heru tangoing, thank You Guys very much. Put the rose down. Augh.)
It breaks down in a whole variety of weird and messy ways. Enforced conformity and various forms of assault on those people who don't fit the established system. People breaking themselves to fit in. Those folks who are always down on "religion" as a bad word. "Wicca is whatever you want it to be", denying any sort of systematisation or shared meaning. Dissolution.
Alienation in general. That's the thing with Set that I think is a tricky nuance to get a hold on. He challenges, He isn't the "team player". He's on the edges, the fringes. But He still brings back what He can, his strength, and puts it forward into the system; the system includes Him, He still stands against Apep in the sun barque. The left hand is still a part of the body.
Also, Heru cannot gather the strengths of many into union unless they have strengths. And having strengths isn't something that other people do, it's something that's settled in the inside. The strength of the community must rest on the backs of the strengths of individual contributions. The right hand is still only a part of the body.
I tend towards the left-hand side of things, the path out on my own; I know this. But I also know, and occasionally have to recognise again, that I can't do that without a structure that I can bring with me, without a right-hand path to define at least what is known and what is not. If I don't have that, I just flail around uselessly, grabbing ideas and not having ways to arrange them, discarding concepts without having a clear sense of why they don't work.
Keep dancing.
Have a rose.
Dua Heru-Ur!
Dua Set!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
HekersebeqenAset
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Though I'll admit it sometimes leads to fascinating and slightly demented conversations, like the one I had a while back about Yinepu's bling-bling . . .
From:
no subject
From:
no subject