Ever since i was a kid i loved the snow leopard, so rare to be almost mythical. I've never met it in a dream or journey (i don't journey these days), but i know it's always been there, lurking in the background. I did get a chance to see a pair in captivity though a couple of years ago, .. amazing creatures. In more recent years the white horse has been my main helper, and it wasn't until a spiritual councellor i once saw introduced a 'chief white horse', that i realised this must also be the native american guy i've met a couple of times in dreams ... he's unnerving, ... looks right through you, never says anything. Others come and go, all sorts, they all have a message of their own.
well my first must be the tiger. in a meditation i did a native american spirit told me that his friend, the tiger, would look after me and it still does! my second is a bird, but i still don't know which, im sure it will come to me though!
Liquid, in England, if you are seeing a white horse, it is most likely closer to being a Soverignty goddess, rather than anything native american...especially since horses aren't native to the americas. Look into European lore for better answers. And tiger, Native American Spirit? Its either a spirit, or a dead indian, but "spirits" generally don't have a racial classification. Again, like the horse, but even farther away, how do tigers relate to native america?
Thats not a bad suggestion concerning a 'sovereignty goddess' and i take your point about native americans not having horses until the spanish and the rest arrived ...but thats still a couple of hundred years. I scoured the history books one day looking for a 'chief white horse', ...i found one but just the name and no information about him. But it tells me that a 'chief white horse' did actually exist. British (not to mention europe and the rest of the world) legend and folklore is full of white horses and just of the top of my head, Rhiannon is an Irish celtic mother goddess very mutch associated with horses and it wouldn't surprise me to find her depicted as one, but to me the white horse doesn't seem like a 'hearth like' spirit of sovereighnty or community ... it's mutch more aloof than that; it feels to me to be something mutch more universal or cosmic. More of a 'great spirit' than an individual. A moon/cosmic goddess perhaps with that paleness.
Sovereignty goddesses represent the fertile mother as a local manifestation....though it might appear that there are several goddesses at play, the are the same. Don't take that as some sort of neopagan consolidation of deities either, but in some cases it is true. In the lore, Cosmic goddesses are usually cows, representing nourishment, etc, horses never really had that place as a symbol. And as to Northern lore, there isn't a whole lot in the way of moon goddesses...usually depicted as male, Mani.
Yes you are right the many goddesses are the many faces of one goddess. I'm very familiar with the cow goddess both in dreams and as a more tangible presence in my life, and she is indeed a provider and nurturer and has made her presence known to me particularly in the last 2 or 3 years. In dreams of her it is always a moonlit night and always water, she shows herself as a cow or half woman half cow. In one nice dream, i and two others rode on her back along a canal in the moonlight. She has indeed become for me the personification of my cosmic mother and i always feel blessed to dream of her.
NOPE, not what I said...I said many goddesses are aspects of the same goddess....BUT not all goddesses, etc....I am a very hard polytheist, but with sovereign deities, etc, they appear in different cultures in different places... different in someways, but ultimately the same. Sif is not the same goddess as Freya, Frigg is not the same goddess and Lilith, Earđ is not Skađi....but Nerthus is Earđ, Earđ is Gaia, Frigga and Freya at times seem cognate, and Hela is definetly Kolyo and Calypso....Same with gods...Taranus is Thunar, Thunar is Thor....Thunar is not Frey, but Frey is Ing....etc...could go on forever. I don't apply the neopagan all gods are one god kinda thing....don't know how you deducted that. Wassail, Gar
As a neopagan, I would suspect that you would...though you find far greater wisdom in exploring ancient truths, and spend less time creating modern fantasies.
I don't classify myself a 'neopagan', and i don't and never have followed any tradition or religion because i see each on it's own as being limited in it's structured beliefs and all the dogma that goes with it. But different people have always believed in something and i'll look into anything to find some whisper of truth. My own truth is simple .. that we are all part of one life ... humans, plants, animals, minerals everything. And that life is the goddess who gave birth to us all and everything. But individuality and living in duality has it's truth aswell. Creation would be pointless without individual personality or form. So my struggle in life is to reconcile and marry these two truths. Oneness in duality. I might add that just because something is old or ancient doesn't give it any more credence to me, people have been pretty mutch the same for a long long time ... just as stupid and just as intelligent. In a couple of thousand years perhaps some of our craziest beliefs of today will be deemed 'ancient wisdom'? I'd really hope not. I can see clearly that you hate christianity. But what do you make of Jesus if i may ask? Because i see his message and what followed as being completely different things.
When I started my spiritual journey I thought my spirit guide was a dragonfly because i was so drawn to them but as I furthered spiritually I found it changed. I go out to the same sacred spot I have outdoors where i feel connected to the earth and one day I was having doubts, i even asked "is this the right path for me" and a raven came very close to me and stayed for a while and then as he left he circled around me three times and on his way he went. Everytime I went out there he would come and watch me sitting on a tree near by. So my animal is now a raven. A lot of things in my life have changed including where I live and where I am at spiritually. The raven has now gone but I feel at peace with that because he was there when i needed him. I feel that a new animal may appear to me or the raven might come back when I need him. Those are my thoughts Peace. love to all
Heh, i followed a raven through the woods once ... it kept croaking and then flying off a bit to another tree, and i kept following. I think it was having a laugh! You don't often see ravens here but they're about.
I do not hate christianity....but i do hold it responsible for many things that I do hate. I think Jesus did not exist historically, and that the whole mythos was a politically motivated Roman creation. I do not put credence in things just because they are old....but i do put credence in the organic growth of all of mankinds understandings of Nature, and the spirits and gods that abound within it. That grew from our first spark of awareness, and bloomed into the many beautiful folkways of the tribes of man.... That is what I put faith in...the neopagan thoughts are trying to make something new look old, and create a polytheistic view based on monotheistic comforts.
"I think Jesus did not exist historically" Fair enough, there's almost no evidence of his physical existence ... but there is very little evidence of anyones existence from those times. Well, polytheism and monotheism. Like i said i'm trying to reconcile the two.
Try pantheistic worldviews. Worldview is more important that picking a "religion". If you trap yourself in that box, then it doesn't matter how you justify it, you are still trapped in the box. Forget that any religion exists at all, and then look to nature...soon you will realize that what you learned was what the ancestors were telling us. The sky is the sky, and is part of earth, but is also seperate from earth in the balance of what makes fertility. Fertility is not the earth, but is a part of her as well....all together they do make one thing, in its own roles, but still distinctly different. A candle is not its flame, and the flame is not its hear nor its light....you can't say that the flame is a candle (or vice versa) and leave it at that. You will never get the wisdom of the wholeness that way..you must understand that they are all seperate things coming together in a grand dance....same with manifestation....yes the candle is one thing, but all that it is is so much deeper than that. Don't limit yourself to simple all is one concepts, for the sake of your wisdom.
For the sake of my wisdom i will try to stay open minded. 'All is one' may sound like a simple concept but it's not so simple in a world where everyone thinks themselves separate from eachother. "The sky is the sky, and is part of earth, but is also seperate..." Well, this is exactly what i mean. The sky and Earth are separate but work in harmony as a whole. There is a oneness they share that is beyond either part. Call it perhaps, a cosmic intelligence that directs both sky and earth. Is it so hard to understand the concept of one behind many? Do you never look at your partner or child and see that the same thing that gives them life and makes them tick is the very same thing that does you also? Physical life is about the many, individuality and difference ... the amazing myriad ways that life exists, but when we die our differences are no more. Our being dissolves into the conciousness of oneness in spirit, just as our bodies dissolve into the oneness of matter, or the earth. So this living and dying goes on and life constantly renews itself in this kind of recycling process. So physical death is part of life, and renewal ... growth and decay both working apparently against eachother, but in actuality working together as one, following the same cosmic intelligence. It is that cosmic intelligence that is oneness giving birth to many. So there is no conflict between individuality and oneness as long as the individual knows it's place in the scheme of things... forgetting that place gives rise to ego and so one fears not just death but life also. So to me there is a balance to walk between the two.
The conflict of duality is a nessecary cycle...look to the world tree cosmology for that. It is also the main lesson in all of the IE based myths, most notably the Nordic versions. All is part of one, Dame Hell, Old Night, Mother Fate...She is the all...but all is not She. Upon death, there is mergence into the Well of Potential, or the Underworld, where all things are born from and return to. Again, conflict of duality...chaos feeds order, life feeds death, etc...the word to describe that concept is Ghosti...it is the core of all heathen beliefs...it means roughly, a reciprical bond with another...from feeding a guest well, being giveful, and ultimatly dying....all of these things are poart of ghosti....if ghosti is out of balance, then fertility suffers. Too much chaos? death...too much order? stagnation=death, give too much? give too little? take to much? etc....living in balanced ghosti is living in balance of all of manifestation. I think we are having less differences than we are seeing on here....but the larger picture we do not so much disagree on... Be Whole, and may the gods see you always. Gar
"I think we are having less differences than we are seeing on here....but the larger picture we do not so much disagree on..." Well Heron, thats a fair statement ... and thanks also, your 'heathen mystic' perspective is certainly interesting and refreshing and i have indeed learned a thing or two.
well, my i just say that tiger's may not have existed in native america but they still have there own medicine. i take the point that it is unlikely to see a native american spirit with a tiger but it is possible. i enjoyed reading the debate and would love hearing about both your views! so thanks.
Well i know sabretooth tigers have been found in tar pits in the states somewhere, also here in the UK. Perhaps there were once tigers in the americas? It wouldn't surprise me. Well it seems not, no evidence found anyway, but this page does say the modern tiger and sabretooth ARE distantly related, suggesting that a more modern pregenitor of todays tigers may have existed in the americas. http://www.tigerhomes.org/wild-cats/wc-history-wild-cats.cfm ... but as far as man and tiger existing together there is unknown. I think they can only trace man in the americas as far back as 30000 years or so.(slightly uncertain evidence based on stone/flint spearheads). There's lions though!
