The Magick of the Ancients: Cave Paintings and Rune Stones

Deep within the bosom of the Earth, our Great Mother, lie bridges through time--to the far distant past. Tens of thousands of years betwixt then and now, the voices of Them We Yearn to Reach call forth to us across distance and time. And if we are silent and still, we may be lucky enough to understand their call--and answer back...

WE ARE GOING TO SALEM!
Instagram: @beyondtheseaspodcast
EMAIL ME: beyondtheseaspodcast@gmail.com
Tarot Collaboration: @thefeatherwitchnyc
Weekly Book: Same Same
Podcast website: https://beyondtheseas.buzzsprout.com/
More info: https://www.kierandanaan.com/beyond-the-seas

WINE COLLAB!!!  🍷
Make sure to follow Iruai Winery on Insta, and order your wine from their website:
@iruaiwine
iruaiwine.com

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Author Interview Collaboration 📚
Crossed Crow Books (@crossedcrowbooks)

Sources 🌎
-Marchant, Jo. "A Journey to the Oldest Cave Paintings in the World." Smithsonian Magazine, January 2016. www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journey-oldest-cave-paintings-world.
-"Rune Stones." Nationalmuseet i København, en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-viking-age/power-and-aristocracy/rune-stones.

Music 🎵
"Hymn" by Borden Lulu
"Intimacy" by Ben Winwood
"Hold Me" by Christopher Galovan
"Me" by Fjodor
"Irish Mountains" by Ben Winwood

Cheers Magick Makers, 
Kieran

Chapters

• 0:00 In the Womb of the Mother
• 3:08 Grand Tidings!
• 12:11 Cave Paintings and Rune Stones
• 24:36 Practicum
• 30:49 Outro

Transcript

Darkness and cold. Complete silence. 

The slow dripping of water far away from you…or ever so near. 

The slow inhalation of breath through your nose and out your mouth. 

Then, the striking of flint on steel—and light springs forth. 

Torches are past among your kin, the vast dome of the cave birthing itself to you. 

As you are tucked safely within the womb of the Mother. 

And all around you, etched in ochre and mauve and bronze,

Is the story of your people. 

The Ancestors. 

The Ancients. 

Battles and wars, hunting and gathering. 

The movement of the stars, and the passage of time. 

The way forward…and the way back. 

A low humming, a chanting, calls you back to the present, 

As your kin calls forth the Spirits of Them Yearned to be Reached. 

And the chill air creeps across your skin as an otherworldly wind arises. 

The beating of drums, the thrashing of water, the whistling and howling of the wind. 

The movement of the glyphs all around you. 

The fires go out, the chanting ceases. 

And the Ancients are with you once more. 

The slow inhalation of breath through your nose and out your mouth. 

The slow dripping of water far away from you…or ever so near. 

Darkness and cold. Complete silence. 

(transition music)

            Grand tidings and welcome to you on this, the fifty-first episode, of Beyond the Seas. My name is Kieran and here we are again, back at it for another week. Oh my gosh, this past week has been one for the books: I have two things wrong in my right eye and they simply will not go away and I am steadily becoming more and more annoyed by the minute. And so many of my friends, students, coworkers, auditors, are saying,  “did you like…get in a fight? Did you win?? Did you lose???” Drama everywhere, people, drama. Thus, let’s go with something not dramatic: the plugs time. @beyondtheseaspodcast, over on Insta, and Claudia’s account, @thefeatherwitchnyc, to follow along with our weekly tarot collaboration—wherein Claudia teaches the tarot one card at a time, one week at a time. Also, our collaboration with Crossed Crow Books, @crossedcrowbooks. Finally, consider signing up for one of the tiers over on our Patreon, patreon.com/BeyondtheSeas. We are constantly coming up with new material to drop over there for all of you to enjoy, once you sign up: an interview with GennaRose Nethercott, guided meditations, rituals for the seasons and moons, and so many more. Finally, please leave a five-star rating and review, on your platform of choice, so the show may course its way through the interwebs and find new Magick Makers the world over. I am so, so, so happy you are all here, sharing some time with me on the show, today.

            And now, artistic and literary updates. I had three wonderful auditions last week, and gearing up for another three this week—with Broadway tomorrow. A Broadway audition, not literally Broadway, you get it. Ahhh, the life of the artist—one of the toughest out there, but one of the most rewarding, too. Now, the book: so Wicked was incredible, enough said about that. And if you do not know the final three lines of the novel, I….will not spoil them here for you. Suffice it to say, you gotta go grab yourself a copy before the movie hits theaters in like a month or something. What I started reading after Wicked: Same Same by Peter Mendelsund. I found this novel in the Science Fiction and Fantasy section at The Strand in Union Square, and thought it looked like a cool lil sci-fi read. Oh boy, oh contraire, oh no! Sci-fi it is not: it is PHILOSOPHY. And placed, WRONGLY, in the Fantasy section! I guess that makes one think, right? Hahahaha. Regardless, it is actually…really good. It follows this guy who has been selected to herald a new project in The Dome: an oasis of intellectuals, creators, artists, inventors, far out in…the desert. It’s literally a Utopian city that’s built inside a glass dome, by a sheikh, in the desert. Oh boy. BUT: things are not entirely as they seem. There is a dark underbelly to the Utopian lifestyle, and it is incredibly reminiscent of 1984. So, if you feel like going on a philosophical romp through the desert, head off to your local bookstore and snaf yourself a copy.  

            And now, the Card of the Week! This week…is no joke. No joke at all. And I am SURE all of you listening right now, once you hear what this card is, will go: “oh yes, yes, 1,000% yes, this makes total sense.” Ergo, let me tell you: Claudia has pulled none other than, energetically speaking, for the upcoming week…The Fool, Reversed. Now. Okay. This moment is very much a turning point, right? Things are, quite literally, upside down. The opportunities and paths forward are somewhat lacking right now—so maybe stay on the ones you trust the most, in this moment. Take a breath, and know that what you actually want to do will make itself known and will come to fruition. However, in the meantime, you must journey through the muck and mire that is your current way. Do not fret: it will get better. So breathe deeply this week, Magick Makers, and emrace the stress of it all while you sip on your tea of choice, orrrrrrr……..

            The Wine of the Week! To the fourth week of our collaboration with Iruai Wine we go, and I could not be more excited about it. This week, thanks to Chad, we have a bottle of 2023 Tierra Extraña Cabarnet Franc. The first thing I smelled was, surprisingly, blueberry. Can you believe? And then, after tasting it, I experienced the following: blueberry, sherry, cherry, peach, plum, raspberry a little, all spice, cinnamon, anise seed, and lots and lots of love. It hit the front of my tongue first, then spread alllll over my palate, for a lovely overall experience. When thinking of foods to pair this with, I see hearty stews and red sauce pastas; mixed green salads and Ratatouille. And…pouring a glass in the twilight of the night, and thinking about a certain someone you’ve had your eye on for a few weeks…and who, magickally, has been looking back all along. Mmmmmhmhmhmmmmm.

            And, finally, this week’s topic. I am really excited to dive into the topic of Cave Paintings and Rune Stones, as I have always held them in wonder, awe, and respect. They are physical links to the past—created with the hands of our Ancestors. And, miraculously, here they are—still. Magick incarnate. Thus, what are these pictographic specimens? Where are they found? What stories and legends abound, in regards to them? And how might we employ them in our magick and mythos today?         

            For now, grab your favorite bottle of red, find a comfy chair, and close your eyes as I tell you the tale of The Magick of the Ancients: Cave Paintings and Rune Stones—and take you…

            Beyond the Seas.

            (transition music)

            Close your eyes, and follow my voice into the past. The red ochres of humanoid figures. The brown shades of mammals and life. The topaz hues of arrows and standing stones. All these elements figure into the tens of thousands of years old humanoid art adorning the walls of caves, and standing stones, of our world. Truly, the oldest known piece of art in our world—the first piece of constructed art by human hands, is over 35,000 years old. Think about that for a moment. 

            The wonder of Cave Paintings and Rune Stones lie in their physical survival: they are an eternal link to our past—and those who wielded the tools to make and place them there. They act as a conduit, a bridge, through time—and resurrect the magick of our Ancestors once more. What motivated them to create such works? What beliefs live within the stones, or messages from the stars…or Otherworld?

            I have two wonderful articles that will help point us in the right direction of understanding these creations, and their overall meaning in our world and history. First, from Jo Marchant’s article, “A Journey to the Oldest Cave Paintings in the World,” over at the Smithsonian’s website, “Who were the first “people,” who saw and interpreted the world as we do? Studies of genes and fossils agree that Homo sapiens evolved in Africa 200,000 years ago. But although these earliest humans looked like us, it’s not clear they thought like us.

            “Intellectual breakthroughs in human evolution such as tool-making were mastered by other hominin species more than a million years ago. What sets us apart is our ability to think and plan for the future, and to remember and learn from the past—what theorists of early human cognition call ‘higher order consciousness.’

            “Such sophisticated thinking was a huge competitive advantage, helping us to cooperate, survive in harsh environments and colonize new lands. It also opened the door to imaginary realms, spirit worlds and a host of intellectual and emotional connections that infused our lives with meaning beyond the basic impulse to survive. And because it enabled symbolic thinking—our ability to let one thing stand for another—it allowed people to make visual representations of things that they could remember and imagine. ‘We couldn’t conceive of art, or conceive of the value of art, until we had higher order consciousness,’ says Benjamin Smith, a rock art scholar at the University of Western Australia. In that sense, ancient art is a marker for this cognitive shift: Find early paintings, particularly figurative representations like animals, and you’ve found evidence for the modern human mind.

            “…the oldest dated art was firmly in Europe. The spectacular lions and rhinos of Chauvet Cave, in southeastern France, are commonly thought to be around 30,000 to 32,000 years old, and mammoth-ivory figurines found in Germany correspond to roughly the same time. Representational pictures or sculptures don’t appear elsewhere until thousands of years afterward. So it has long been assumed that sophisticated abstract thinking, perhaps unlocked by a lucky genetic mutation, emerged in Europe shortly after modern humans arrived there about 40,000 years ago. Once Europeans started to paint, their skills, and their human genius, must have then spread around the world.

            “But experts now challenge that standard view. Archaeologists in South Africa have found that the pigment ocher was used in caves 164,000 years ago. They have also unearthed deliberately pierced shells with marks suggesting they were strung like jewelry, as well as chunks of ocher, one engraved with a zigzag design—hinting that the capacity for art was present long before humans left Africa.

            “…There are two main phases of artwork in these caves. A series of black charcoal drawings—geometric shapes and stick figures including animals such as roosters and dogs, which were introduced to Sulawesi in the last few thousand years—haven’t been dated but presumably could not have been made before the arrival of these species.

            “Alongside these are red (and occasionally purplish-black) paintings that look very different: hand stencils and animals, including the babirusa in Leang Timpuseng, and other species endemic to this island, such as the warty pig… Most ancient of all was a hand stencil (right beside the record-breaking babirusa) with a minimum age of 39,900 years—making it the oldest-known stencil anywhere, and just 900 years shy of the world’s oldest-known cave painting of any kind, a simple red disk at El Castillo. The youngest stencil was dated to no more than 27,200 years ago, showing that this artistic tradition lasted largely unchanged on Sulawesi for at least 13 millennia.

            Some archaeologists “championed the theory that in Europe, where art was hidden deep inside dark chambers, the main function of cave paintings was to communicate with the spirit world. Smith is likewise convinced that in Africa, spiritual beliefs drove the very first art. He cites Rhino Cave in Botswana, where archaeologists have found that 65,000 to 70,000 years ago people sacrificed carefully made spearheads by burning or smashing them in front of a large rock panel carved with hundreds of circular holes. “We can be sure that in instances like that, they believed in some sort of spiritual force,” says Smith. “And they believed that art, and ritual in relation to art, could affect those spiritual forces for their own benefit. They’re not just doing it to create pretty pictures. They’re doing it because they’re communicating with the spirits of the land.”

            Now, let us put the brakes on there for Cave Paintings—while also acknowledging how incredible they are! Before the break, let us look the counterparts to this incredible set of historical art, as we venture into the Northern realms and peer into the story of the Rune Stones.          

            From the National Danish Museum’s website, in the article titled “Rune Stones,” “The rune stones of the Viking period were erected in memory of the dead – mostly powerful people – and their honourable deeds. They were intended to be visible and were painted in bright colours. The stones often stood near roads or bridges, where many people passed by. They were not necessarily placed at the burial of the person they commemorated.

            “The rune stones bring us very close to the Vikings. Their inscriptions feature the names of the people who lived and died at this time. They also provide information about the travels, great achievements and sad fates of these individuals.

            “Rune stones are by and large only found in Scandinavia. Around 250 rune stones are known from Viking Age Denmark. Most of the Scandinavian examples are from Sweden, where there are over 3000 inscriptions.

            “The runic inscriptions always name the people who erected the stones and those the stones were raised for. Rune stones were placed in honour of both men and women. Often mentioned are the deceased’s closest kin, position in society, perhaps a short description of his or her character and the circumstances surrounding death. The inscription can also include the rune carver’s name and a curse upon anyone who dares to desecrate the stone. In addition, after the introduction of Christianity, a prayer for the soul of the deceased might be present. Ornamentation and images are also found upon rune stones.

            “The tradition of erecting rune stones was typically associated with the rich and powerful families of the Viking Age, but was not their exclusive preserve. For example, the Hørning stone, found close to Aarhus, displays an inscription stating that it was erected by an emancipated slave.”

            There is a slew of information regarding the history, magic, power, and might of rune stones and their uses. And beyond that, the power and might of cave paintings. Clearly, both pieces of art were used for different and similar purposes: to commemorate the spirits of the land, and communicate directly with them. To erect the memory of the fallen—the Ancestors—and honor them forevermore. To ignite the spark of the divine within, and make manifest its powers as artistic expression and individualistic ingenuity. Pretty heady stuff, right?

            Thus, after the break, I want to take a few moments to consider how we might today, in our own practices, enact magick and ritual to connect with the themes of these rocks and stones—so as to empower our Craft and lives. 

            Refill your drinking horns, your goblets, your chalices, for the second half of The Magick of the Ancients: Cave Paintings and Rune Stones, after this brief break. 

            (transition music)

            Imagine crawling deep within the womb of the Earth, through the rough and rocky subterranean pathways of old. Ultimately, to find yourself in an open, cool cavern that houses—within its inky black interior—the wonders of the ancient world. A living mausoleum, a record, that stretches forth from the present moment and back into the past. Your hand glides smoothly over the wall and feels the rough-hewn images left there by the Ancients. And you feel a prickling, a tingling, all over your body. This sensation is the way back, your birthright of magick. 

            Thus, with those images and thoughts in mind, how might we bring these iconographic elements into our own practices? When the night is young and the moon is new, cast a simple circle all around you. Burn one candle—the light of the Ancients from the past. Breathe deeply of your favorite incense—the smoldering of fire that guided them. And prepare in front of you a small, found stone and a paint of your choosing. 

            Invoke the directions and deities in your usual manner, and feel their presences. Then, contemplate the stone in front of you. It is a survival of the past, a gift of the earth itself. Herein, in this moment, lies a wonderful opportunity: do you seek a totem, a charm, of reminder and memory? Or a spark of the unknown and the divine?

            For the former, envision that which you seek to acknowledge and remember. To enshrine and uphold. This is a spell of binding, protection, and love. It draws you more closely into the relationship of that which you seek to memorialize. When ready, take a finger on your non-dominant hand and dip it into the paint, conjuring images and icons—glyphs and patterns—onto the stone as you will. Chant words and thoughts as you do this, to empower the stone with newfound energy and wisdom. Once finished, a totem of protection and love is created. 

            For the latter, the spark of creation itself must flow forth from you and into the stone. Close your eyes and breathe deeply of the air surrounding you—you are as connected to the world around you, and as much a part of it, as it is of you. The higher realms, and deeper shadows within, demand of you courage and might. When ready, take a finger on your non-dominant hand and dip it into the paint, conjuring energies of the divine into your hand. Trace glyphs, icons, and pictures onto the stone. This spell connects you to the realms of spirit, and acts as a beacon to those who live in that realm. Use it when practicing lucid dreaming, spirit flight, and divinations of all kinds. 

            Thank the gods and spirits for having joined you in this moment in time, and ask of them to stay if they so choose. Then, dismiss them and the quarters—and open your circle in the usual manner. The spell, whichever you so cast, is now complete. 

            Overall, it is the magick of the rune stones and cave paintings that live on within your magickally crafted stone. It is a tradition that continues to exist and thrive as you place this empowered object upon your altar. It is a reminder to uphold the memories of Them We Yearn to Reach, the spirits of the land and the spirits of our Ancestors—and to know that they are truly never as far away as we think. 

            For as a result, your magick, my magick—our magick—will always be made stronger…because of it. 

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            The stories, research, and production elements were done and edited, respectively, by me, Kieran, with sources attached in the description. If you want to be a guest on the show, or have a topic you wish me to explore and discuss, send me an email at beyondtheseaspodcast@gmail.com. And be sure to hit the follow button, on whichever platform you enjoy the podcast, and look forward to more content next week. Until then, seek the veil between the worlds, and allow yourself to travel…Beyond the Seas.