Erle Frayne D. Argonza / Ra
“Birds of the same feather flock together,” so says an idiom in metaphysics. Tons of discourses were already produced from out of this ‘birds discourse’, with sociologists and anthropologists leading the fray, concerning the ‘law of attraction’.
Many more discourses were generated from out of the ‘bird’ archetype in fact. Depending on the context, the meaning of each narrative would vary.
To add to the discourse, let me share some notes about the mythical bird called phoenix. In my country, among our southern ethnicities, a parallel mythical bird is the ‘sarimanok’. ‘Manok’ means chicken, while ‘sarimanok’ is something not like chicken but mythical and more potent than chicken or any bird for that matter.
Inner wisdom is telling me that the difference between the phoenix and sarimanok is quite hairline: the phoenix pertains to the category of the individual, while sarimanok pertains to the collective category. Other than that, they more or less reverb with the same resonance.
The resonant message from out of both mythical archetypes is that of being reborn. The Law of Reincarnation & Karma is indicated right away by any narrative that explicitly predicates on rebirth which is what both archetypes refer to.
The phoenix is referent for individual rebirth across time. Be born, then grow to mature age, and then at old age you die. But after some time, depending on the balance of your incurred karmas, you will be programmed to be re-embodied.
The sarimanok operates more on the collective level though. A ‘spirit of the race’, marking the collective mind, would equivalently be born, grow old, and then die. At some future time, it will be reborn again, as it finds manifestations in new forms, in a new people. Let’s look at a parallelism below.
In German lore, it is an old zeitgeist that will be deceased soon and then be reborn at a later time in another context. In our Malayan experience, it is our kamalayan (awareness) that is born, grows old, and dies, and then later gets to be reborn at another time and context.
Both individual and collective levels of awareness streams are equally important, as any Aspirant would realize. At the individual level, we work out each of our own liberation agenda, undoing our negative karmas accumulated through time, so that at some future time we won’t need to be reborn again.
At the collective level, we gradually work out, as a people, to purge negativities from out of our collective unconscious. This is a far more difficult task than we can imagine, for the task involves everyone else in an ethnicity, race, or nation. In the Philippines, spiritually sensitive people here are aware that our ancient kamalayan is back today, and it is challenging us to reform and evolve.
The beauty of it all is that, across the world’s cultures, we have the archetype of the Messiah. This loving wonder-figure is the one who serves as exemplar to help us rise above our limitations and predicaments, transcendence thus leading to our individual and collective liberation or kalayaan (freedom).
Even the phoenix had to be re-invented a bit to include the Messiah in its ambit of meanings. It had also meant, according to some mystical circles, as the Resurrection. Akin to Yeshua ben Joseph, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”
Any figure who dies and is reborn is death-less. The Messiah, a ‘son of God’ (Ascended Being, Christed Being), has shown the way to deathlessness. If we follow the Messiah’s ways, we will also be deathless someday and will no longer need to be reborn.
So if we join the three (3) archetypes, we have the triad of the phoenix, sarimanok, and Messiah. From phoenix and sarimanok (indicating duality) to Messiah (indicating Oneness), from sensate-material to transcendental, from worldly to saintly living, these we can cull from the sublime triad.
Let me conclude at that point. So mote it be.
[Philippines, 24 May 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Showing posts with label hermeneutics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hermeneutics. Show all posts
Monday, November 1, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
GIANTS IN MALAY FOLKLORE EVIDENCE OF ANCIENT GIANTS
Erle Frayne D. Argonza / Ra
Gracious afternoon to you all!
As a young lad I was taught, like everyone else, tales that came straight from ancient folklore. As each nation has its own indigenous narratives to pass on to younger generations, so does my nation possess our indigenous tales. The Philippines is so wealthy with folklore, that I feel it is a privilege to be born here due to this wealth.
I’ve been saying all along in my notes that folklore is the best source of ‘ancient wisdom’ among the Malays. Not scriptures, but folklore are the repositories of ‘higher mysteries’ in Southeast Asia. Such as the knowledge of physical stature which is the subject of physical anthropology and paleontology.
Among the lore subjects that caught my attention with wonderment was the one about giants. Our narratives do have them, and fact is when I entered the university and began studying sociology (major) and anthropology (minor), I encountered lots of other narratives from the diverse ethnic communities across the archipelago. I was amazed at the presence of the ‘giant discourse’.
There is the narrative about Biuag & Malana among the Malawegs and Ibanags. Biuag was a giant while Malana was a warrior-hero. Across the Matalag River each one positioned himself, poised in combat, with a beautiful lady as reward for the winner. Malana, who was more agile and cunningly smarter, eventually was victor.
There is a parallelism of that narrative with the story of Achilles in Iliad. At one point, Achilles had to face a giant who was champion for a group of Greeks. He quite so easily out-maneuvered and killed the rather phlegmatic giant.
Just by gathering some dozens of indigenous narratives to find out whether giants are present in them would suffice to discover a pattern. Incidentally, as far as the Philippine side of the Malay massif is concerned, our documentation of folklore has been thorough and comprehensive, which indicates positively such a pattern.
The pattern is the clash of two (2) races of people: one of giants, and another of mainstream humans. Often the giant operates alone or is solitary, with exaggerated heights of standing as tall as a 100-foot tree or so. But that is poetic language which was the language of antiquity, so shorn of exaggeration we would see instead a race of man—represented by the solitary giant—who was taller than the average-height humans of the time.
Note that the average heights of Ibanags and their cousin ethnicities (Igorots, Itawes, Malawegs, Ivatans for example) must have been past six (6) feet. The ancient Ibanags were of stocky physique, but agile and battle-ready, as indicated by folk narratives about warriors.
Using 6.5 feet as average for man (a bit less for women), we can estimate that the giants squared off by the Ibanags in battles (signified by Biuag) must have been at least nine (9) feet tall. Some members of that race must have been within the range of 10-15 feet, which anthropologists of today would flatly refute as ridiculous.
According to ‘ancient wisdom’ (see Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine) the races that preceded us were indeed gigantic in stature. Two patterns of phenomena would be noticed as follows: (1) a new breed of smaller stature were created (genetically bred) from the older giants; and, (2) within a race, the stature would become smaller and smaller in height across time.
The Ibanags of today as well as their cousin ethnicities are just above 5 feet in average height, a drop of more than a foot from their ancient pedigrees. Besides, the physique of present Ibanags are slim and non-stocky, that slim built seemingly the pattern since after the advent of Western colonialism.
If the ancient giants were the pedigree of the shorter-height Malays (Ibanags among them), then we can safely say, using ancient wisdom, that the giants were the Lemurians of antiquity. From out of the Lemurians were bred the Malays who more fittingly belong to the Atlantean or 4th ‘root race’. The Lemurians ranged from 25-35 feet, bred to adapt to the environment where giant predatory mammals roamed the Earth.
Even the early Malays, who were properly ‘Atlantean’ (part of the worldwide ‘root race’) peoples, were of heights averaging 15 feet at one juncture. That’s almost three (3) times higher than the current Malays who are just past five (5) feet in height. The Malays surely have dwindled in height and physique across time, maybe due to in-breeding.
In the West, we can find a parallelism among the Italians. Their ancient pedigrees, Etruscans and Romans (Latins), were of stocky built and past six (6) feet tall. Vandals also joined the ancient Romans, who were likewise very tall and stocky, and co-populated Italy. Today, look at how the resulting people of Italians have become much shorter in height that seems to average just above 5.5 feet.
Our own anthropologists actually discovered bones of past seven (7) feet in height, somewhere in Central Philippines. But wary of the theoretical crisis that the bone finds would spark, the scientists decided to keep the find as a top secret, never to be talked about in conferences. What hubris and smugness from our own local experts!
No secrets can ever remain secrets in the Philippines anyway, due to the power of the oral tradition. And so the archeological find did reach the ears of many quarters, the mass media and scientific community included, and we keep tab of it as controversial finds though factual.
Who knows the ancient Malays of the post-glacial period did recede in size so radically? Such a size would later be reduced from an original 15 feet to 7.5 feet as indicated by the Central Philippine diggings. And now, from that 7.5 feet (of Neolithic times) we were reduced to our present 5.5 feet average.
As I was saying all along, folklore is a veritable source of high knowledge or ‘higher mysteries’ or ‘ancient wisdom’. If we cannot find physical evidences of giants in archeological diggings, then let’s find them in myths and legends. It won’t take long and archaeology will follow, gradually unveiling ancient giants who were in fact our father races.
[Philippines, 24 May 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Gracious afternoon to you all!
As a young lad I was taught, like everyone else, tales that came straight from ancient folklore. As each nation has its own indigenous narratives to pass on to younger generations, so does my nation possess our indigenous tales. The Philippines is so wealthy with folklore, that I feel it is a privilege to be born here due to this wealth.
I’ve been saying all along in my notes that folklore is the best source of ‘ancient wisdom’ among the Malays. Not scriptures, but folklore are the repositories of ‘higher mysteries’ in Southeast Asia. Such as the knowledge of physical stature which is the subject of physical anthropology and paleontology.
Among the lore subjects that caught my attention with wonderment was the one about giants. Our narratives do have them, and fact is when I entered the university and began studying sociology (major) and anthropology (minor), I encountered lots of other narratives from the diverse ethnic communities across the archipelago. I was amazed at the presence of the ‘giant discourse’.
There is the narrative about Biuag & Malana among the Malawegs and Ibanags. Biuag was a giant while Malana was a warrior-hero. Across the Matalag River each one positioned himself, poised in combat, with a beautiful lady as reward for the winner. Malana, who was more agile and cunningly smarter, eventually was victor.
There is a parallelism of that narrative with the story of Achilles in Iliad. At one point, Achilles had to face a giant who was champion for a group of Greeks. He quite so easily out-maneuvered and killed the rather phlegmatic giant.
Just by gathering some dozens of indigenous narratives to find out whether giants are present in them would suffice to discover a pattern. Incidentally, as far as the Philippine side of the Malay massif is concerned, our documentation of folklore has been thorough and comprehensive, which indicates positively such a pattern.
The pattern is the clash of two (2) races of people: one of giants, and another of mainstream humans. Often the giant operates alone or is solitary, with exaggerated heights of standing as tall as a 100-foot tree or so. But that is poetic language which was the language of antiquity, so shorn of exaggeration we would see instead a race of man—represented by the solitary giant—who was taller than the average-height humans of the time.
Note that the average heights of Ibanags and their cousin ethnicities (Igorots, Itawes, Malawegs, Ivatans for example) must have been past six (6) feet. The ancient Ibanags were of stocky physique, but agile and battle-ready, as indicated by folk narratives about warriors.
Using 6.5 feet as average for man (a bit less for women), we can estimate that the giants squared off by the Ibanags in battles (signified by Biuag) must have been at least nine (9) feet tall. Some members of that race must have been within the range of 10-15 feet, which anthropologists of today would flatly refute as ridiculous.
According to ‘ancient wisdom’ (see Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine) the races that preceded us were indeed gigantic in stature. Two patterns of phenomena would be noticed as follows: (1) a new breed of smaller stature were created (genetically bred) from the older giants; and, (2) within a race, the stature would become smaller and smaller in height across time.
The Ibanags of today as well as their cousin ethnicities are just above 5 feet in average height, a drop of more than a foot from their ancient pedigrees. Besides, the physique of present Ibanags are slim and non-stocky, that slim built seemingly the pattern since after the advent of Western colonialism.
If the ancient giants were the pedigree of the shorter-height Malays (Ibanags among them), then we can safely say, using ancient wisdom, that the giants were the Lemurians of antiquity. From out of the Lemurians were bred the Malays who more fittingly belong to the Atlantean or 4th ‘root race’. The Lemurians ranged from 25-35 feet, bred to adapt to the environment where giant predatory mammals roamed the Earth.
Even the early Malays, who were properly ‘Atlantean’ (part of the worldwide ‘root race’) peoples, were of heights averaging 15 feet at one juncture. That’s almost three (3) times higher than the current Malays who are just past five (5) feet in height. The Malays surely have dwindled in height and physique across time, maybe due to in-breeding.
In the West, we can find a parallelism among the Italians. Their ancient pedigrees, Etruscans and Romans (Latins), were of stocky built and past six (6) feet tall. Vandals also joined the ancient Romans, who were likewise very tall and stocky, and co-populated Italy. Today, look at how the resulting people of Italians have become much shorter in height that seems to average just above 5.5 feet.
Our own anthropologists actually discovered bones of past seven (7) feet in height, somewhere in Central Philippines. But wary of the theoretical crisis that the bone finds would spark, the scientists decided to keep the find as a top secret, never to be talked about in conferences. What hubris and smugness from our own local experts!
No secrets can ever remain secrets in the Philippines anyway, due to the power of the oral tradition. And so the archeological find did reach the ears of many quarters, the mass media and scientific community included, and we keep tab of it as controversial finds though factual.
Who knows the ancient Malays of the post-glacial period did recede in size so radically? Such a size would later be reduced from an original 15 feet to 7.5 feet as indicated by the Central Philippine diggings. And now, from that 7.5 feet (of Neolithic times) we were reduced to our present 5.5 feet average.
As I was saying all along, folklore is a veritable source of high knowledge or ‘higher mysteries’ or ‘ancient wisdom’. If we cannot find physical evidences of giants in archeological diggings, then let’s find them in myths and legends. It won’t take long and archaeology will follow, gradually unveiling ancient giants who were in fact our father races.
[Philippines, 24 May 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Monday, October 18, 2010
TAGALOG CREATION MYTH: SCIENCE OF BIRTHING REVEALED
Erle Frayne D. Argonza / Ra
Let me bring you another folk lore from the Malays: the creation myth of the Tagalogs. Tagalogs are the ethnic groups of Luzon island in the Philippines, from whose dialect came forth the foundations of the national language of Filipino.
Tagalog is a coinage of Taga Ilog, literally meaning “from the river.” The river in the term is a referent for the hydrological societies that pervaded the Philippine archipelago prior to the advent of western imperialism and colonialism.
A nation richly endowed with folklore, with myths and legends, the Philippines counts among its popular lores the myth of ‘Malakas and Maganda’. Literally, it translates as ‘myth of Strong (Malakas) and Beautiful (Maganda).’
The myth goes that there was once a bamboo floating listlessly by the oceans. The bamboo finally ceased to float as it landed on a coast in the Philippines. As it did so, a white dove flying above descended on the bamboo and pecked it accordingly. The bamboo then split, and out came Malakas and Maganda. The Filipinos are their descendants.
A very ancient narrative, the mythos is, to my mind, a repository of a science that was already known in the ancient times: the science of birthing. Such a science was eventually lost, as the end of the ice age inundated land masses, sunk continental chunks of lands, and led to a dark age of sorts.
Despite the retreat of civilization after the end of the last glacial period, the survivors found ample means to preserve the knowledge and information that they could preserve through folklore (myths & legends). Let’s take the signifiers one by one.
• Let’s take the case of the sea/ocean first of all. The water in the seas is a signifier for the amniotic fluid inside the mother’s womb. In the womb is, of course, the ovum which is a facility for birthing.
• The bamboo, with its nodes, long and pliant, is signifier for the DNA/genes. It is unimaginable to create humans without the genetic vehicle for their making, the vehicle being no other than the DNA.
• The dove is a bird. The bird is signifier for ‘desire’ and the phallus as well. Both desire and phallus are key biological facilities in creating life forms. The bird pecking the bamboo signifies the procreation act.
• From inside the bamboo, one presumably finds the masculine (Malakas) and feminine (Maganda) elements or identities. Which is what it is: both masculine and feminine genes are already inherently present in the DNA.
• Having both a Malakas (masculine) and a Maganda (feminine) in one space, co-equal, refers to the law of duality. The DNA has two (2) strands, gender has two identities (male, female), and so on.
• The soil, as indicated by the coast, signifies the elements of the Earth. All such elements are present in the human body. Without such elements, without biological matter containing such elements, babies can’t be produced. Soil is matter, from the Latin word ‘mater’ or matter, as it is also the feminine element (mother, mater).
That Malakas and Maganda simultaneously came out together from the same bamboo signifies the gender equality among the ancient Malays. Patriarchy was alien to the Malays, who were among the last subraces of the Atlantean ‘root race’ to evolve in history.
Patriarchy was largely imposed from the outside: from Islam it was imposed upon southern Filipinos, from Christianity unto Northern Filipinos. Indians and Chinese also migrated to the islands, introducing their brand of patriarchy.
Yet no matter how much tons of debris may have buried the ancient ways of the Tagalogs/Filipinos, they were not totally buried after all. One only needs to mine their folklores, of which volumes of documentation works were already published, to be able to extract and unveil hidden truths.
As I’ve been saying all along, the contributions of Malays to the Teaching (‘God’s Word, higher mysteries) are found more in their folklores rather than their scriptures. Malayan scriptures are Islamic, Buddhist, and Christian, or impositions from outside. Folklores are originally their creative production, and are repositories of High Knowledge and wisdom. Such a thesis is exemplified by the Tagalog creation myth.
[Philippines, 22 May 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Let me bring you another folk lore from the Malays: the creation myth of the Tagalogs. Tagalogs are the ethnic groups of Luzon island in the Philippines, from whose dialect came forth the foundations of the national language of Filipino.
Tagalog is a coinage of Taga Ilog, literally meaning “from the river.” The river in the term is a referent for the hydrological societies that pervaded the Philippine archipelago prior to the advent of western imperialism and colonialism.
A nation richly endowed with folklore, with myths and legends, the Philippines counts among its popular lores the myth of ‘Malakas and Maganda’. Literally, it translates as ‘myth of Strong (Malakas) and Beautiful (Maganda).’
The myth goes that there was once a bamboo floating listlessly by the oceans. The bamboo finally ceased to float as it landed on a coast in the Philippines. As it did so, a white dove flying above descended on the bamboo and pecked it accordingly. The bamboo then split, and out came Malakas and Maganda. The Filipinos are their descendants.
A very ancient narrative, the mythos is, to my mind, a repository of a science that was already known in the ancient times: the science of birthing. Such a science was eventually lost, as the end of the ice age inundated land masses, sunk continental chunks of lands, and led to a dark age of sorts.
Despite the retreat of civilization after the end of the last glacial period, the survivors found ample means to preserve the knowledge and information that they could preserve through folklore (myths & legends). Let’s take the signifiers one by one.
• Let’s take the case of the sea/ocean first of all. The water in the seas is a signifier for the amniotic fluid inside the mother’s womb. In the womb is, of course, the ovum which is a facility for birthing.
• The bamboo, with its nodes, long and pliant, is signifier for the DNA/genes. It is unimaginable to create humans without the genetic vehicle for their making, the vehicle being no other than the DNA.
• The dove is a bird. The bird is signifier for ‘desire’ and the phallus as well. Both desire and phallus are key biological facilities in creating life forms. The bird pecking the bamboo signifies the procreation act.
• From inside the bamboo, one presumably finds the masculine (Malakas) and feminine (Maganda) elements or identities. Which is what it is: both masculine and feminine genes are already inherently present in the DNA.
• Having both a Malakas (masculine) and a Maganda (feminine) in one space, co-equal, refers to the law of duality. The DNA has two (2) strands, gender has two identities (male, female), and so on.
• The soil, as indicated by the coast, signifies the elements of the Earth. All such elements are present in the human body. Without such elements, without biological matter containing such elements, babies can’t be produced. Soil is matter, from the Latin word ‘mater’ or matter, as it is also the feminine element (mother, mater).
That Malakas and Maganda simultaneously came out together from the same bamboo signifies the gender equality among the ancient Malays. Patriarchy was alien to the Malays, who were among the last subraces of the Atlantean ‘root race’ to evolve in history.
Patriarchy was largely imposed from the outside: from Islam it was imposed upon southern Filipinos, from Christianity unto Northern Filipinos. Indians and Chinese also migrated to the islands, introducing their brand of patriarchy.
Yet no matter how much tons of debris may have buried the ancient ways of the Tagalogs/Filipinos, they were not totally buried after all. One only needs to mine their folklores, of which volumes of documentation works were already published, to be able to extract and unveil hidden truths.
As I’ve been saying all along, the contributions of Malays to the Teaching (‘God’s Word, higher mysteries) are found more in their folklores rather than their scriptures. Malayan scriptures are Islamic, Buddhist, and Christian, or impositions from outside. Folklores are originally their creative production, and are repositories of High Knowledge and wisdom. Such a thesis is exemplified by the Tagalog creation myth.
[Philippines, 22 May 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
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