Nienna of the Valar

Nienna is a Queen of the Valar, spoke of in the Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien:

"Mightier than Este is Nienna, sister of the Feanturi; she dwells alone. She is acquainted with grief, and mourns for every wound that Arda has suffered in the marring of Melkor. So great was her sorrow, as the Music unfolded, that her song turned to lamentation long before its end, and the sound of mourning was woven into the themes of the World before it began. But she does not weep for herself; and those who hearken to her learn pity, and endurance in hope. Her halls are west of West, upon the borders of the world; and she comes seldom to the city of Valimar where all is glad. She goes rather to the halls of Mandos, which are near to her own; and all those who wait in Mandos cry to her, for she brings strength to the spirit and turns sorrow to wisdom."

"Whereas Melkor spent his spirit in envy and hate, until at last he could make nothing save in mockery of the thought of others, and all their works he destroyed if he could...Now in his heart Melkor most hated the Eldar, both because they were fair and joyful and because in them he saw the reason for the arising of the Valar, and his own downfall."

I think about the world the Valar built in the Silmarillion, including Vana the Ever-young (all flowers spring as she passes and open if she glances upon them; and all birds sing at her coming), Nessa (deer she loves, and they follow her train whenever she goes in the wild; but she can outrun them, swift as an arrow with the wind in her hair. In dancing she delights, and she dances in Valimar on lawns of never-fading green), Manwe (in Arda his delight is in the winds and the clouds...all swift birds, strong of wing, he loves, and they come and go at his bidding), Varda (Lady of the Stars...too great is her beauty to be declared in the words of Men or Elves; for the light of Iluvatar lives still in her face) and more.

Fast forward to present times, where a wolf-grinned, billionaire businessman prancing around in parachute pants with tigers on them says what we need above all else in our ecosystem is an extraordinarily humongous, plain, boxy, ugly warehouse buzzing loudly at all hours of the day and night, casting out vibrations of the most horrific, disturbing noise and environmental pollution across communities of people and wildlife. This correlates to a recent story about a certain $300 million yacht that somehow lacked the technology to hear or respond to a distress call from a smaller nearby boat in Alaska. Regardless of the details, I feel this is a metaphor for our times. Power corrupts is not a new concept; those afflicted are shockingly tunnel-visioned and hyper-focused on themselves.

I interpret the lyrics to the Muse song "Take a Bow" as a message to the corrupt to enjoy their extremely finite victories. "You bring death and destruction to all that you touch/You must pay for your crimes against the Earth...You will beg for their lives and their souls." This last line I believe is about spiritual laws, universal retribution, what lies beyond the truly short lives we have here on Earth. In Stillness Speaks, a book so important for our times, Eckhart Tolle says: "Resist not evil is one of the highest truths of humanity." There's also the expression "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind," which I believe to be true. An incredible book I read this summer called Three Body Problem also illuminates this. The protagonist in the book lives during the reign of Mao in communist China, and "illegally" reads Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (I own all of her books, she was an environmental pioneer). This is after the protagonist watches her father, an academic, murdered in front of her by the Red Guard (while her traitor mother cheered them on) and endless waves of forest clearing and environmental destruction being done in the name of "the people". What this book illustrates, however, is that no matter how dark the world around you, hatred, revenge and wrath will only breed more chaos. 

Another line from Tolle's Stillness Speaks: "Do you know of someone whose main function in life seems to be to make themselves and others miserable, to spread unhappiness? Forgive them, for they too are part of the awakening of humanity. The role they play represents an intensification of the nightmare of egoic consciousness, the state of non-surrender. There is nothing personal in all this. It is not who they are."

A man I've come across in some of my health journey passed away earlier this year, and while I didn't follow most of what he did, I really admired his meditation practices. I don't consciously meditate ever, but I do sit out in nature as much as possible. He believed that we are part of a collective consciousness, and that intentional, collective positive thinking can actually reduce negative outcomes and the power of nefarious people. He would always say "I can't do this alone, guys."

I've really begun to step away from my phone, specifically social media. Every time I go on Facebook, for example, I better click on the "Friends" feed quickly, or I'll see a personally branded algorithm of extreme negativity -- reel after reel, picture after picture, of natural disasters supposedly bred from man-induced climate change decimating entire ecosystems for decades, abused dogs in labs spinning in cages in a fit of madness, and dying wildlife struggling to thrive in an urbanized, built world brought into a rehab facility at the last second. This algorithm seems to think this is what will get me riled up the most, spike my cortisol to the maximum highest level. I always think of a study I read years ago: "Slightly stressed carp succumb easily to parasite". Slightly stressed carp. Well, I'd say we're more than slightly stressed when incredibly disturbing images curated to us are flashed in front of our faces all day every day. That actually sounds like something one would do to torture an enemy. You have to wonder: who would benefit from us being akin to a mass of slightly stressed carp easily succumbing to illness?