Brython - gods and goddesses

[Lee]

Yeah I know this is on the public side of things but if we are going to make content available on the site we should get in the habit.

To flesh out the gods and goddesses section - or even ungods and ungoddesses - we need content. would people be happy postin a paragraph or two on the gods they hold dear and their place in your practice etc? spirits of place include of course if they take precedence.

[Heron]

Jun 8, 2011 11:03:14 GMT -1 Lee said:

Yeah I know this is on the public side of things but if we are going to make content available on the site we should get in the habit.

To flesh out the gods and goddesses section - or even ungods and ungoddesses - we need content. would people be happy postin a paragraph or two on the gods they hold dear and their place in your practice etc? spirits of place include of course if they take precedence.

Will do

Though the next couple of days may be difficult.

[nellie]

Rhiannon moves in and out of my life, but is always ever present in my feeling for Her. I experience Her as very dynamic, very clever, very vibrant. She has always been patient but for me is still quite a mystery. I find the role She often plays for me with the benefit of hindsight, is one of a guide. Liminality springs to mind.

Briganti is also a central figure in my practise and I visit a specific spot on the river to make offerings to Her, usually white in colour. Briganti I find is a comforter. I honour Her in the fairly usual ways. I light a candle for Briganti while I cook, offering Her thanks and asking for Her blessings on family and home. I associate Briganti with robins and geese (not completely sure as to the whys of this). Each night I ask Rhiannon and Briganti both to watch over my children.

Maponus is very important to me but I'm still finding my way with how to properly honour Him. Maponus is to me virile, sexual, uber male. But also witty, teasing, often laughing at me I think. I feel closest to Him in the woodland and have a feeling that He may also be something of an initiator? My impression of Him is that He is very protective and loves as much as He is loved. In relation to my personal practise Maponus is often about beginnings but I will also seek His aid with divination as well. I feel that if I wanted a guide to other realms then it would be Maponus I would turn to.

Lugus is less central to my practise at the moment but I have an inkling that this will grow over time. I make offerings to Lugus after completing one of my carvings by burning the wood shavings the carving has produced, so it's Lugus as the craftsman that I connect to though I'm aware it's just a very small part of Him. I find Lugus confusing but am in absolute awe of Him. It is with Lugus that I've had the most overt experience of a God or Goddess.

These are the only gods that I have direct experience of at this point. I also feel quite a strong pull to an old site nearby which is not much to look at but I sense the presence very strongly. My relationship to this spirit is much less formal or organised. Usually it is just an acknowledgement of 'I see you' and a tip of the hat and I will often reach out to this spirit without physically visting just as a sort of 'hi'. I don't make any sort of offerings but neither do I ask for anything. In the past my relationship with spirits of place have always taken this form. I am respectful but it is always less formal than when I approach a god.

[Lee]

Nellie's is the first to be added

bravo.

if there are any images you would like associated with your piece, link to them and i will stick them into the text too.

I will do mine some time tomorrow or friday

[nellie]

Eeek! Hadn't realized they would go up individually LOL! Looking forward to reading everyone elses thoughts here.

[potia]

This might be a bit long


Gods and Ungods in my personal practice
By Potia

The first deity I developed a relationship with was Epona and as time has gone on I have come to realise that this is but one name for the being I have a relationship with. She is also known as Rigantona and Rhiannon and to me alone as Firehair.

Epona Rigantona is primarily a guide and guardian for me in all types of journey, from physical to spiritual, mental to emotional. She watches over me and gives me a nudge here and there to help along the best path. Every now and then she will do more than nudge but she tends to be a subtle being in my experience and often uses birds for sending messages usually crows for me. I have come to realise she also has a distinct sense of humour. I will frequently request her guidance and guardianship if I am undertaking any longer or more strenuous journey. I often turn to her when I am stressed or upset too and I often feel she hears and helps me regain my balance and find the strength I need. I honour her particularly at the full moon when I sing for her and make a libation.

The second being I developed a relationship with is the one I know as the Cailleach. She is a being I feel is tied particularly to Scotland but can be felt elsewhere as well. She’s not that keen on people as a whole in my experience although she seems to be taking more of an interest in a wider range of people over the last couple of years. She is a harsh teacher but not necessarily unkind. She doesn’t like fools and if not treated with due respect she will let you know her displeasure. Her lessons for me seem to be connected to the darker experiences of life such as death, grief, pain and stress. It is not that she manipulates events to give you more of these things necessarily but that she will use them to teach you. If you can embrace her in spite of her dark and sometimes ugly side you are rewarded but the lessons can be painful. I honour her on the day after the full moon with song and libation.

The third major goddess I have a relationship with is Brigantia. To me she is both healer and protector. She is to me the guardian of hearth and home and as such capable of violence if pushed. It is her I turn to when there is illness among family or friends for healing and support. It is her I ask to protect and defend my home and family. I don’t really know her as well as the other two as yet but I am getting to know her as a loving and compassionate advisor. I honour her particularly on the day before the full moon with song, libation and the lighting of three candles.

Relationships with primarily male deities have come later and more slowly to me. At present I am getting to know Maponus and Lugus. I feel that Maponus is one I have known most of my life in one guise or another but it is only recently that I have begun to recognise him. To me he is both loving friend and bringer of passion. He is Lord of Dreams and Song to me; he can also bring healing and has ties to the sun too. I find him to be connected to pools of water, swans and roe deer. I used to honour him on a weekly basis with a cold shower but for various reasons that has stopped and as yet I haven’t replaced it with any other regular practice. Lugus is one I have only just begun to get to know and again I’m not sure what will develop where he is concerned.

On a frequent although irregular basis I also honour the spirits of my home with offerings of warm milk and rose scented tea lights following a shamanic style journey where I met with them and talked about what they might like. I feel these spirits help to keep my home environment feeling balanced and safe for both myself and my children and at times of stress I think that can be hard work for them.

[Heron]

Here is something on Rigantona - or rather two things. The first is something which attempts to define her in a general way and also to say something about our common perception of her, so I would appreciate the comments of others to confirm that this is so. The second piece is a personal statement taken from my recent posting on the nature of the gods.

I think we should distinguish on the website between formal and common recognition of how we perceive the gods and personal statements such as my second piece below and those just posted from Potia and Nellie. Otherwise visitors to the site could get confused about what they are reading.

Here are my two pieces. I'll try to get something done soon about Maponos, probably based on various postings about him on my blog.





Rigantona : The Horse Goddess

Rigantona (‘Great Queen’) was a British goddess associated with horses. As such she is seen as conjunctive with Epona, a goddess particularly associated with Roman cavalrymen in Gaul but with attested shrines in Roman Britain. Epona is also mentioned in the late Latin story by Apuleius The Golden Ass which contains a description of a shrine to Epona in a stable and refers to a practice of putting roses on such shrines.

Rigantona appears as Rhiannon in the medieval Welsh story in the Four branches of Y Mabinogi, usually collected in English translation with other stories under the title The Mabinogion. Rhiannon can be shown to be a development from Brythonic of the name Rigantona. The medieval Welsh stories present her riding into the Welsh landscape from the Otherworld at a place called Gorsedd Arberth, which may be an Otherworld portal similar to the Sidh of the Irish tradition. She comes to claim Pwyll for her husband and later her horse associations are stressed when she has to do a penance at a horse-block when she is wrongly accused of killing her son. There appears to be buried themes of sovereignty and the stewardship of the land here, and in our modern practice Rigantona – as she is formally addressed – or Rhiannon – as some of us more personally address her - is expressive of our relationship with the land of Brython. The Horse Goddess is both the embodiment of the spirit of the land and of our lives, both physically and spiritually, as part of the land.

Later in the Mabinogi tale cycle, Rhiannon goes back in Annwfn – or the Otherworld – for a time when the land reverts to wildness, and it is Manawydan, striving against the magic of an Otherworld sorcerer, who restores the land and enables her return. Again, there appear to be themes of sovereignty and human habitation of the land running through this tale.

Elsewhere in the medieval Welsh tales, Rhiannon’s Otherworld qualities are stressed. Her birds sing over the sea and create an atmosphere of enchantment and the suspension of time. The giant Ysbadadden says in the tale Culhwch and Olwen, that Rhiannon’s birds are "they that wake the dead and lull the living to sleep".

Rigantona is the Horse Goddess. She embodies our relationship with the land of Brython. Her connections with the Otherworld also reflect the shifts between the worlds, which we acknowledge and live by as part of our religious life.

-*-

And then there is this personal testament:

Rhiannon

When I first publicly identified myself as pagan in my late teens it was very much in the wiccan tradition with ‘The Goddess’ and ‘The God’ having different names and aspects but with no particular names prevailing except the ones the group I was part of had developed for our rituals. But Rhiannon, almost without me realising it, began to feel close and to be the culturally identifiable expression of ‘The Goddess’ in my experience of her. Although it was not part of a conscious intention at the time to promote her above others, I found myself writing a story about her which was published as long ago as 1975. It was as much as if she had found me as I had found her. The character of Rhiannon in those stories was increasingly the character of The Goddess in my evolving sense of the mythos.

All this was compounded when I had one of the few vivid visionary experiences that have happened to me which involved a white horse galloping across the road in front of me. I am unsure to this day whether or not I was ‘seeing things’, whether or not it was an actual horse escaped from a field or a vision in the pre-dawn after I had been up all night; both seem equally probable. But I know that the horse was communicating something directly to me and that I needed to respond. This happened at a time in my life when, it seems, I was more open to such experiences. It is, anyway, a long time since I have had any experience of such intensity. But I have lived most of my life since then building on those experiences and trying to live out what they gave to me. This includes living with Rhiannon as, I suppose you could call it, a constant presence, sometimes close, sometimes not so close, but there. The literary analogy that best captures this as an ideal is that between Odysseus and Athena in The Odyssey. I’m not sure I could actually live up to that, even as an analogy. But it is something to live for. And, although this too is a story from another tradition, it is one that provides a template from the pagan past of how a human can have a relationship with a goddess. He asks her:

“Stand beside me Athena …”

and

“Grey eyes ablaze, the goddess urged him on:
‘Surely I’ll stand beside you, not forget you’ ” (13, 445 >)

She is as close as breath.

[nellie]

I think Heron has a very valid idea there.
A statement of how Brython as a whole views each deity along with a brief outline with what is known about them before a section on personal experiences of each god or goddess might work well?

[Lee]

I will put up the personal experience par first and have a think how the understanding of the gods as a 'blurb' can be incorporated into the whole as it is. It might need a bit of a redesign of the site and a reshuffle of how some part are organized. i can do that if needs be over the weekend.

[Brochfael]

OK My gods are as follows

The horned one (or Antlered if we're being pedantic) aka Cernunnos/Cernyn, Gwyn and other names which I may not say. To me he is lord of the beasts, the wild one, he who dances the hazy zone between order and chaos. He brings good fortune, fertility and wealth. He also conducts the souls of teh dead to Annwfn

The Mother of Foals Epona/Rhiannon/Rigantona/Macha
She has a powerful connection with the land and nurtures with good advice. She too brings fertility and fortune. She also guards children and travellers. She presides over Motherhood and childbirth. She also blesses relationships.

The Lady of Llyn-y-Fan-Fach, she brings healing and wisdom

Gofannon/Guibhniu/Goban
He is the master of metalworking

The sun god
I see him as being reborn every 25th of December as Maponos (hunter, singer/poet, guardian of children). At beltane he matures to Lleu Llaw Gyffes/Lugh/Lugus/Llwch Lleminiawg and becomes the sun king skilled in all arts, crafts and sciences. At Samhain he becomes the old king, Math/Beli Mawr patron of wisdom. In all three forms he can be a warrior.

Nodens/Nuadha/Nudd/Lludd
Another ruler, cloudmaker and bringer of rains. He is a guardian and wise leader but also a warrior at need.

Gwydion, to me, represents cleverness and cunning with a wildness which needs to be tempered with wisdom. He is a transformer and an initiator.

Andraste (also known by many other names) provides vengeance and strength in battle. You don't want to upset her.

Ogma/Ogmios/Oenghus Mac Og
To me he is primarily lord of eloquence

Ceridwen (Yes I know Hutton dismisses her as a later interpolation and not a proper goddess but new deities can be introduced I suppose) represents wisdom and inspiration. Don't EVER piss her off!

Arianrhod, I see her as a lunar goddess she too is an initator and a teacher. Her lessons are seldom easy.

Nisien and Efnisien
Nisien is wisdom and peace. Efnisien is anger, jealousy and violence

Arawn
Rules over Annwfn. Like Osiris he presides over the judgement of the dead

Manawydan/Mannanan MacLir, Llyr/Lir and Dylan Eil Ton rule the sea
Llyr presides, Manawydan manages and Dylan plays.

To these I add a full chorus of ancestors and otherworldly beings as well as genii locii and household spirits.

[Lee]

yeah... and when i am at work and say i will do something like this later what i actually mean is "sure, i will do this rather than work"



all done

[nellie]

the site is looking good, I think that works well ^_^

[nellie]

this photo is from my May ritual this year to honour Rhiannon in Her sovereignty role which involved the making and shaping of bread into the head of a horse. Feel free to use it or not as appropriate. I hope the link works?

[nellie]

*gosh*
erm, that's a bit bigger than I was expecting, but at least I got it to work :S

[Lee]

that's fine, i have got it up on the site for you already.

[Heron]

Jun 10, 2011 11:01:48 GMT -1 nellie said:

*gosh*
erm, that's a bit bigger than I was expecting, but at least I got it to work :S

Looks great Nellie - a striking contribution to the imagery on the site.

[Heron]

Maponos & Midsummer

The Welsh poet, Henry Vaughan wrote to his cousin, the antiquary John Aubrey, in October 1694, in response to a request that he supply details of any remnants of the druids in Wales. He was presumably looking for evidence of the awenyddion mentioned by Giraldus Cambrensis but what Vaughan gives him is something quite different. Here is part of Vaughan’s reply to Aubrey:

… the antient Bards … communicated nothing of their knowledge, butt by way of tradition: which I suppose to be the reason that we have no account left nor any sort of remains, or other monuments of their learning of way of living. As to the later Bards, you shall have a most curious Account of them.
This vein of poetrie they called Awen, which in their language signifies rapture, or a poetic furore & (in truth) as many of them as I have conversed with are (as I may say) gifted or inspired with it. I was told by a very sober, knowing person (now dead) that in his time, there was a young lad fatherless & motherless, soe very poor that he was forced to beg; butt att last was taken up by a rich man, that kept a great stock of sheep upon the mountains not far from the place where I now dwell who cloathed him & sent him into the mountains to keep his sheep. There in Summer time following the sheep & looking to their lambs, he fell into a deep sleep in which he dreamt, that he saw a beautifull young man with a garland of green leafs upon his head, & an hawk upon his fist: with a quiver full of Arrows att his back, coming towards him (whistling several measures or tunes all the way) att last lett the hawk fly att him, which (he dreamt) gott into his mouth & inward parts, & suddenly awaked in a great fear & consternation: butt possessed with such a vein, or gift of poetrie, that he left the sheep & went about the Countrey, making songs upon all occasions, and came to be the most famous Bard in all the Countrey in his time.

This might not tell us much about the ‘ancient bards’ but the identity of the young man in a garland of green leaves with the hawk and arrows is of some interest. Maponos (Mabon) has been suggested. But even if we prefer to think of him as a generalised ‘Green Man’ figure, this is a remarkably specific and evocative written record of a pagan spirit of nature, music and inspiration.


In Cormac’s Glossary is a story about a Chief Bard of Ireland in the seventh century called Senchán. He is embarking from Ireland to the Isle of Man with a retinue of bards when “a foul-faced lad (gillie)” called to them from the shore as if he were mad. He is described in groteque detail but in spite of his appearance he is allowed o board.

When they reach the Isle of Man they are accosted by an old woman poet whose whereabouts have been unknown for some time. She challenges Senchán to a rhyme-matching competition but he is unable to match her rhyme so the lad does so instead. She tries again, and again the lad matches her rhyme. They take her back to Ireland with them and then see that the lad is no longer the bedraggled ‘monster’ that he was but “a young hero with golden-yellow hair curlier than the cross-trees of small harps: royal raiment he wore, and his form was the noblest that hath been seen on a human being.” At this point the Irish text changes to Latin for the following two sentences: “He went right-hand-wise round Senchán and his people and then disappeared. It is not, therefore, doubtful that he was the Spirit of Poetry.”

While there are parallels with the story from Vaughan, there are also differences. If we can make the ascription to Oengus mac Óc, the god here does not enter the young shepherd as Maponos does, but actually appears in the guise of a ‘gillie’ of horrible appearance. His true(?) appearance, when he adopts it, is of a noble hero. He is not, as in Vaughan’s story, a hunter with arrows and a hawk though (in a later manuscript version) he has a sword. If the Spirit of Poetry is manifest in Oengus in Ireland, and Maponos in Britain and Gaul, and if these seem to share some characteristics with Apollo according to the Romans, we have a lot to go on in discerning the nature of this god. But gods regarded as ‘equivalent’ by Roman commentators and by mythographers are often more elusive in the forms they take in particular locations.

So we have the Welsh example of a figure clad in green leaves with a quiver full of arrows and a hawk, clearly a hunter who is also able to enter a shepherd and inspire him to write poetry, a figure we can associate with Maponos.

 And we have in Irish a figure who is transformed from all that is ugly to all that is beautiful and is identified as the spirit of poetry. A figure we can associate with Oengus mac Óc.

Consider Oengus:
"

And he was a beautiful young man, with high looks, and his appearance was more beautiful than all beauty, and there were ornaments of gold on his dress; in his hand he held a silver harp with strings of red gold, and the sound of its strings was sweeter than all music under the sky; and over the harp were two birds that seemed to be playing on it. He sat beside me pleasantly and played his sweet music to me, and in the end he foretold things that put drunkenness on my wits."




Now think of Maponos, or Mabon Son of Modron, the divine son, and consider that Maponos was associated with Apollo, that Mabon – in Culhwch and Olwen - emerged from the darkness into the light of life. And consider how god identities might shift. So that Oengus mac Óc might walk the woods of Ireland in a similar guise. So for me it is Maponos at Midsummer. And it's not that he is, or he isn't a Sun God; not that he is or he isn't a Vegetation God ... and though he is certainly the god that plays the sweetest tune, he doesn't ask us to judge but to listen (though Apollo asked for judgement between himself and Pan, there was an element of asking for judgement between his new and his old self in that). He is the Awen, the spirit of Summer, youth transforming itself to the fullness of age but remaining ever young, the inspiration and the expiration of the Muse and he plays his music in what seems like an endless day.

 And the Piper remains too:



He pipes all the wood through and fills it with magic

He fills every heart with a joy bursting free

On Midsummer morning when the wild pipes are calling

Oh! where but the greenwood could we wish to be.




Does a god have different identities in different places? Do gods ‘take on’ the identities of other gods? Do the other gods yet remain? Here are puzzles for Midsummer games. The key in which the music of the Master of the Revels is set might provide the answer, but it is not in his nature to offer neat solutions but rather to propose a conundrum that confounds those who seek such easy answers. His speech is not prose, but poetry; the sense of his song is the Summer.

[Heron]

I've put a couple of things directly onto the website (under Myths, and Personal Interactions) but thought the above should go on here first both because it's seasonal and because I'm not sure what category to put it in. Is is 'personal' or a mainstream statement about the gods?

[nellie]

Heron the second time you pointed me to this post I was struck by the 'poetry not prose' phase. For me that is very much Maponus. He doesn't often give straight answers! As you know I also call Maponus 'GreenMan' but I'm still floundering over the time He should be honoured.
Does the modern pagan festival of Mabon have any bearing or is it a later construct/confusion?
Does anyone feel the imprisonment theme of Mabon is worth mentioning in relation to Maponus? I knew Maponus as GreenMan before I knew Him as Maponus so I'm more familiar witht he 'feel' of Him rather than know anything about the study of surviving traces of myth