Mithered by Midir

Fae: so we're agreed? I'll heal your mother in exchange for your firstborn?

Human: yes

Fae: then when you return home you will find your mother completely healthy. And I will return in a year for your child.

Human: well let's get on with it then

Fae: excuse me?

Human: you want my child, let's get started.

Fae:

Human:

Fae: see, that's a you problem not a me problem

Human: but you agreed on my firstborn.

Fae: yes. *Your* firstborn. I bargained for your child, not my own. Why would I bargain for a child that's already mine?

Human:

Fae, laughing: so get on with it then. If you don't have the payment when I return your mother's life is forfeit.

Human: but...

Fae: as we agreed

Human:

Technically this is not a post about Midir but in a way it has something to do with him, he’s always whispering something and actually there is nothing technical about it. This ramble will start with the point that I’ve been contemplating Celtic Brooches on and off all week and it will spiral out from there. So, the shape of the brooches have always intrigued me and I’m fascinated with the fact that the one found in Ardagh at The Back of The Hill hadn’t little glass beads or jewels on it but was delicately made and finished none the less with great love, with a beautiful simple shape and features, enamelled in blue and yellow. What can it have meant for the designer and the wearer?

( For more on that dig visit our site here: http://creativeardagh.blogspot.com/p/the.html )

Then this week my mother gave me a few “Tara brooches”, indeed one was mine already so that’s another story. They are modern ones, not worth anything but useful for costumes when Annette and I are storytelling. I photographed them together with a miraculous medal because I want to jump in, up to my neck like fools do, and suggest they were much more than brooches to hold up cloaks. I don’t mind being the fool, it doesn’t embarrass me in the slightest, in my recollection the fool often pointed out truths to the lords and ladies so it’s an interesting role to take on and I believe Midir might approve.

Were the brooches as important to the wearers as the miraculous medal was to our mothers who insisted we wear them to stay safe? Were we always wearing talisman on this island? Was it natural for the Irish to embrace the miraculous medal as much as the cross around the neck, even more natural as it represents the mother protection? Looking at the shape of the Celtic Brooch I can’t help feeling it’s planetary, Moon or Sun, Goddess in any case and the wearers wore it for protection. Then I was thinking of the different styles and perhaps they represented your tribe or clan or the sacred site you lived closest to, again bringing in the Mother Mary connection, each site she is said to have appeared on has an image slightly different for that site and a medal. I was christened with Guadalupe as my second name and was given many images of her and medals. If you look at the image of her she is so much more like a First Nation Goddess than a Christian Mother of God so it’s easy to see why she was accepted so lovingly in Mexico. Likewise here in Ireland, land of the Goddesses, Áine, Gráinne, Danu etc etc, loved and revered in the landscape and rivers, Mary was embraced.

So, I am suggesting the brooches were the miraculous medals of the people living here long, long ago. I pondered that a while and wondered about the pin and if it had some protective nature and the glass beads and the location of them on it, were they representing stars? And the symbols, well they are easier as lots is written about the symbols whether it’s accurate or not. Then I let it sit with me.

Continuing the journey outward on my spiral, two books I’m currently reading, Mythic Ireland by Michael Dames, 1992, Thames and Hudson, and Mythical Ireland by Anthony Murphy, 2017, The Liffey Press, wildly different from each other yet strangely not, kept bringing me back to it with the imagery in the books as much as the words. The shape of the sacred sites are as the brooches and in particular on page 107 of Mythic Ireland, a drawing by the author of Rannach Crom Dubh is so much like the brooches. He mentions the buried ‘stone staff’ of the Dagda and I can’t help wondering if the pin in the brooches is calling for protection of the wearer from The Dagda? A drawing on page 153 of Mythical Ireland of a Stone Henge no longer there draws me in too.

Who knows? Nobody, as there are none of these people here to verify or deny.

Annette and I went to visit our friend Brendan on friday (who we often call Midir’s current representative on earth and he accepts the title graciously) to get some hazels. We got some lilac and spindle too. Nothing would do me but to plant 9 in a circle around my well, no doubt inspired by Anthony’s book and thinking of the Boyne and another 18 more in a spiral because I’m off on another thought mission about spirals this week. I get the strangest notions that I must follow. Now I have two brooches planted in my garden. Will they protect us? I can’t say. I’m master of nothing and expert in less. I’m just a fool jumping in.

Technically this is not a post about Midir but in a way it has something to do with him, he’s always whispering something and actually there is nothing technical about it. This ramble will start with the point that I’ve been contemplating Celtic Brooches on and off all week and it will spiral out from there. So, the shape of the brooches have always intrigued me and I’m fascinated with the fact that the one found in Ardagh at The Back of The Hill hadn’t little glass beads or jewels on it but was delicately made and finished none the less with great love, with a beautiful simple shape and features, enamelled in blue and yellow. What can it have meant for the designer and the wearer?

( For more on that dig visit our site here: http://creativeardagh.blogspot.com/p/the.html )

Then this week my mother gave me a few “Tara brooches”, indeed one was mine already so that’s another story. They are modern ones, not worth anything but useful for costumes when Annette and I are storytelling. I photographed them together with a miraculous medal because I want to jump in, up to my neck like fools do, and suggest they were much more than brooches to hold up cloaks. I don’t mind being the fool, it doesn’t embarrass me in the slightest, in my recollection the fool often pointed out truths to the lords and ladies so it’s an interesting role to take on and I believe Midir might approve.

Were the brooches as important to the wearers as the miraculous medal was to our mothers who insisted we wear them to stay safe? Were we always wearing talisman on this island? Was it natural for the Irish to embrace the miraculous medal as much as the cross around the neck, even more natural as it represents the mother protection? Looking at the shape of the Celtic Brooch I can’t help feeling it’s planetary, Moon or Sun, Goddess in any case and the wearers wore it for protection. Then I was thinking of the different styles and perhaps they represented your tribe or clan or the sacred site you lived closest to, again bringing in the Mother Mary connection, each site she is said to have appeared on has an image slightly different for that site and a medal. I was christened with Guadalupe as my second name and was given many images of her and medals. If you look at the image of her she is so much more like a First Nation Goddess than a Christian Mother of God so it’s easy to see why she was accepted so lovingly in Mexico. Likewise here in Ireland, land of the Goddesses, Áine, Gráinne, Danu etc etc, loved and revered in the landscape and rivers, Mary was embraced.

So, I am suggesting the brooches were the miraculous medals of the people living here long, long ago. I pondered that a while and wondered about the pin and if it had some protective nature and the glass beads and the location of them on it, were they representing stars? And the symbols, well they are easier as lots is written about the symbols whether it’s accurate or not. Then I let it sit with me.

Continuing the journey outward on my spiral, two books I’m currently reading, Mythic Ireland by Michael Dames, 1992, Thames and Hudson, and Mythical Ireland by Anthony Murphy, 2017, The Liffey Press, wildly different from each other yet strangely not, kept bringing me back to it with the imagery in the books as much as the words. The shape of the sacred sites are as the brooches and in particular on page 107 of Mythic Ireland, a drawing by the author of Rannach Crom Dubh is so much like the brooches. He mentions the buried ‘stone staff’ of the Dagda and I can’t help wondering if the pin in the brooches is calling for protection of the wearer from The Dagda? A drawing on page 153 of Mythical Ireland of a Stone Henge no longer there draws me in too.

Who knows? Nobody, as there are none of these people here to verify or deny.

Annette and I went to visit our friend Brendan on friday (who we often call Midir’s current representative on earth and he accepts the title graciously) to get some hazels. We got some lilac and spindle too. Nothing would do me but to plant 9 in a circle around my well, no doubt inspired by Anthony’s book and thinking of the Boyne and another 18 more in a spiral because I’m off on another thought mission about spirals this week. I get the strangest notions that I must follow. Now I have two brooches planted in my garden. Will they protect us? I can’t say. I’m master of nothing and expert in less. I’m just a fool jumping in.

Once upon a time the world was so sick she seemed to be dying. Everybody noticed but the super rich wouldn't change their ways and made life harder and harder for everybody else. Even though there was enough of everything in the world  for all to share, they made sure that there wasn't homes for everyone, that there wasn't food for everyone and that healthcare was a luxury while they sailed around the world in their yachts after making their money from raping the resources of the world, exploiting the poor and standing by while the vulnerable died. Everything, and everybody, was theirs to use, abuse and discard, in their warped sense of reality.

They had been the real power behind the many facades of governments for so long that they knew what would work everytime. Divide and conquer, get people blaming 'them over there' rather than looking upward and sideways, towards the super rich who always pulled the strings. Sometimes they created wars just so they could make more money. The more you have the more you want even if you're never going to need it, ever.

Every hundred years or so they wiped out as many of the poor, weak and vulnerable as they could while having smaller, localised, mass genocides and enslavements happen briefly and nearly unnoticed by those so busy trying to feed themselves and pay their debts. They even convinced the many that just because it had become normal then it was right. 

They never cared how many died, they were just numbers and inconvenient troubles while they lived in their perfect world of opulence far away from empathy.

They had global meetings regularly where only those invited could attend, those that were useful at that moment and easily bought or discarded. The ordinary people were told that these meetings would solve the problems of the world however the only hint they had that they, the ordinary people, were considered the problem of the world was when one of the super rich let it slip that overpopulation needed to be dealt with as he funded the world health organisation to vaccine the world, some of which helped greatly, while others didn't. That was always the way with them, give a little on the right, point the camera in that direction while taking so much more from the left in the obscure darkness.

Little bits of information were dripfed to the masses over time through movies, shows, books, video clips, leaked documents, sometimes they just stated it truthfully on the news. Any information released was monitored to see how the majority would react and respond. Little bits of true information and misinformation  dripfed slowly, then quickly, causing more unrest and distrust and a managed chaos ensued to deflect attention. Others were misdirected with celebrity and real life shows.

The super rich started to get annoyed when the many started mobilising in countries around the world, some were doing it for human rights, others for the environment, others for animal rights, all the rights the super rich didn't want to give. They didn't consider them basic rights but graces they bestowed upon the rabble, at their convenience, when they saw fit. 

Never in a million years would they consider food, health and a roof over your head a right for every man and child, that right came with privilege always and the others had to earn it. Those that 'earned' it held on so tightly to it and pushed many down the ladder as they believed the lie of scarcity that was fed to them in whispers from above.

What was even more annoying to the super rich was that the rabble were sharing information too quickly and rapidly and while the super rich were experts at their propaganda and using these tools themselves the masses were getting very good at it too. They were educating themselves too quickly, so quickly that they were managing the system better to change it which had to be stopped.

At one of their meetings the super rich decided they had enough and they drew straws to see who would be the first to initiate the next manoeuvre. They had agreed that whoever had the most casualties would be compensated by a quicker economic recovery and the people would never guess they managed it all, all the time, every time. They did a few trial runs but they didn't get the result they wanted so the trials were pulled and ended nearly as suddenly as they began, until the perfect formula was found.

They had been working on it a long time, testing and retesting the many mutations of their living weapon until they got the perfect formula that would kill off the majority of the nuisance people, the elderly, the sick, certain ethnic groups who were beginning to manoeuvre and stand up for all the wrongs done to them in the past, refugees, people in warzones, homeless, migrants. 

The living weapon had to be easily killed and contained so that the super rich would not be effected, or if they were they could be cured quite quickly. They all had everything they needed ready if and when that time would come. They may have some casualties but that was a risk they were willing to take in this gamble, this game, everything is a game in the end with the odds most definitely in their favour. Most of their casualties would be those who thought they were in their group but really weren't, they were just climbers on the ladder. 

So, conveniently, normal soap and water prevented it from spreading as did isolation. No one would believe it was created purposely because it could be so easily fought off if you had the means, wherewithal, a home to live in and clean, running water. Millions died and all was right with the world of the super rich again. 

The End .. until the next time.

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