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Post by Lee on Sept 19, 2010 21:02:04 GMT -1
Lee: a bit weird i know and largely the kind of thing we can answer and discuss in terms of scientific dicsovery and knowledge. however this is something that has come up in a short discussion with Potia. we dont really have a shared cosmology. it doesnt need to be 'real' or 'fact' and sits happily in the realms of myth. as such it is merely a 'map' of the world as seen through mythical eyes and as such places ourslves in the landscape with the gods et al. how do you all feel about some sort of shared cosmology? Littleraven:
Makes perfect sense, otherwise how would anyone know what anyone else as talking about. I would suggest the first thing to look at is the Otherworld, and it's relationship to this world. Potia: I've tended to see the Otherworld as something that is somehow out of phase with this one if you will. A place that can be reached at different times and differnt locations with certain times of the day (dawn and dusk) and the year (Beltane and Samhain in particular) and certain places being more prone to veils being moved through than others. The reason I brought this idea up with Lee is related to reading I've been doing into the heathern practices of Seidr. Nearly all the account I have read work on a shared cosmolgy of descending Yggdrasil to reach Helheim with the seer going through the gates to seek answers for the community. At present I don't think we have anything like this in existing Brythonic lore - the closest would be descriptions of passing into the Otherworld in the Mabinogion I guess but I don't remember any particular route being used. I have been wondering if Lee's new myths could help us develop something further we can share and then perhaps use. Arth: I have been thinking about this a lot since Megli posted this on his blog mvtabilitie.blogspot.com/2009/09 ... nsula.html RedRaven:
I tend to place my cosmological viewpoint on a neo-shamanic tree of life type of thing. It has though, become obvious to me, that when descending into the lower world I tend to descend into a cave, initially through the bark of an oak, which I think places it very much in a Brythonic context given the geology of Britain. That and the fact I live near the Peak national park with all the cave systems present are, I presume, responsible for creating that connection. Water also plays a large part of what I, all too infrequently unfortunately, have the pleasure to experience. Lee:
the otherworld/underworld or whatever you want to call it. i think i described it in the myths im knocking out as the world 'behind' this world. i see it as a layer underneath and within this one and as such can be entered from all manner of places; rivers, lakes, bogs, caves or when the mist comes rolling in. Littleraven: Yes, it's the boundary thing, I for one always look for such places when needing something 'more'. I certainly don't think of it as an 'underworld', but rather a spiritual 'dimension' if you will, out of phase with this world. But with two seperate out of phase waveforms they do meet at regular intervals, which kind of ties in with the Calan Mai/Nos Calan Gaeaf when the 'veil is thin'. RedRaven: Francis Prior on Britain B C was quite adamant that the ancient Brits viewed their heaven as existing underground, as opposed to Christanity's premise that it is above the Earth. Seahenge, which I will be going to see shortly, being an example, along with the ritualistic depositing in rivers and caves. Is there much resonance with this viewpoint here? Heron: Yes,the Otherworld as existing alongside, or at some dimensional tangent to, the 'everyday' world is pretty fundamental as far as I'm concerned. And this is so whether I'm thinking of what be called unmediated experience - e.g. being in a wood at twilight - or mediated by cultural manifestations - stories about Rhiannon and Annwn - the realm of Faery is deep though at various times either close or far away. But always there. RedRaven: I think the descriptions given here are pretty consistent and are ones that I can easily relate to. However, I do consider that previous generations viewed these otherworlds as a much more physical dimension than perhaps we do now. So, perhaps this is representative of how we are applying modern idea's to earlier practices? And if we are, are we guilty of picking and mixing, as we have commented about other people?
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Post by Rion on Sept 20, 2010 14:23:29 GMT -1
Reading through the above exchange I find myself a little confused. Some of you appear to be saying that you believe in an underworld (where the dead reside) which is literally below the earth, as well as an otherworld (where the gods and spirits reside) which is sort of laid on top of our world and reached through places of liminality (doors, bogs, mist, mountains, caves, rivers...), whereas some of you appear to conflate the two. I think a first step towards a Brythonic cosmology would be deciding which is correct
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Post by bram on Sept 20, 2010 16:23:02 GMT -1
I have been pondering on this a lot recently. I would have said I went with the 3 realms view as you describe above which has always worked for me. But, I have been looking closely at the Norse view of Yggdrasil and it's 9 realm view which appears to put some meat on the 3 realms viewpoint, but that is probably because I have spent a lot of time in Germany recently and come under the influence of the Germanic Spirits.
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Post by potia on Mar 22, 2011 8:56:19 GMT -1
I'd like to bring this topic back out and dust it off a bit. Recently I've been learning more about trance and journeying techniques and getting a bit more practical experience too. Reading through the above posts it seems to me that we all see the Otherworld as a layer alongside our everyday reality reachable in various ways particularly at liminal times and places. In terms of core shamanic or heathen cosmology this seems to be the middle realm. Would others agree? Lee's brief myth on the place of the dead ( brythonicmyths.blogspot.com/2009/11/place-of-dead.html) suggests to me that this is a place perhaps lower than other areas "that place reached beneath the waters or in the deepest of caves ". And the myth I wrote about Rigantona visiting the land of the dead has her descending via a cave to this place. Given that our ancestors seemed to have considered the dead to be living under the world we reside in in some way I think it would be consistent to use this type of imagery for visiting the realm of the dead. This also ties in with both core shamanic and heathen cosmologies where the underworld is the place of the ancestors. Again it's a place reachable in many ways but generally with an aspect of descent involved which may not be the case with the otherrealm. Does this make sense to others here?
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Post by Adam on Mar 22, 2011 18:03:34 GMT -1
Reading through the above posts it seems to me that we all see the Otherworld as a layer alongside our everyday reality reachable in various ways particularly at liminal times and places. In terms of core shamanic or heathen cosmology this seems to be the middle realm. Would others agree? I might see things slightly differently. I only see one world. The veils, as it were, are perceptual. So perception of the (or any) Otherworld is a property of trance, not of a multilayered reality. I believe that different trance states can be in part characterised by the cognitive functions that are "turned off". What we can know of the world (in the sense of the one reality) and how we can know it are determined by the nature of the trance we are in (and we are always in one form of trance or another, except possibly for those who are regarded as "awakened" in various mystical traditions). So the different layers of the one world are, in fact (I believe) actually determined by the different perceptual constructs available to us and the different "knowings" That is a very person/human centred description. It isn't meant to be. I also think that liminal places are places that impact upon our consciousness profoundly because we are not separate from the environment we operate in. The distinction between me and not-me is not as comfortably distinct as we like to think we "know" it is in the trance we like to label normal waking consciousness
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Post by Heron on Mar 22, 2011 23:03:36 GMT -1
I tend to think about the Otherworld and the Land of the Dead in rather different ways.
The Otherworld is parallel to - or alongside - our world.
The Land of the Dead is something else, and may be thought of metaphorically as an Underworld, but I don't think about it literally in this way.
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Post by nellie on Mar 23, 2011 18:29:54 GMT -1
I'm one of the guys around here that learns more thant teaches but I'm sure that back in the past there was a distinction between the otherworld and the underworld.
For what it is worth I view this world as something that has materialised FROM the otherworld/spiritworld. Although spirit always seems more insubstantial I think probably in many ways that I don't understand that the otherworld is more real than this one, not less. This is all just an intellectual understanding as I've never tried to cross over like other here have.
Coming back to Francis Pryor - he make mention of the flint mines. While I know this predates the 'celtic' approach of Brython I would guess it's fair to assume that the later people developed from those earlier peoples. Francis Pryor indicates that the flint mines were likely seen in a spiritual context. Offerings are found down flint mines and the Langdale stone that is often used to make axehead offerings could 'have been mined in more easily accessible places than the langdale mines. Pryor says this indicates that there was a spiritual dimension to the mines. If this is right then caves being linked to the otherworld would fit perfectly. (excuse any mistakes - the books where I read this info went back to the library yonks ago) Are there any surviving folk stories concerning caves?
A shared cosmology would certainly help to form some cohesion - I think it's actually really important. Stories, mythologies, common belief - it's what holds a religion together. It would be fantastic to have a collection of stories about the old gods of this land, rewritten from the old stories and collective PG that make them relevant today, which I know is what some of you have started doing.
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Post by Adam on Mar 25, 2011 7:37:01 GMT -1
I think it is probably more important than anything else, and damned brave of Potia to go there :-) It is one thing common to all indigenous paganisms and the one thing profoundly lacking in contemporary paganism. A cosmology is a map of internal and group experience. It is a crystalisation of how a community and the individuals within it make sense of their experience of the world from the mundane to the supra-mundane.
And that is where the bravery comes in... I don't think one can realistically reconstruct a cosmology... what meaning would it have? So how to reconnect to one? A cosmology that ties us to the landscape, remains true to the roots that resonate so much they have brought us all here and yet has meaning in the 21st century?
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Post by Adam on Mar 25, 2011 9:21:02 GMT -1
Are there any surviving folk stories concerning caves? John Rhys writes about caves www.sacred-texts.com/neu/cfwm/cf202.htm though he often refers to stories recorded by lolo Morgannwg. makes good reading though But caves as an entrance to another world is so archetypal... in Ireland there are references to caves as the entrance to hell, but it seems Brythonic lore is more interested in caves as an entrance to another world. I don't know the provenance of the Arthur's caves type stories, sleeping knights etc, although they smack to me of future hope for an oppressed nation building upon early mythology of faery warriors
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Post by Adam on Mar 25, 2011 9:39:47 GMT -1
I'm attending a weekend with Robin Williams on storytelling based on the Mabinogion. I'm going to stick my neck out here at say that apparently Robin regards the Mabinogion tales as being "gateways to the magical realms of the dreamtime of the Isles of Britain". Now Robin is a teller of tales and a juggler of metaphors, so I'm happy with that as a non-academic description. But I'm also happy on a more literal level. I have long believed that aetiological folk tales (in particular) relate to the landscape in ways similar to the aboriginal dreamtime tales... that they are very distant echoes of tales that would have held very significant life and death meaning to our stone age nomadic ancestors in their relationship to the landscape and how they survived in relationship to it.
What the **** is he getting at? Well... in terms of cosmology, to me, a cosmology is a set of narratives that describe a map of our experience of the world and somehow connect at a deep psychological level with the stories we constantly tell ourselves about who we are. My gut instinct is that somehow, from the collective sense I get from people here, is that our cosmology is rooted in that sense of place... a means of identifying those sacred spaces, those liminal places at which we become connected with something else, at which our perception and cognition change and we see the world with new and different eyes. they exist in our folklore, they probably echo back to the stone age and before, the dawn of the capacity for metaphorical thought, and we all describe experiences within which we react to them now to greater and lesser degrees.
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Post by Lee on Mar 25, 2011 11:46:15 GMT -1
i think a shred cosmology is a worthwhile aim. it need not be complex, for instance; this world, the Land of the dead and the otherworld.
my persoanl cosmology is that this world and the Other occupy the same 'space' as it were, the other is simply the Land behind the Land, there but just beneath/behind/off to the left. it can be accessed in all manner of places, though some are easier than others; liminal space.
the land of the dead; my gut tells me it is in or under this world. not inside the earth as such, more a metaphorical 'down' if that akes sense? kind of like RR's soil being what we all come from and which we all return to.
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Post by Heron on Mar 25, 2011 15:13:36 GMT -1
But caves as an entrance to another world is so archetypal... in Ireland there are references to caves as the entrance to hell, but it seems Brythonic lore is more interested in caves as an entrance to another world. I don't know the provenance of the Arthur's caves type stories, sleeping knights etc, although they smack to me of future hope for an oppressed nation building upon early mythology of faery warriors 'fraid so! The 'sleeping warrior' is in fact recorded more than once in the index of international folk lore motifs( e.g. : C984, D1960.2, E502) But as far as Arthur is concerned for us I think we can regard him as culturally embedded in Brythonic lore. I like the 2oth century treatment of him by David Jones who asks "Does the land wait the sleeping lord / or is the wasted land / the very lord who sleeps?" That seems to me to put it into a context we can use.
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Post by Heron on Mar 25, 2011 15:24:37 GMT -1
I'm attending a weekend with Robin Williams on storytelling based on the Mabinogion. I'm going to stick my neck out here at say that apparently Robin regards the Mabinogion tales as being "gateways to the magical realms of the dreamtime of the Isles of Britain". Now Robin is a teller of tales and a juggler of metaphors, so I'm happy with that as a non-academic description. But I'm also happy on a more literal level. I have long believed that aetiological folk tales (in particular) relate to the landscape in ways similar to the aboriginal dreamtime tales... that they are very distant echoes of tales that would have held very significant life and death meaning to our stone age nomadic ancestors in their relationship to the landscape and how they survived in relationship to it. What the **** is he getting at? Well... in terms of cosmology, to me, a cosmology is a set of narratives that describe a map of our experience of the world and somehow connect at a deep psychological level with the stories we constantly tell ourselves about who we are. My gut instinct is that somehow, from the collective sense I get from people here, is that our cosmology is rooted in that sense of place... a means of identifying those sacred spaces, those liminal places at which we become connected with something else, at which our perception and cognition change and we see the world with new and different eyes. they exist in our folklore, they probably echo back to the stone age and before, the dawn of the capacity for metaphorical thought, and we all describe experiences within which we react to them now to greater and lesser degrees. Yes, from the academic point of view Robin W's treatment of the tales is off the wall. But I think he quite validly approaches them as a tale teller who picks up what he needs and extends the tales to his own purpose. For all we know that was done by tale tellers in the past to give us the ones that were written down. True, the craft of tale telling tended to be conservative rather than innovative for the most part, but I'm sure there were periods of innovation then as now. What stories do we need to hear to contribute to our own evolving cosmology? Whatever they are we don't need to get mired in making phony historical claims if they speak to us deeply and are evocative of our gods. If that is the case then they just are.
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Post by Heron on Mar 25, 2011 15:30:42 GMT -1
my persoanl cosmology is that this world and the Other occupy the same 'space' as it were, the other is simply the Land behind the Land, there but just beneath/behind/off to the left. it can be accessed in all manner of places, though some are easier than others; liminal space. In this respect, I like this evocation of the liminal otherworld: ( from Mary Webb's novel Armour Wherein He Trusted): "I come from Cymru, sir, and my home is in the waste; and my lineage is elf-lineage, and for our sign, it is a churn-owl with a kingly crown upon his head." "Where, then, is this waste situate," asked the ascheater... "Sir," she made answer, "it lies between Salop and Radnor. It lies also between life and death. It is betwixt and between all things." "Is it in Doom Book?" "Nay my lord, for it is in neither county. Nor is it in any hundred, nor does it pay gold." "How comes that?" "Why, lord, it is faery ground and you cannot measure it nor go round it, for though it is only a narrow piece, times, of the width of three horses head and tail, yet, times, it will widen to eternity and yet again it will shrink to a knife-edge." Quite
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Post by Adam on Mar 25, 2011 15:52:53 GMT -1
I like the 2oth century treatment of him by David Jones who asks "Does the land wait the sleeping lord / or is the wasted land / the very lord who sleeps?" That seems to me to put it into a context we can use. My back went cold :-)
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Post by nellie on Mar 25, 2011 18:52:06 GMT -1
What might be a relevant thought (or not!) might be to ask how brythonic belief differs from wider pagan belief, as that surely will reflect brythonic cosmology. Obviously the worship is that of brythonic gods and there is a leaning towards (correct me if i'm wrong) the iron-age period and romano-britain. But what of those gods now? Has anybody been brave enough to write any new stories about what the old gods have been up to in that intervening time? I'd love to read them if so, (links please!!) Personally the stories I've told myself to make sense of the gods have changed over time as my understanding has developed.
For instance - going back to that post last January, regarding the difficulties I was having with Imbolc and putting it into context. Does anybody else yearn for those stories that explain why we celebrate certain festivals? Almost every pagan celebrates Imbolc (just as an example) but is there a brythonic interpretation of the celebration that is any different? Without the stories surely the festival or celebration becomes meaningless? (sorry if this has been covered elsewhere on the forum) As Adam says - how DO you reconnect to a cosmology?
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Post by nellie on Mar 25, 2011 18:54:07 GMT -1
Now you just need to write that story about going into the cave Potia
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Post by arth_frown on Mar 27, 2011 19:25:52 GMT -1
And that is where the bravery comes in... I don't think one can realistically reconstruct a cosmology... what meaning would it have? So how to reconnect to one? A cosmology that ties us to the landscape, remains true to the roots that resonate so much they have brought us all here and yet has meaning in the 21st century? We can't just force a cosmology upon ourselves. It is as you say a downfall on modern pagans with the exception of Heathery. Cosmology probably come to us from great seers over thousands of years. Best place to start is a basic cosmology and let evolve through shared experience.
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Post by Lee on Mar 27, 2011 20:07:06 GMT -1
I do I think this is just beginning to happen; Potia wrote a piece on the descent of Rigantona into the underworld and that fits rather well with the end of summer and beginning of spring. over time i can forsee myths being written to provide a kind of mythic overlay to the wheel of the year of festivals we already have rather well described. however, these are the kinds of stories we will all to have a hand in writing as they will focus on gods and events that will be viewed differently by each of us. So, maybe something about Ambactonos and harvests; not necessarily explaining why we have a harvest festival as such as i think that should be fairly self explanatory in itself but more the kind of myth that fits well with the time of year. so whilt we are putting together a body of liturgy to go with the 6 seasonal celebrations, we can begin working on a mythic corpus of 'seasonally appropriate' myths.
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