On this night of the great fire festival of Beltane and of the amok time of Witches Night, in which we traditionally burned effigies of ourselves into which are summoned all of the negative qualities and things we would destroy and recreate in ourselves, or leave behind as we enter the future and explore new possibilities of becoming human free of our former limits and of colonization by authority, and of transgression of the boundaries of the Forbidden, let us embrace our monstrosity and say of this secret twin who knows no limits and is free as Prospero says of Caliban in Act V, Scene 1 of William Shakespeare ’s The Tempest; “This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.”
Waelburga, whose name in Old High German which emerged from the unifying conquest of Charlemagne means Refuge of the Dead, a form of the Three Fates and weaver whose symbols as a fertility goddess are a priapic dog named the Nahrungshund or Nourishment Hound, and a bundle of grain, is chased for nine nights before the first of May by the Wild Hunt and offered sanctuary in a bale of grain within a triangular symbol of the female organ of generation and of transformation, rebirth, seasonal change, and the peaceful transfer of political power called a valknut, which also declares a place of sanctuary beyond all law.
The Valknut is today a unifying symbol of Norse and Germannic paganism, and is also historically used to memorialize warriors slain in battle, as on the Tängelgårda Stone on the island of Gottland and associated with Odin, with seidr or poetic vision, and in its unicursal form as a continuous path of three interlocking triangles symbolizes Infinity as a kind of Moebius Loop. Snorri Sturluson describes it as the heart of the jötunn Hrungnir in the Skáldskaparmál as “three sharp-pointed corners just like the carved symbol hrungnishjarta.” This makes it a symbol both of Odin as a death and battle god and of Waelburga as the Great Mother goddess in her aspect as death and winter; a unitary symbol of the chthonic forces of both masculinity and femininity as coequals and King and Queen of the Wild Hunt.
May Day is a time of maypoles, courtship, and celebrations of the arrival of Spring and of fertility as a festival of light; but tonight is a festival of darkness, wildness, and of the flight of the forces of winter before the coming of spring, an order which will once again be reversed in half a year as the forces of darkness and light share rulership of our world.
Walpurgisnacht is a mirror image of Halloween, in which we may enter the spirit world through the Labyrinth of the Gates of Dreams rather than one wherein spirits may enter our world as intrusive forces, which together divide the year at six months to a day. Dance and music, feasts, derangement of the senses and forbidden sexuality, and the use of psychedelics in ecstatic vision in the flying ritual, but most especially the enactment of unauthorized identities and transgressive personae through masquerade, are all part of the carnival aspects of these rites of spring. As with Tibetan mask dances, sometimes we must let our demons out to play. The purpose is to break the bonds of the old order, and achieve a new vision of ourselves.
As written by Octave Mirbeau; “Monsters, monsters! But there are no monsters! What you call monsters are superior forms, or forms beyond your understanding. Aren’t the gods monsters? Isn’t a man of genius a monster, like a tiger or a spider, like all individuals who live beyond social lies, in the dazzling and divine immortality of things? Why, I too then-am a monster!”
I question and challenge the idea of normality, the authorization of identities, and the tyranny of other people’s ideas of virtue.
When you begin to question the boundary and interface between normality as authorized identity and transgression as seizure of power, between subjugation and liberty, the grotesque and the beautiful, idealizations of masculinity and femininity, of madness and vision, and to challenge the tyranny of other people’s ideas of virtue, you enter my world, the place of unknowns and the limitless possibilities of becoming human, marked Here Be Dragons on our maps of human being, meaning, and value.
Welcome to freedom and its wonders and terrors; to reimagination, transformation, and discovery. May the new truths you forge bring you joy.
Dreams of Walpurgisnacht
Tonight I will not sleep
But I will dream
For in dreams
We forge new truths
Cast off your illusions
With me and together
We will remake the oaths and bindings
Of our world
We will transgress the boundaries
Of the Forbidden
And discover new identities and
Dimensions of human being
Unleash the thousands of myriads
Of our forms
And reawaken the wildness of nature
And the wildness of ourselves.
German:
Träume von Walpurgisnacht
Heute Nacht werde ich nicht schlafen
Aber ich werde träumen
Denn in Träumen
Wir schmieden neue Wahrheiten
Lass deine Illusionen los
Mit mir und zusammen
Wir werden die Eide und Bindungen neu machen
Von unserer Welt
Wir werden die Grenzen überschreiten
Vom Verbotenen
Und neue Identitäten entdecken und
Dimensionen des Menschen
Entfessle die Tausenden von Myriaden
Von unseren Formen
Und erwecke die Wildheit der Natur wieder
Und die Wildheit von uns.
Norwegian:
Drømmer om Hekser Natt
I kveld skal jeg ikke sove
Men jeg vil drømme
For i drømmer
Vi forfalske nye sannheter
Kast av illusjonene dine
Med meg og sammen
Vi vil gjenskape edene og bindingene
Av vår verden
Vi vil overskride grensene
Av de forbudte
Og oppdage nye identiteter og
Mål av menneske
Slipp løs de tusenvis av myriader
Av våre former
Og vekke naturens villskap på nytt
Og villskapen til oss selv.
The Tempest, William Shakespeare
The Torture Garden, Octave Mirbeau
Walpurgisnacht, Gustav Meyrink
http://www.friggasweb.org/walburga.html
Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and the Ghostly Processions of the Undead, by Claude Lecouteux
Torch of Liberty 
Leave a comment