Lumi
Lately I've been noticing how many bibliomancy readings are out there that offer pretty much nothing in the way of interpretation of the selected text and I feel that this is not very helpful. I also think this is one of the reasons that it remains relatively unpopular. So, I thought I would offer an example of what would be, in my opinion, a more insightful bibliomancy, or more specifically, a stichomancy reading.
I asked no question other than that I wished to select a passage as a Reading for the Day. I used: Beowulf, translation by Burton Raffel
Here is what I got--
"From dragon to slave, to master, to king" from Beowulf, pg. 98
This immediately calls to mind for me the image of Quetzalcoatl the winged or feathered serpent of Meso-American lore. Now if you look up Quetzalcoatl you'll discover a plethora of definitions, associations and opinion about who and/or what Quetzalcoatl was and what he symbolized. But to keep things simple, because this is intended as a reading and not a history or anthropology lesson, etc., I have chosen to go with Quetzalcoatl as representative of the idea of mankind's spiritual ascension, because a feathered or winged serpent is the embodiment of what is simultaneously lowly and lofty. Does that make sense? But ascension is such a broad topic that I want to narrow it down to something more specific and manageable within the ascension process as I see it--the embracing and or acknowledgement of one's shadow side, without which we cannot be whole.
When we reject our shadow, those lowly parts of ourselves that we have deemed ugly, or bad, or wrong, the tendency is then to unconsciously project them onto others, thereby creating an external enemy to fight and overcome. But if we can accept our shadow, if we can really look at it, we can begin to see what it is trying to tell us, what it is trying to protect within us, what it is trying to resolve or to deal with. When we can do this, when we can raise up the shadow, it can become a kind of personal savior for each of us in that it dissolves the need for external enemies as proxies for those parts of ourselves that we've rejected. (And I might add at this point that there are a number of associations between Quetzalcoatl and the Christ, as well as between the Christ and the serpent.) The redeemed shadow, the feathered and winged serpent, therefore, is symbolic of loving or learning to love all parts of the self and by extension loving or learning to love the whole of creation.
You may agree or disagree with my interpretation, but that is an example of how I feel a bibliomancy or stichomancy reading should be done. Don't just throw out random text...tell people what you think it means and why. Thank you.
I asked no question other than that I wished to select a passage as a Reading for the Day. I used: Beowulf, translation by Burton Raffel
Here is what I got--
"From dragon to slave, to master, to king" from Beowulf, pg. 98
This immediately calls to mind for me the image of Quetzalcoatl the winged or feathered serpent of Meso-American lore. Now if you look up Quetzalcoatl you'll discover a plethora of definitions, associations and opinion about who and/or what Quetzalcoatl was and what he symbolized. But to keep things simple, because this is intended as a reading and not a history or anthropology lesson, etc., I have chosen to go with Quetzalcoatl as representative of the idea of mankind's spiritual ascension, because a feathered or winged serpent is the embodiment of what is simultaneously lowly and lofty. Does that make sense? But ascension is such a broad topic that I want to narrow it down to something more specific and manageable within the ascension process as I see it--the embracing and or acknowledgement of one's shadow side, without which we cannot be whole.
When we reject our shadow, those lowly parts of ourselves that we have deemed ugly, or bad, or wrong, the tendency is then to unconsciously project them onto others, thereby creating an external enemy to fight and overcome. But if we can accept our shadow, if we can really look at it, we can begin to see what it is trying to tell us, what it is trying to protect within us, what it is trying to resolve or to deal with. When we can do this, when we can raise up the shadow, it can become a kind of personal savior for each of us in that it dissolves the need for external enemies as proxies for those parts of ourselves that we've rejected. (And I might add at this point that there are a number of associations between Quetzalcoatl and the Christ, as well as between the Christ and the serpent.) The redeemed shadow, the feathered and winged serpent, therefore, is symbolic of loving or learning to love all parts of the self and by extension loving or learning to love the whole of creation.
You may agree or disagree with my interpretation, but that is an example of how I feel a bibliomancy or stichomancy reading should be done. Don't just throw out random text...tell people what you think it means and why. Thank you.
