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Post by Francis on Dec 14, 2008 14:17:29 GMT -1
Fosterage certainly. A very intimate weaving together of storylines of ancestry - a major part in forming the fabric of a person, and the tuning of the potential resonances they may have.
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Post by redraven on Dec 14, 2008 16:15:54 GMT -1
Genetic prerequisites are not what I'm looking for, no. But then, given the paucity of information available for pre-xtian Britian, it seems that you aren't really doing anything terribly different than the other druid groups, except being more firm about community needing to bestow (earned/deserved) labels on individuals. "Terribly different" Were you expecting that? Are we therefore just the same as you have encountered elsewhere? No offense intended, of course. It seems that most of the available pagan info for Britian has been milked thoroughly over several centuries. I very much admire the efforts to remain historically accurate, but again; you're working with basically the same info everyone else has. How can this project rebuild a pagan spirituality native to the area? I guess I'm asking how this project will end up differently then any others? You seem to be stuck on the "recontructionalist" theme. If you think that, you are not fully understanding the posts here. We can't "reconstruct" that for which there is little evidence, if we did, then we would be more in line with a faith school, relying upon gnosis for confirmation rather than fact. As to the question of how this project will end up, nobody here would be willing to even make a guess. You seem to believe that we have a finished product, we don't, we are only just starting.
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Post by redraven on Dec 14, 2008 16:38:26 GMT -1
I'm not talking about some racist exclusivity, but I am wondering what people think of the idea that there are differences in the potentials for resonance that are connected to your ancestry- an over used word being used here in the way it's used in the jargon of physics. "Differences in the potentials for resonance that are connected to your ancestry." Do you mean the potential for genetic expression being controlled by ancestral markers which "predetermine" what resonances that we may or may not be subject to? RR
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Post by jez on Dec 14, 2008 17:43:40 GMT -1
I'm not talking about some racist exclusivity, but I am wondering what people think of the idea that there are differences in the potentials for resonance that are connected to your ancestry- an over used word being used here in the way it's used in the jargon of physics. "Differences in the potentials for resonance that are connected to your ancestry." Do you mean the potential for genetic expression being controlled by ancestral markers which "predetermine" what resonances that we may or may not be subject to? RR The only way I can see this working in real life is if the deities of each area (not necessarily each nation) had selectively worked on the peoples inhabiting the area to ensure that those who were more 'susceptible' to them survived and prospered... Does anyone see any evidence of that? Apart, of course, from the prevalence of some US presidents and UK PMs to have Yahweh on tap? -- Actually, that's quite a scary idea... I wish I hadn't thought of it... -- Jez
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Post by sehnga on Dec 14, 2008 20:59:17 GMT -1
Excellent point; that's actually the piece I was rather missing - and why the pick-and-choose paganism so prevalent today has never worked for me. Well said. You're right, I was stuck thinking along reconstructionists lines. All these posts have clarified this project much better for me - remember I am brand-new to most of this, including the 'modern druid movement,' so I am still catching up and filling myself in. Thank you! No - this forum doesn't seem like the others I have perused - not at all. LOL
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Post by Adam on Dec 15, 2008 9:44:24 GMT -1
"Differences in the potentials for resonance that are connected to your ancestry." Do you mean the potential for genetic expression being controlled by ancestral markers which "predetermine" what resonances that we may or may not be subject to? RR The only way I can see this working in real life is if the deities of each area (not necessarily each nation) had selectively worked on the peoples inhabiting the area to ensure that those who were more 'susceptible' to them survived and prospered... OR, if one's ancestry had a particular area that they had worked in in a particular way then the ancestral stream to which one would be connected (and therefore the influence of the activities of the ancestors) would have strong resonance with one's own activities... western occultism (at least in some schools) does give credence to the idea that magical activity is strengthened by tradition, that a ritual is given power by virtue of repeated action by others before you... if your ancestors take an active interest in your own life, how much more would this be if you engage in ritual activities common to your ancestors, in places familiar to them?... this would as much apply to that layer of spirituality in this country known as Christianity as to any other. OUCH OUCH OUCH... Maybe that's precisely why I find most modern ritual ineffective... ancestors on the sidelines going "WTF... I wasn't expecting the local am dram society!!"... but give me a bit of high Anglican bells and smells and they're away with me ;-) Does anyone see any evidence of that? Apart, of course, from the prevalence of some US presidents and UK PMs to have Yahweh on tap? -- Actually, that's quite a scary idea... I wish I hadn't thought of it... -- Jez Jez... put down the David Icke book!!
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Post by arth_frown on Dec 15, 2008 13:03:25 GMT -1
You're right, I was stuck thinking along reconstructionists lines. All these posts have clarified this project much better for me - remember I am brand-new to most of this, including the 'modern druid movement,' so I am still catching up and filling myself in. I tend to think of us a constructionists rather than reconstructionist.
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Post by jez on Dec 15, 2008 13:08:02 GMT -1
I tend to think of us a constructionists rather than reconstructionist. I think the consensus on here is that Brython is going to be both. But then, so are all the reconstructionalist religions. The difference here, I think, is that a deliberate synthesis is being sought, a hunt for the common ground of several indigenous and local religions and spiritualities. There are going to be elements of welsh, irish, scottish, pictish, cornish, breton, saxon, jutish, friesian, anglian, christian, ..., ..., ..., in this, if it is true to its remit. Because the gods of these Isles have spoken to many people in many ways. -- Jez
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Post by maglowyllt on Dec 15, 2008 15:38:02 GMT -1
Can I just ask if there is anything truly wrong with the term 'reconstructionists'? Surely although the brythonic tradition has some largers gaps than other forms of european paganism, is not the essential aim to create a spirituality that might resemble what the britons would still be practising today without the influence of christianity and other factors? I think I remember someone on this forum (can't remember who) saying something along the lines of - creating a religion that our ancestors would be able to recognise and understand as linked to their own. I might have just made that up though.
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Post by maglowyllt on Dec 15, 2008 15:45:12 GMT -1
Doesn't anyone here object to having 'christian elements' in the tradition?
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Post by jez on Dec 15, 2008 15:55:13 GMT -1
Doesn't anyone here object to having 'christian elements' in the tradition? The tales of the saints are going to be one source of the Lore of the Lands. And there is no way to avoid the Christian influence, even if we actively discourage it. Our ancestors, for many generations, have seen the worlds through a Christian filter. It cannot be excised without offending many of them, and probably shouldn't be. The basic elements of the actual religion of Christianity, as practised through the centuries, has been subjected to many pagan influences. It is simply a matter of accepting that and using them, separating them from the elements that are Mediterranean or Hebrew, Egyptian et al in origin, and thanking our ancestors for preserving them, even if it was by accident. -- Jez
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Post by Adam on Dec 15, 2008 16:08:01 GMT -1
Doesn't anyone here object to having 'christian elements' in the tradition? Nope... I think I would object to not... by far most of my ancestors over the last 200 years (and probably the best part of the last 1600+) have been heavily influenced by, and heavily involved in, various forms of that tradition... it's an "invader" religion like all the others (more politically successful than most) which has absorbed and preserved traces of that which went before
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Post by maglowyllt on Dec 15, 2008 16:10:22 GMT -1
I suppose I have no real way to argue against your theory Jez, I know your argument is the wiser anyhow. Can we however be agreed that the christian elemnts that remain will merely be a conduit to the lore of our ancestors and that we have no real common points with the Monothiets faith?
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Post by jez on Dec 15, 2008 16:49:08 GMT -1
I suppose I have no real way to argue against your theory Jez, I know your argument is the wiser anyhow. Can we however be agreed that the christian elemnts that remain will merely be a conduit to the lore of our ancestors and that we have no real common points with the Monothiets faith? Oh, I don't know about that - the best bits of any religion are going to be common to many religions. Jesus said a few very interesting and pertinent things about how to live a good life and get along with each other. The rest, no, I don't think we want that But the trappings of the religion, the padding that our ancestors added to it to make it fit these Isles? Yes, I want most of that. I want to know who the (non-historical) saints really are, to know why the churches were placed on those particular sites, to understand why the traditions of a church dedicated to, say, Bridget has a folk-ritual that involves a procession, to know why a set of horns are kept in a Staffordshire church and used to beat the bounds, to cook and eat the local food after a local blessing which is assigned to the local saint/bishop/vision etc, etc, etc. -- How else are we going to find out what our ancestors were thinking when they interacted with their god(s)? -- Jez
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Post by Tegernacus on Dec 15, 2008 16:58:39 GMT -1
its all part of the great chain that makes us. I find a Latin Mass a very powerful thing, as I'm sure my ancestors did. I don't believe it, heart and soul, like they did, but I respect it for what it meant to them. And via that respect, it starts to have meaning to me too.
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Post by maglowyllt on Dec 15, 2008 17:52:05 GMT -1
I'm too stubborn at the minute to truly appreciae anything with an overly abrahamic atmosphere - I suppose I will learn to put up with it.
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Post by Tegernacus on Dec 15, 2008 18:20:41 GMT -1
its not an overly Abrahamic atmosphere.. it's a Roman one
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Post by redraven on Dec 15, 2008 19:38:56 GMT -1
I'm too stubborn at the minute to truly appreciae anything with an overly abrahamic atmosphere - I suppose I will learn to put up with it. To ignore one source of information, no matter how personally distasteful that may seem, is akin to closing one eye, your field of view is not as good as it should be, and at worst, you may miss something that you may have been looking for. How many times have things turned up from totally unexpected sources? I think the Gods like their little jokes, which are usually at our expense. RR
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Post by Adam on Dec 15, 2008 20:08:09 GMT -1
I'm too stubborn at the minute to truly appreciae anything with an overly abrahamic atmosphere - I suppose I will learn to put up with it. Cool... in my book, self awareness is the beginning of wisdom ;D (self pretentious twat that I can be at times )
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