Thank you for this. So very heartening to read something that considers the whole of what is happening. Wonder if you might have any information on the assertion that Ukraine is the center of world wide sex trafficking?
Jung said something similar (re hyperreal) that touches on this: when the gods are banished, they come back as symptoms. We must ask ourselves, james hillman later said, Who benefits when the gods are banished from the world? And as vaclav Havel said as well, There are powers against whom it is wise not to blaspheme. And certainly i would put the gods Jung and HIllman were speaking of in that category.
Everyone keeps putting the entire discussion in an essentially psychological/political context and then fighting over who said what, who is most loyal to the right cause, who is a traitor. one thing that became apparent to me during my years as a psychotherapist: there can be no healing for schizophrenia if the focus is kept on the psychological, it just keeps going round and round the wound and can never escape. Understanding has to move into more mythic territory in order to explain that kind of wound. Once explained their journey becomes a mythic journey, they are no longer trapped in the narrative.
The human world is caught in mythic movements now but keeps insisting the narrative be kept in a more limited, mundane explanatory frame. And that always comes down to the rational. IF ONLY we do this or that we can control outcomes and there will be no more pain EVER. Everything will work out fine, no more war, not more killing, we will all get along forever and forever amen. The problem is that rationality is not going to solve our problems (and this is a VERY heretical position and comment). we cannot rationally order the world for there is more going on here than rationality understands or can explain . . . and so it continually leaves out essential aspects of the problems we face.
the best analysis of this i have read is Voltaire's bastards: the tyranny of reason in the west by John Ralston Saul.
Once mythic patterns begin expressing themselves powerfully in human affairs (simply due to their oppression for decades, our denial) they will always play themselves out. Truth: as deep throat said: these are not very bright guys and things just got out of hand. We are in for a long bumpy ride, there is a long way to go yet before all the suppressed energy can play itself out. Then the hangover begins, the long look inward, the why oh why did we do that, why did we have that 8th martini?
I'm super creeped out by the portrayal of Zelensky as "sexy freedom fighter". With all the violence against women's rights and LGBT groups and against minorities in Ukraine and now American leftists are portraying themselves as groupies for the leader of one of the most corrupt nations on Earth because Russia attacked? Keep your underwear on, please. Yes, Russia sucks. But as much as I wish this had never happened to the Ukranian people, as far as their government- it just couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, huh?
Mar 4, 2022·edited Mar 4, 2022Liked by Rhyd Wildermuth
I have been watching the discourse on the Azov Battalion. They seem to have progressed in the Ukrainian scene from ultra-nationalist skinheads to functioning paramilitaries fighting against the Russian-backed Donbass separatists to regular Army "heroic defenders of Mariupol who will save their city or go down fighting." You can follow them on Twitter.
There is also a Pagan angle.
Watch this promotional video, made before the current war, at about the 4-minute mark. https://youtu.be/pVLs5_qii-4
It's like the "Hail [name of deity]" opening was edited out. A casual viewer might think they are invoking the Abrahamic god. I don't think so. Friends more expert on Eastern European Paganism/Native Faith say they probably are invoking Svarog, god of fire, smithcraft, and in some versions, a typical Indo-European Sky Father.
There is a ceremony later in which some fallen comrades are honored. Very trad indo-European warrior-cult stuff.
Towards the end, a leader says that the unit is less "ideological" than it used to be, which fits with other reports that I have seen that describe Azov as more just an elite military formation and only 10-15 percent ultra-nationalist.
Even more weirdly, I get reports that the Wagner Group, the infamous Russian mercenaries who operated in Syria and now Ukraine, are led by Rodnoverie followers (Russian Native Faith). Can't offer a citation, it was private communication, but from someone with long-standing deep contacts into the Native Faith scenes.
Thank you for reintroducing me to Angie Speaks! And reading your posts along w Gordon White's has helped me re-frame my whole experience of what is going on. I was stuck in following news that presented the "other side" from mainstream narrative about Ukraine, because I've known for 50+ yrs that Ukraine was more complicated/hundreds of yrs' history than the West has narrated. BTW- I sometimes like Jeremy Nell's (Jerm Warfare) interviews, and he posted a video of an American former military the US describes as a "far Right Russian sympathizer," living in Donetsk. In the video, he feeds his black cats in his kitchen, and that touched me on a deep level more than carefully crafted Western media photos of "suffering Ukrainians" (about whom that media didn't give a crap 6 months ago). That & life experience of working for scientists 40 yrs ago who were trying to de-escalate Cold War violent rhetoric w scientific exchanges.
Thank you for this. So very heartening to read something that considers the whole of what is happening. Wonder if you might have any information on the assertion that Ukraine is the center of world wide sex trafficking?
Jung said something similar (re hyperreal) that touches on this: when the gods are banished, they come back as symptoms. We must ask ourselves, james hillman later said, Who benefits when the gods are banished from the world? And as vaclav Havel said as well, There are powers against whom it is wise not to blaspheme. And certainly i would put the gods Jung and HIllman were speaking of in that category.
Everyone keeps putting the entire discussion in an essentially psychological/political context and then fighting over who said what, who is most loyal to the right cause, who is a traitor. one thing that became apparent to me during my years as a psychotherapist: there can be no healing for schizophrenia if the focus is kept on the psychological, it just keeps going round and round the wound and can never escape. Understanding has to move into more mythic territory in order to explain that kind of wound. Once explained their journey becomes a mythic journey, they are no longer trapped in the narrative.
The human world is caught in mythic movements now but keeps insisting the narrative be kept in a more limited, mundane explanatory frame. And that always comes down to the rational. IF ONLY we do this or that we can control outcomes and there will be no more pain EVER. Everything will work out fine, no more war, not more killing, we will all get along forever and forever amen. The problem is that rationality is not going to solve our problems (and this is a VERY heretical position and comment). we cannot rationally order the world for there is more going on here than rationality understands or can explain . . . and so it continually leaves out essential aspects of the problems we face.
the best analysis of this i have read is Voltaire's bastards: the tyranny of reason in the west by John Ralston Saul.
Once mythic patterns begin expressing themselves powerfully in human affairs (simply due to their oppression for decades, our denial) they will always play themselves out. Truth: as deep throat said: these are not very bright guys and things just got out of hand. We are in for a long bumpy ride, there is a long way to go yet before all the suppressed energy can play itself out. Then the hangover begins, the long look inward, the why oh why did we do that, why did we have that 8th martini?
good post btw, thanks.
I'm super creeped out by the portrayal of Zelensky as "sexy freedom fighter". With all the violence against women's rights and LGBT groups and against minorities in Ukraine and now American leftists are portraying themselves as groupies for the leader of one of the most corrupt nations on Earth because Russia attacked? Keep your underwear on, please. Yes, Russia sucks. But as much as I wish this had never happened to the Ukranian people, as far as their government- it just couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, huh?
I have been watching the discourse on the Azov Battalion. They seem to have progressed in the Ukrainian scene from ultra-nationalist skinheads to functioning paramilitaries fighting against the Russian-backed Donbass separatists to regular Army "heroic defenders of Mariupol who will save their city or go down fighting." You can follow them on Twitter.
There is also a Pagan angle.
Watch this promotional video, made before the current war, at about the 4-minute mark. https://youtu.be/pVLs5_qii-4
It's like the "Hail [name of deity]" opening was edited out. A casual viewer might think they are invoking the Abrahamic god. I don't think so. Friends more expert on Eastern European Paganism/Native Faith say they probably are invoking Svarog, god of fire, smithcraft, and in some versions, a typical Indo-European Sky Father.
There is a ceremony later in which some fallen comrades are honored. Very trad indo-European warrior-cult stuff.
Towards the end, a leader says that the unit is less "ideological" than it used to be, which fits with other reports that I have seen that describe Azov as more just an elite military formation and only 10-15 percent ultra-nationalist.
Even more weirdly, I get reports that the Wagner Group, the infamous Russian mercenaries who operated in Syria and now Ukraine, are led by Rodnoverie followers (Russian Native Faith). Can't offer a citation, it was private communication, but from someone with long-standing deep contacts into the Native Faith scenes.
Thank you for reintroducing me to Angie Speaks! And reading your posts along w Gordon White's has helped me re-frame my whole experience of what is going on. I was stuck in following news that presented the "other side" from mainstream narrative about Ukraine, because I've known for 50+ yrs that Ukraine was more complicated/hundreds of yrs' history than the West has narrated. BTW- I sometimes like Jeremy Nell's (Jerm Warfare) interviews, and he posted a video of an American former military the US describes as a "far Right Russian sympathizer," living in Donetsk. In the video, he feeds his black cats in his kitchen, and that touched me on a deep level more than carefully crafted Western media photos of "suffering Ukrainians" (about whom that media didn't give a crap 6 months ago). That & life experience of working for scientists 40 yrs ago who were trying to de-escalate Cold War violent rhetoric w scientific exchanges.