Monday, June 4, 2012

Personified Gods?

I was an Atheist ever since I can remember. When I was young, I defined an atheist as someone who did not believe in God. I looked around and didn't see the Judeo-Christian God anywhere. I asked myself, what would change in the world if he did exist? I concluded that nothing would be different. Granted, this was my angsty-teen self.

But I was open to change. I admitted freely that the possibility of being wrong was there. And if I found proof otherwise, I would be open to experiencing it.

I met a group in college. We sat together at lunch and debated religion. It was truly awesome. We had some progressive Christians, Catholics, a Jewish-Cabalist and me, the Atheist. It was sometime into that year of school, when the cute Jewish guy leaned over and said something along the lines of "I don't think that word means what you think it means. With your beliefs, I don't think you're an atheist. I think you might be a witch."

A whole world opened up before me that I didn't know even existed. Things started to make more sense all of a sudden.

I get this feeling every now and then that I have opened a door to something important. I remember this first door fondly.

Don't get me wrong, I am still very much of an atheistic pagan mindset. I have never believed in the existence of  actual gods, goddesses, fairies, dragons or any other entity. I DO however believe in the divine universal energy that permeates all things. I DO believe in the power of archetypes and the personification of particular energy patterns as named deities. And yet, I do smile when I think of particular archetype who I call Crow. Among other names.

And yet.

With those precipitous words, I opened yet another door filled with questions this time instead of answers.
Before I get to those questions, a tangent.

I have always honored my family and our ancestors. I grew up with stories of heroes and princes and princesses. Some of those stories were (supposedly) of real people in our history. It was amazing to me to know that these were people from my tribe, my ancient culture stretching back hundreds of years. I talk here about a particular European Tribe The Hun (yes, THOSE Huns), whose history has been partly destroyed and whose heritage is fiercely debated even today with 2 very different schools of thought.

There also is very little we know about their pre-christian religions. I have spent a great deal of time on research. Really, I just want to know. I'm curious. And I am drawn to these old stories, remnants of which I have found in other nearby cultures. Being so drawn to this part of my family history, I never turned to the other part, the Germanic family tree.

I taught a lesson in April on Shamanism. As a prepped for the class, I read a few books as a refresher to Shamanism and it caught my attention more than it had before. I know that Shamans were the first 'priests' of humanity and I even knew that the Huns had Shamans. In fact, the first Shaman was a woman Emese, who was given these abilities by the Turul Hawk, the messenger of the gods. And it is from her blood that all the leaders of the tribes descended. I'll have to do another blog on this later.

Anyway, from here I stumbled over to the similarities in myth and stories and linguistical comparisons with the Norse. I had never went down this path, as as far as I knew there were no links between the Hun and the Vikings. And yet there was one god they seemed to share. Even down to the name. Hodur.

Here's a little Wikipedia for ya:

Hungarian: Hadúr, or Hodúr in old hungarian, short for Hadak Ura, meaning "War Lord" or "Army Lord" in Hungarian, was the god of fire, later became a war god in the religion of the early Hungarians (Magyars). In Hungarian mythology, he was the third son of Arany Atyácska (Golden Father) and Hajnal Anyácska (Dawn Mother), the main god and goddess. He had many brothers and sisters, including his two brothers: Napkirály (King Sun) and Szélkirály (King Wind). In Heaven, on the top of the World Tree on the first level there was the castle of Arany Atyácska, and Napkirály's Golden Forest below it, and Szélkirály's Silver Forest below it, and Hadúr's Copper Forest was the third. There he lived as a blacksmith of the gods. He is thought to be a great man with long hair and with armour and weapons made of pure copper, since copper was his sacred metal. He supposedly made the legendary sword, Sword of God (Isten fénykardja) which was discovered by Attila the Hun and secured his rule.
Norse: Höðr (often anglicized as Hod, Hoder, or Hodur) is the brother of Baldr in Norse mythology. He shot the mistletoe arrow which was to slay the otherwise invulnerable Baldr.

Hodur was the twin brother of Thor, who is Thor (from Old Norse Þórr) is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility. The cognate deity in wider Germanic mythology and paganism was known in Old English as Þunor and in Old High German as Donar (runic þonar ᚦᛟᚾᚨᚱ), stemming from a Common Germanic *Þunraz (meaning "thunder").
Ultimately stemming from Proto-Indo-European religion, Thor is a prominently mentioned god throughout the recorded history of the Germanic peoples

It was interesting to note the archetype of the war-god was very prevalent in these times. And whether true or not, I though that it was funny that the Germanic peoples, who at times at war with the Hun, would name their war-god's brother (a puny, weak and BLIND god) after the Huns main war-god! And this isn't where it ends. This blind god in the sagas kills the god of light and goodness with an arrow. Huns were know as mighty Archers.

Granted, this may just be my musings, but it is interesting to wonder about!

Here is where we get back on track from my tangent. I had previously heard of the Norse; Odin, Thor and Loki specifically, but I had yet never really read anything about them.

I felt like the spirit of Loki had whispered in my ear. GO ahead. Open the door. You know you want to.

I did.

It was as if an avalanche of stuff had been wedged behind that door, and it all came spilling out. Along with the missing socks, childhood memories, and karate gear come tumbling out, were also more fundamentally challenging questions.

Are there real gods?
What is a god?
How is something a god versus a super-natural or natural force?
If we accept one god as real and immanent, must we accept all the gods of that pantheon?
If we accept one pantheon, must we acknowledge the possibility that all gods of all pantheons exist?
And more important, do we want them to?

As I came-to, I realized other people were also asking these very questions. Here are a couple of ones I read recently:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/pantheon/2012/06/when-pagan-loses-meaning-atheists-and-theists/

http://vinlands-volva.blogspot.com/2007/07/rokkr-we-have-been-discussing-rokkr-on.html#!/2007/07/rokkr-we-have-been-discussing-rokkr-on.html

I am not sure of the answer to these questions. I know how my heart wants to answer these questions. And I know how my scientific brain wants to answer these questions. But where does the truth lie?

My next step has been to immerse myself in the sagas and I have received several recommendations on which books to start with.

I am also lurking on some website chat boards. I am quite amused at the many different paths within Heathenry. I never realized there were as many under this heading as there was under the heading of Pagan. They do not all seem to get along. So I have decided at this time to choose no path (research-wise I mean).

The plan of attack:
1. Read sagas. (Reading the Prose Edda now)
2. Form questions. (Already have several, top one being: How accurate can these be regarding actual beliefs if written by Christians 200 years after conversion?)
3. Read books by: Freya Aswynn  and Eddred Thorson/ S. Flowers, Galina Krasskova.
I was also recommended. to read these guys (Ellis Davidson, Elisa Titchenell and Diana Paxson) but I have been told the above were much much better. Feel free to email me some other recommendations.
4. Form more questions.
5. Seek out live person for answers and discussion.

I need to go rest my brain now.

Love,

Me.

Just what IS a Mortal Crow?

TO define a Mortal Crow, one must first take apart the phrase.

Mortal: ie. opposite of immortal, one who is finite and has a limited lifespan. Usual refers to Humankind.

Crow:
Meaning 1: a small (usually) black bird. From the genus Corvus in the family Corvidae.

Meaning 2: Crow symbols in Myth, the wise and wily spirit, protector of humankind.

In Irish mythology, crows are associated with Morrigan, the goddess of war and death.

The god Bran the Blessed whose names means 'crow' or 'raven' is associated with corvids and death.

In Norse mythology, Huginn and Muninn (Thought and Memory) are a pair of ravens that fly all over the world, Midgard, and bring the god Odin information.

In Australian Aboriginal mythology, Crow is a trickster, culture hero and ancestral being.

Crows are mentioned often in Buddhism, especially Tibetan disciplines. The Dharmapala (protector of the Dharma) Mahakala is represented by a crow in one of his physical/earthly forms. Avalokiteśvara/Chenrezig, who is reincarnated on Earth as the Dalai Lama, is often closely associated with the crow because it is said that when the first Dalai Lama was born, robbers attacked the family home. The parents fled and were unable to get to the infant Lama in time. When they returned the next morning expecting the worst, they found their home untouched, and a pair of crows were caring for the Dalai Lama. It is believed that crows heralded the birth of the First, Seventh, Eighth, Twelfth and Fourteenth Lamas, the latter being the current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso

(** Some of the above taken from Wikipedia)

Suffice it to say that crow/raven myth exists in most cultures, often associated with death, intelligence and cunning. Some stories see the Crow Spirit as a stand-in for the creator. In some, he brings fire to humanity, sometimes he gifts us with knowledge of harvesting and other things that are useful.

Sometimes Crow can be misunderstood. In the guise of the trickster, he can feared (or laughed at as a fool).
Just what IS a trickster? I think this it the key to the misunderstanding. Is it someone who plays tricks on others merely to make a fool of others? Just to be mean or for no other purpose than to cause harm? Or is it someone who teaches you a lesson you needed to learn?

Admit it, some of us can only learn the hard way. You can only be told so many times not to be vain, not to be materialistic, not to steal, not to touch that boiling pot. Sometimes the only way to truly learn a lesson is to step into the pit of your own making and be forced to climb and slip and climb again. Once you spent weeks or months and years climbing out, what are the odds you would fall in again?

The other part of this is that in order to teach you this lesson, Crow must know what lesson you need to learn, and this is precisely why he is feared. He knows you. He knows your deep dark secrets that you don't want the world to see. And that is a scary thing.

There are many spiritual paths that teach you that in  order to be whole, to find your center, your balance, you must identify and face your shadow self.

This is how I see Crow, he is the mirror that I can hold up, see my Shadow self and acknowledge my limitations, my weaknesses and  then laugh at the silliness of it all. Laugh at yourself. He helps me see the humor in all things. Being mortal, with a limited time on this planet, what is really so damn serious? Absolutely nothing. And yet everything.