Morgandria (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
witchscauldron) wrote2010-11-15 01:27 pm
witchscauldron) wrote2010-11-15 01:27 pm
Meme 13, 14, 15
I meant to keep up this weekend, but ended up leaving it off.
This Week
Since Saturday's the last day of the week, I'm looking back first. I spent all week waiting for jewelry components that didn't arrive, so I'm sort of idling, until I get what I need to work on a commission. I beaded up a pendant J gave me two weeks ago, and worked a bit on some of my own jewelry, but mostly I'm still waiting until I get stuff in the mail. Most of my other free time was spent playing LOTRO, and trying to keep up with the dishes.
Looking forward - still hoping to get my beading stuff soon. I really want to work on it. Touching up some elemental lanterns I made, and figuring out where to hang them in the temple at the covenstead. The ceiling in that room makes it tricky. I want to make applesauce, and scotch toffee bars. I have more incense to make, for myself and for someone else. And I'm cleaning - nothing huge, just a floor-mop with the Swiffer in the kitchen, vaccuming the carpet and the bathroom, cleaning the bathroom itself. When and if all this gets done depends on how many spoons I've got kicking around on any given day.
Danu and Bíle
This pair are the primordial parents of the Irish Gods - and not without their own controversy. There's some evidence that they're non-existant in literary sources, and might be a Victorian invention. My own experience with them, however, leads me to think otherwise - but I also tend not to dwell on whether or not they're 'real' or 'valid' in a scholarly sense, since I have experienced them personally, and still do. Whatever their origin, there are two deities who answer to Bíle, and Danu, and I honour them.
Bíle is irascible, and usually annoyed when I speak to him. I think I must sound like the whining of an insect in his ear, fast and high. To that end I never really bother him much - I often express myself to him in silence. He has a fire that burns deep within him, but externally to me he feels chill. He's extreme - dark and silent, night that rests, and light and living, day that burns. I don't think time moves the same way for him as it does for me, so I'm never sure where I'll find him.
Danu is kindly, warm, and has the sort of drowsy, dreamlike quality of a meadow in summer. She's intricate, made up of so many little pieces, and yet whole. I find my relationship with her is the kind where I can thank her for all the little things that I enjoy from day to day, the small wonders and pleasures - but that in the larger scheme of things she's got so much going on in her processes that she's very distracted if I take more than small moments of her time.
Both of these deities are...slower, deeper. Just...older. I honour these two, but I seldom ask them for anything, as I don't feel I have the right. I also feel the two of them are very distant, compared to the closer relationships I have in the pantheon, and that seems fitting - I am far from the land they represent, after all.
My Education
I always did well in school. I never liked to work with other people - mostly because they either couldn't keep up with me, or I would end up doing all the work and didn't really see why they should share my grade if they did nothing. I ended up in the "gifted" area a few times - but we moved so often it wasn't consistent. Everytime we went to a new board I'd either have to be retested, or they'd stuff me in one just to try to keep me from getting bored. After a while I just stopped caring - I felt like they were trying to distract me, rather than teach me anything.
When I got to high school, my life outside the classroom made it difficult to maintain focus in class, unless I really enjoyed the subject matter. My marks started dropping after Gr. 10, mostly in science and math. I really struggled to pass some of those classes. As long as I had an 80 or higher, I mostly coasted through my last years of high school. English, drama, art, and music was what I enjoyed the most.
I didn't enjoy university. I felt huge pressure from my family to succeed, even though few of them had even attended post-secondary. It took its' toll. I was terrified of failing, terrified of going back home, hated going to class. I didn't know why I was there. It had been the escape hatch for getting out of my hometown, but in the end it wasn't what I wanted to be doing. Being an English Major killed my desire to write anything, creative fiction or otherwise. I find I don't read as much as I used to, either. I think academia for its' own sake is really pointless, and all I saw was the choice to be an academic, or a teacher, in where I was headed.
In the end it didn't matter. I had a nervous breakdown by the summer of my second year, was rusticated, and never went back.
The Rest of the Tribe
The rest of the Irish Pantheon I tend to have only a nodding acquaintance with. I find I don't very often have any reason to have discourse or dealings with them, so while I'm respectful, they don't really form an active part of my spiritual life. The Dagda and I encounter each other occasionally; it's friendly but nothing closer than that. Oghma and I don't seem to get on well - I have the same reaction to Diancecht. I've done a bit of work with Aine, Óengus, Grainne, and Goibniu, but nothing deeper has ever come of those brief encounters.
My Dreams
If we're talking about my dreams that happen at night while I'm asleep, they're just...beyond fucked up. Most of the time they're just cleaning out my subconscious and don't mean jack-squat, but are very complex and entertaining in a certain way. Most of the time when I describe them to people, I get blank stares, or a "Wow, you're insane" sort of reaction.
Some dreams are not gibberish, at least to me. My dreams have always, at varying times, pointed certain things out or given me direction, even from a young age. They're not always pleasant. Sometimes they'll repeat over and over, until I get the message.
Most of the time, though, it's gobbledygook.
If we're talking about 'dreams' as things people desire for their future, I don't have any. Maybe I did once upon a time, but they died a very quick death in the reality of life, and in a perverse combination of pessimissm, failed perfectionism, and realism I simply never bothered to replace them with anything new. In some ways it's better, but in others it's worse. *shrugs* Dreams like these are something I don't have time for, much like I feel about wanting stuff, or about having regrets. I have enough shackles without forging my own.
Outside the Bounds
I do wander outside my own pantheon from time to time. Learning to work with a coven has introduced me to both the gods of Wicca, and the individual gods and pantheons other people have relationships with. A friend of mine calls me a "god-talker" - meaning they know I'll hear them, so even if I'm not 'one of theirs' I'll still probably listen. I am very respectful when I do encounter other deities or pantheons - most of the time they're very clear that I'm not theirs, and they're not interested in me. Sometimes, though, they're quite interested, even if I'm not what they find acceptable normally.
My experiences thus far (totally UPG, so you're warned properly):
Hathor thought I was a perfectly charming barbarian. I can sing and I can drink. She wasn't interested in anything else. She also at one point gave me a name. I don't know if that means anything.
Sekhmet beat on me, in my dreams, and then left me alone, after deciding I wasn't a threat to anything she cared about. She's largely indifferent but recognizes my status as a warrior.
Isis does -not- approve of me. I think she views me as a mercenary, or an invader.
Aphrodite ignored me for the most part, but loved my husband and his kilt. She seemed surprised that the two of us had souls, like her Greek children. Then she hand-fasted us, bringing our total to three.
Odin seems to think I should be one of his, because of the wolf/raven thing. I wonder if it's not in part just to piss off The Morrigan. Somehow I have no difficulty seeing him do that.
Freyja deemed me an appropriate replacement for Fulla, Frigg's handmaiden - albeit a temporary one, I'd imagine.
Loki was surprisingly -gentle- with me, compared to what I'd prepared myself for. However, I am now getting pinged from what I -think- are curious Norse entities...so I wonder what he's been saying about me. >_<
This Week
Since Saturday's the last day of the week, I'm looking back first. I spent all week waiting for jewelry components that didn't arrive, so I'm sort of idling, until I get what I need to work on a commission. I beaded up a pendant J gave me two weeks ago, and worked a bit on some of my own jewelry, but mostly I'm still waiting until I get stuff in the mail. Most of my other free time was spent playing LOTRO, and trying to keep up with the dishes.
Looking forward - still hoping to get my beading stuff soon. I really want to work on it. Touching up some elemental lanterns I made, and figuring out where to hang them in the temple at the covenstead. The ceiling in that room makes it tricky. I want to make applesauce, and scotch toffee bars. I have more incense to make, for myself and for someone else. And I'm cleaning - nothing huge, just a floor-mop with the Swiffer in the kitchen, vaccuming the carpet and the bathroom, cleaning the bathroom itself. When and if all this gets done depends on how many spoons I've got kicking around on any given day.
Danu and Bíle
This pair are the primordial parents of the Irish Gods - and not without their own controversy. There's some evidence that they're non-existant in literary sources, and might be a Victorian invention. My own experience with them, however, leads me to think otherwise - but I also tend not to dwell on whether or not they're 'real' or 'valid' in a scholarly sense, since I have experienced them personally, and still do. Whatever their origin, there are two deities who answer to Bíle, and Danu, and I honour them.
Bíle is irascible, and usually annoyed when I speak to him. I think I must sound like the whining of an insect in his ear, fast and high. To that end I never really bother him much - I often express myself to him in silence. He has a fire that burns deep within him, but externally to me he feels chill. He's extreme - dark and silent, night that rests, and light and living, day that burns. I don't think time moves the same way for him as it does for me, so I'm never sure where I'll find him.
Danu is kindly, warm, and has the sort of drowsy, dreamlike quality of a meadow in summer. She's intricate, made up of so many little pieces, and yet whole. I find my relationship with her is the kind where I can thank her for all the little things that I enjoy from day to day, the small wonders and pleasures - but that in the larger scheme of things she's got so much going on in her processes that she's very distracted if I take more than small moments of her time.
Both of these deities are...slower, deeper. Just...older. I honour these two, but I seldom ask them for anything, as I don't feel I have the right. I also feel the two of them are very distant, compared to the closer relationships I have in the pantheon, and that seems fitting - I am far from the land they represent, after all.
My Education
I always did well in school. I never liked to work with other people - mostly because they either couldn't keep up with me, or I would end up doing all the work and didn't really see why they should share my grade if they did nothing. I ended up in the "gifted" area a few times - but we moved so often it wasn't consistent. Everytime we went to a new board I'd either have to be retested, or they'd stuff me in one just to try to keep me from getting bored. After a while I just stopped caring - I felt like they were trying to distract me, rather than teach me anything.
When I got to high school, my life outside the classroom made it difficult to maintain focus in class, unless I really enjoyed the subject matter. My marks started dropping after Gr. 10, mostly in science and math. I really struggled to pass some of those classes. As long as I had an 80 or higher, I mostly coasted through my last years of high school. English, drama, art, and music was what I enjoyed the most.
I didn't enjoy university. I felt huge pressure from my family to succeed, even though few of them had even attended post-secondary. It took its' toll. I was terrified of failing, terrified of going back home, hated going to class. I didn't know why I was there. It had been the escape hatch for getting out of my hometown, but in the end it wasn't what I wanted to be doing. Being an English Major killed my desire to write anything, creative fiction or otherwise. I find I don't read as much as I used to, either. I think academia for its' own sake is really pointless, and all I saw was the choice to be an academic, or a teacher, in where I was headed.
In the end it didn't matter. I had a nervous breakdown by the summer of my second year, was rusticated, and never went back.
The Rest of the Tribe
The rest of the Irish Pantheon I tend to have only a nodding acquaintance with. I find I don't very often have any reason to have discourse or dealings with them, so while I'm respectful, they don't really form an active part of my spiritual life. The Dagda and I encounter each other occasionally; it's friendly but nothing closer than that. Oghma and I don't seem to get on well - I have the same reaction to Diancecht. I've done a bit of work with Aine, Óengus, Grainne, and Goibniu, but nothing deeper has ever come of those brief encounters.
My Dreams
If we're talking about my dreams that happen at night while I'm asleep, they're just...beyond fucked up. Most of the time they're just cleaning out my subconscious and don't mean jack-squat, but are very complex and entertaining in a certain way. Most of the time when I describe them to people, I get blank stares, or a "Wow, you're insane" sort of reaction.
Some dreams are not gibberish, at least to me. My dreams have always, at varying times, pointed certain things out or given me direction, even from a young age. They're not always pleasant. Sometimes they'll repeat over and over, until I get the message.
Most of the time, though, it's gobbledygook.
If we're talking about 'dreams' as things people desire for their future, I don't have any. Maybe I did once upon a time, but they died a very quick death in the reality of life, and in a perverse combination of pessimissm, failed perfectionism, and realism I simply never bothered to replace them with anything new. In some ways it's better, but in others it's worse. *shrugs* Dreams like these are something I don't have time for, much like I feel about wanting stuff, or about having regrets. I have enough shackles without forging my own.
Outside the Bounds
I do wander outside my own pantheon from time to time. Learning to work with a coven has introduced me to both the gods of Wicca, and the individual gods and pantheons other people have relationships with. A friend of mine calls me a "god-talker" - meaning they know I'll hear them, so even if I'm not 'one of theirs' I'll still probably listen. I am very respectful when I do encounter other deities or pantheons - most of the time they're very clear that I'm not theirs, and they're not interested in me. Sometimes, though, they're quite interested, even if I'm not what they find acceptable normally.
My experiences thus far (totally UPG, so you're warned properly):
no subject
It's kind of like with Pan - I remember reading (I think it may have been in Triumph of the Moon) that the original view of Pan in classical Greece was very different than the way he's widely understood now, and that as with Danu and Bíle, there's been a strong Victorian and/or Romantic influence - and yet, I know tons of people who've had very intense experiences with him that do mesh with the Victorian/Romantic depiction.
Your experience of Danu and Bíle is somewhat different than mine, although I can see definite points of connection. I do definitely experience them as older, more primal and less anthropomorphic than most of the other Irish deities.
Danu, to me, feels darker than what you've described, and certainly not exclusively kindly. I found the following passage that Erynn Laurie once wrote on the Nemeton mailing list to be close enough to my sense of Her that it send shivers down my spine:
I experience her as very chthonic - sometimes nurturing and sometimes frightening, like the depths of the earth.
Bíle I am not quite as close to - His presence has always been a bit more distant from me. I've never gotten a sense of anger from Him, but then I don't get a strong sense of emotion from Him at all. My sense of Him is strongly linked to trees and forests, both in the this-world sense and, on a deeper level, the World Tree. I do very much agree with what you wrote about a different sense of time - he seems to me to operate in tree-time, in which a lifetime spans centuries. I'm a bit reminded of how the Ents in The Lord of the Rings always saw humans and human-like beings as "hasty".
By mentioning the differences in my experience, BTW, I'm in no way attempting to challenge yours - I just find the differences in the ways deities are experienced by different individuals fascinating.
no subject
I didn't mean to imply that Danu is all sunshine and flowers. She certainly isn't. But my own experiences with her tend to be on a surface level - I don't think I've ever really had a -deep- experience with Danu.
It may simply be that I have enough cthonic entities in my life, that this is a balance point for me. Sometimes I need a reminder than the world can be beautiful.
no subject
I'm trying to think who in particular would turn up to look at you. Maybe Skadhi, although I personally give her a wide birth for Particular Reasons. And then there's Himself's family, because he is Himself and the family comes with the territory, so perhaps Hel and Sigyn. And Freyr.
no subject
I'm sure I'll find out sooner or later who's poking at me. I usually do. :p