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Post by gruffudd on Jun 5, 2016 11:06:47 GMT -1
Hi there everyone. I've never joined a forum before so not totally sure on the etiquette but I've read the rules and think I understand. Well, about me... I live in Wales, on the lovely island of Anglesey. We're currently enjoying bright summer sunshine so feels like I'm on holiday everyday ? originally my family are all from west Wales but I moved up here for university where I studied Biology. My road to polytheism seems different from others I've seen, as in I didn't get into wicca at all. My family are, or rather were when we were children, Catholic. We come from an agricultural and fishing background which seems to have some little bits of folklore well ingrained. I'm not saying under any circumstances that this is some prehistoric survival, but these little bits seem to have kept my family and therefore myself open to ideas of spirituality not within the Christian orthodox. From this I found myself following a "traditional witchcraft" path but more so the spirituality, I never really got into spell craft (personally I thought it strange the whole concept). After a while it felt like the dualism of Wicca was within the mainstream of this practice, sorry forgot to mention, by this point I was clearly in a polytheist mindset. The whole god and goddess thing, in whatever disguise, never sat with me. I always had an active passion for ancient Britain and I think starting off Catholic seemed to make my mind perfectly open to the concept of multiple divine beings. (Insider info here... Catholic practice is quite pagan-esque). When I was 18 I turned my back on Catholicism completely and embraced my polytheistic life and never looked back. My hobbies are herbalism; I like to grow native British herbs for use in medicine, soaps, herb bags... obviously ancient Britain and folklore too. I am currently looking forward to an archeology day and ancient practices workshops this month hosted by Cadw. I'm not the most academic person in this field by any means, as I said, I studied biology not anthropology or archeology, but I do do a lot of reading from secondary sources. One of my favourites being Ronald Hutton and TV Neil Oliver. Hopefully I have other skill sets that can be of use ? Anyway, looking forward to chatting, learning and sharing.
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Post by Lee on Jun 5, 2016 14:05:40 GMT -1
Hi Gruffydd!
Ex-catholic here too! Also come from a biological background rather than history, anthropology or archaeology but do still like those sources for reading. Which part of west Wales are you from? I'm from Fishguard.
Nice to meet you, dive in and get and threads going if you fancy, i think the nice weather means we are busy outdoors rather than stuck in from of a PC (I have a hangover from a big BBQ we had yesterday so thats my excuse)
Lee
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Post by gruffudd on Jun 5, 2016 14:35:49 GMT -1
Hi Lee, thanks for the reply.
I'm originally from Haford. My mother's family are from goodwick and caer coed and my father's from maenclochog and llys y fran. It's been a few years since I've been home though.
I never found much of a pagan/polytheist community when I lived there, had that changed at all?
I guess my aversion to peer reviewed journals comes from writing up my research project for my degree haha maybe one day I'll get over it...
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Post by Lee on Jun 5, 2016 15:40:55 GMT -1
crikey...just down the road then Not much of a pagan community when I left, though that was nearly 20 years ago now when I left for Uni. never went back there other than visits really. Lovely area, but not somewhere I would want to live.
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Post by gruffudd on Jun 5, 2016 16:52:13 GMT -1
Probably no community because we're all off in the preselis doing our own solo thing unaware of each other ? (trying to out a laughing emoji but realised last time they showed a question marks haha) Surprisingly I haven't come across much of a community on Anglesey either bar the druid order but I don't think we're compatible as they have a heavy emphasis on the mabinogi, whereas I see it as mythology rather than theology. But hey hoe, each to their own.
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Post by Lee on Jun 5, 2016 17:27:48 GMT -1
I don't think we're compatible as they have a heavy emphasis on the mabinogi, whereas I see it as mythology rather than theology. But hey hoe, each to their own. You are going to fit in here rather well Ah, I do miss being able to go off and wander around the Preselis or around Strumble Head. If you dont mind me asking, how old are you? I'm just wondering how long ago you left that area, back in my day (makes me sound a LOT older than 38) there were a handful of people I knew of as pagan, a couple of old school friends who got me into this in the first place and some local artists i got to know who were pretty pagan in their way. I know of a couple of others from online stuff in the broader Pembs area and we have a couple ofpeople on here in the southern Pembs area.
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Post by gruffudd on Jun 5, 2016 17:40:45 GMT -1
Glad to find like minded people.
No worries, I don't mind. I'm 28, 29 on the 10th. I left right after my a levels (20 years old, I took them later) so maybe not old enough to have had experiences and meet people. There was a group in pembs college but they were a wiccan circle. I was friends with them but didn't attend any of their rituals.
And then there was a 40 something year old wiccan called Georgina that was friends with my mam and taught my sister tarot. (We were very bad at being Catholic haha)
So I found wiccans but not really any hard polytheists.
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Post by potia on Jun 6, 2016 9:55:38 GMT -1
Greetings
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Post by lorna on Jun 6, 2016 11:50:34 GMT -1
Hello Gruffudd and welcome It must be fabulous living on Anglesey - where the place names of the Brythonic myths have never changed, and tough being a solitary with the Anglesey Druid Order so close but not feeling you'd fit. Ironically a good number of Druids from Lancashire (where I live) study with the ADO in Anglesey! Could you expand on the contrast between mythological and theological approaches? Are there any particular Brythonic deities or myths you connect with?
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Post by gruffudd on Jun 6, 2016 16:13:38 GMT -1
Thanks both for the welcome.
It is lovely on Anglesey, loads of ancient sites to visit and yes the place names hold the history of the place within them, well most do anyway.
That's bit of a tricky one, my approach to the mabinogi. Let me try...
I see it as mytholical in the sense I believe the stories hold meaning on a spiritual basis and give some insight to the personalities or attributes to the deities but I don't believe that Lleu Llaw Gyffes is Lugus. Perhaps a story defining his attributes but not a biography. I don't believe literally that Lugus was born of a virgin goddess (Arianrhod) and married to Blodeuedd. Does this make sense? I hold massive amounts of respect for the literature however as part of my national and ancestral heritage.
Currently I feel a connection with Belenus, Lugus, Sucellos, Maponos, Nodens. There are a couple goddesses but I'm unsure to their identities. I think Nantosuelta but not entirely sure. I do honour Demetos but I don't really ask for anything. Mainly in honour of my ancestry and where I come from. There's no way to know for sure that my family come from any specific tribe but my home area was the Demetae. My family have been farming there for centuries so maybe... hopefully lol
Feels good to say this out loud! Well type it anyway...
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Post by Heron on Jun 7, 2016 8:41:05 GMT -1
Welcome Gruffudd - I'm about half way, geographically, between where you come from and where you are!
I was very interested in your distinction between mythology and theology in Y Mabinogi and so your further elaboration in response to Lorna is something I’d like to pick up in the spirit of enquiry and exploration. Mythology (stories about the gods) and theology (theories about the gods) both have their place. You are of course right to suggest the primacy of the former as stories are one way of experiencing the gods, which must be fundamental, while theories are secondary as ways of talking about the gods. There is a further category, of course, of acknowledging or worshipping the gods through I’ll put that to one side for the purposes of this discussion. When you say that you do not ‘believe’ that Lleu is Lugos, that raises an interesting point about how we might experience the gods. If I have an experience of the gods, whether through a story or more directly without the cultural construction as an intermediary, ‘belief’ is probably not an issue. Adherents of transcendent deities have to ‘believe’ because the deity concerned is not immanent in the way that polytheistic deities are experienced either as direct presences or as personas. As it happens I don’t think of Lleu in this way either, though I don’t discount that others could. Rhiannon, however, is another matter : she speaks to me from her stories and the things said about her, so I find her mythology in the two of the Four Branches in which she appears and find what is said about her in Culhwch and Olwen to be resonant. That is, I think gods can inhabit stories. So far so good. But can those stories also be ‘theology’? One thing we can do is identify the characters in the stories, and the things they do, with god-like behaviour. We can develop theories about this to justify our perceptions of who we think they are. Theories are just that, of course, and always subject to revision or rejection. But they can supply us with powerful interpretive tools to aid our understanding (think of the Theory of Evolution). We may also, via linguistic analysis of their names, be able to re-construct their original names whether these are actually also historically attested (as with Mabon and Maponos) or not (as with Rhiannon and *Rigantona). Skeptical general historians like Hutton may insist that there is no historical justification for this, but he is not a linguist and those who are find a good justification in historical linguistics. It is not anyway necessary for there to be historical continuity if we propose that gods can inhabit stories, which I would suggest is a necessary piece of theology to allow us to view the stories as mythology.
It’s interesting that you give a list of deities, some of whom do not have an extensive extant mythology. It would be interesting to hear how you experience their mythology and how you configure their theology. Saying it - or typing it - out loud is one way to affirm them or find out who they are. Affirming is worship; might not finding out be theology?
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Post by gruffudd on Jun 7, 2016 10:11:11 GMT -1
Hi Heron. Sorry I don't know how to quote yet so I hope I don't make a mess of this.
Well you have truly given me something to think about here. And I'm truly happy for that! Never been in an environment where it's possible to debate the gods and personal view points before but it's great. Anyway I shall try.
I tend to view the gods not in an anthropomorphic form. I just don't see how a primal force would resemble something from natural selection (humans) when they are nature itself. This might be something I avoid due to my Catholic history with all its saints statues and patriarchal trinity. Although I do see how this makes them more understandable such as through stories and mythology. Rhiannon you mention, I can see how her story and role is so powerful that it would be so ingrained in mythology it would be identifiable in any form. The goddess that grants sovereignty, how could it not.
Perhaps I'm putting too much emphasis on Hutton and that's something I'll think about; however I tend to agree with his theory that the mabinogi is a back construction on what the authors thought of as a pagan past. Rather than a Christianized pagan theology, albeit with famous names and archetypes preexisting. Make sense? I'm not so sure lol.
I'm going to look at your reply again and see if I've answered it...
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Post by gruffudd on Jun 7, 2016 10:29:37 GMT -1
Right, back again.
So I think I see your point. Do you mean like inspired writing. So regardless of the timing, it could still be inspired by the god/desses to tell their story and link with us?
I'll think about this, I like the idea. Makes them immanent to me in a way.
My main thing is the calling of the gods by the literary names I can't get. I understand the titles as names as names to me are more of an "us" thing. Although some gods may be closer to humanity than others and therefore incarnate a part of themselves among us perhaps and maybe this is where some stories come from? But then I would see this person as having a part of the being in them, not being them?
(BTW this is all personal opinion)
I experience my gods through experiencing I guess. I give offerings and meditate on their presence and get a sense of them. I look for omens and signs afterwards and believe they speak through these. I also watch how the offering goes Ie I have an incense which is typically slow burning, but when I offer this to Belenus it burns up so quickly. I take this as a sign and only offer Him burnt offerings. Whereas I wouldn't offer incense to say, Nodens.
Does this make sense?
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Post by Lee on Jun 8, 2016 10:01:04 GMT -1
I tend to view the gods not in an anthropomorphic form. I just don't see how a primal force would resemble something from natural selection (humans) when they are nature itself. This might be something I avoid due to my Catholic history with all its saints statues and patriarchal trinity. Although I do see how this makes them more understandable such as through stories and mythology. Rhiannon you mention, I can see how her story and role is so powerful that it would be so ingrained in mythology it would be identifiable in any form. The goddess that grants sovereignty, how could it not. I almost with you on this bit; I REALLY struggle when it comes to faces on the gods; they appear humanoid to some extent but have masks or blank faces or are entirely animalistic or abstract. I loathe most artwork and statuary for this very reason. By and large I take your point; the mabinogion is an echo. Some people put too much emphasis on it being far more meaningful and theological. One high profile druid i could name has said in one of his books that "the Celts never wasted words and everything was meaningful" in terms of the mabinogion. This to me is nonsense; in any oral tradition, you never learn something word for word, for stories and by extension myths you know the bones, the core of the story that is important and re-flesh it every time you tell it, giving it a new forms for a new audience. This idea that every word is sacred and encodes deep wisdom is rubbish in my opinion.
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Post by Heron on Jun 8, 2016 14:20:28 GMT -1
Right, back again. So I think I see your point. Do you mean like inspired writing. So regardless of the timing, it could still be inspired by the god/desses to tell their story and link with us? I'll think about this, I like the idea. Makes them immanent to me in a way. Yes, certainly inspired writing would be one way, and one I have myself used.This could be following trance states or meditation something like in the tradition of the awenyddion going into a trance state and then speaking inspired as is reported by Gerald of Wales in the 12th century. I have experimented with automatic writing in his way. But the Mabinogi stories are crafted literary constructions made up from oral lore and traditional elements. Culhwch and Olwen even more so - you can see the joins! So what I meant here was something rather more subtle. If the gods have embedded themselves in certain stories and characters, and humans are inspired to tell these stories or re-shape them with the gods still in them, is it the humans bringing the gods into the social arena or the gods re-appearing through their own manifestations? Chicken and egg! I discussed this recently on here : caerfeddwyd.proboards.com/thread/1991/names-godswhere I wondered if the names of the gods, often identifiable simply as titles, referred to beings who were not originally given human identities as it is often asserted that it is only under Greek and Roman influence that the Celts began depicting their gods in human form. This is a contested subject which I'm intending to explore in future blog post. Absolutely it makes sense. Responding to what a god wants in that way is exemplary.
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Post by lorna on Jun 9, 2016 8:28:17 GMT -1
Interesting discussion. On my question about the differences between theological and mythological approaches to the gods...
@ Grufudd 'I see it as mytholical in the sense I believe the stories hold meaning on a spiritual basis and give some insight to the personalities or attributes to the deities but I don't believe that Lleu Llaw Gyffes is Lugus. Perhaps a story defining his attributes but not a biography. I don't believe literally that Lugus was born of a virgin goddess (Arianrhod) and married to Blodeuedd. Does this make sense? I hold massive amounts of respect for the literature however as part of my national and ancestral heritage.'
Ok... so mythology as story with spiritual meaning but free from theory/concepts? So you see the story of the birth of Lleu Llaw Gyffes as somehow more superficial than the more primal presence of Lugh? Is it 'just a story' or does it reflect something deeper?
'I tend to view the gods not in an anthropomorphic form. I just don't see how a primal force would resemble something from natural selection (humans) when they are nature itself... My main thing is the calling of the gods by the literary names I can't get.'
That's interesting. Sometimes I see the gods in forms (not always anthropomorphic) but often they're presences, forces, within the landscape, or affecting my thoughts or emotions, showing me signs etc. I find some easier to find in the medieval stories than others. Gwyn's presentation in the Welsh stories feels very 'him'. I find it very difficult to find Rigantona/Rhiannon in her stories as, aside from where she meets Pwyll, she comes across as quite tame whereas I experience her as wild and mareish. I tend to see a fluidity between the Iron Age and medieval Welsh names, gods the same in essence but presented differently under different names. The Christianising, civilising tendencies of those texts are what I find it hardest to deal with - not the stories or names. It takes alot of stripping away of the overlay to get back to the more primal soul-stuff (as Heron calls it).
@ Heron 'Mythology (stories about the gods) and theology (theories about the gods) both have their place.'
Yes, I think they do for us. I wonder how theoretical Brythonic oral cultures were. Did those people theorise about the gods or simply live by and accept their myths? Maybe what differentiates mythology and theology is that mythology is fluid, metaphorical, stories like the characters within them flow and change. Theories are rigid and are thus discarded and overturned although this may be seen as a sequence of developments. In general, looking at the myths and artworks, I suspect the Celts as a whole were of more of a mythological mindset.
@ Lee 'One high profile druid i could name has said in one of his books that "the Celts never wasted words and everything was meaningful" in terms of the mabinogion. This to me is nonsense; in any oral tradition, you never learn something word for word, for stories and by extension myths you know the bones, the core of the story that is important and re-flesh it every time you tell it, giving it a new forms for a new audience. This idea that every word is sacred and encodes deep wisdom is rubbish in my opinion.'
Maybe this is because words meaningful to one people aren't meaningful to another - hence we must reinterpret, retell, to keep these stories alive. However I do think most stories contain a core of the sacred. We can only change them so much without losing the core which keeps them sacred and meaningful.
PS. How do you do that quotey thing? When I press the quote button I end up faced with a page of someone else's text and the reply box vanishes.
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Post by gruffudd on Jun 9, 2016 8:39:53 GMT -1
Well I seem to have stirred something here with the mabinogi lol
By and large I see them, if anything, as Lee said; a backbone fleshed out by us. For reasons unknown to me, I'm enclined to believe as moral stories, perhaps some morals unrecognisable to us today (thinking of badger in a bag here).
It's great that there is no set creed here and everyone seems comfortable to disagree and move on.
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Post by Lee on Jun 9, 2016 9:38:34 GMT -1
the easiest way to do quotes is to hit 'reply' rather than 'quick reply', copy the bit of text you want to quote and paste it inot the box. then, highlight it and whilst it is highlighted hit the "quote" button third from the right in the formatting options above the text box (its next to the little smiley face button)
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Post by redraven on Jun 9, 2016 10:20:44 GMT -1
Greetings Gruffudd, just to pick up on one of your opening statements, I didn't come to polytheism through Wicca either but through an experiential route.
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