Saint Moninne: Reversion to the Moon-based Metaphor
Saint Moninne: Reversion to the Moon-based Metaphor
Manuland VIII: Paean to the phenomenon in Disinfolklore and in statistics/data analytics that powers neural network computer algorithms- Reversion to the Mean.
Saint Moninne is a perfect example of what motivated my search for the meaning (M-N-), if any, of this recurrence of M-N- sounds in Indo-European culture’s sacred vocabulary - Brahmin, Brāhmaṇas, Bramaṇā, Flamines, Mantra, Brāhmaṇa, Angra Mainyu (destructive mind/spirit) & Spəṇta Mainyu (holy/creative spirit/mentality), Manannán, Dies Dominica" ("Day of Our Lord) / Dimanche, Oṃ Maṇi Padme Hūṃ (Tibetan Buddhism's most important mantra / teaching), Matrimony, barəsman, Manna, Minerva, Minos, Minotaur, Ceremony, Sacrament, Samhain, Mani (Manicheans), monarch, Communion, Mandala, minister, manistic, Numen (ancient Roman religion)… - , and in other key fundamental Indo-European vocabularies, as well as in other domains.
I’m not really interested in the Saint herself, about whom we know little.
What does interest me is how we as human beings carry with us certain sounds across millennia which connect us to those who first employed those sounds to describe phenomena just like us.
There’s frequently a proximate reason for the name (which like ‘ainm’ (Irish for ‘name’ of an animate sentient being) is simply a reversal of the M-N-, a phenomenon common in linguistics for cognate phenomena - anam (soul in Irish) and Manes (soul in Latin)…)- a folk etymology, or their parent liked its sound…
Or an orthographic (the way we transcribe sounds using alphabets, and certain conventions or rules…) corruption can give us an M-N— sound, where maybe before there was none.
In Ireland much of the ubiquity of the M-N- sound (Monaghan, Fermanagh, Chill Mhaintain, Loch Gorman, Moone, and 2000+ other placenames) seems to be an remnant of the conquest of the island by the Menapii (Brigantes/Belges) from Northern France/Belgium.
The Menapii capital was Cassels (close to the Manche / channel), and it’s where I first saw the Manuland moniker adorning a mundane tractor distributor’s warehouse on my way back to my diplomatic mission in eastern Ukraine October 2021 - a few months before the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
You might remember that in Episode I of “Finding Manuland,” I was directed to Strange Cassels by the Giant Herdsman?
And as we meander through this tale, I assure you we’ll eventually get there (though recap-posts like this one give us a taste of where we’re going, and where we are!).
But there’s also an intriguing deeper well from which these monikers and their meanings are drawn.
So that they reoccur constantly in key vocabularies and peoples’ names Armenia (Menua), German (Mannus / Hermione founded the German people), Roman, Manu was Indian culture’s first human, and Aryaman.
Aryaman is a sound used to describe the treasurer of a Royal House in ancient Iran. Later, as all the functions in a Royal House became ‘celestialised’ as deities, Aryaman too became a God, before being brought back down to earth by Zarathustra in his religious reforms around 1,400 BCE. Zarathustra/ Zoroaster turned Aryaman into a kind of Demon.
This negating character of a demon, relative to a deity, also characterises Judaic, Christian and Buddhist conceptions of religion. And it comes from the early Iranian. We’ll revert again and again to this phenomenon of being able, sometimes, to be able to trace with certainty the origins of sounds memes in our deep culture using certain means we’ll become familiar with in Power of Mana, and indeed in Counter Disinfolklore ~ Controlling War Magic.
We will also be able to use these same means to discern the Mana of Ruschian (and other forms of Disinfolklore, including Trump-Brexitism) we encounter in our daily lives.
Iran itself is an orthographic corruption from Aryaman where “Arya” seems to mean (literally: “something’s Mana” shining through “something else’s Mana” is what meaning means, like light illuminating the moon X (say, like a word in a dictionary) means Y (say, the dictionary’s definition of X), where Y and X are different, yet somehow semantically similar) central place/navel of a community), Erimon (Ireland’s first high king and son of mil whom some scholars think is cognate with Aryaman - and the ubiquity of surname endings like -aryan, -eryan and -iryan in Armenia and Iran sounds tantalisingly similar to the common West of Ireland ‘Ryan’ surname as in, say, Ryan Air - another example of, perhaps, culture is preserved on the margins).
Monashka means nun in Russian. Moine monk in French. Monastery… It’s even in Karman (‘Karma’ is what linguists call an inflection of ‘Karman’ (the content immanent in the subtle energy (Mana) that persists after our current embodiment decays)).
Śākyamuni (शाक्यमुनि) (epithet for the Buddha) sage (muni - from the same root as ‘muinteoir’ (teacher in Irish)) of Sakya Clan…
M-N- is in communion, community, communal, criminal,…
The energy (Mana) of M-N- sounding monikers and meanings, I think, goes back to the Ancient Ukrainian/proto-Indo-European word for the Moon (meh₁n-ṓt).
And the light illuminating the moon (meh₁n-ṓt) is what I call the main moon-based metaphor that underlies much of Indo-European language, including the name - human - we as Germanic-language speaking humans use for our species, our minds, and even the structure of early Roman contract law that’s still immanent in our Common Law system (that which has my Mana in it is Mine).
I call this recurring phenomenon Reversion to the Moon (based metaphor, as a paean to the phenomenon in Disinfolklore, and in the discipline of statistics/data analytics (that powers neural network computer algorithms) Reversion to the Mean (M-N-)).
Metaphor itself breaks down into “Metis” (device/measure) and “Phar” (light).
A metaphor is a linguistic device that casts light on another phenomenon. From such networks of corresponding meanings the entirety of our personal (as well as our communities’) self-identity emanates. Metaphors are a means of communicating memes.
The “Me-“ element in “Metis” stems from the “Meh1” element in “Meh₁n-ṓt,” which meant, in the minds of the first Indo-European language speakers - the Ancient Ukrainians- “measure.” Since the Moon was the main means of measuring time, it’s easy to understand how Meh1 element and its meaning came to mean “Moon” among the first Indo-European language speakers in eastern Ukraine.
This meaning (semantically) is preserved in the oodles of M-N- sound-filled monikers we use today in contemporary English like Month, Minute, Millennium, Million, mean, money, Menarche, Menstruate,…
We’ll come back to this “measure” immanence in many (there it is again) M-N- sound-filled monikers and their meanings as it’s a crucial dye we can use to discern the Mana in memes..
This is, in essence, what PowerofMana.net is about: looking for the energy (Mana) in linguistic, audible, visual and all kinds of memes, and what these may or may not mean.
Searching for an underlying meaning of and reason for this empirically observable M-N- pattern is how I ended up looking into the Síde (Mounds), the Yamnaya (the first Indo-European language speakers), and all that guff.
Once you get your ear and eye in to the M-N- sound it’s in practically every sentence we speak and hear.
Yet no-one appears to have noticed its ubiquity across Indo-European culture before. Nor has anyone, it seems, delved down deeply into its (still many unrevealed) mysteries.
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