Hello from Lancashire

[librarylover]

Hi everyone!

I first found this site a couple of years ago, but I just decided to make an account now, since I've decided to make more effort to actually worship and/or acknowledge the gods instead of just intellectually be aware of their existence.

I'm not really a reconstructionist, but I find a lot of the detailed research the people here do useful anyway - basically, I place a high value on personal gnosis, and I'm not interested in precisely reconstructing the worship methods of Roman Britain, but I think it's important to check gnosis for consistency with what's known, and also reading proper research provides a good springboard for coming up with ideas of where I should be looking for the gods, and how I could be worshipping them, rather than just pulling ideas out of a hat or something, which would only lead to chaos really... I guess you could say I have reconstructionist tendencies, but I don't want to go the full distance to hardcore reconstructionism.

Even though I think that all the different pantheons worshipped probably actually exist, due to my location in Lancashire I'm primarily interested in worshipping the Brythonic gods (though this could include gods that live in England but which have been forgotten by archaeology). This is one of the main reasons why I keep coming back to this site, despite its slow post rate, as not many other parts of the internet seem to care about them that much. I'm not interested in worshipping the Irish Celtic or the Kemetic pantheons at all, and while I think the Norse and Greek ones are cool, I don't really feel much of a draw to them. Maybe I'd honour them in passing if I went to some multi-faith polytheist meetup or something. But those seem to be the main pantheons worshipped elsewhere on the internet. (And I'm definitely not interested in Wicca, being a hard polytheist at this point.)

I love to read, but I hate to keep a detailed track of all the information I've read, so I probably won't be posting much detailed research, only whatever ideas I came up with for devotional things and/or my personal gnosis. But know that I appreciate reading the detailed research posts of other people.

My experience/gnosis of the gods right now (all UPG basically, and I'm pretty new to this, so YMMV):

Nodens, I'm pretty sure is around whenever it's mist, drizzle, or other forms of light and medium rain.

Taranis, I think he takes over when it's a really dark cloud/heavy rain/a proper thunderstorm, though Nodens is sometimes also there.

Arianrhod (and I would really like to know how this might have been spelt in Roman Britain or at some other time before Welsh split off), I get the sense is more of a star deity than a moon deity, though she possibly also has associations with the moon. I love the stars, so I'd definitely like to find out more about her.

I think Belenus is associated with the Sun, but didn't really connect with him much yet. I feel like he's different than Lugus despite the possibly connected etymology.

I got a sense of Brigantia as goddess of the hearth/warrior protector of the land, and the connection felt stronger when I pronounced her name as Brigant-I-a rather than Bri-GAN-tia.

Hopefully I can learn something from being here.

Thanks,

Librarylover.

[potia]

Welcome libarylover. I think this forum is now the quietest it's been but a small number of us still check things from time to time.

If you don't already know her I strongly recommend you look at Lorna Smithers blog. She is also Lancashire based.

[lorna81]

Hello there, great to hear there is another Brythonic polytheist in Lancashire. Your UPG on Nodens being present in the mist, drizzle, and rain, which we get a lot of, really resonates with me too. I felt Bel (Belenus?) to be very present over those two hot sunny months although receding now and Nodens dominating again. I'm also much more into working directly with the gods and with gnosis than attempting to reconstruct the traditions of the past (although I do think gaining an understanding of what the myths and lore mean now is important). Where abouts in Lancashire are you?

[librarylover]

Hi again! Thanks for welcoming me. (I may have slightly forgotten I made the account and only just remembered to check back...)

I'm in the rural part just north of Blackburn.

[gruffudd]

Hi there

Welcome. I love your ideas about Nodens in the mist. Do you think possibly he is the mist? His literary equivelant being Nudd - mist? I do prefer to see the gods in this way, forces of nature, as oppose to the ancient Greeks making them look like beautiful people with A list modeling contracts

[librarylover]

Nov 10, 2018 21:19:20 GMT -1 gruffudd said:

Hi there

Welcome. I love your ideas about Nodens in the mist. Do you think possibly he is the mist? His literary equivelant being Nudd - mist? I do prefer to see the gods in this way, forces of nature, as oppose to the ancient Greeks making them look like beautiful people with A list modeling contracts

Well, that's getting into the nature of what it is to be a god, I suppose.

I thought about this for a bit while I was at work today, and my intuitive sense of the matter is that he absolutely can't be reduced to just being a specific patch of mist, or even being Mist in general, but simultaneously that being the mist is an important part of what being Nodens is. But if I see him in my mind's eye as a kindly old man, that's not a contradiction with him also being the mist. It's a representation that he takes on because it fits him in some way.

Speaking of Nodens, today there was light rain when I was on my lunch break at work, and I definitely felt that he was present.