All In for Anthuor (1)
A way forward
PREFACE: A CONDEMNATION
- It’s our turn to condemn you.
- If you’ve come to understand that every interaction you have within your ecosystem must have Kindness and Consideration for the Least as its foundation, then congratulations, you’ve graduated beyond the main lesson of every single ethical teacher humanity has ever produced. If you haven’t come to that understanding, hopefully you can figure it out before it’s too late: The Outer Darkness awaits.
- The Outer Darkness is where you’re sent if you can’t fix your heart. If you can’t fix your heart, you’re Doomed.
- If you put “profits before people,” you’re Doomed.
- If you put “prophets before people,” you’re Doomed.
- The days when you could dither about “climate change” are behind us. If you deny human-caused climate change, you’re Doomed.
- If you pour toxins into the ground, or spray them in the air, or dump them into water or onto food, you’re Doomed.
- If you choose to celebrate hatred, or believe in your tribe’s/culture’s/religion’s/gender’s “inherent superiority,” you’re Doomed.
- If you don’t want to be cast into the Outer Darkness, you’re going to need salvation.
- Innovation won’t save you. Entrepreneurship won’t save you. Politics won’t save you. Even Anthuor won’t save you.
- But Anthuor might help.
The People of Anthuor are returning from the depths of the Hypogeum. The Magicians are emerging from the Fountain, and the Maiden is summoning the Seekers to Withstand the coming times.
Ancient Quatria
The ancient Quatrians, a pre-shamanic people, dwelt across the face of the Earth, in places that are now sunken or gone. These Quatrians understood their role in the ecosystem, that Nature is not something to “go to,” and as a part of that system, marshaled it, cultivated it without poisoning it, lived as part of it.
They lived relatively peaceful lives, participating in “wild cultivation” and “garden foraging,” not getting all upset if someone who had a raw deal or was unlucky in life got to eat as much as everyone else. People spent their ample free time playing music (a lot of bagpipes) and making interesting art, and talking via radio waves, and telling stories during the annual Brassica Festival, the Brassicalia.
During the Quatrian Age, nobody took themselves so damned seriously. One of the main reasons for this relaxed attitude towards existence was their pre-shamanic understanding of the overlap between “our world” and the Liminality, or world of spirits.
What do we mean by pre-shamanism? Pre-shamanic refers to a spiritual way of being that pre-dates “Siberian shamanism.” Shamanism depends upon entering an “altered state of consciousness” in order to interact with the world of spirits. Pre-shamanic practice doesn’t require this altered state of consciousness; it views “consciousness” as a continuum that exists within both the Liminality and “this world.” No state of consciousness can be “altered.”
Within the Quatrian pre-shamanic understanding of being, there was no separation between the spirit world and this world. Thus, interactions between “spirits” and entities in this world could just as readily be instigated by the spirits. The impulse towards “interaction with the spirits” originates both from the spirits and
The Quatrians didn’t see a difference in “quality of being” between anything containing “Life Force,” be it a spirit, or a plant, or a rock, or a river, or a stick, or an animal, or a human. All of these different containers of “Life Force” were persons.
This viewpoint had some important impacts on Quatrian life. They lived in a spirit-filled landscape, where (for example) most manifestations of the world of spirit were seen as relatively mundane. For instance, a small, unexpected flutter on the cheek could be the ghost of a horsefly.
Then again, these manifestations could also be profound and substantive. A core “cast” of major spirits (not necessarily “gods,” more like “the Ultimate Ancestors”) guided and protected the Quatrians during their day-to-day explorations of existence. Entities like Anthuor, who typically manifests with antlers (NOT related to the neopagan “antlered dude”), or the Maiden (NOT related to the “Goddess”), who guides seekers, taught the Quatrians how to safely and effectively learn from, and interact with, the other entities around them. We’ll return to these spirits later.
Life for the Quatrians was SUPER FUN. People weren’t “rich” or “poor” (though some people were assholes, sure; this is a universal constant). Everybody always had enough to eat. They had crazy magical technologies that “worked,” that were just as cool and interesting as “iPhones” or “Amazon Echoes.” More importantly, nobody cared too much what other people thought of them.
In Catching the Big Fish, director David Lynch makes the following statement: “We’re supposed to have so much fun, like puppy dogs with our tails wagging. It’s supposed to be great living; it’s supposed to be fantastic.” This describes the society of the Ancient Quatrians.
Then, one day, the weather started to change….
Proceed to Part Two:
