Imbolc was a reasonably fantastic day for us. However if you have the fortune (sic) of going to Anglesey you will realise that the coastal areas are quite nice but…it’s a bit barren in the middle. So it was that Imbolc was pretty tree-less and since I am rather partial to Trees I wasn’t having any of it.
It being a wonderful sunny, but with a hefty cold breeze I decide to hove of to my all time favourite Tree. Yes, you got it “Ye olde Yew”
Alas, on the way I got a bit lost – darned sat nav! and so I didn’t arrive there until the sun had well and truly hit the dirt.
Still with a cloudless night the stars were lovely in the heavens. And to boot the ice cold wind had abated so it was looking to be a fine evening of contemplation and dowsing.
And so it was…Almost immediately I was in state and conversing with my ol’ friend. and what a conversation was to be had, on so many levels. Please note that I am typing really fast lest it fade from mind.
It began, inevitably about wand lore. I won’t go into that here as it rather nicely fits in over at The Wand Maker website [Chris: Not in existence now]. However after this came the subject of 117.
Side Note: for the last couple of weeks (has it only been that?) I have had this number floating around my head. I divined its origins to be something to do with wand making but apart from that I couldn’t find any other relevance (actually even in wand making it had no relevance!)
Anyways, I have been pondering it on and off and trying to avoid getting into the scenario where I was seeing it everywhere, just like the film Number 23
23
Don’t want to end a loon like that guy huh?
So, I was sitting nicely amongst the graves and Yew tree (hmmm ok…) when the number 117 popped into my head.
What does 117 mean I asked, Is it meaningful? The answer was a yes. Oh, and would you like to explain why? Because you have made it so. Did I do something to make it meaningful? Yes. What did I do? You made it meaningful. How did I do that? By making it meaningful. I know, but how? What did I do? You made it meaningful.
OK so now I’m thinking of Jim Carrey here i.e. going nuts. Then intuition (as it does hit me) Do you mean I made it meaningful because I thought it was. Yes. But does it have meaning other than what I ascribe to it? No.
Obviously this was going in circles (spirals?) and I wasn’t getting anywhere, or was I? 117 has only the meaning I give it? Yes. Why did I give it some meaning. I don’t know, ask yourself that. Oh lovely – obviously The Trickster was about someplace.
Does 117 inherently have any meaning? Only to you, because you have made it so. Now you should use it. Ah…interesting…Use it how? Make your plans divisible by it, multiples of it. You mean like 117 days? Yes, and 58.5 and 39 and 19.5 and 234 hours, days.
So is 117 related to time? No, But…117 is nothing, it is an illusion, it means nothing! But…You gave it meaning, it has meaning for you and yet it has no meaning.
And then, wow a penny dropped with a huge tidal wave. I’m conning myself aren’t I? Yes (and I could feel the smile). Is this like controlled folly? Exactly like that but with a hint of stupidity, Instead of practicing it on others you are practicing on yourself.
Side note: For those who are not versed in the Shamanistic world of Carlos Castaneda, here are some of his words or rather his teacher’s words on the matter…
“I told you once that our lot as men is to learn, for good or bad,” he said. “I have learned to see and I tell you that nothing really matters; now it is your turn; perhaps someday you will see and you will know then whether things matter or not. For me nothing matters, but perhaps for you everything will. You should know by now that a man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting. A man of knowledge chooses a path with heart and follows it; and then he looks and rejoices and laughs; and then he sees and he knows. He knows that his life will be over altogether too soon; he knows that he, as well as everybody else, is not going anywhere; he knows, because he sees, that nothing is more important than anything else.
In other words, a man of knowledge has no honor, no dignity, no family, no name, no country, but only life to be lived, and under these circumstances his only tie to his fellow men is his controlled folly. Thus a man of knowledge endeavors, and sweats, and puffs, and if one looks at him he is just like any ordinary man, except that the folly of his life is under control.
Nothing being more important than anything else, a man of knowledge chooses any act, and acts it out as if it matters to him. His controlled folly makes him say that what he does matters and makes him act as if it did, and yet he knows that it doesn’t; so when he fulfills his acts he retreats in peace, and whether his acts were good or bad, or worked or didn’t, is in no way part of his concern. A man of knowledge may choose, on the other hand, to remain totally impassive and never act, and behave as if to be impassive really matters to him; he will be rightfully true at that too, because that would also be his controlled folly.”
So what should I do? Carry on practicing it…It has meaning for you now. But that meaning is a lie…So? Er…So its a lie, an illusion, Maya…Isn’t that wonderful? Think about it.
And I did think about it for ages. And it makes a kind of weird sense that is difficult to explain because the reader needs to understand Castaneda’s use of “controlled folly” to understand the…how can I say it, funny side of this. Let me have a go…
It’s like making up an arbitrary fictional goalpost and trying to score a goal in it, whilst all the while knowing that there is no post, ball, indeed, there is no game. But you still try really hard to score.
This was only a part of tonight’s star-filled commune with Ye olde Yew – more later.
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