MAORI WAR DANCE= The ‘Haka’

Ha= breath,
Ka= to energize,
HAKA= to energize the breath.

This is the traditional tribal war chant, accompanying the war dance, before battle.

Nowadays this is enacted before every rugby match of the all-conquering New Zealand ‘All Blacks.’ A leader leads the shouting, and the dance, which ends with a loud cry, and sticking the tongue out!

LEADER=
Slap the hands against the thighs!
Puff out the chest!
Bend the knees!
Let the hip follow!
Stamp the feet as hard as you can!

LEADER= I may die, I may die.
TEAM= I may live, I may live.
LEADER= It is death, it is death.
TEAM= It is life, it is life.
ALL= This is the man, the fierce powerful man.
It was he who captured the sun and caused
it to shine.

It rises and sets.
It rises and sets.
The sun shines.

KOREAN CODE OF CHOI KWANG-DO

Humility
Honesty
Gentleness
Perseverance
Self-Control
Unbreakable Spirit

JAPANESE CODE OF JUDO from the Budokwai in London

1= Politeness is a universal respect for all.
2= Courage is to do what is right.
3= Sincerity is to express oneself without disguising one’s thoughts.
4= Honour is to be faithful to the promise one gives.
5= Modesty is to speak of oneself without pride.
6= Without respect no confidence can be nurtured.
7= Self-control is to know when to be quiet when anger rises.
8= Friendship is the greatest of all human things.

JAPANESE SAMURAI SWORDSMAN

A certain person said, “In the saint’s tomb there is a poem=

If in one’s heart
he follows the path of sincerity,
though he does not pray,
will not the Spirit protect him?”

A samurai answered him by saying, “you seem to like poetry.
I will answer you with a poem=

As everything in the world is but a sham,
death is the only sincerity.
Becoming as a dead man in one’s daily living is
the following of the path of sincerity.”

[Yamamoto Tsunetomo, ‘The Book of the Samurai: Hagakure’]

CANTE TENZE WARRIOR SOCIETY

The ground on which we stand is here
The universe is also where we stand,
Strong Heart stands on the ground.

Welsh= “The weapon of the brave is in his heart.” [Anf gluy n ci gallon]

Old Gaelic= “Friends are good on the day of battle.”

Aristotle= “Anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – this is not easy.”

Berdyaev= “Truth is not a useful and serviceable thing in this world; it renders no services. It may even be destructive and ruinous to the ordering of things of this world; it demands sacrifice.. and can lead to martyrdom.”

The Whirling Dervishes do a flowing, and fluid, circle dance of Eros. Recently I witnessed something very different.

The Hasids do a trance song of no words. They sit together at tables, very bunched close, so that arms and bodies touch, and sing these no words melodies, repetitively over hours, banging the tables as they sing and sing. A wave of power sweeps through them all. There are no leaders and no followers. They are like wax melted by fire and melt into each other, making a oneness of all the persons taking part. This ecstasy, they believe, unites them with God. This is clearly not an Eros ex-stasis of Light, but a trance-like and Dionysic ex-stasis of Fire. They can do it for hours without pausing. Watching the Hasids reminded me of how Red Indians can drum for days without let up. The heart is seized ‘violently.’ It produces a different togetherness, and a different rejoicing. A rejoicing exulting, that we have come through the journey and battle of the Daemonic. We celebrate the Daemonic trials as the proving of Fire in the world and in us, its servants. We thank God for the Fire..

Passion is very personal– the person giving their heart to the world, which no one else can do in their stead, because God calls each heart to a specific place and time of trouble and a particular Cross there which no other person’s heart can ‘assume.’ Yet, the flip side of this radical personalness of the one person is a radical solidarity among several persons. Passion creates a different kind of friendship, the friendship of fellow sufferers of fate, of fellow battlers with fate. This friendship is the closest of all, in some ways. For, passion creates ‘a band of brothers’ that is not reciprocal, as in Eros, but promised, pledged, by honour. This creates a fundamental togetherness= sharing the wound of existence, thus sharing that we all carry each other – ‘bear the brother’ – in different ways. My strength carries your weakness, your strength carries my weakness. In warrior societies, this brotherhood cannot be broken.. A degenerate version of this reality is ‘you cannot leave the gang.’ The true version is, once you vow to put your shoulder to the wheel, joining with others who have vowed to put their shoulders to the wheel, there is no going back. There is no disgrace worse than turning back from this deed of vowing the heart. Bound together, for better, for worse, in weal and in woe. Some brothers will have to carry more than others. In this way, we bear it together, and none of our failures causes our solidarity to break apart.

Serving something greater, and deeper, through the way of passion, gives extra power to the person, but binds together persons in a communion of human tragedy and human heroism otherwise simply non-existent.

The Greek term in the gospel that Christ uses at his final parting from Peter does not ask Peter to build, or oversee, a church, temple, synagogue= a House of God of any description.

The Greek term refers to the Daemonically forged brotherhood= ‘those who are with us because they are for our cause.’ Christ is asking Peter to call together such persons.