This is a talk I gave on Brian Bates’ work on the Wyrd – a West European Tradition of Subtle Interconnectedness. For more on the wonderful world of Wyrd, check out https://gowyrd.org. And here for Wyrd merch!
In the so-called “Dark Ages” Western Europe was home to the Anglo-Saxons and Norse. These cultures had great respect for the interconnected web of life that they referred to as “wyrd”. Over the last decades the Western world has imported Eastern concepts such as ch’i which have helped us to rediscover the sacred/hidden dimensions of reality. However, few people know that we had our own native concepts, language and practices for the subtle world. Brian Bates, in his book The Way of Wyrd, brought it to our attention, creating a novel based on an ancient manuscript in the British Library that tells the story of a missionary scribe being sent to discover the ways of the “pagans.”
This talk explores the world of wyrd and how it relates to eastern traditions as well as recent scientific discoveries. It is part of the Merry Musings series with Ubiquity University. If you would like to join the module with the background materials and online discussion group, you can sign up here. For the whole Merry Musings series, see here for more info.