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Post by lyle on Apr 23, 2016 21:13:36 GMT -1
The Dun Brython site is absolutely stunning. Lee, your introduction is excellent! One tiny typo left...after 'What we hope to do is remember', the first sentence after that has an extra 'a'.
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Post by Lee on Apr 25, 2016 10:01:00 GMT -1
Well, quite a few followers already for the blog. off to a good start everyone
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Post by lorna on Apr 26, 2016 16:09:00 GMT -1
Yes, great start When I scheduled the calendar, I noticed we'd had a good number of hits. Many thanks for the FB shares, RR, seems to have done the trick
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Post by Lee on May 13, 2016 9:26:33 GMT -1
Just to get someone else to cast an eye over what will be going live in a few days:
This blog is still young, three pots in and less than a month since launching. We began at the beginning; with who we are and what we want to do, from that we move on to the framework that links people to landscape; the ritual year, the scaffold upon which we start to pin our relationship to the gods and the landscape.
How our ancestors formalised – if indeed they even did – their interactions with the gods is largely unknown. There are some elements we do know of from Roman writers, and from inferences made by Romano-British and Iron Age peoples. For instance, the deposition of deliberately broken items into water seems to have been important. That there was an entire priestly caste suggests that even if people had their own personal ritual behaviours and devotions, there was also some form of priest led community ritual. Beyond that it becomes more difficult to create anything concrete; we have no prayers, no invocations and no idea how the everyday person made offerings to the gods or what it was they offered.
We can look to the neighbouring cultures and further abroad and in time to begin to do some comparative work with our cultural extended family. Ceisiwr Serith has written a fantastic amount trying to reconstruct the practice of the proto-Indo-Europeans; those people from the central-Asia regions who eventually gave rise to the milieu of Indo-European language cultures which the Brythonic language culture sits within. I recommend his website and book ‘Deep Ancestors’ for a lot more on this subject, both are really rewarding sources of inspiration and information.
By and large, how we perform our own household devotions or lead group and community ritual is up to us. What works for us individually and what fosters and strengthens the bonds between us and the gods is down to experimentation, experience and practice. There are some things that we are immediately drawn to and also appear historically that suggest there are some ‘universals’; fire, water and libations.
Fire used to form the central point in our lives; warmth, protection and food. Achieving mastery over fire was something that predates human beings as we know ourselves and offered our early Homo ancestors a massive advantage. Fire was in all likelihood an important factor that led to the emergence of Homo sapiens on the planet. The hearth formed the centre of the home to our ancestors and even today the kitchen; the place of fire in our houses is seen as the heart of the home. Anyone who has spent any time near an open fire will know its place in our lives. Something as simple as a candle has a startling effect on atmosphere and emotion in ritual, having an open fire has that much more impact.
Water is vital to life. Life arose from the seas, without water we die within three days. Water is second only to oxygen in terms of its importance to life. Water also cleanses, washes away the dirt and grime of the day. Having a shower after a long day or heavy work leaves you feeling transformed, and the simple act of washing your hands and face before ritual has a similar effect. Water was also seen as a boundary; whether running water, bodies of freshwater or the seas, water was seen as a place that marked the boundary between this world and the Otherworlds.
Libations, whether food or drink or even something more valuable have always been a part of ritual practice. From an Indo-European perspective, offerings are linked to pure hospitality and ghosti; the reciprocity that derives from hospitality . We feed and water visitors to our house, it is ingrained in us, even if only a cup of tea (I say ‘only’, but to be honest tea is the most important element of hospitality in the UK!). we give to the gods in thanks, we give to the gods in the hope of blessings or aid, we give to the gods simply because we are grateful for their presence in our lives. We should give to the gods any time we invite them in to our homes and places of worship – they are guests and should be treated as such.
There is no set formula how fire, water and libation should be wedded together. Within Brython we share some commonalities in our individual practice, and yet we also have very individual ways of ritualising devotion. I have a format I use for libations to the gods, others use different means such as when making offerings to the ancestors. For personal practice, keep it simple. For group ritual you need to consider many more things, and having longer, more ‘grander’ rituals that involve everyone and have a formulaic beginning to the ritual will work well as a means to settle, focus and gather everyone together for the purpose in hand. In Wiccan ritual the casting of the circle and calling of the quarters act as a means of drawing everyone together and focussing them on the work at hand after spending a day at work, or travelling. Having a means of ensuring this focus and that the day’s events are left outside/behind is essential. You need everyone to be singing from the same song sheet and with the same focus. Ritual offers a way to do this.
Segomâros Widugeni is a Gaulish polytheist who writes at Polytheist.com, he recently published a basic ritual outline aimed at Gaulish polytheists, and he has very kindly given permission for it to be reproduced here. In order for it to be in keeping with our Brythonic focus, I have removed the Gaulish prayers and invocations and where appropriate included the Brythonic version of some of the terminology in square brackets after the terms in question. For the full version, with full Gaulish language included, check out the piece at polytheist.com
As you can see, this covers all of the main points mentioned above; fire, water and libation. It would be an ideal basis to work from to create personal and solo rituals or a household or community gathering. In a community setting, some form of procession leading up to the ritual site would be very much in keeping with our ancestors community practices.
I need to do a closing/rounding up paragraph in here just to wrap it up. Anything I ma missing or any glaring errors my eyes are skipping happily over?
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Post by lorna on May 13, 2016 9:38:44 GMT -1
Looks good to me The only mistake I can spot is two paragraphs above 'The next bit is lifted' - focussing should only have one 's'. Interestingly my piece on Bel and Belisama and upcoming celebration focuses on fire, water and offerings too.
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Post by Lee on May 13, 2016 10:15:31 GMT -1
Interestingly my piece on Bel and Belisama and upcoming celebration focuses on fire, water and offerings too. Ha! More synchronicity
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Post by Heron on May 13, 2016 13:45:03 GMT -1
Just to get someone else to cast an eye over what will be going live in a few days: As you can see, this covers all of the main points mentioned above; fire, water and libation. It would be an ideal basis to work from to create personal and solo rituals or a household or community gathering. In a community setting, some form of procession leading up to the ritual site would be very much in keeping with our ancestors community practices. [.....] I need to do a closing/rounding up paragraph in here just to wrap it up. Anything I ma missing or any glaring errors my eyes are skipping happily over? Right at the beginning you refer to 'pots' which I think needs an extra 's' before the 't'. You might also want to consider changing 'oxygen to 'air' in the sentence: 'Water is second only to oxygen in terms of its importance to life', as water contains oxygen. But that's a scientific point and you might know better than me on this one? Otherwise I think this is excellent and begins to develop the discussion of personal practice in Brythonic polytheism as we obviously need to do as the blog progresses.
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Post by Lee on May 14, 2016 23:27:21 GMT -1
I need to do a closing/rounding up paragraph in here just to wrap it up. Anything I ma missing or any glaring errors my eyes are skipping happily over? Right at the beginning you refer to 'pots' which I think needs an extra 's' before the 't'. You might also want to consider changing 'oxygen to 'air' in the sentence: 'Water is second only to oxygen in terms of its importance to life', as water contains oxygen. But that's a scientific point and you might know better than me on this one? [/quote] Thanks I ended up deleting the sentence - I was thinking of molecular oxygen and then ended up think of a whole hosts of other vital components and their importance; co2 is essential for plants to make the sugars that are metabolised for energy....its a long, deep rabbit hole of biochemisty I figured best not to start heading into.
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