On Bestiary
Introduction
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone reading this: The ancients viewed the world much differently than we moderns do.
As I’ve been reading through more and more books on spiritual exegesis, symbolism, and the biblical worldview, I’ve come to understand that for the ancients, everything had a deeper spiritual meaning.
In his book, The Language of Creation, Matthieu Pageau distinguishes between the modern materialistic view of the world and the ancient spiritual view of the world stating, “[The] Spiritual Perspective [asks] what does it mean? What truth does it embody? [The] Material Perspective [asks] how does it work? What material is it made of?”
Since reading and reflecting upon this, I have found it to be true. Until I read this work by Pageau, I didn’t realize how materialistic my worldview was and in some ways still is. Upon reflection, I realize that in some ways I was very much like Tolkien’s Misomythus from Mythopeia who simply looked at trees and labeled them so. Pageau’s work and similar works have helped me to see the world through new eyes, and have helped me to realize that there’s an unseen realm lurking just behind everything.
Discovering The Bestiary
After reading Pagaeu’s work, I started taking up a practice I learned from C.S. Lewis and Jonathan Edwards, which is the practice of meditation.
Lewis practiced meditation in his toolshed. Edwards would ride his horse off into the mountains and practice meditation there. I started taking up the practice while sitting on my porch in the mornings with a journal, cup of coffee, and jotting down some reflections on creation. As for my practice, I simply look at various parts of the creation, and I ask the questions “what does this mean and what higher spiritual truth does it point to?”
Not long into putting this way of viewing the world into practice, I stumbled across a long-forgotten, yet helpful tool called the Bestiary.
The Bestiary basically takes up this same task, but rather than being reflections on all of creation, it served as a compendium of traditional stories and lore concerning beasts and their characteristics. It also often provided mystical and symbolic interpretations of these beasts in light of the Gospel.
Since discovering the Bestiary, I have been fascinated by reading the symbolic interpretations of these beasts in light of the Gospel that the Medievals provided. I use it as a sort of cheat sheet to “check my work” against; to see if I’m thinking in the same way when it comes to providing my own Beastiary meditations.
Concluding Thoughts
And, that’s really the purpose of this post. I wanted to introduce you, dear reader, to this wild and wonderful world that I have (re)discovered because I plan on providing you with my own Beastiary thoughts here on the Sword and Staff.
These thoughts won’t be long. They’ll basically be short reflections from my morning porch meditations. But, they’ll be here for you to read, nonetheless.
My hope for this project is really twofold: First, I want to sharpen my own thinking of the world from a symbolic perspective. Second, I’m hoping my reflections on the symbolic nature of the world cause you to reflect on it in the same manner.
I believe that one of the things we need right now is a recovery of symbolic thinking. I believe that being reared in materialism has naturally led to many to nihilism. There is so much meaning in the world that we can’t see simply because we’re not asking the right questions. I’m hoping these reflections become a small tool in helping us all to see the world in a more meaningful way.
