Guenn Eona Nimue, RIP
Jan. 12th, 2018 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
I recently heard of the passing of one of the teachers with whom I studied occultism in my teens. Back in the late 1970s, when I lived with my dad and stepmother in a generic south Seattle suburb, the University of Washington had a program called the Experimental College, which offered classes on basically anything and everything for the general public. It was a wondrous thing, with a lot of practical classes but a good-sized helping of what wasn't yet called New Age material as well, and these latter reliably blended utter malarkey and genuine wisdom into a heady brew. I adored it, and took class after class after class.
One fall I signed up for a class titled "Moon Letters of Lorien: Secret Lore of the Faerie Kingdom," and duly caught the bus to an apartment building in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood -- and that's how I met Guenn: the Rev. Guenn D. Eona, as she was then -- the "Nimue" came later. Her teachings were a free mix of Theosophy, Celtic traditions, material from the nascent New Age movement, and the products of her own trance mediumship. She was the one who introduced me to Findhorn and the writings and teachings that came out of it, and she's also the one who first got me thinking about the intersection between spirituality and ecology.
I took some classes from her, and then moved to Bellingham to start my college education, and my life and my spiritual work went down different roads. Guenn and I corresponded briefly many years later, when I was head of the Ancient Order of Druids in America; I visited her website, Anglamarke, from time to time; and her youngest son contacted me a few days ago to let me know that she'd died.
Though my path turned out to be very different from hers, as I look back on those days, I can see the roots of some of the most important themes in my work in that little Capitol Hill apartment, with a cup of herb tea in one hand and a pen in another, part of a circle of students listening to Guenn's vivid accounts of her inner experiences.
Farewell, Guenn. May the Great Ones welcome you into the halls of Light.
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(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-13 02:56 am (UTC)I have a sneaking hunch that the subjects that she introduced you to when you brains and beliefs were young and supple are the same ones that us geezers find out about too late and struggle with.
I never heard of the woman before I read this piece. But I mourn the passage of anyone who has had a positive effect on an imperfect world. I think that old ones will know her as their own and sup with her.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-13 04:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-13 03:34 pm (UTC)Not that I am not happy that it happened to you - I am - but that I so yearned for such a teacher when I was young (and still do). I would have been a good apprentice, too: eager, willing, with a keen mind and prepared to make sacrifices for the right cause. Alas, it was not to be despite some good teachers in more mundane things.
At least you did meet such teachers and were willingto put the time and effort into learning so that you are now prepared to pass on your wisdom freely, and for that I am very grateful.
My condolences
Date: 2018-01-13 11:53 pm (UTC)You have my condolences for the loss of your early teacher. The class sounds as if it would have been a wonderful and also formative experience for you. When you have chance encounters with people through life, you never know which ones will have an impact and leave a lasting impression.
With sympathy
Chris
(no subject)
Date: 2018-01-16 02:03 am (UTC)Sometimes a teacher never appears, and then the student has to teach himself slowly and painfully throughout life, with many false starts. (It's the same in mundane life. A person may be bound and determined to study some particular subject as a scholar or as a scientist, only to find out that no university anywhere in the world actually offers course-work in that subject. There are tons of mundane subjects like that.) In such a case, whether one's subject is mundane or esoteric, all one can do it cobble together a usable tool-kit as best one can, drawing on any and every source that falls within one's grasp, and then get to work in one's own solitary workshop with those tools.
To suppose otherwise is to suppose that there is some grand, over-arching unified program of development that all living beings (or all human beings) are meant to pass through on their shared road to some higher destiny.
To me, in sharp contrast to this view, life (on all its planes) seems rather like a giant multi-dimensional game-board, on which we and all other dwellers on any plane are just game-pieces, which are moved here and there by multiple Players -- far more than two of Them -- each of Whom has Their own agenda, which is different from the agenda of any other Player. These Players also have different skill sets that They bring to the game. Also, there is no Grand Referee to settle disputes about the rules and the play of the game.
These Players also stand entirely outside the "experiment of this cosmos" with all its planes, which they designed and created, and which they might also shut down at their pleasure. (I am paraphrasing here an exchange from one of the most memorable Star Trek episodes ever. Kirk: "Did he say 'experiment in this cosmos,' Mr. Spock." Spock: "No, Captain; he said "the experiment *of* this cosmos.") -- Robert Mathiesen
Guenn Eona Nimue, RIP
Date: 2018-01-21 05:01 am (UTC)Re: Guenn Eona Nimue, RIP
Date: 2018-01-21 05:26 am (UTC)Re: Guenn Eona Nimue, RIP
Date: 2018-09-29 07:32 pm (UTC).... I can't post links here for some reason but something just tells me you'd both like this, a recent ABC news story featuring my response to her passing. A solid seven month long period of meditative isolation, physical exertion and spiritual expansion.... talk about an arduous journey! Google "The Man Who Stacks Rocks In The Midst Of The Chaos".
Take care John (and you too Diane), I'll see you on the Path.... Strength to you all, Emile
Re: Guenn Eona Nimue, RIP
Date: 2018-03-07 06:17 pm (UTC)Re: Guenn Eona Nimue, RIP
Date: 2018-05-10 05:53 am (UTC)Take care.
Guenn Eona Nimue, RIP
Date: 2018-10-06 07:40 pm (UTC)....I thought that perhaps you both might like this, a little tribute to her....
https://komonews.com/news/erics-heroes/erics-jeroes-the-man-who-stacks-rocks-amidst-the-chaos
....or, alternatively, if that link should fail to function properly, just GOOGLE.... "The Man Who Stacks Rocks Amidst The Chaos". I hope you enjoy it.
Take care.... Emile