The Watcher, we have all sensed him, glaring from over our shoulder!
No it’s not a ghost. No, it’s not your mother checking you brushed your teeth. It’s not a foreign actor hacking your Google home.
It’s just the Watcher!
But why does the Watcher watch? And what exactly is he hoping to get a glimpse of?
Well… Actually it’s all a bit like the Game of Thrones
He is the watcher on the wall, he guards the realms of women and men, the peeper in the dark, the observer in a room of full of seers, the horn that wakes the sleepers, he is the green magic on a dark wartime night, the midnight cat hunting for rats, he’s the darling, who thinks of you every step of the way, he only wishes you well!
He has a pretty important job and he really doesn’t care if you masturbated twice.
SWORN BROTHERS
In the beginning, at the sunrise, the Watchers role was to keep you on the straight and narrow, to make sure you didn’t do something selfish and get yourself banished. He was to protect you from yourself.
Selfishness and greed are looked down upon when you’re a social animal, to be a valuable member of the pod you need to consider the needs of others. You can’t go gorging on the winter stocks of buffalo rump, because you needed a midnight snack. The food is there for everyone to make it through winter, not just you.
It takes a team working together to have delicious buffalo jerky snacks.
The Watcher would pop his creepy little eyes open when you were about to do something that would threaten your place within the most important safety net you have – your place within the Tribe.
When the Watcher takes his place on the wall, he can often accompany an emotional trigger –Guilt!
Guilt is not one of our 6 innate emotions, which all humans share, guilt is a learned emotion. And generally we learn it because it is a Class A weapon on the parenting tool belt, its how parents teach there beautiful little children how not to be selfish greedy little numbskulls.
This emotion can accompany the Watcher. But guilt is not the Watcher, his presence just triggers this emotion as a part of our emotional memory.
It’s important to note, sometimes it works the other way, the tingle of guilt from our emotional memory is what stirs him to light the torches on the wall.
The Watcher’s primary duty is so you sense you are being watched, so you don’t eat something disgusting and risk disease for everyone, so you don’t steal food stocks that are being stored for winter, so you don’t get around masturbating in public all day.
It’s to protect you from being banished from the tribe!
Being banished and alone in the wilderness is the most dangerous place a human can be, that’s when we become lunch! And in the wilderness the eyes that watch us are not the Watchers, they are the eyes of the hunters.
The Watcher is an early warning system.
See how warning sign, the sensation of being watched, feels just like what you risk, which the early modern human would have recognised immediatly, do you want to be hunted? stalked? preyed upon?
No… well heed my warning – don’t eat that toast, it fell on the floor butter-side down! and clean it up…. properly!
TAKING THE OATH
As is the case with nature and that which it embodies, there is always a road that’s travelled and multiple expressions for us to learn from.
The extremes at either end, the rawness from the stalking of unsuspecting prey to the primal eyes etched into the Weirwood.
For most of us, all of us actually, it’s the trials and tribulations of travelling down the kings road, and finding the nice happy meeting place in the middle.
THE REALMS OF KINGS AND MEN
KINGS LANDING
Once upon a time, a King would be required to station the Kingsguard to protect or monitor what was valuable or potentially a risk to the throne, the Kingsguard are very visible and in itself advertised the value of what was being guarded, attracting thieves and the soon to be banished.
Or the Kings Hand would manoeuvre his influence to hear the morning song of little birds, securing his hand at the head of the Small Council.
A number of years ago, our technology advanced and there was no need to place guards and watchmen, we could keep watch in secret and from a safe distance, away from the threat of hunters. We could be the faceless men.
What could only be found on the outer fringes of our consciousness had been ejected outward or maybe inward, no one knows for certain. Either way, now we could get motion alert notifications, mostly in the form of a courier delivering our online purchases.
As above, so below. As with in, so with out.
DRAGONSTONE TO THE RED KEEP
Until this new King came charging in with his war hammer, Dragonstone was the place where kings where born, where they would learn to rule and bond with their Kin, the Dragon that hatched as they hatched, and they would learn from each other what they needed to know.
The Dragon Kings and Queens appeared like they were born to rule, as the realm hadn’t seen them while they were learning, the realm was not privy to seeing them overcome their fears and finding the courage to actually take flight, or the time it took understand the dragons perspective and understand how they viewed the world.
Along the way, these Dragon Kings and Queens began fearing the dragons who flew above them, and the ones who rose up quickly from underneath them. They saw only fire-breathing dragons and not their equals, their fear didn’t allow them to see sacred Kin or brothers and sisters.
This fear led them to the mistake of using the sacred dragons as weapons of war and control, burning whole cities where they stood and raising the fear of dragon fire in the people of the realm, who were now constantly looking up watching for dragons, knowing that nowhere was safe anymore. The Dragon’s power no longer represented protection from the unseen, it represented fear and control.
Afterwards, they became the Dragon lords and chose to trap their dragons in the darkness rather than setting them free. The Dragons were kept underground in the dragon-pit, so the Dragon lords could try and regain what they had lost up above. Taking away the Dragons freedom, placing them in chains so they could no longer fly, like they were slaves to be command at their will.
They had let the need for power and control, the throne, become more important than the sacred path to wise power.
Quickly the Dragon Kings and Queens began freefalling into madness, losing their connection to the realm and the bond they shared. In chains the Dragon could no longer teach them to see the world from a different perspective or about the destruction that follows dragon fire.
As above, so below. As with in, so with out.
THE WEIRWOOD
Travelling along the Kings Road we meet many characters, some who drink and know things, others who whisper in the ears of hopeful kings, who have seen into the fire, who have seen the Prince who was promised. Those convinced the flaming sword of Azor Ahai is lightbringer, the prince who will bring the dawn. There are seers who have made mistakes and learned from them, who know prophesies are dangerous things. Even seers who claim to have been the one who bought fire and ice together.
And there are seers who witnessed fire and ice being bought together, but always knew and know it was not of their making. They too learn lessons and pay high prices. These are the seers who travel beyond the wall. They know they are connected to all that is and all that will be, they know they don’t control it, they know true power when they feel it, not when they see it. They know what they witness is not seen with their eyes and one day they may also receive the gift of understanding it.
They know kings are not made on islands, they see the signs and have learned to heed them, or act on them. They don’t understand why things are the way they are, but they trust that one day they will or won’t understand, what will be, will be.
They are guided from Weirwood to Heart Tree Grove, witnessing the intricate nature and interconnectedness of all things, seeing what stretches out beyond themselves.
They do not seek to rule kingdoms or claim to speak on behalf of the realm. They just see what they see, do what they do and go where they go, knowing they will never be alone.
AS ABOVE, SO BELOW
