Q. What does it really mean to be a success in life?
Q. What is our true purpose in this world?
These questions are fundamental to understanding ourselves and why we are here. Over the last century in particular and in bygone days, there have been many discussions about humanity’s purpose on Earth. Great ideas have emerged for all who wish to explore, and others that are not so great as we may think. It is surely unwise to hold to any fixed point of view and base our lives on it without fully considering the effects it may have on ourselves and others.
There’s a rivetting television series on Netflix called The Last Kingdom, created by Stephen Butchard and based on the books written by Bernard Cornwell. The TV series is built around the Saxon Stories and is beautifully portrayed by all who took part in it. The historical setting is the history of Alfred the Great and the beginning of England in the ninth and tenth centuries.
The story begins with the conquest by the Danes of all but one of the major Saxon kingdoms, that of Wessex, which is ruled by the noble King Alfred, and the last kingdom nearly overrun by vikings.
Chronicles speak of the restless spirit of the Danes in those days and their relentless thirst for land and power in England. The English were god-fearing Christians, devoted to the Roman Church and its doctrines, while the Danes held to their fervent belief in the gods of Valhalla, the heavenly sanctuary for all true warriors. Herein lies the age-old cause of enmity between races, religions and personal beliefs: the conflict of ideas.
To save England, Alfred rallies his forces and begins a long and violent struggle with the Danes and self-serving English lords, to fulfil his ambition of uniting all English speakers into one realm. To do this, he needs the help of a great warrior, Uhtred the Bold. Uhtred (portrayed by the endearing actor, Alexander Dreymon), a fictional character in the story, is portrayed as a brave and reasonable Saxon man who was captured in his youth by a Danish warlord whom he grew to love. With experiential understanding of both the English and Danish temperaments, Uhtred demonstrates strength of character, courage, goodness, and an independent mind when dealing with the impetuous Danes, and the self-seeking ambitions of the English nobility who vie for his help and warrior’s prowess in order to further their gains.
The wide range of human relations depicted so clearly in The Last Kingdom offers most valuable food for thought and a clear insight into the workings of the human mind and heart over the last two millennia. The series provides a clear visual of the Age of Pisces as it played out in those days, and continues to play out in these end times. It was then, and is now, an age of WAR which history confirms. In the new age now dawning, we are told from reliable sources, that life will be very different in the new era and if we look carefully, we will see clear signs of the new Age of Aquarius surfacing amidst present world turmoil.
The purpose for mentioning this TV series—in light of the two questions posed above—is to point out the great insights to be had in viewing the age-old conflicts posed in the Saxon story, conflicts which apply so pertinently to the horrors of the two world wars humanity has had to face in the last century, and the global effects we are now facing as a result of the war between Ukraine and Russia. As one pays close attention to the flow of events in the Saxon drama, one becomes intimately aware of the power of directed thought playing out in so many ways for good or ill. In the clear detached witnessing of life’s events, whether it be through dramas based on bygone days or in the heat of present day events, the witnessing Observer in each of us ‘sees’ with child-like clarity the mesmerising power of energy constantly wielded into great and destructive dramas caused by confused thought and feeling within human minds and hearts.
We are vessels for energy of one kind or another pouring through our beings at every moment, but of which we are so frequently unaware. Though violence and brutality are portrayed in the Saxon story as the normal happenings of those bygone days, the Observer within us, looking through today’s media is given vivid insight into the truth that humanity is today similarly motivated by energies held in some misconstrued thought, conviction, passion, or blind attachment which moves the life-force in a particular direction, and often selfishly. Driving forces are ever at work within us for good or evil and the choice between the two has never been clearer as it is now.
There is great benefit in knowing the details and outcome of historical events, and the television medium is perhaps the most powerful tool we have today for telling stories of human drama and learning from them. We can see clearly and in a more detached way the ‘causes and effects’ of energetic forces playing out in dramas of one kind or another, in ourselves and in others, as we live out our short lives together on earth. What is realised clearly in the stellar performances of King Alfred and Uhtred are the superior effects of a mind and heart that are basically sound and good, though weakened at times by the more corrupt forces wielded by those around them.
The golden key to wielding energy correctly lies in the understanding that energy follows thought. Within the sea of forces ever surrounding us is the opportunity to align with something higher within us. It is the wakeful mind attuned to the higher vision of the soul that gives the power to see what is true and false. The discerning clarity of the Soul in those who are awakening in the midst of world crisis is bringing about needed changes as we enter the new age. Let us be more aware of innovative and inspired ways of thinking wherever they emerge.
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