Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

I'm going to be shocking and launch this week's Magic Monday a few minutes early, since I'm here on Dreamwidth,. (The picture is Thomas Taylor, the great Regency-era Platonist and worshiper of the Greek Gods, godfather of the modern Neopagan revival)

Ask me anything about occultism and I'll do my best to answer it. Any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer, though it may be Tuesday sometime before I get to them all.

I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use the button below to access my online tip jar. 

With that said, have at it! 

***This post is now closed to new questions. See you next week!***

Comments

Awen and Aum

[tunesmyth]

Something occurred to me recently that is surely not a thought completely original to me, and I'm curious about your perspective on it.

I was looking at a pair of Komainu, the animal guardian statues that watch from either side in front of Shinto shrines. Generally speaking, one is male, and one is female; one has its mouth open (in a pose called "a-gyou", which literally means "ah" form) and the other with its mouth closed (called "un-gyou", which means "un" form). The symbolism attributed to this is usually something along the lines of expressing the beginnings and endings of all things; in any case it's pretty clearly a yin-yang type of pairing. The vowel pair makes "a-un" and derives from the Hindu mystic sound "Aum", which in modern times usually comes in the form of "Om". As this is the natural combination of sounds one gets by opening their mouth its widest, and closing their mouth but still vocalising until the sound disappears, it's a logical aural expression of the concept of beginning and end.

Interestingly, Aum is not just the two parts of "Ah-um" as expressed by the two Komainu (or for that matter one of my favorite albums, the seminal Charles Mingus album, "Mingus Ah Um"); rather it is considered to be three syllables, with the "u" sound representing a midpoint between "a" and "m", where the mouth is neither fully closed nor fully open. Here is one of a few examples of a trisyllable explication given on the "Om" Wikipedia page: "The Aitareya Brahmana of Rig Veda, in section 5.32, for example suggests that the three phonetic components of Om (pronounced AUM) correspond to the three stages of cosmic creation, and when it is read or said, it celebrates the creative powers of the universe."

This all sounds rather similar to another mystic syllable which you are intimately familiar with via the Druid Revival traditions. AUM, when broken discretely into its three syllables, is pronounced as "Ah-oo-m". Notated in Japanese, this is written with the three characters 「あうん」. AWEN, when broken discretely into its three equal parts, is pronounced as "Ah-oo-en". Notated in Japanese, this would be written with... exactly the same three characters, 「あうん」. Not similar-- exactly the same. Now, this is due to a phonetic peculiarity of Japanese where all words with an ending sound of "n", "ng", "m" have been ironed out into the same character 「ん」, and which is generally pronounced like "m" with the mouth closed.

Certainly neither AUM nor AWEN come from Japanese, but I think it's pretty extraordinary that if you ever translated Druid Revival texts into Japanese, you would need to at least include a footnote explaining to Japanese people that despite it being spelled exactly the same way, it is in fact a *different* mystical power word from the one they already know, which *also* happens to express the creative forces of the cosmos in three parts...

And it makes me wonder if long ago, AWEN might not have been pronounced with a closed-mouth "m" sound at the end, and through phonetic drift in a reverse fashion to Japanese, came to be pronounced with an "n". This is all completely unscholarly speculation, of course.

What do you know of the history of the word AWEN? It predates Iolo Morganwg, does it not? Is it a case of convergent evolution? Cultural exchange lost in the mists of time? Simultaneous expression of a universal truth, at least as it is filtered through human vocal anatomy? Do you have any opinions on the matter, and is this a topic that to your knowledge has ever been explored in any meaningful way?

Re: Awen and Aum

[syfen]

Annnddd there's that synchronicity...dang I love the archdruid's school.

Re: Awen and Aum

[ecosophia]

The term "awen" is documented in medieval Wales; Giraldus Cambrensis wrote about Welsh mediums called awenyddion, "people with awen." It's entirely possible that it has some kind of link with AUM via very old Indo-European roots. (I've documented chunks of unrecognized Indo-European myth in Iolo's writings, so this is at least plausible.)

On the other hand, I tend to think there's a lot to be said for the possibility that there's some essential reality of which the two words are not merely arbitrary reflections.

Still, this is fascinating. There are a number of other odd parallelisms between Japanese and Celtic (and proto-Celtic) traditions -- Japan, for example, has quite a few burial mounds and standing stones that look remarkably like those in Britain and Ireland.

Re: Awen and Aum

[(Anonymous)]

I've documented chunks of unrecognized Indo-European myth in Iolo's writings, so this is at least plausible.)

Oooh... Have you published this anywhere, online or off?

Bogatyr

Re: Awen and Aum

[ecosophia]

Yep. You'll find it in the 2014 issue of Trilithon, the annual journal published by the Ancient Order of Druids in America. You can download a copy of that issue for free from the AODA website here -- scroll down to the bottom.

Re: Awen and Aum

[(Anonymous)]

Excellent; I’ll look it up when I get a moment. Thanks!

Bogatyr

Re: Awen and Aum

[tunesmyth]

If the Awen/Aum connection isn't one you've come across before, I'm delighted to play the messenger in this case. When you say that you've documented chunks of unrecognized Indo-European myth in Iolo's writings, is there a book in which you did so?

I'm not sure about the standing stones you refer to, but I'd like to know. As for burial mounds, I presume you mean Kofun, the famous keyhole shaped burial mounds that pepper the entire island of Japan. Does the keyhole motif also appear in Britain and Ireland? (Or are you referring to something else?)

Re: Awen and Aum

[ecosophia]

I'd encountered it, but not really reflected on it in detail. My article on Indo-European myth in Iolo Morganwg's work is in the 2014 issue of Trilithon, which you can access here.

The kofun were what I was thinking of -- the specific keyhole shape is rare in northwestern Europe, but there are a range of shapes, and traditions relating to mound burial that I discuss in a forthcoming book about the legends around Merlin. As for standing stones, look at dosojin (stone steles placed along roadways and at village boundaries) sometime. They're smaller than the big standing stones people visit in northwestern Europe, but they serve similar energetic functions. Also, are you familiar with the stone circles at Oyu? Standing stones oriented to midsummer -- where have I heard of that before? ;-)

Re: Awen and Aum

[tunesmyth]

Fascinating! Thank you on all counts, I was not aware of any of those connections, and I now have a compelling reason to visit Akita on a summer solstice. :-)

Re: Awen and Aum

[temporaryreality]

First thought was to try to fish for some human to human connection (trade, travel, something unconscious), but then I thought to wonder if the above expressions are actually manifestations of spirits of place - perhaps island spirits like and spread certain concepts through us...