It is no coincidence that initiation rituals frequently involve a ceremonial death and rebirth. The transformation from outsider to dedicant involves deep change within the individual's interior and exterior life. Initiation does not just provide access to the Mysteries: it grants membership in a social group and entails new rights and responsibilities. The person who leaves the initiatory chamber may be very different than the person who went in. This change can be disorienting and traumatic: in putting aside childish things you put aside a way of life which had its joys as well as its miseries. Kenaz reminds us that wisdom comes with a price and that every fire must be fed.
The fire of Kenaz is not one that can easily be snuffed out. If you try to contain it, it will break free and burn its way through you like an ulcer eating its way through your skin. Those who have experienced "shaman sickness" - the mental and physical upheaval that can take place when the Gods reinvent Their chosen clergy to better suit Their purposes - know all too well how painful the process of enlightenment can be. The sores with which Norwegian and Icelandic poets identified Kenaz also served to mark their bearers as a people set apart - not as cool, dangerous magicians but as diseased lepers shunned by decent folk. Wisdom does not always bring profit to the wise: those who think otherwise are encouraged to read H.G. Wells' classic short story, "The Country of the Blind."
But if it is channeled Kenaz can become the fire of inspiration. Kenaz is connected with smithing, the transformation of raw ore into weapons, armor and artwork. It can also be the flame which purifies, cauterizing wounds and burning away impurities. Like the Christian legend of the Holy Spirit descending as fire, Kenaz can enflame you with new ardor and zeal. If you are suffering from ennui or feel that you have "lost the spark" in your job or your relationship, Kenaz can rekindle those old flames and remind you why you once felt so passionate. It is not the blinding mystical inspiration of Wunjo: Kenaz is a much more practical rune. It provides a way out of the darkness or an elegant solution to a problem: it concerns itself less with the ways of the Gods and more with the ways of our world.
Yet despite this (another paradox!) Kenaz is intimately connected to the Divine. It is the creative fire which Prometheus stole from heaven and brought to the mortals: it is the place where Spirit and Matter meet, like the meeting of Fire and Ice which created the Nine Worlds of Norse legend. It makes the mundane holy and the sacred useful. Kenaz is the spark of divinity which burns within each of us, that light which reminds us of where we have come from and where we are going, the flame which is fueled by our bodies and our lives. It is the fire which strips away the dross from us and makes us something greater: it is the light which illuminates the truth and sanctifies that which is profane.
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6 comments:
Kenaz reminds me of the Black Stage of the Great Work. You apply heat at varying temperatures, high at first, then low and steady. As the heat is absorbed into the Prime Materia, it begins to char. Impurities rise to the surface. In my personal Work, whenever I begin a new phase of the Work, I go through the Black Phase in whatever area I'm Working on. I often get an outcropping of various sores physically to reflect the detoxification I'm going through spiritually. Pimples and swollen glands and allergic reactions, that kind of thing. It's become a "tell," an indicator of success, and a warning to watch my attitude and the judgments of my heart. when the shit rises to the surface, I turn right into a creepy ass hat with bitter bile in the tongue.
Consistent applied heat, or channeled Kenaz with intent eventually cleans that out, and as the crap that rose to the surface continues to calcinate and turns from char to ash, it goes from the Black stage to the White stage. It's worth the journey.
But honestly, what happens more often than I like to admit is the fires of Kenaz burn out of control, destroying the Primum Materia and putting me back to square one, burned, pained, and scarred.
It is SO not the Great Easy.
But yeah, Kenaz, catalyst for change.
"... every fire must be fed."
And imprisoned within the fireplace or ring of stones (or later, glass chimney, steel furnace, etc.), and watched to see that it does not escape. For fire, the "good servant and bad master," has no friends, and will turn on you given a moment's chance. Its archetypal character? Tricky and treacherous red-haired Loki, who at the dark dwarves' challenge swiftly ate all their plates of food -- burned them up, really, his nature sneakily shown in his skill. It's telling that he ends up imprisoned at the root of volcanoes, his screams the cause of earthquakes.
... tcha... And as I scan down the list of labels, there's Loki 4 times, linking to a tattoo thread....
Raven: Loki claimed me a few years back. I can thank Him for many things, including my daughter Annamaria. So while many people call Him any number of foul names based on the Lore, I call him Bringer of Blessings based on personal experience.
He is definitely capricious, unpredictable, and hyperactive. But He is not the finger-steepling villain or "Norse Satan" that some would make him out to be.
No, I wouldn't expect Fire to steeple its fingers. That's more a cold villain's stereotype -- the Grey Eminence contemplating his chessboard. Cardinal Richelieu, Professor Moriarty, Fu Manchu, Ming the Merciless, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove. Ice. Poisonous fungus. Rot in the floor beams. Slow cancer. "Mistletoe killing an oak," in Kipling's phrase.
Fire may also kill you, but quicker and to your face.
And few people warm their hands over rot or fungus. There just isn't the "bright side" to look at.
And I should add: cauterization is practiced because -- on those occasions -- Fire's causing pain and the death of living tissue is preferable to the alternative.
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