Heroplane stuff...

Julian Lord:
> > > Basically it's from our knowledge that the Underworld has a link to
> > > Ultimate Reality.
> >
> > Greg was very vague about that, I thought. I can't remember what he
> > said, though I do recall him being asked, and I do recall thinking
> > "hrm, that was a not entirely certain-sounding response".
>
> I've similar impressions, but I remember that the vagueness seemed to
> indicate that he was uncertain about the nature of the link, not that it
> existed about which fact he seemed quite definite.

I'm vague about what he was vague about, I confess (and I wish I was going to be as dunkel-inducedly vague again, this year *sigh*), but at the very least if there is such a link, it's of a different nature entirely than the relationship between the O/Ws and the trancendent. If we can conclude anything at all from Greg's blackboard diagrams...

> > > The Black Age is pure in itself : a remnant of pure pre-Blue Age
> > > Glorantha, lnked to Ultimate Being, uncorrupted by subsequent
> > > upheavals (but not previous ones) ;
> >
> > This sounds to me to be _in effect_ an analogue of the Green Age, then.
>
> Well, yes and no. The Black Age and the Blue Age are fundamentally
> different to the subsequent Ages, although the Green Age togetherness
> of all things also existed in the previous Ages, but in different ways.
> Discrete entities exist in the Green Age, which is how and why that
> togetherness can be destroyed. Blue Age "essences" flow into and out of
> each other, so that there's no precise boundary or exact difference
> between them (but there is movement and separation). Black Age
> creature(s) simply exist as an undistinguishable, yet ordered, mass of
> protoplasm(s).

Hum. And the mythic precedent for any of the above is... what? It reminds me largely of the cycles of Malkioni myth, which uses entirely different terminology... Or possibly at a stretch of distinct "phases" in the Creation Age of the east. As actual myth goes though, it strikes me at first wink as being some place between mono- and non-...

> So, the Green Age upheavals that led to the creation of
> the Golden Age are impossible in Black Age and Blue Age Glorantha :
> people simply weren't distinct enough from each other to be so
> disrupted.

The Green Age upheavals that led to the creation of the Golden Age are impossible in the Green Age, also. (Think about it...)

> > In any event, it sounds far from "pure", since by your construction,
> > it's a Hero Plane ("Mythic Age" type...), and thus mixed; and as (one
> > of) the very earliest one(s), it "predates" the 4-fold separation,
> > and is thus by that logic also "mixed"...
>
> No, because the Black Age predates the 4-folded brokenness, which
> from this POV was the event that created the Blue Age, but in its
> deepest innermost reaches the Black Age was unaffected by the split

But that is a) true of the Green Age, and b) pretty much what I just said.

> > > in its deepest place, this is Glorantha
> > > at the exact moment that it came into existance, and is thus
> > > "transcendental" Reality, in all senses of the t-word.
> >
> > I can see why you'd say this, because there's nothing "before" the Black
> > Age (let's dodge the issue of there being things "before" the Green
> > Age as such...). But things like the Wonderhome myth are obviously
> > very "late" after First Creation,
>
> The Wonderhome myth is set in the Golden Age (Lead Age ?) and early
> Storm Age.

So it's not clear to me that there's any place or "time" or "thing" in Uz mythology that would be identified with this Black Age, given that evidently we agree (yay) that's it's not Wonderhome. I'm not saying there won't be "deep mythology" or "mysticism" relating to this "period", but I see no real evidence of distinct "phases" in Uz mythology after creation and prior to Wonderhome (and the subsequence booting out therefrom). (i.e. in effect think low-light Green Age...)

> The important thing is that the Black Age contains a link to the Infinite
> and Eternal Well of Creation, similarly to many RW mythic
> cosmologies.

Well, that would be Important. But what on earth is the indication that it's in any way True? Every indication seems to be that there's no such (distinct) place, and that even if in some sense there were, it'd be a HeroPlane.

I raised a question earlier about the relationship between the otherworlds and the heroplanes that I'm still no clear in my own mind on, that may be related to the above, at least sketchily. Let's consider "places" in the God Plane, like Stormstead. Mythically, these don't exist "before" the Storm Age. But does that imply a change in the nature of the GP itself? Or is such a question unanswerable, since one can also "perceive" the GP (etc) via the Heroplanes? (i.e. if you go to the Golden Age, and try to reach Stormstead, then either you simply won't be able to find it at all, or by doing so you'll precipitate yourself into the Storm Age (in effect "bringing it about"), then thence into the appropriate part of the God Plane.

Cheers,
Alex.

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