Erin
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Practotioner of the Creideamh Si and flamekeeper/priestess of Brigit.
Posts: 40
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Animism
Dec 7, 2013 11:55:10 GMT -8
Post by Erin on Dec 7, 2013 11:55:10 GMT -8
Curious to know, how important is animism to your polytheistic practice? Does it feature heavily? Is it relevant? Or is it unimportant and unrelated to the ideas of polytheism? How much is animism a part of polytheism? Feel free to respond to any or all of the questions posed. Thanks!
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Post by aclockworkireland on Dec 7, 2013 12:43:09 GMT -8
Curious to know, how important is animism to your polytheistic practice? Does it feature heavily? Is it relevant? Or is it unimportant and unrelated to the ideas of polytheism? How much is animism a part of polytheism? Feel free to respond to any or all of the questions posed. Thanks! Its the entirity of my polytheism. That spirituality is an inseperable part of all life is a theological truth for me. I see polytheism as a way of seeing a spirituality in everything in the world. Like a philosophy more than a religion. I see deities as being exclusively immanent and deities to me are just us giving the spirits of places and objects names. Like Aoibhell is the spirit of a mountain, boann a river, Eo (and the norse gael thor) a tree, Macha a plain... and then look how people saw it all as a part of their identity they see the spirituality in everything. Their ancestors are animals Alill Olum is a sheep, Eochaid a horse, Conn is a wolf, in myth conair mors father is a bird. Then the plants come in the Dairine and the Eoghannacht ancestral deities are an oak and a yew. Then theres the regional tutelary goddesses who are personifications of the territory that the descendants of those plants and animals marry to ensure a good harvest. That shows an intimate connection with the plants, animals and geography and that people saw a similar spiritual nature in themselves and the world around them. It is animism as far as im concerned. I do appreciate that polytheism is mainly orthopraxic with devotions and offerings and transcendant deities with us at all times and what I see as polytheism probably wouldnt even be called paganism. But it is the truth of things as I see it.
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Grace
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Posts: 8
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Post by Grace on Dec 9, 2013 18:29:12 GMT -8
It seems to me that polytheism without animism is only half realized. That said, it's something I struggle to really live. It is easier for me to relate to the spirit in a tree or a rose bush than that in a stone or a paper cup. And it's not a simple break between "live" and inanimate - I have very little difficulty noticing the spirit of my computer (it certainly has a temperament!) or my guitar, but my dishes and carpet are harder. But I think animism is important to really understanding a traditional worldview or building a way of living that is really whole. Theoretically, I'm an animist. In practicality, I still struggle with a humancentric understanding of the world.
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Erin
New Member
Practotioner of the Creideamh Si and flamekeeper/priestess of Brigit.
Posts: 40
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Animism
Dec 16, 2013 12:08:50 GMT -8
Post by Erin on Dec 16, 2013 12:08:50 GMT -8
Clockwork, great points, I resonate with a lot of what you wrote, and I really love seeing and pondering on all those animistic name connections.
Grace, also a good point about how we can academically understand these ideas but lack useful and contextualized models for putting them into practice. I don't know that I tend to extend the idea of spirit into every single thing, like carpet and dishes, but I can see how it would apply to tools and implements very close to oneself through expression or regular work, like how warrior's swords sang and talked in the old myths.
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Post by aclockworkireland on Dec 17, 2013 7:46:57 GMT -8
Clockwork, great points, I resonate with a lot of what you wrote, and I really love seeing and pondering on all those animistic name connections. Grace, also a good point about how we can academically understand these ideas but lack useful and contextualized models for putting them into practice. I don't know that I tend to extend the idea of spirit into every single thing, like carpet and dishes, but I can see how it would apply to tools and implements very close to oneself through expression or regular work, like how warrior's swords sang and talked in the old myths. Would you say Animism extends to mass produced products like carpets? Personally I think theres a difference between things like people giving their car a feminine identity and talking to it when it wont start and animism. For example the swords in myth arent sentient they arent characters in their own right. Theyre only alive so people can swear to tell the truth on them in the belief that if they lie they swords will turn on them in battle. Its a part of the concept of firinn and truth, the value of the spoken word and the sacred institution of giving your word in a ritualised way. If a car or carpet hasnt got any social role like that why would there be a belief that it was alive? Or in a less concrete way say its the act of shaping materials into cultural products that gives an object life. Leaving kim mccones idea about cooking creating meaning by giving raw materials a cultural form for paganisms sake. Say its the energy from the artist passing into the object that gives it life or the interpretation of the artistic object that gives it psychological value possibly creating something like an egregor. If something is homogenous and made by machines to create a purely commercial product imbued with only a monetary value, is it alive or going to become alive? I dont want to beat a dead horse agaaaaaaaiiin. But theres a gap between trad culture and modernity and medieval society and modern society. Its more than just the type and scale of society its the lack of symbollic meaning to the world we inhabit. We have a unitary value now. An empirical measurement of value. So anything produced by modernity for modern ends is unlikely to have a traditional value in my opinion.
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Grace
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Posts: 8
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Animism
Dec 18, 2013 6:48:03 GMT -8
Post by Grace on Dec 18, 2013 6:48:03 GMT -8
Well, I think some of this depends on what you mean by animism. Clockwork, you seem to be saying some things have spirits and others don't, that culture creates a meaning that produces spirit. In my understanding, that isn't animism. Animism, as I have understood it, is the understanding of the world as alive in all its parts. It isn't made alive by human agency or culture socially creating meaning - it's that everything is innately inspirited. Animism is non-human-centric understanding of reality, that we are no more or less than any other part of this world except in our own minds, and that it is necessary to live in relationship with all these other beings. That doesn't mean necessarily living at peace with them - a lot of the traditional ritualized interactions (in a number of cultures) between human and non-human spheres tends to be propitiary - please don't destroy me or mine and I'll give you something nice - or even threatening - if you harm me or mine I'll harm you more - or even a combination of the two. But the core of animism, as I understand it, is the acknowledgement that we are not the only beings who matter, that all the world is alive and inspirited.
I've always struggled with that because if all the world is alive and inspirited, then it should apply to even those random, "disposable" artifacts we create, like paper cups and carpets and cars. Or should it only apply to "natural" unmodified things? If you look at traditional cultures, that line doesn't work - tools made by people, homes and other buildings, these things are experienced as inspirited. So why a house and not a car? Because the house is made of wood or clay and the car is made of metal and plastic? When we make a tree into paper, have we killed it's spirit, made it into something dead? Does the same thing happen if the tree is made into a statue? Or do made things only develop spirits from use, as in the Shinto understanding of the kami of objects? Does treating your car is if it is a being cause it to develop a spirit? Does the house have a spirit because people say it does? Obviously, I keep puzzling over this, because I don't have an answer. It's one of the places I know I struggle to comprehend because it isn't part of the culture I was raised in.
Going back to the original question of how this is important in my practice of polytheism - it's important because struggling to see the world this way informs my polytheism, informs the way I interact with the world around me, reminds me that I am not the most important creature in my landscape, reminds me that it's not, as modern culture often preaches, all about me. At the same time, it enriches my interactions with the world, helps me shift my view sideways toward something that isn't part of this throwaway modern culture.
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Animism
Dec 27, 2013 17:12:39 GMT -8
Post by lyradora on Dec 27, 2013 17:12:39 GMT -8
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Animism
Dec 27, 2013 17:22:38 GMT -8
Post by lyradora on Dec 27, 2013 17:22:38 GMT -8
I guess I qualify as an animist in that everything -- *everything* -- is part of creation. As such, *everything* is, to a degree, alive, as it is part of a living, ever evolving cosmos.
But I also think that some things are more "alive" than others. The lichen growing in my backyard is more alive than the carpet beneath my feet. I also think that some things and places are more numinous than others; one tree may have a nymph, while another does not.
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Animism
Dec 28, 2013 8:33:39 GMT -8
Post by aclockworkireland on Dec 28, 2013 8:33:39 GMT -8
Evil or any way you want to. Just asking for the correct way would send gaelic speakers into a spasm. The standardised gaelic is only a way of teaching and testing little kids and every gaelic speaker rails against it being considered the correct way because there are 5 dialects of gaelic today that arent represented in the standardised gaelic. The standard way is only the beginning its not supposed to be definative/the end. If youre concerned about historical accuracy middle gaelic was even more diverse because Ireland was tribal longer than anywhere else in europe and there was a lot more regional variation in the language. So just sneeze using a hard c and youll be pronouncing things in gaelic.
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lorna
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Posts: 19
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Post by lorna on Dec 31, 2013 4:43:47 GMT -8
I see animism- the view that nature is inspirited as the foundation of my polytheism.
However there are varying takes on animism and I don't agree with all of them. For example Graham Harvey (in 'Animism') sees animism as being rooted in forming respectful relationships with other-than-human-persons. However he does not think spirits exist separately from physical plants, trees, wildlife and mountains etc. Both he and the Druid priestess and philosopher Emma Restall Orr (in 'The Wakeful World') see the view that separate 'anthropomorphised' spirits exist in an Otherworld as naive.
In contrast my view of animism is that all physical beings have spirits- plants, trees, cars and carpets with whom we can connect (admittedly it's easier to connect with and get sense from living beings than man made objects).
I view some deities as manifestations of place- such as the gods and goddesses of hills and rivers. Other deities are connected with a land and culture. For example the Brythonic deities who I honour are connected with the island of Britain, their myths interwoven with its landscape. I see these myths as having been born from a time from the native Britons were animists.
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