The Gods of Right Here
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- čas přidán 29. 08. 2024
- We're often used to thinking about religion as imposing a top-down cohesion in theology, myth, and ritual: A religion has a fixed pantheon of gods, shared myths, and certain beliefs and practices that all of its adherents adopt. In reality, this is a very narrow idea of religion that doesn't map onto the ancient world--nor onto some current living religious traditions. In this video, I talk about a more localized conception of deity: The gods or goddesses of one particular place, and how they do (or do not) relate to a larger, more abstract divine figure.
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Great episode.
Great ramble! Deity connection is deeply personal (imo). My connection to several deities is so deeply tied to the land here and my experiences I have partaken of.
I'm happy with the evolution of those relationships and their lack of absolutes. That feels right... at least this week!
🤣🤣🤣"Idk what I'm trying to say" is exactly how I feel these days. I would love to experience a solstice in a different part of the world.
Jack, thank you for sharing 🤲🏾. Always enjoy your chats.
Great video! I adore this little informal "How do Gods Work?" Series you have going.
This isn't exactly pertinent to this specific video, but it relates to the recent drama in the Gardnerian tradition regarding trans people, and the nature of the God's as it relates to gender (for context, I'm nonbinary and exploring my options with a local Gardnerian coven at the moment, but I'm not an initiate, so I'm putting this forward from that pov).
From my perspective as trans person in wicca, while it's in many ways a fertility cult, there's an awful lot of gender fuckery going on, for lack of a better term, theologically than a lot of people seem to want to acknowledge.
Just a few examples: chapter 2 of Buckland's complete book of witchcraft describes the God and Goddess as having within them, both masculine and feminine aspects that are more prominent at certain times of the year.
Doreen Valiente wrote a poem called 'Hermaphrodite Panthea' which draws on imagery of the Greek deity Hermaphroditus, in it's description of the union of God and Goddess. And similarly Patricia Crowther wrote an invocation called the Dryghten Prayer. Both of these acknowledge a sort of divine androgyny in wiccan theology.
The horned God is often depicted with both an erect phallus, and breasts. And historically, ancient fertility cults often accepted trans people into their priesthoods as people who could embody that union of man and woman in a single person.
I could go on. But I'm curious as to your thoughts on these things as they relate to the nature of the gods, and the broader question of trans people in traditional wicca. Is there a trans inclusive view of the gods? I have an these pieces but no way to fit them together coherently yet. Again, if you have any thoughts on this as it relates to the nature of the gods, I'd be interested to know. Hopefully my own rambling was understandable enough 😅
Great question! Short answer: Yes, there's a lot of gender fuckery with the divine. Gender is one of the myriad ways that people can connect to the Gods, but it's only one of many, and the Gods themselves are bigger than any container we try to put them in, including the categories of male and female.
This is a really important discussion. As a practitioner within a Hindu context, I think it's also worth noting that many Hindus are also comfortable with there being "differences without distinction" - the Gods can be "individuals", localized or not, and still be the One Absolute, and that these do not contradict.
Moreover, many deity names in Hinduism and the many languages of India are not "names" in the conventional sense but more like titles or just descriptors. "Parvati", for example, is "daughter of the mountain", Siva is "the Good", and Ganapati/Ganesha is "master/lord of earthly spirits". As such, they are embodied aspects of the Cosmos AS WELL AS individual personalities with whom their worshipers can relate.
Thanks for sharing this. It enriched my day!
This is such valuable insight! Thank you so much.
You are so remarkably handsome. ☺️