Invictus Quotes

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.

Why, yes. I am a strange wonder. The most special of snowflakes! Born out of time, forever running to catch up to it!

Under the bludgeonings of chance, My head is bloody, but unbowed.

وأنا في مخالب الظروف المهلكة لم أجفل أو أصرخ عاليًا وتحت هراوات القدر غطت الدماء رأسي لكنه لم ينحنِ لا يهم أن البوابة ضيقة وأن لفافة الأحكام مفعمة بالعقوبات فأنا سيد قدري وأنا قبطان سفينة روحي هذه أبيات من قصيدة للشاعر البريطاني (هنلي) كتبها عام 1875، وتحمل عنوان إنفكتوس Invictus

Are you you without your memories? If not, who do you become?

If there was a fate worse than death, it was a life unremembered.

We get what fate deals out to us, lad. And we have no choice about how we handle it.’ Cato smiled. ‘What’s this? Philosophy?’ ‘Experience, lad. Much better.

life can be organized like a business plan. First you take an inventory of your gifts and passions. Then you set goals and come up with some metrics to organize your progress toward those goals. Then you map out a strategy to achieve your purpose, which will help you distinguish those things that move you toward your goals from those things that seem urgent but are really just distractions. If you define a realistic purpose early on and execute your strategy flexibly, you will wind up leading a purposeful life. You will have achieved self-determination, of the sort captured in the oft-quoted lines from William Ernest Henley’s poem “Invictus”: “I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul.

Hope could not outlast the breather. Love, however . . . Love was something not even death could conquer, because at the end of everything, even life, he was hers.

He worshipped the past with a strange fervour. It was, he liked to tell her, the weight all mankind was born to bear. The roots we did not choose, but chose us

Chaos was inevitable. Might as well roll with it

When humanity steps into the shoes of gods, things will go awry.

Time flies when you're plundering history

It was good that she remembered him, though it was exhausting to do so. No rest for the weary. Or the dying. Or the dead.

He wanted to meet history face-to-face. He wanted to be the blood in its veins, as it was in his

There was an end. There is a beginning. They're one and the same.

The Invictus mindset then, is a commitment to maintaining control of your destiny without regard for the obstacles and hardships laid on your path. It

I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. Translation was a funny thing. Some scholars thought it was time, not death, that destroyed worlds. Both versions were chilling,

Life is 10 per cent what happens to you and 90 per cent how you respond to it.

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it. ((in the book, he includes this quote from Marcus Aureliu's Meditatiosn

Who do you love the most?" It seemed like a dangerous query, the way it was asked: razored syllables, hungry breath beating, beating against the black. "Myself

I am Farway Gaius McCarthy, son of Empra McCarthy. Birth date unavailable. With timelessness in my blood and nowhere calling to my heart

The world is a large place and time is even larger

How Time is slipping underneath our Feet: Unborn TO-MORROW, and dead YESTERDAY, Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet! —OMAR KHAYYÁM, AS TRANSLATED BY EDWARD FITZGERALD “THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM

Darkness returns, even deeper than night unfolding forever and ever, refolding into nothing, nothing. Here is a place of contradictions. Here is not here. It is there. And there. And there. It is everywhere. Or nowhere. Time spins around. It stands perfectly still. Moments within moments between moments Each contains multitudes larger and smaller…

Trees talk if you care to listen. I know that now but back then, I had only heard the old oak tree outside my window back home. I’d heard it breathe. Yes, breathe. On the cold nights when I sat up prepping for my exams, when the rest of the world fell into a deep slumber, I heard the Old Oak: a bit eerie, like an old man, its breathing, laboured and arrhythmic. I wasn’t hallucinating; Picking up my stopwatch, I checked if there was a pattern and there was one. A clear and loud inhalation and exhalation, almost human-like. I wondered if the Old Oak was trying to communicate with me. Tell me its story?

Mithras is a Persian light and warrior god adopted by the Roman army as their tutelary deity.  His name means “Friend”.  Mithras was the emissary of Ahura Mazda, the supreme power of good, who battled Ahriman, the supreme evil.  Mithras slew the divine bull to release its life-giving blood into the earth, and creatures that served Ahriman like scorpions and serpents tried to stop this happening. Mithras was often depicted with a pointed cap, and a number of reliefs show him in the act of slaying the bull.  As a solar god he was directly equated to Sol Invictus by the Romans, as can be seen from inscriptions.[469]  Twelve inscriptions to him have been found to date.[470] There were seven grades in the Mithraic mysteries, which were only open to free men.  The Mithraic cult was highly tolerant of other deities, as is evidences by depictions of other gods in the shrines.  Also as the soldier god, priesthoods were known to bring their statues to the Mithraea (temples) for protection when danger threatened. The Mithraea were usually small, and have preserved their mysteries to an extent as little writing remains from them.  A relief from Housesteads (Northumberland) shows Mithras bearing a sword and spear rising from an egg, surrounded by a hoop depicting the signs of the zodiac.  A silver amulet found at St Albans similarly depicts Mithras rising from a pile of stones.  More commonly images on altars showed him sacrificing a bull, such as at Rudchester (Northumberland), Carrawburgh (Northumberland) and the London Mithraeum.  There are now five known Mithraea in Britain, those at Caernarvon, Carrawburgh, Housesteads, London and Rudchester.  Of these all were purely military apart from the London Mithraea. 

On Aditya," First Citizen Yaggo declared, "there are no classes, and on Aditya everybody works. 'From each according to his ability; to each according to his need.'" "On Aditya," an elderly Counselor four places to the right of him said loudly to his neighbor, "they don't call them classes, they call them sociological categories, and they have nineteen of them. And on Aditya, they don't call them nonworkers, they call them occupational reservists, and they have more of them than we do." "But of course, I was born a king," Ranulf said sadly and nobly. "I have a duty to my people." "No, they don't vote at all," Lord Koreff was telling the Counselor on his left. "On Durendal, you have to pay taxes before you can vote." "On Aditya the crime of taxation does not exist," the First Citizen told the Prime Minister. "On Aditya," the Counselor four places down said to his neighbor, "there's nothing to tax. The state owns all the property, and if the Imperial Constitution and the Space Navy let them, the State would own all the people, too. Don't tell me about Aditya. First big-ship command I had was the old Invictus, 374, and she was based on Aditya for four years, and I'd sooner have spent that time in orbit around Niffelheim."... "But if they don't have votes to sell, what do they live on?" a Counselor asked in bewilderment. "The nobility supports them; the landowners, the trading barons, the industrial lords. The more nonworking adherents they have, the greater their prestige." And the more rifles they could muster when they quarreled with their fellow nobles, of course. "Beside, if we didn't do that, they'd turn brigand, and it costs less to support them than to have to hunt them out of the brush and hang them." "On Aditya, brigandage does not exist." "On Aditya, all the brigands belong to the Secret Police, only on Aditya they don't call them Secret Police, they call them Servants of the People, Ninth Category.

Truly, Macro thought, the most effective weapons in Rome’s arsenal were the picks and shovels wielded by her soldiers.

It was, he liked to tell her, the weight all mankind was born to bare. The roots we did not choose, but chose us.

Bitter, bitter symphony; every new note haunted Priya more than the last, until she couldn’t bear listening any longer. It

Pulchritudinous.

One thing is certain, that Life flies; / One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies; / The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

He worshipped the past with a strange fervor. It was, he liked to tell her, the weight all mankind was born to bear. The roots we did not choose, but chose us.

If the forfeit is equivalent to the loss, the reward should be equivalent to the gain,

If the forfeit is equivalent to the loss, the reward should be equivalent to the gain,” Far reasoned. “I’ll be making you millions. Another two percent and a few vacations is an even trade.

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. — WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY “INVICTUS

Spes in Posterum in Praeteritis Latet was replaced by Temporem Ullum Homo Non Manet. Translation: “Man Waits for No Time.” New twist on an old phrase, far cleverer than their Corps’ “Future’s Hope Is in the Past” maxim.

There. Now you look like a wizizard!” “A what? Imogen, how much have you had to drink?” She held up her thumb and forefinger. “Just a lil’ liquid courage!

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. —W. B. YEATS

Party all night, dance into the dawning light. Tick-tock, wind the clock, we can’t stop. We can’t stop. We can’t stop.

It’s odd. Sol Invictus—he’s such a contrast to the cool thinking of the theists.

Human truth is something that is not. The truth is just a consensus that we agree on.

If you do not know your heart, you do not know your God.

Nevertheless, some surviving evidence indicates that Constantine himself was originally devoted to Apollo, supported by the fact that the god Sol Invictus continued to show up on the reverse types of Constantinian coinage until the mid-320s,

Mandela said once in an interview: No matter where you are in life, there is always more journey ahead. And I think of one of Mandela’s favorite quotes, from the poem Invictus, which sustained him during those moments when he thought his journey had been cut short: I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

Spiritus Invictus,” Becket said—the Raider motto, meaning Unconquerable Spirit. “Semper Fidelis, sir,” Mathison replied—the Marine motto, Always Faithful.

The birth of the Lord began to be commemorated (on an annual basis) somewhere in the third or fourth centuries a.d. It is commonly argued that this was a “takeover” of a pagan holiday, celebrating the winter solstice. But it just as likely, in my view, that this was actually the other way around. Sol Invictus was established as a holiday by Aurelian in a.d. 274, when the Christians were already a major force. So who was copying whom? And Saturnalia, another popular candidate suggested as being an “ancestor” of Christmas, actually occurred on December 17.

Akhenaten sought out materialism, for that the upper clocking of the heavens did not serve him. This is when the Sun replaced the Completion of the Tidings in ancient Egypt. A Roman story in retrospect; when the Sol Invictus in the later Roman Empire replaced the Aquila. This explains exactly the heresy of giving the Sphinx name to the Sun by ancient Egyptians.

I look down, worried something is showing after all, but if it wasn't for the incongruous absence of sensation on my left side, I wouldn't know. I look back up at her, taking a step closer because I kind of want to take a step back, and you can’t let that show. "What?" She tenses, even though I’m not even remotely close enough to, say, hit her. "I... I thought you were white." I snort, too relieved to take offense. "I'm adopted. Not my biggest problem at the moment." She smiles at me, looking a little relieved herself. "It just... it seemed a bit too... British, I guess." And it's then that I notice the slight twinge of her accent. “I am British. I was born here.” Her own skin is a light chocolate brown, light enough that it’s perfectly visible when she blushes. She looks so adorable that I almost resist, but not quite. “You have anything against Britishness?” I ask, coming to lean against the doorway on my good side, relieving the weight I have to put on the leg. “No!” she assures me. “No, it’s…” Her hands flutter nervously in front of her, like she hopes to pluck the words out of the air. “I just worry. Some people are weird about it. About me. Especially with the tutoring.

Out of the night which covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeoning of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find me, unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

When life flips you the bird, flip it the bird back. Scar tissue is stronger than skin.

Invictus”: “I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul.

Invictus Out

He reached out a hand and stroked one of the bikes along the sleek chassis. It had words painted along the side, in silver: NOX INVICTUS. “‘Victorious night,’” he translated.

Five breaths held. Five sets of eyes locked onto the vistaport as gloaming surrendered to absolute black. One red panda tucked his nose into his tail, for sounder sleep.

This was the feeling Far travelled for. The exhilaration of running through an age not his own, battle-shout harsh on the air, a stranger among the strange

Where your justice finds no answer upon the earth, O Sun, someone must take up the just cause. Look upon me in your rising and your setting, O Sun, and throw down your midday strength to me, because today I will step forward and I will never step back.

You're like an arrow in my soul. If I pull you out, I'll bleed to death.

As we continued walking, the pebbles by the bank made a pleasant crunching sound under our feet. Their edges were polished to perfection by the continual friction of the water – revealing their innermost colours like polished diamonds. A particular stone caught my attention. It was shining among a sea of smooth grey ones. Picking it up, I gaped at it. This one was grey in colour like all the others except it had bands of iridescent blue running across its width. The bands were the same magnifi cent hue of blue as the skies above. Did it break and fall from the skies and soak up the grey from its common companions? Was this some kind of fall from grace, because it really didn’t seem to belong where I found it. I smiled at the treasure I had chanced upon and popped it in the bag on my shoulder. This was going back with me. A forever memory of this day.

Neha’s walk across the river felt excruciatingly long. Like a rubber band stretched to its limits. It is peculiar how moments of happiness and euphoria seem to pass over like greased lightning when compared to the ones filled with pain or anxiety. I often ask myself if happiness is genuinely fleeting or if we are hardwired to believe that human beings are born to suffer, and for that very reason tend to sadistically amplify and stretch our anxieties? Could our age old conditioning be in cahoots with Loki? Maybe, maybe not. I am still debating this, internally...

I had always hoped to die in my sleep with a peaceful look and a rose-tinted lip balm on, so the idea of having my mangled charred parts picked from a hundred mile radius was mortifying. That was no way to go if the Gods loved you, I reasoned. At thirteen, most of us beleived that we were loved. I did go home and write up that will, just in case they didn't

Army Brat: an acronym for Born, raised and transferred. Brats, irreverent, sometimes more reckless than courageous and unabashedly basking in the reflected glory and adoration our fathers deservedly received. But mostly we were gypsies--agile quick-witted and tough bunch of youngsters growing up in a world that barricaded the rest of the universe out and kept us cocooned within ours. The brats moved every two years across the country, from one cantonment to another, inadvertently learning to adapt and engage faster than their 'civilian' counterparts changed their iphones. Resilience was a byproduct of this lifestyle. Our wings were our roots. And those wings had brought my father to Tawang, a sensitive military base near out border with China.

So Tawang it was for three summers. Three spectacular summers, new friendships and an accidental adventure that is still fresh in my mind. Tawang was and is special in so many ways. Ten thousand feet above sea level, home to the oldest monastery in Asia, with clouds that floated right into the military barracks.

The journey back to civilisation was often a whole lot faster and just as dramatic. On an MI-17 helicopter no less! Sitting atop and around military cargo. The best way to describe the Tawang sojourn was to compare it to a VR game, where one went from 'Jack and the Beanstalk' to the land of Black Hawk Down, all within nine weeks

Sometimes the universe gives signs, it foreshadows. It warns. Sometimes coming events cast their shadows before.Momentously happy ones too. But sometimes those signs are just our hearts wanting something so desperately that we project them. All things said, this whole reading-the-signs business can be tricky as hell.

In love with Tawang. I still am. I’ve clung on to every bit of its wonder within the snow globe of my memory, whilst an instrumental piece of music plays in the background. It was a CD that my father played often in his room at the barracks. I had read somewhere that every memory has a soundtrack of its own. ’Tis true! Th at piece of instrumental music and Tawang are inextricably entwined in my head.

I’ve held on to those memories for the longest; never letting them go because it takes time – sometimes years – to truly understand how a childhood adventure can impact you. When I look back, I marvel at how surreal that day had been. It was the kind of misadventure one had only seen in the movies and in all those stories the protagonists were adults, some of whom did not make it. But we were just children, and this was happening to us. And this was as real as it could get. For years after, numerous existential questions raced through my head: Was God testing us? Were we handpicked for it? Was it preordained? Th en the fog started to lift and I saw it for what it was: a day in the jungle. Also, a day when everything went wrong. I’d read somewhere that adversity does not build character, it reveals it. We were tested, we were pushed to the limits of our physical and emotional endurance. We made it out alive, and it is important that this experience be shared.

With my popped ears, I could only hear the muffled humming of the MI-17’s powerful blades, so I focused my attention on what I could see. As the chopper followed its regular flight path towards Tezpur, I saw snow-capped mountain peaks nestling azure water bodies between them. And since the water was just a few metres below us, there was no mistaking it for something else. Water for the gods– some might’ve said – and while the peaks were covered in snow, the small lakes had dazzling blue water. That sight, the kind which often appears in heavily photoshopped pictures on Instagram these days, was indescribable. Breathtaking would be an absolute understatement. I had never witnessed anything like that before or after, and from that summer on, I learnt to accept the mystifying miracles of nature and its inherent fury, in equal parts. And by the time the summer ended, I finally understood what a paradox truly meant.

For five long minutes, the skies rumbled and poured, carpet-bombing the Jungle with spear-like drops. Puncturing the surface of the water with ferocity and purpose, those dark clouds were unrelenting. Unleashing their little warrior drops with the express purpose of drowning us. Cooking up a storm, relishing the deluge. Or perhaps the clouds were not at fault; maybe their delicate frame could no longer hold the water. Maybe the Jungle had conspired with Zeus and Indra.

Sometimes, just sometimes, the Jungle that is designed to kill you, decides to make you instead. - INVICTUS-The Jungle that Made me

The Jungle was alive. A throbbing entity with its own rules of engagement. And the rules were fairly simple. That you did not try to engage with it. That you had to let it own you. The Jungle had ears and eyes. It found your fears faster than you found your strength. And word travelled fast, really fast. Especially if raging waters criss-crossed through its hear. If you did not square off with your fears, the Jungle would square off with you.

I suppose the precise moment when death swoops in to snatch your soul isn't actually terrifying. The nanoseconds preceding it are like Final Destination 6 playing out at 120 frames per second. The Jeep hurtling down, me inside it, being tossed around violently, screaming, watching the freefall knowing that the gas tank has 60 gallons of petrol in it and seeing a protruding rock fifty metres ahead. Now that is cruel!

Until that fateful moment, I did not quite understand the anatomy of fear. Creeping up surreptitiously, it could permeate your skin and, before you knew it, course through your veins like a tidal wave. A thumping heart and a parched mouth were classic symptoms of surrender. With the rational side of the brain hijacked, fear could paralyse you at will or compel you to jump out of your skin when you most need to stay calm. Standing in those raging waters, I learnt that fear most certainly could kill

I’ve often wondered that if I could go back in time, would I make the same decisions? I think I would. After all, we all make bad decisions and some of them snowball into cataclysms far bigger than we could have imagined and beyond our control. We still make them because they are meant to be made; they are meant to reveal who we are, to aid us in our journeys …

In the powerful words of the poem “Invictus,” I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.

Growing up, I had three amazing dogs with distinct personalities. One of them was a randy mid-sized German spitz called Snoopy, father to countless puppies within a one- mile radius of our home in the cantonment. No lock could keep Snoopy in, no wall was too high. In the summer months, he slept besides his knell in the garden. His nocturnal rendezvous became the talk of town when he snuck into a fellow officer’s garden to sow his wild oats with Debbie the Doberman, who was twice his size. Snoopy was as unapologetic as my mother was embarrassed when the offi cer’s wife came home. She feared for Snoopy’s life, she told my mother diplomatically.

The other gem was Tawang’s gift to us: A tiny purebred Apso, whom we called Mickey. A beautiful ball of white fur, a hopping rabbit, with heart-melting puppy eyes hidden behind shaggy Apso hair, perfect in all ways, well almost. Except Mickey farted. Farts so potent and loud, it was hard to believe a pintsized dog was capable of generating such toxic fumes. Strangely, he saved his best ones for the weekly ladies’ get-together at home. ‘Your dog is dangerous,’ one of the ladies said laughingly to my mother. ‘This fellow will break wind and run off and we’ll be left wondering which one of us did it.’ The modus operandi was simple. He would come hopping into the living room for tasty treats and while the ladies were fawning over him, Mickey broke wind. There was a hushed silence as the fumes spread quickly, and the ladies silently wondered which one of them was the uncouth culprit. It took them a few visits to figure this out, by which time Mickey the Fartonator had been confined to the veranda. My poor mother was always at the receiving end courtesy our dogs and, well, me!

Bhalu looked like an unkempt, wild version of the most majestic dog I had ever laid eyes on – her name was Grace. My Grace. A German shepherd, a monster puppy who grew up to be a lady. Forever remembered fondly (by me) for taking regular puppy-sized dumps in Neha’s slippers and shoes, for being the reason Neha and I would have to figure innovative ways to save ourselves and run for cover if she were in the vicinity, for chewing up our toes like her life depended on it, for shredding curtains, socks, shoes and anything she could get a hold of with rare delight, for a bark so fierce yet feminine that people feared pressing the bell at our gates.

Anyway, the MI-17 made for one hell of a ride. It was a monstrous chopper, more like an armoured tank in the sky. Th e insides had a few metal seats on either side. First-come-fi rst-served, you sat wherever you found space. The mothers took the seats and the brats sat on the cold metal floor, among camouflage-green nets, wooden boxes and miscellaneous military cargo. As the chopper rose, I peered at my father waving from the small helipad made by plateauing a mountain top with the Army’s engineering expertise. Some moments stay with you forever. Th is particular one has stood the test of time. As we fl ew off to the safest military base, I stuck my nose against the tiny window and kept waving back till my father became an olive-hued speck on the concrete helipad.

Morior Invictus,” Colton said, reading the motto on the barrel. “Death before defeat.

An individual with an external locus of control sees life as happening to him; he believes his fate is determined by circumstances and outside forces. He sees himself as a helpless victim, and is often plagued by stress, anxiety, and depression as a result.  An individual with an internal locus of control believes he can shape his life through his actions and decisions and that he himself is responsible for his destiny. He is more confident, more likely to seek growth and be a leader, more disciplined, and better able to deal with stress and challenges. What we might call the “Invictus Individual” (“I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul”), does of course face forces that are not, in fact, within his personal control, but he navigates them by working on what is: his own reactions and actions. Instead of asking, “Why is this happening to me?” he asks, “What can I do to make this situation better?” The mature man acts; the immature man is acted upon.

Then Idris Elba read “Invictus,” maybe as well as anyone ever has, and then Michelle Obama, via satellite, said some eloquent words about the meaning of the games.

Now Constantine revealed himself as a Christian sympathizer. Even though the sect’s absolute moral certainties ruled out compromise with the Roman pantheon, Constantine moved slowly, building new churches on the site of the tomb of St Peter and a splendid, still-standing basilica at the Lateran. Yet his triumphal arch featured Sol Invictus, Companion of Unconquered Constantine. But victory is always the most persuasive religious argument: Constantine believed Christ had won his battles for him.

It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. ~ William Ernest Henley, “Invictus” (1875)

Brilliant. And how do you know he’s a saint?” “He’s got a halo?” “Excellent, and does that golden halo remind you of anything?” Hitzrot broke into a smile. “Yeah! Those Egyptian things we studied last term. Those . . . um . . . sun disks!” “Thank you, Hitzrot. Go back to sleep.” Langdon turned back to the class. “Halos, like much of Christian symbology, were borrowed from the ancient Egyptian religion of sun worship. Christianity is filled with examples of sun worship.” “Excuse me?” the girl in front said. “I go to church all the time, and I don’t see much sun worshiping going on!” “Really? What do you celebrate on December twenty-fifth?” “Christmas. The birth of Jesus Christ.” “And yet according to the Bible, Christ was born in March, so what are we doing celebrating in late December?” Silence. Langdon smiled. “December twenty-fifth, my friends, is the ancient pagan holiday of sol invictus—Unconquered Sun—coinciding with the winter solstice. It’s that wonderful time of year when the sun returns, and the days start getting longer.” Langdon took another bite of apple. “Conquering religions,” he continued, “often adopt existing holidays to make conversion less shocking. It’s called transmutation. It helps people acclimatize to the new faith. Worshipers keep the same holy dates, pray in the same sacred locations, use a similar symbology . . . and they simply substitute a different god.” Now the girl in front looked furious. “You’re implying Christianity is just some kind of . . . repackaged sun worship!” “Not at all. Christianity did not borrow only from sun worship. The ritual of Christian canonization is taken from the ancient ‘god-making’ rite of Euhemerus. The practice of ‘god-eating’—that is, Holy Communion—was borrowed from the Aztecs. Even the concept of Christ dying for our sins is arguably not exclusively Christian; the self-sacrifice of a young man to absolve the sins of his people appears in the earliest tradition of the Quetzalcoatl.” The girl glared. “So, is anything in Christianity original?” “Very little in any organized faith is truly original. Religions are not born from scratch. They grow from one another. Modern religion is a collage . . . an assimilated historical record of man’s quest to understand the divine.

Aurelian consecrated the cult of the 'Invincible Sun' (Sol Invictus) in a gigantic temple, embellished with the spoils of Palmyra. He gave it a special college of pontiffs, and instituted fouryearly games. We know nothing of the special rituals applied to this Sol Invictus. The new sanctuary followed an eastern tradition, with its tholos, or dome, in the centre of a closed courtyard isolating the sacred area from the profane world.

Invictus BY WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.

INVICTUS Out of the night that covers me,  Black as the pit from pole to pole,  I thank whatever gods may be  For my unconquerable soul.  In the fell clutch of circumstance  I have not winced nor cried aloud.  Under the bludgeonings of chance  My head is bloody, but unbowed.  Beyond this place of wrath and tears  Looms but the Horror of the shade,  And yet the menace of the years  Finds and shall find me unafraid.  It matters not how strait the gate,  How charged with punishments the scroll,  I am the master of my fate,  I am the captain of my soul.  William Ernest Henley

It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” His eyes gleamed in the shadows from the candlelight. “That’s, ah, from Nelson Mandela’s favorite poem, ‘Invictus.

she keeps a shrine to Sol Invictus in her room, performs the pratahsamdhya ceremony, the salute to the sun, every morning

imagines heroics make the helplessness worse, don't you think?

Imagined heroics make the helplessness worse, don't you think?

Regret is fine; so is sorrow. That’s part of every important choice, every long step anyone takes from the present toward the future. But put aside guilt, or remorse, or grief.

And yet the menace of the years; Finds, and shall find, me unafraid … I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.’ Invictus, William Ernest Henley

Of course there was no need for the Church to repudiate the harmony between the earth and the cosmos. Just as her doctors have preserved, often felicitously, many habits of thought and turns of phrase which are tainted in origin, so does the Church gather to her vast treasury riches rescued from all sides. She took the sumptuous setting of her worship from dying paganism, making a halo for the Sun of Justice out of the glory of the Sol Invictus, adorning her cathedrals with the signs of the zodiac, harmonizing her ceremonies with the rhythm of the seasons. But it is neither the natural cycle nor some extra-cosmic deliverance that is portrayed by her liturgical year: it is the vast history of our redemption.

I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.’ ‘Invictus, by William Ernest Henley,

The incredible thing about Invictus was that there was this emotional contagion. Obviously no one's leg was going to grow back, but there was this positivity, hope and energy we found together as an Invictus community

Horus wasn’t totally ignored outside Egypt. He was sometimes allied with Apollo, the Greek Sun God, and came to symbolise the triumph of good over evil. December was the month for the birth of solar deities. According to the Philocalus calendar of the 4th century CE the festival of Sol Invictus was held on 25th December.[136] Horus was also the “saviour child of light” born at the winter solstice.[137] Plutarch gives the birthday of Horus in the latter half of December. Another date quoted is 23rd December. All these are near the important winter solstice date of the birth of a Sun God.