DP#9 Three Kindreds
The Three Kindreds in ADF are:
Spirits of Red and Green
Fur and Feather and Scale and Skin
Different without, but the same within
Many of body, but one of soul
Through all creatures are the worlds made whole.
I really like this song, sung in ADF rituals (I cannot find the origin of it to give due credit, but whoever composed this song was brilliant). It embodies the attitude I have had towards the natural world, even before I knew about Paganism. The Nature Spirits are the essences of all the Animals, Plants and Fungi that make up the natural world. They are our sisters and brothers existing together on Gaia. Speaking of whom, I have a Gaia statue (which my husband thinks belongs to the family, but which called to me specifically to be acquired) that incorporates representations of the creatures from all the realms of earth, within her hair and within the earth that is her pregnant belly.
The Nature Spirits represent Diversity in its finest. As an evolutionist, I see Diversity as a fundamental force in Nature that allows us to survive changing circumstances. Change is inevitable in a dynamic system, such as Life. Only through learning to live in harmony with our changing surroundings, and by extension, Diversity, can we hope to survive in this world. The power of humankind to manipulate the world around us is awesome, but it must be tempered by our understanding of that world in all its glory before tampering with it beyond our control.
As discussed in my essay on the Two Powers, I feel closer to the Nature spirits when I meditate on becoming one with them. I also find that I understand biological principles much more easily when I try to “grok” the Nature Spirits. There is a usefulness in trying to understand Nature by becoming one with it. One begins to understand the greater pattern and find ways to become more in harmony with it. I think such understanding is paramount to our survival as a species.
The Ancestors
We invoke the power of our Ancestors at our rites, but I think we should realize that the power of our Ancestors is present in our everyday lives. We stand on the shoulders of our Ancestors, having learned lessons hard won by the heroes of old and learning knew lessons based on that knowledge that we can pass along to our descendents. Too often, though, we ignore our history and must learn these lessons through further hardships and suffering. Better that we pay do honour to these ancestors by remembering their lore to pass along to future generations with our own additions that will serve those of our descendents that are wise enough to learn these lessons.
One of the beauties of literature is that one can experience and learn vicariously rather than risk the unpleasant consequences of direct experience. The lore of our ancestors is kept in literature. Thus, I feel that the Ancestors represent not only the DNA progenitors of my current body, but also those who have contributed to the lore I have learned. And I should be aware that I am in the process of becoming one of the Ancestors through my lifetime of experience.
I have read in a few books that some of the gods of our ancestors were considered to be the ancestors of those peoples. Whether that idea came from accurate accounts or the inaccuracies introduced by the Catholic monks trying to manipulate Pagan influences, I’m not sure it matters. Either way, the archetypes left behind by the heroes/gods of old ring true or die out. They are universal truths that live on while they are useful and by evolutionary processes fail to survive when they fail to adapt to the current circumstances.
It is evident by their preservation through the writings of Catholic monks that the archetypes of the Celtic ancestors, whether gods or mortals, were powerful influences on the peoples. Their memory adapted to the circumstances by becoming “fiction,” although the universal truths are not ficititious…
The Gods and Goddesses
These are the Shining Ones, or archetypes of divine power. Being an agnostic, worship of the Gods and Goddesses does not come easily. I rejected the abject worship of Christianity and I have difficulty with the concepts of sacrifice with respect to divine powers. I understand ritually “killing” sacred works with a symbolic meaning of carrying them from this world, but I feel that the meaning is only what we as humans make of it. I’m not sure that it has any bearing on the divine.
It is much easier for me to see the Shining Ones as archetypes of our own collective and innate power as creatures of extraordinary creativity. We have the power to mold and shape the world, just as our archetypes mold and shape the world, because we are Gods and Goddesses in our own right. We created the Gods and Goddesses out of our own collective psyche because we needed to be able to understand and manipulate our own powers of creativity and imagination. Yet they only have meaning if we can connect with them.
It seems that human experience only has the meaning that we take from it. As Socrates said “The unexamined life is not worth living.” And I think that the divine archetypes empower us to examine that life on a greater level and learn from our experience on that greater level of meaning.
Personally, I find greater archetypical usefulness through examination of Brigh, as triple patroness of word shaping (bardic inspiration), form shaping (smithing and other physical crafts) and life shaping (healing and psychic transformation). I also resonate with the Gaia concept, with being a child of Earth and accepting the natural world as my entire environmental family. And knotworking, weaving and shaping connectivity is an archetypical model for the entire universe (I could write reams on how knotwork becomes a model of every arena of life and study, and maybe I will be inspired to do so someday).
- Nature Spirits
- Ancestors
- Deities
Spirits of Red and Green
Fur and Feather and Scale and Skin
Different without, but the same within
Many of body, but one of soul
Through all creatures are the worlds made whole.
I really like this song, sung in ADF rituals (I cannot find the origin of it to give due credit, but whoever composed this song was brilliant). It embodies the attitude I have had towards the natural world, even before I knew about Paganism. The Nature Spirits are the essences of all the Animals, Plants and Fungi that make up the natural world. They are our sisters and brothers existing together on Gaia. Speaking of whom, I have a Gaia statue (which my husband thinks belongs to the family, but which called to me specifically to be acquired) that incorporates representations of the creatures from all the realms of earth, within her hair and within the earth that is her pregnant belly.
The Nature Spirits represent Diversity in its finest. As an evolutionist, I see Diversity as a fundamental force in Nature that allows us to survive changing circumstances. Change is inevitable in a dynamic system, such as Life. Only through learning to live in harmony with our changing surroundings, and by extension, Diversity, can we hope to survive in this world. The power of humankind to manipulate the world around us is awesome, but it must be tempered by our understanding of that world in all its glory before tampering with it beyond our control.
As discussed in my essay on the Two Powers, I feel closer to the Nature spirits when I meditate on becoming one with them. I also find that I understand biological principles much more easily when I try to “grok” the Nature Spirits. There is a usefulness in trying to understand Nature by becoming one with it. One begins to understand the greater pattern and find ways to become more in harmony with it. I think such understanding is paramount to our survival as a species.
The Ancestors
We invoke the power of our Ancestors at our rites, but I think we should realize that the power of our Ancestors is present in our everyday lives. We stand on the shoulders of our Ancestors, having learned lessons hard won by the heroes of old and learning knew lessons based on that knowledge that we can pass along to our descendents. Too often, though, we ignore our history and must learn these lessons through further hardships and suffering. Better that we pay do honour to these ancestors by remembering their lore to pass along to future generations with our own additions that will serve those of our descendents that are wise enough to learn these lessons.
One of the beauties of literature is that one can experience and learn vicariously rather than risk the unpleasant consequences of direct experience. The lore of our ancestors is kept in literature. Thus, I feel that the Ancestors represent not only the DNA progenitors of my current body, but also those who have contributed to the lore I have learned. And I should be aware that I am in the process of becoming one of the Ancestors through my lifetime of experience.
I have read in a few books that some of the gods of our ancestors were considered to be the ancestors of those peoples. Whether that idea came from accurate accounts or the inaccuracies introduced by the Catholic monks trying to manipulate Pagan influences, I’m not sure it matters. Either way, the archetypes left behind by the heroes/gods of old ring true or die out. They are universal truths that live on while they are useful and by evolutionary processes fail to survive when they fail to adapt to the current circumstances.
It is evident by their preservation through the writings of Catholic monks that the archetypes of the Celtic ancestors, whether gods or mortals, were powerful influences on the peoples. Their memory adapted to the circumstances by becoming “fiction,” although the universal truths are not ficititious…
The Gods and Goddesses
These are the Shining Ones, or archetypes of divine power. Being an agnostic, worship of the Gods and Goddesses does not come easily. I rejected the abject worship of Christianity and I have difficulty with the concepts of sacrifice with respect to divine powers. I understand ritually “killing” sacred works with a symbolic meaning of carrying them from this world, but I feel that the meaning is only what we as humans make of it. I’m not sure that it has any bearing on the divine.
It is much easier for me to see the Shining Ones as archetypes of our own collective and innate power as creatures of extraordinary creativity. We have the power to mold and shape the world, just as our archetypes mold and shape the world, because we are Gods and Goddesses in our own right. We created the Gods and Goddesses out of our own collective psyche because we needed to be able to understand and manipulate our own powers of creativity and imagination. Yet they only have meaning if we can connect with them.
It seems that human experience only has the meaning that we take from it. As Socrates said “The unexamined life is not worth living.” And I think that the divine archetypes empower us to examine that life on a greater level and learn from our experience on that greater level of meaning.
Personally, I find greater archetypical usefulness through examination of Brigh, as triple patroness of word shaping (bardic inspiration), form shaping (smithing and other physical crafts) and life shaping (healing and psychic transformation). I also resonate with the Gaia concept, with being a child of Earth and accepting the natural world as my entire environmental family. And knotworking, weaving and shaping connectivity is an archetypical model for the entire universe (I could write reams on how knotwork becomes a model of every arena of life and study, and maybe I will be inspired to do so someday).