Category: Ancient Culture

Self-Actualization Through Hierarchy: Risks and Rewards

Published on by Angel Millar1 Comment

I find myself caught between the tension of rejecting top-down societal constraints imposed by an old, privileged classes bent on control and the desire to preserve ancient principles grown up out of cultural traditions that have a long track record for developing notable individual achievement.

Hierarchy and regimentation is not something I’m a big fan of in most cases. In fact, playing by the rules and being obedient are concepts I have spent my entire life rebelling against. The thought of bowing down to an authority figure gives me the creeps. Nowhere do I feel more strongly about this dynamic of human interaction more so then in the realm of politics. The very notion of an individual or small group of powerful elites enacting a monolithic standard of ethics and moral law is the epitome of unnatural subversion against free people. It truly makes my stomach churn. These abusive and liberty corroding control systems play out in any number of other social arenas such as can be found in education, law enforcement, workplaces and within the family unit. Continue reading “Self-Actualization Through Hierarchy: Risks and Rewards” →

An Introduction to the Martial Arts of Pentjak Silat Serak and Pentjak Silat Bukti Negara

Published on by Angel Millar6 Comments

The tribes of the jungles of the Indo-Malay archipelago have produced some of the most devastating systems of combat and self – defense based on hundreds of years of tribal warfare. Collectively known as Silat, these martial arts systems are generally characterized by both armed and un-armed tactics and concepts. Although in modern times some have been watered down into sports, many have kept their edge as forms of combat and self – preservation whose instructors refuse to teach them as sports.

When the term Pencak Silat is used, it refers specifically to the Indonesian systems of Silat. Likewise, the alternative spelling of Pentjak Silat refers to the Dutch-Indonesian lineages of Silat. There are literally dozens of these systems, with hundreds of sub-systems. The term Pencak Silat was first used officially on the 18th of May in 1948 at the foundation of the Indonesian Pencak Silat Association (IPSI – Ikatan Pencak Silat Indonesia). The term pencak was more common among the Javanese, whereas silat was the common term for martial practice in Sumatra, as well as Borneo. Continue reading “An Introduction to the Martial Arts of Pentjak Silat Serak and Pentjak Silat Bukti Negara” →

The Spiritual Meaning of Music, From Ancient Greece to Today

Published on by Angel Millar3 Comments

In Ancient Greece, music was the gift of the Muses to man. The Muses were the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, and all knowledge and art were under their dominion. They were the sponsors and protectors of mousikai, an integral part of the fabric of everyday life, which was comprised of singing and lyrics, and the Όρχισης (Orchisis)—an organized group of dancers. The term mousikai is used in order to distinguish from what today we call “music” – the science and art of organized sound.

Besides a cultural practice, mousikai was also a means to higher levels of consciousness through the art of sacred geometry, placing it in the sphere of the divine. In Greek antiquity, the Olympian god Apollo is directly connected with the Muses and with mousikai as a divine art. He is represented as their leader in dance and song, and given the epithet mousagetes (leader of the muses), as the historian Pausanias informs us in his “Description of Greece.” Continue reading “The Spiritual Meaning of Music, From Ancient Greece to Today” →