Myth as Myth and Bad Luck or Mercury Retrograde?

In this episode of Pagan Coffee Talk, hosts Lord Night and Oswin explore the nature of myth within the pagan community, examining why many traditional teachings are intended as symbolic stories rather than literal history. They discuss how myths—from Celtic heroes to Greek legends—evolve over time, teaching moral lessons and cultural values while blending fact and fiction. The hosts also touch on historical storytelling, oral traditions, and how myths can become exaggerated over generations, highlighting the ways human perception shapes our understanding of these tales.

The conversation then shifts to the concept of “bad luck” and practical ways to improve awareness and perception in daily life. Lord Night and Oswin share insights on mindfulness, meditation, grounding, and sensory exercises that can sharpen your awareness of your surroundings and reduce accidents or mishaps that are often mistaken for bad luck. They also explore how limiting certain senses, playing perception-enhancing games, and using techniques like float tanks or blindfold exercises can help strengthen intuition and attentiveness, key elements in spiritual practice.

Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of pagan mythology, the difference between symbolic and historical truths, and practical strategies to enhance daily awareness and personal responsibility. This episode is perfect for anyone interested in Wicca, witchcraft, spiritual practice, and the thoughtful exploration of myth, magic, and perception in everyday life.

Join us on
Discord:  https://discord.gg/MdcMwqUjPZ
Facebook: (7) Life Temple and Seminary | Facebook

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Welcome to Peggy and Coffee Talk. Here are your hosts, Oswin and Lord Knight. So today's topic is seeing myth as myth. This might be a short one.

unknown 0:34

It might be.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

Does anybody actually realize that in the pagan community, most of the traditional teachings and stuff that we teach we basically tell people our myths are just myths. We don't actually believe them to be history like certain religions do.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Right. I have no idea. I mean it's uh I I mean it's how can you not understand that they are just a myth?

SPEAKER_03 1:06

Well, see the now we're gonna explain why we think in this way. Alright? And the reason being is uh everybody has that uncle Fred or that uncle Ted. Right. Alright? Every Christmas, every family gathering, that fish gets bigger and bigger. Right. To the point he caught a whale. Right. You know, it started out as a little sturgeon and moved all the way up to a well. Alright. We understand, okay, that back in the day when people didn't have entertainment, we only had bards and the our little storytellers and stuff, most of these storytellers and stuff only knew certain stories. Right. They didn't know they they they might have had a repertoire, but it was still limited. So they had to keep on making these stories more and more fanciful, more interesting. I mean, how many times can you tell the story of something like the three little pigs?

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Well, and the and the idea was to keep the legend a legend.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

Well, the idea was to use the story to teach a lesson.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Yeah, but some of those some of those stories were about, you know, great warriors and things like that. So you had to keep them as great warriors. Right. And to and to tell new generations of people, you had to make the story just a little bit more interesting. Interesting. Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:47

Yeah. Yeah, but most of these stories are teaching us something. Uh they given s slight examples. Little Red Riding Hood, don't talk to strangers. Right. Three little pigs, build your house out of good material. Don't cheap out. I mean, it's what you're gonna be living in. Right. Uh the three bears, don't break into people's homes. I mean, these are the things that myths teach us. Uh some of the Celtic myths teach us to keep our word and and honor our oaths and stuff like that. Right. Which way we do certain things and stuff like that. But think about it like this way. There might have been back in a day a guy named Hercules, and he might have been the strongest person in his village. But after years and years of telling that story, he keeps on getting stronger and stronger and stronger to where he finally becomes the god of a son.

unknown 3:47

Right.

SPEAKER_03 3:48

The son of a god.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Right.

SPEAKER_03 3:50

Why not believe this about your myths? I mean, that we know this happens in a lot of oral traditions and stuff like that. Until they learn writing and start writing it down, and then the stories become more the stories become a little bit more set in stone. Right, right, right. They become a little bit more consistent. You know, like like to this day, I still believe if the second invasion from Rome did not happen in the Celtic in the British Isles, Celtic myths would have finally emerged kind of like Nordic myths and been a whole lot more streamlined. Well, I don't want to say streamlined, but more flushed out and that time or that family trees not as so just not so many branches. Not so many branches as and starting overs and clippings and right.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

What do you think? Well, I mean, I grew up in the Christian church and you know, it's I don't know, uh a lot of people, a lot of people honestly believe that those are true stories.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

And I was always under the impression that they were more like more like, you know, Celtic or Greek myth or Nordic myth, where it's based in some truth.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

But the stories were there for a different reason.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

True. I mean it's kind of like it's kind of like the whole uh world flood. Yes. All right. A scientist has theorized, from my understanding, was if a meteorite happened to hit into the ocean, that it could possibly cause what would seem like a flood to everybody.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Right, because uh if you look, most cultures around the world have a flood story.

SPEAKER_03 5:52

Right. But then on the other hand, I mean, and and not trying to pick on Christians, but then you have the whole Noah's Ark, which takes a lot of expending belief that this guy can do this, but it's also stated in there that he wouldn't have been able to do it if it God had not intervened in that story. Now, again, here's where most of us pagans have a problem with this is that we don't believe in the supernatural, that nothing, not even the gods themselves, are beyond the laws of nature. Right. That they have to operate. It's the same concept in um The Matrix, where he's sitting there explaining to them that these guardians or whatever they were, the programs that were after them, they're forced to do things based on the laws of that world. Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

And they can't step out of those.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

Right. Even though they were moving that fast and stuff, they were just manipulating the actual laws and stuff. They weren't breaking them. Right. Because they couldn't do that. Hence the reason why Neo was so special, because he could hack the code, he could change reality. Right. In the matrix. Does that make sense what I'm saying there and how this relates to what in the world we're talking about?

SPEAKER_01 7:10

I guess it does. I mean I don't understand why you keep asking me if it makes sense because we have these conversations all the time.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

I mean it makes sense to you.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

I know.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

I mean, ultimately ultimately when it comes down to it, and I mean there's really not too much else to say about this, but when it comes down to it, if you are uh well, if somebody is believing myth as reality, I think there's something missing there.

SPEAKER_03 7:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

We can't take myth and treat it as reality. We just have to realize that there is some reality mixed in there.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

Just because historical places and people are mentioned in myths does not make the myth more historic.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Right. It's like historic fiction. Right. When you read a historical fiction novel, you can't treat this as a real story. Yeah, places and people might be real, but what they're doing is not based in reality at all.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

Might not. Or certain things or aspects might not be based in reality.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Right. This is the same thing with myth.

SPEAKER_03 8:31

Right. You know, and I'll even go as far as to say, you know, this does not exclude alien interventions and stuff like that. People with beyond, I mean, I'm I'm sorry, beyond technologies. I could understand where you I understand the concept of certain technology could look indistinguishable from magic at a certain point.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

Compared to, you know, I'm sure if I went back and saw a, you know, uh Cro Magnum man and was able to, you know, be just my worthless little body, be able to go over there and start a fire five seconds flat, you know, from a lighter, he would think I was doing magic.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 9:07

You know, and it's just a bick, all right.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Right. So I mean.

SPEAKER_03 9:14

So I can't ignore that either. Yeah, you have to. When I sit there and say we got to look at things at a lot of different angles, I mean a lot of different angles. Right. Even some, I really don't want to go there today. Do we have to? Do we have to? Do we have to get E.T. involved? I mean, just saying. I think that's all I got to say about that.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Alright, so let's talk about something else. Bad luck. And people, you know, doing all these protection spells and this and that. But when you look at it, is it really bad luck? Is it?

SPEAKER_03 9:58

The majority of the times I see people do this. And and just the whole, well, let's start with like just the clumsy stuff first. Right. People just being clumsy. The majority of the times this is just people not paying attention.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

That's what I'm trying to get at here with this is you know, is it really bad luck or are we just is it something as simple as paying attention? Or not paying attention.

SPEAKER_03 10:22

You know, well, I mean, that's my question. I think the majority of the times it's just us not paying attention. That we're too busy, distracted, thinking about other stuff, got our face in our phones. Right. There's that video where that woman's on her phone and she walks straight into a fountain. Right. All right. Is this bad luck? No, this was her not paying attention to what in the world she was doing. You know, that's the same thing that gets people into car wrecks and stuff like this. People aren't paying attention to what in the world they're doing. Right. That ain't bad luck. That's your fault. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm just as guilty.

unknown 10:58

You know?

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Well, yeah, I mean, we all are.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

And then make it even worse. It it's worse out here where we live because there's not a lot of traffic. Right. You know, so you can drive back and forth to the store or whatever. I mean, yeah, it takes a little while, but you can sort of go off in your head and just not worry about it because you're going down a back stretch road. Right. You know, you're not likelihood of running across somebody's, you know, next to nothing. But, you know, in the city you can't do that. No. Well, you really shouldn't do that in the country, you know. No. You know, all it takes is one of these harvesters. Absolutely. Going down the road to mess up your day.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Them things are huge. They really are. And they will just they they will clip things off of your vehicle like nobody's business.

SPEAKER_03 11:47

But then then you hear these people where they just they seem to have a run of bad luck.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Right.

SPEAKER_03 11:53

Car breaks down, you know, suddenly they get sick. I I've had many people who have started their jobs as a manager, started their job, and like in the first month, their car break down, their kid gets sick, uh, their mom died. I mean, is this bad luck or does somebody do something hinky here?

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Well, and even then the question raises, is it just a coincidence that all these things happened around the same time?

SPEAKER_03 12:24

Well, my question on like the cars. Cars breaking down. That to me seems more of a me not doing my maintenance like I'm supposed to.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Right. Like I didn't I didn't go get the oil changed or I didn't.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

I'd get I I pushed my car tires way too long. Right. Right. So that's where you gotta start asking yourself there, is it poor planning on your part or is it actually Well, that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

It could be just a coincidence that all these things happened around the same time. Like you said, with the car breaking down, is that really bad luck, or is that your fault because you didn't do your maintenance?

SPEAKER_03 13:04

Well, let's let's let's think about it this way.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

All right. And then your kids getting sick. I'm sorry, they're kids. They kids get sick. Kids get sick all the time.

SPEAKER_03 13:13

Right. Well, let's think about it this way. You're driving a car that you know has an oil leak. You don't check your oil. Right. Your your car then locks down in the middle of the street. Right. Right? Which then means that somebody has to get off work to come help you push it out, take you home and do what in the world. So now you've messed up two people's day.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Right. All right. Again. Or you have to call a record and spend more money. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:40

You know, so again, here's where in the world these problems start. Is it poor planning? You know, like the the person that gets all wrapped up in you have this incident happen. So you're so wrapped up trying to get your car fixed that you forget to pay your power bill and then your power goes off.

unknown 13:57

Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:59

You know, this is how this stuff happens because we we easily get distracted by other things going on where we need to do this. Right. You know, this is where I think meditation helps because you seem to be able to stay on track better when you're meditating.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Well, we'll say proper meditation. That includes grounding. Grounding. Because how many times have we seen it personally? People come out of meditation and just don't ground, and then they're just like, like walking walking zombies.

SPEAKER_03 14:35

Walking zombies or or the uh or that one jinxy girl on all the old cartoons. Oh yeah. You know, if there was a if walking across the road, if the white line didn't get her, the yellow one would. Right. Oh good Lord. And and again, even this is just an awareness. Right. You know, so we we have to be more aware of our surroundings when we're in them. You know, you'd be surprised at how well you're able to sense people behind you and around you when you pay attention doing your meditations and to where in the world you can sharpen certain senses up a little to help you out.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Right. You know, and well, and and there's an exercise that I kind of like as well about you know paying attention to your surroundings.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

Yeah. First of all, you go to the place somewhere you had never been before at night. Right. Then you when you're there, you write down everything you can think of while you're there. What you see, what you smell, the whole nine yards, the way it looked, the whole nine yards. Then you go back during the day and see how in the world your perception at night compares to what actually you can see in the day. Yes. I love that exercise. Why do you like it? What is it about it that you like?

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Um it brings about more awareness and it lets you, I mean, it just lets you know, hey, okay, I I thought this was that, and I was completely wrong because that wasn't even there.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

It just shows the limits of your senses. Yes. Is what it actually does.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

But in some ways it also it also shows you personally things you need to work on as far as your perception of other items and people and places go.

SPEAKER_03 16:39

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Because once you go into something like that and you do this exercise a few times in different places, and you start realizing, okay, this isn't that I have this in common with this. Right. This was not a common factor, I need to work on this.

SPEAKER_03 16:55

You know, why does it why why do I always see a stack of boxes as if it's a monster? Right. Why does this shape, why do I always see these shadows and stuff, and why do they always go into this shape?

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Right. So it gives you more to work on.

SPEAKER_03 17:10

It does. It gives you a whole lot more. Plus, you have that whole entire thing that we know about people's brains where humanity brains want to make patterns out of stuff that's not patterns. Right. That's actually called something. When there's not really anything there, though. Yeah. I've heard them say it on certain TV shows that they'll be talking about the same thing. So I mean at night you got all these shadows, things look different. Your mind's going to try to process what's there.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Right. And it uh and it's on it's gonna do it in a way that it knows how to do.

SPEAKER_03 17:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

And since your sight is limited, you have to rely on your imagination.

SPEAKER_03 17:58

I think our brains do the same thing in this scenario as if we were out on the astral plane. I believe so. Where it starts to place stuff in there and perceives things in the way it understands it versus what's actually there, especially when you're going there at night. Right. And you can actually see where in the world you're fooling yourself and thinking that there's stuff there when there's not. Right. You know, and I'm not sure what causes that, but I think it's that pattern recognition. I think it is. And if you're aware of it, you realize what you're doing and you can sometimes correct it at night.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Are there any other things that we can do to kind of help out with our quote unquote bad luck? Besides protection spells. I mean, I mean I you know, I'm talking realistic things like, you know, dealing with your view of perception.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

Um Well, what I'm thinking is you it seems like you would want to play more it seems like playing those games where it was to find the object. Oh, yeah, like the hidden object. Would help on you looking at details. Okay. Being able to look at a big picture and be able to go, okay, now I've seen the big picture, now let me break it down into smaller segments. So it seems like games, and notice I said games like this seem to help. Okay. You know, maybe even doing the memory match games. You know, I know there's a bunch of brain games out there that are designed to help you increase your perception so you can be more aware of your surroundings. You know, I think there's even times where you might even try to I I would even say blindfold yourself at home to where you can't see and try to move around using your other senses.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Might be wise to have somebody else there while you're doing that.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

But I mean, I d since I was in special ed, I was around a lot of people with special needs. Right. I've seen these blind people, and I have yet to figure out how in the world they make move it around in a room. You know, I have no idea, but they do it so well. They do it. You know, that's like, you know, I've seen deaf people talk across a room at each other in sign language at 90 miles an hour. Right. And I'm like, I can't interpret those signs that fast. And I know sign language. I mean, I don't use it on a daily basis like some of them do, but these I I think limiting certain senses help. I mean, this is where we have the whole entire what the um the float tanks. Oh yeah, the sensory deprivation tanks and stuff like that. You know, it's been talked about that witches have always done sensory deprivation in an attempt to increase uh their uh senses. Right. I know people that seems odd that you limit it to increase it.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Well, you're you're what you're doing is you're you're not cutting off all your senses necessarily. Well, I know what a lot of uh I know what some do is they'll limit one sense like blindfold. Think of it so that they can increase their hearing.

SPEAKER_03 21:25

But here's what it's doing. Think of it like getting your hair cut.

unknown 21:28

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

If your hair's too for guys, okay, you know, you your hair gets too long, you can feel it on the back of your neck. But as soon as you get it cut, you forget what that feels like. Mm-hmm. And the feeling's new. Right. Do you do you see what I'm s yeah trying to think of Yeah. Where we rem you know, while the hair or something's there, it feels this way, but we can change it to make it feel a different way. And the senses are hype heightened. Right. Because it hasn't had that sensation in a while. I think this is what the sensory defraction does. It turns it off, and then when you start to use it all at once, it's sort of like you know, standing at you know, front row motley crew. Right. It doesn't just get up and sing, it slaps you in the face and beats you and calls you baddy.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Oh Lord.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

Why? Because it can. Because it can, yes. You know, but I really I think this is what this is about. I mean, you know, do try the sensory deprivation stuff if you can, but you know, be careful.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Well again, there's I think there's different ways to do it. You can you can do total sensory deprivation. Like in the float tanks.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

You know, you can isolate all but one. Right. You can isolate all but two. What uh you know, there's various ways that you can do it. So, you know, like you could blindfold yourself and p get some noise-cancelling headphones and just rely on touch and smell. Right. Not trying to move around or anything, be safe about it. But you know, try to identify items, have somebody hand you items and try to identify it. And just identify it strictly by taste or smell.

SPEAKER_03 23:25

Yeah. You cut off the other senses to try to put more concentration into one. Exactly. You know, and doing it this way in privacy, uh eventually you get to the point where you sort of learn how to do this automatically without the bond folds and stuff. Right. How to alter or place a little bit more brain power behind hearing something or tasting something versus anything else. Right. Because I my understanding, and I gotta remember where I saw this, but it was something to the effect of people's taste buds are good enough to taste like a a a little crane of sand in a pool full of water. Okay. That you you see what I'm saying? Yeah. That our senses are a whole lot more sensitive than we give them credit for. We're just gotten so used to them we ignore 'em.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Right. Well, and and like as far as your your sense of taste, try we, you know, because of my blood pressure, we eliminated a lot of salt, a lot of sodium from our diet. Yeah. And now you go to eat something, you can taste the sodium in it. Oh, god, yes. It's it's the same thing. You've cut it off, and then all of a sudden you're using it, and it's like, whoo, whoa.

SPEAKER_03 24:48

Tastes like the Sahara in here.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

It's like, oh, this tastes like salt water. I know what the Dead Sea tastes like. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Just what I wanted. But no, I mean, how much how little we ignore our senses and certain things. Oh, well, I'm not sure. One of the ways you can actually even prove this about how fast we do this is if you live in a noisy area, try visiting the way out in the country for a while. Mm-hmm. The silence will drive you insane. Right. You know how many times I mean, I know people that can't go to sleep without white noise playing in the background. Right. But yet you ignore it. We don't pay attention to that fan running in the background. You don't pay attention to that, but you hear it all the time. Right. So if we can cut information off that fast, you know, how long does it take to add it back up? I mean, that's like we got one of those um seven day clocks.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 25:54

And I'm here all day and that thing chimes every quarter hour. And there are times I don't remember hearing it at all for hours on end. Right, yeah. I mean 'cause you get busy doing cooking dinner or doing this or doing that or watching this show.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Right. And again, you hear it all the time, so you just you block it out.

SPEAKER_03 26:13

You block it, you tune it out. So if we can tune it out, we should be able to tune it in. Should be. So again, I still think all of this comes down to a sense of us not paying attention. And I think that might also come from our sense of security.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

How so?

SPEAKER_03 26:33

What what's the chances of going out and being mugged? You know what I'm saying? What's your chances of going out and literally being held up by highway men? When was the last time the cavalry came running over the hill and took out your house? True. Did you see what I'm saying? Yeah. You know, yes, I know crime and stuff happens and blah, blah, blah, but on people's daily activities, this is not something we completely worry about.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Right.

SPEAKER_03 27:02

Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense.

SPEAKER_03 27:05

You know, you do a car is a very dangerous thing when you think about it. It's doing billions of explosions per second. I mean, seriously, and it going down the road, and we never think about this. We never think about how dangerous this is. We just do it.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Right.

SPEAKER_03 27:21

And in doing this, we also get into this sense of relax, we're safe and we don't pay attention.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Right.

SPEAKER_03 27:28

Because we feel like we don't have to. I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't think people should go around being paranoid all the time either, but but I mean, there should be a sense of alertness.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Well, and then too, um, I think some of that comes from a sense of familiarity. Where it's like, you know, we drive we drive these roads all the time. Right. You drive and and everybody does it. They drive specific roads almost on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

And so you're so familiar with them.

SPEAKER_03 28:00

How many times have you left home and arrived at work and don't remember getting there?

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Not very often, but I have had it happen. First time it happened, I was um I was actually in high school. Yeah. I was on my way to the school for an event. And yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:24

How many times have you done that? I can tell you how many I can't tell you how many times I've done this. Be driving somewhere and be listening to the music or whatever off into my la la land and suddenly be like, oh crap, did I pass? Where am I? And it'd take you a while, and you're still having to drive down the road trying to figure out where in the world you are.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Right. Because you've gotten quote unquote lost in time. Well, because you've altered your consciousness. Right.

SPEAKER_03 28:51

Unaware that you've uh you you've done this.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Well, that's why I said, quote unquote, lost in time. You've altered that conscious state to where you know things don't perceive like they're supposed to. And again, you weren't paying attention.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

You weren't paying attention.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

So everything seems to be coming back to that. I know.

SPEAKER_03 29:12

Funny how that is, huh? Like we're the cause of our own problems. What? And it might not be Mercury in retrograde doing all this. Might not. It might just be a convenient excuse. Oh, that's heresy. Don't say that. Uh I'll say it again. It's a convenient excuse. And I think about that's all I have about on this to say.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

All right. Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Pegan Coffee Talk is brought to you by Life Temple and Seminary. Please visit us at life templeseminary.org for more information, as well as links to our social media. Facebook, Discord, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

We travel down this trodden path a maze of stone and mire. Just hold my hand as we pass by a sea of blazing pyres. And so it is the end of our days. So walk with me till morning breaks. And so it is the end of our days. So walk with me till morning.