Thank you, I try Oh really, how interesting. Think I like that a lot better than the Wicca version, nothing like a vendetta [or threat thereof] to keep people in check.
did i mention that i want to move to england and beg you to be my second wife? i already ran it past kathy, see said run it past you lol Lovin ya sister, you are the lady me i think.
Hmm nope, not sure you did LOL I'm very flattered Wow, that's cool. Maybe we were related or something from way back in the day (however that works), you never know. Always so good to be able to talk with someone who understands [my nihilist friend is starting to drive me crazy]. You've inspired me to start looking out for my totem animal. Have been seeing a fair few magpies lately; but that just seems to tie up with the standard 'one for sorrow, two for joy etc' thing. Then again I did ask for a sign from the Gods [about who to work with and such], and have never really noticed it happen before. Any thoughts on that?
I think you should keep asking and looking, but im sure you might have found it. I found my totem about 6 years ago, i was in the early stages of building my spirituality and i sent out a sincere prayer for guidance, and to know my totem. I was starting to do earth craft and needed things from nature. i was very very poor and couldnt rush out and buy things. From years back i had seen a blue heron, and was fascinated by it, but it didnt become a thought again until i saw the second blue heron of my life. I was driving home from a long days work at a hard job, and I saw something odd on the edge of the forest. I went back, and found a dead blue heron, never thought I would in my life, and havent since, but i gathered it up and took it home. I took some feathers, enough, not all, and said a prayer. I offered the remains to the forest, where i knew there was a bobcat who would do natures part in the final part of the herons death. Since then, whenever I pray for guidance i see one, and almost everytime i am towards the end of a journey, i see one flying overhead in the same direction.
A caring, peaceful person, but bad speller : ) Welll... Druidry, Gaianism, Celtic cosmology I feel most connected with nature, I feel that the earth, whom I call Danu, is the goddess if there are deity, Danu is it. For me Danu is both male and female, female at her base. I work with the Triple realms Sea, Land and Sky whom the Celtic ancestors swore by in anchant times. These are the triple realms of Danu and the spirit realms. I also keep or live by many Celtic values. I have only been able to work with nature spirits, earth energy and sense her awareness, animal guides or allies, and other natural phanomana. The symbol I work with, ware, and focus energy with is the triple spiral or Triskele. Though I study mythology of the celtic peoples I look upon them as lessions more than anything else. Druidry is a very nature based spirituality to me and is open to many spiritual practices and beleifs beyond respecting and protecting nature. I am a water sign, Pisces. A sensitive to energy/emostions/vibrations. We live and sense truths through our emostions and instinctive reactions to experences and things that we read....or at least I do. This is how I navigate my life and spirituality. I probly could have said this differently but spelling is a chalange for me... Peace, Clove
For you, or not, Danu isnt male and female. Danu is the Divine Waters of Heaven, She is the Mother Earth. Hers is the sacred spring from which the Danube flows. She is the feminine, no changing it. Belenous is Her mate in the Celtic origins, their union is where we were born. Why would there be the father, if the "mother" is male and female? Hermaphrodites (normally) are infertile, why would you have an infertile fertility goddess? Thats like worshipping a mule for his potency. You cant just make it up that She is Male and Female. You want an androgenous hermaphrodite for a deity? try Yahweh.
Christians like to think so. Jews will claim sexless, the ancient myths say both, and "h" denotes femininity. So, yeah, "he" is all of them, and none of them.
Umm ...well I guess I could have said that the Earth has male and female energys, but feels mostly female to me. Every being be it deity or not has male and female energys, but one side is usually stronger or more predomanate than the other. And I would not connect with Yahweh for any reason, no offence to anyone who does. And whats up with "Divine Waters of Heaven," thing. I would like the reference please, as far as I know Heaven is not a Celtic concept if it is I would like to read up on it. However if this comes from the writings of the greeks/roman concorers I am not likely going to take it as reliable information. I know quite bit about how the ancants viewed Danu. Yes, she is connected with water: Rivers and seas and the Earth but as a care taker (& possible protector) of earth and not the Land its self if you want to get really spicific(sp?) about it. She is a primortial mother goddess and there really is not a lot writen about her compared to other goddess and gods of Irish and Welsh and other Cletic history and mythology. This tells me that no one of this time knows much about her and what little we do know is scued by the writings of people that were just writing their view of the oral history or legands and mythos of the celtic people. So no one can tell me who or what Danu is for sure now can they? We are all researching the best we can and connecting with the energys of the spiritual and natural to fine out whats there and if we can work with or be accepted by the deitys or nature beings and realms. I personally do not like calling the spirit of Earth Gaia, so I have tried to find a Irish/Celtic name I am comfertable with that is close to the energy and goddess that feels right togather. When I found Danu I respectfully asked and waited for signs and feels from the Earth and spiritally if this was good and recieved many positive signs and communitations. So however you want to do things is fine by me, but do not tell me that I am wrong about Danu cause no one fully knows her. Spiritual pactice and living can not be research and recreation alone, a connetion to energy and reaction/outcome must help round it out; At least for me. Peace, Clove
Gaia is a name for the spirit of the earth, so is Danu, but Danu is the FEMININE earth, there is a masculine of the earth as well, but it is not called Danu. Of course the earth has both, but we name them seperately. I have both, you have both, but we arent both male and female, we are male or female, except in some cases, as mentioned in my previous post. Danu is the Mother, Bel is the Father, there is no mixing the two. They are either/or, not both. That is sticking within the Gaulish and later Gaelic and Brythonic mythos. Danu literally means "divine waters of heaven". Obviously you dont know as much as you thought you did. Heaven shares the same Indo-European root as Hell, and means underworld, not "jesus' heaven". Did you think "heaven" was a hebrew word? It is the closest word in the European languages to match the translation. Heaven means underworld/otherworld. Since the Underworld is, well, under us, then that is where "heaven" is. The "Heaven" in reference to the "sky palace" comes after christian influences. the Danube, which is the sacred river of the Goddess, flows from an underground spring in southern germany, coming from the underworld, deep within the Mothers womb. So, again, Danu literally means Divine Waters from Heaven. And, i am in full right to tell someone they are wrong. If they are misinformed, and I see it, then i have the right to point it out. You cant just make it up just because no ones knows "all about it", you have to stay within the peramiters of what we do know. I get so sick of the fluff shit like "connected". "But I feel "connected" to the Egyptian gods" "But I feel "connected" to.......fill in the blank" I give a damn about your "connection". Your "connection" isnt a free license to make it fit into your worldview. You may be connected to the feminine, i understand that, but when you put it within a specific cultural frame, you have to respect that. There are two sides to it all, there is the universal concepts, then there are the ancestoral/cultural concepts, you cant free float in and out of them. In the words of Isaac Bonewits: " It's true, it's true We made it all up and it's true" ps, what greek conquerers? And you dont believe ANYTHING the romans wrote about the British and Gauls? And for the record, they wrote nothing of the Irish, just so ya know.
Okay, now we're getting some where and I say yes, I agree with the above statements. In doing a bit of research on Danu and the meaning given above I found a Whole area I did not know about cause I had not looked into Vedic/Hindu clutures before. So thank you. And I never said I knew everything about Danu. there is always lots to learn. It is DANA that means "divine waters of heaven" in sanskrit, not Danu which means "swift flowing" and the root "dan" means "knowledge" in Gaelic. In Welsh "dan" means "low ground" or "moist earth." In Hindu, Danu means "unknown".[size=+1] [/size] As for this... you give no reference for Heaven that I can easily pull up at the momment, so i'll just have to look into this farther. Plus there are other places and bodies of water that are named for Danu as well so for now I can not compleatly take this as fact, but will look into this farther to see if I agree with this piont. Being misinformed is not the same as being wrong unless one says they know something is a fact and then try to make every one believe it. Which I was not doing. But who cares really... I am not asking everyone to do it my way and I am not telling you to either. I am not just making things up, if I were I would not respectfully ask the Earth and spirit guides if what I have researched and peceice togather is a good thing and positive method, an acurate. I mean really, I dout who ever thought it was a good idea to say "being nude in your rites is recuired" ever connected with spirit and check in with nature to see if it was reasonable for the type of weather there. Let alone look for references to such happenings. Anyway, thank you for directing me to new information, but I do not have to stay in any paramiters that I do not find value in. Peace, Clove
Dont take the Sanskrit as the original, or main source. Danu is a later Indo-European pronunciation of a word. Dana, Don, Dannan, Danand, Danu, Danube, all the same word, same meaning, though a few cultural differences may have evolved. You also have to consider that, like english, one word can mean a few things. And dont forget Anu, Ana, Annan, and Anna, again, same deity. http://www.clannada.org/theology_talegreatlove.php That is one recon myth, which you can find reference to Danu as Waters of Heaven. The myth gets into the sky being the mother and land the father, but it is more accurate interpretation that the things of the land are the father, while the Earth and Sky are the Mother. This myth tells more of the "sky heaven" concept. It is safe to say the heaven is the sky, hell (hole) is the underworld. They were both bastardized by the Christians. The father has always been associated with trees or stags, and later agricultural plants, but always the yearly waning. Originally, it was the Tree, the Bile (Bel) tree. Trees, like the cycles of stags antler growth, show the passing of the year. That is why the things that grow from the earth are male, while the earth is female. Like the Sun. Many cultures thought the sun masculine, some feminine. Same for the moon. But more accuratly, the Sun is feminine, her light is masculine. The moon is feminine, her light masculine. The earth is feminine, the life She births is masculine. That is part of the balance. Heaven is a word we apply to a concept, not the proper name of a place. The Bible is translated into our language, so they used the word that most fit. There is no more reference to give, its a word, look in the dictionary. Or just spend more time doing "insta-knowledge" on google, it seemed to have worked for you. Sorry if i come across as a raging asshole, depends on the moment. I look forward to actually talking to you more. Im not a prick, i just play one on the internet lol. Sorry once again.
If only it were so easy. No, you are right, you dont. Just like I dont have to find value in green printed paper money, but my bank seems to find a lot of value in it, especially since they dont except beads and shells (things I find value in) for my mortgage.
From www.ealdriht.org, on the etymology of the English words Heaven and Hell, and their place in the Germanic mythos. Heofon The most obvious place to look for the Anglo-Saxon afterlife is modern English words of Old English descent that refer to it. Heaven and Hell both fit this criteria. Heaven is not commonly used of the Heathen paradise in the afterlife today. The primary reason is not is because it does not appear in the Old Norse version of the myths as an abode of the dead, and Germanic Heathenry in general today is based on the Norse material. However, there are several indications that the ancient Anglo-Saxon Heathens may have used the term Heofon “heaven” to mean the afterlife paradise. Even in the earliest Christian poetry, the term heofon, or more commonly, a compound of it such as heofonríce “heaven kingdom” appears as either the abode of God, or as the home of the dead. This usage is not unheard of in the Old Norse texts either. The home of Hama (Heimdall) in the Eddas is said to be Himinbjörg “heaven mountain” or “heaven cliff.” Himinvanga “heaven plains” appears in Helgakviða Hundingsbana I used of an earthly place when speaking of valkyries riding to Helgi. However, it is entirely possible that this usage harkens back to an older usage of the term as referring to heaven (the valkyries appearing out of the heavens to ride to Middengeard). In the Old Saxon poem Heliand, a cognate of the Old Norse Himinvangr (the singular form of Himinvanga), hebanwang is used of the Christian heaven. It may be then, that at one time, the word Heaven was the common Germanic Heathen term for the afterlife abode. The word heaven is thought to derive from Indo-European ‘*ke-men-, a compound word originally thought to have had the meaning of “stone.” *Ke- is believed to have derived from PIE *ak “edge,” while *-men meant “to think,” and dealt with states of mind and thought. Heaven is related both to the word hammer and the word mind, and its earliest meaning The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language takes to mean “the stony vault of heaven.” Neoweangla's Brian Smith in his article, “Heaven” states it as meaning “that which has a quality like stone,” and points out the family of Þórólfr Mosturskeggi, in the Landnámabók, believed their family would go to reside in a mountain after death (covered below). Others feel that the ancients thought the sky was made of stone, and thus the meaning of the word heaven. It would seem apparent though that both ideas could relate to the concept of Heaven. The most common usage of heofon in Old English was for sky. This was also true of its Old Norse cognate himinn. Other theories on the word’s origins relate it to Old English hama “covering, skin,” and this would make sense if the word has always meant sky (the sky “covers” the Earth). It could be that mountains, because of their sheer height, were associated with the sky and the Gods. This is so in other pantheons. The Greek Gods resided on Mount Olympus, and many other peoples associated holy mountains with their Gods. Similar to the belief of Þórólfr’s family that they “died into the mountain,” is one concerning Holda and the Brocken. With Holda we are offered a belief, though late, and potentially influenced with Classical myth, of a Goddess associated with a mountain and people residing in it with her. In 1630, during a witch trial in Hesse, Diel Breull, confessed to have traveled in spirit form to the Venusberg (Blocksberg or the Brocken. There he was shown by Frau Holt the sufferings of the dead refected in a pool of water, inside the mountain (Marion Ingham, The Goddess Freya and Other Female Figures, p.251). This source is very late however, and therefore very suspect. However, perhaps it does retain a part of Heathen belief in associating Germanic deities with mountains as an abode of the dead. What is clear however is that Heofon was seen as being above Middangeard while Hell was seen as being below. It could be then that the ancient Anglo-Saxons saw a world of opposites; Heofon as the bright and shining sky, and Hell as the dark and dreary underworld. It can perhaps be considered the same as Ésageard. * Hell Hell has already been covered with the other nine worlds, however, it requires further mention here as an abode in the afterlife. The term Hell carried over into Christian usage originally as purgatory, not an abode of eternal punishment, but one of temporary stay, a limbo of sorts. We do not know if the pagan Anglo-Saxons held this view of Hell as a limbo where good and bad both go. And we are given few clues as to whether the pagan Anglo-Saxons viewed Hell as a place of punishment. Nor are we given clues of the happy home of Balder after his death seen in the Eddas (indeed that is nearly the only place in Old Norse Hel is not shown as dreary). All we do know is Hell is an abode of the dead, unlike that of the Christian version, but an abode of the dead nonetheless. In Old English literature, we do see evidence of native beliefs regarding Hell, ones that are not borrowed from the Christian concept of a fiery abode. Either the Goddess, or her domain appear as taking those that die. When Grendel dies in Beowulf, it is said “in fenfreoðo feorh alegde, hæþene/ sawle; þær him hel onfeng,” “in his fen abode, his soul he laid down, his heathen soul Hel took.” It is not clear though if this is the Goddess or the place. Hell, as a place, is mentioned again in the Old English Christian poem, “Soul and Body I” where it is used of the grave and not some abode of punishment by fire. Interestingly though, when describing the body being eaten by worms, it uses Old English wyrmas “serpents.” Wyrm had not yet quite acquired its modern meaning of worm, and therefore it could be possible the poem, while Christian, contains a memory of what the Norse called Nástrønd. Other Old English poems such as “Judgement Day II” contain this torment by wyrmas. In the Old English poem, “Christ and Satan” it is very clear serpents, and not worms, are meant when describing Hell (although fiery) as “Hær is nedran swæg, wyrmas gewunade,” “Here is the adder’s noise, here serpents dwell.” Interestingly, while mentioning the Christian Hellfire, the poet also keeps referring to Hell with such phrases as “dimme and deorce,” “dim and dark,” and “ðissum dimman ham,” “this dim home.” It could be the Christian poets fell back on native belief of a cold and dark, viper ridden Hell in order to fill out descriptions of the Christian abode of punishment. In the Norse Eddas, Hel is a very complex place composed of several different places. There is Hel, which can be used of the entire realm, a place where the dead, both the good and the bad go. Then there is Nifolhel, where those that have committed evil go. And finally for the most evil there is the Norse abode of punishment, Nástrønd, a place where poisonous snakes drip venom on the evil dead. Old English preserves a word that may have described this place in Wyrmsele, used of Hell in the Christian poem Judith. Taken literally, Wyrmsele would mean “serpent hall.” This word, coupled with evidence from the other Christian poems mentioned above shows the pagan Anglo-Saxons may have known a place not unlike Old Norse Nástrønd as a part of their version of Hell. Finally, the word Hell derives from an Indo-European root, *kel-, which meant “to conceal or cover.” *Kel- also gave us hole, hollow, and hall from Old English, as well as cellar from Latin. Hell, just going by the origin of the word then would be someplace hidden, covered, or enclosed in some way. This corrensponds with the underworld abode seen in the Old Norse Eddas. Some scholars have suggested that like Hebrew sheol, it just meant the grave. However, if that were the case we would expect other words derived from the same IE root to have similar meanings. Yet the words hall, hollow, and cellar all derive from the same root, and little about them would imply a relation to a grave. It would seem then, that Hell would be a bit larger than a grave, dark and enclosed like a Hall perhaps, but not small and narrow like a grave. If Hell did indeed mean “grave” at some point, it would likely refer to the burial mounds or perhaps the ancient megalithic graves of Denmark which the Germanic tribes would be very familiar with. Too, it seems unlikely that a people who provided the dead with expensive grave goods to have believed that those good would never be used. Regardless, this etymology suggests an enclosed place. Along with the poetic evidence we can surmise the pagan Anglo-Saxon Hell was a dark and dreary place, probably a nether world, perhaps where souls stayed until reborn (or just stayed), with a special place where the truly evil were punished with serpents (not unlike the Norse version). Heaven and Hell are the extant of what we know about potentially ancient Anglo-Saxon beliefs in the afterlife. For a fuller picture of what they may have believed we must look to the Norse texts which are covered below.
Thank you for those references thats all I wanted and no I do not think your an asshole just a bit judging in how you write. Thats okay thoe no ones perfect, I have a LD that effects writen communication but I still try and I notice you did not get on my case about that thoe I am sure it bugs many. I will deffenetly check the links you have given and need to go through read and think about the rest more theroely before I reply... I understand about the money factor, isn't it nice spirituality is not the same. Again thank you for acnaloging (sp?) my rights. I'll get back with you later Heron. Peace, Clove
Thank you for those references thats all I wanted and no I do not think your an asshole just a bit judging in how you write. Thats okay thoe no ones perfect, I have a LD that effects writen communication but I still try and I notice you did not get on my case about that thoe I am sure it bugs many. I will deffenetly check the links you have given and need to go through read and think about the rest more theroely before I reply... I understand about the money factor, isn't it nice spirituality is not the same. Again thank you for acnaloging (sp?) my rights. I'll get back with you later Heron. Peace, Clove
Thank you for those references thats all I wanted and no I do not think your an asshole just a bit judging in how you write. Thats okay thoe no ones perfect, I have a LD that effects writen communication but I still try and I notice you did not get on my case about that thoe I am sure it bugs many. I will deffenetly check the links you have given and need to go through read and think about the rest more theroely before I reply... I understand about the money factor, isn't it nice spirituality is not the same. Again thank you for acnaloging (sp?) my rights. I'll get back with you later Heron. Peace, Clove
Thank you for those references thats all I wanted and no I do not think your an asshole just a bit judging in how you write. Thats okay thoe no ones perfect, I have a LD that effects writen communication but I still try and I notice you did not get on my case about that thoe I am sure it bugs many. I will deffenetly check the links you have given and need to go through read and think about the rest more theroely before I reply... I understand about the money factor, isn't it nice spirituality is not the same. Again thank you for acnaloging (sp?) my rights. I'll get back with you later Heron. Peace, Clove
