if you have ears to hear

Written by thehouseofvines

The Starry Ram now has its own soundtrack. It tells a story, if you have ears to hear. 

18 thoughts on “if you have ears to hear”

  2. It is thrilling to see prayer revived in pagan circles – especially where in Asatru where I first dipped my toes, there is an attitude of functional deism that would seem to contextually render Gods obsolete in systems invoking their names. Ye olde “my Gods don’t ask me to bow,” said with a mandatory Scottish accent while invoking scenes from Beowulf movies. Paul wrote mostly to himself on the Intervoid.

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    1. It is a perennial problem that a significant portion of the Pagan / Polytheist community (especially in Nordic and Celtic circles) take their theology from Conan the Barbarian rather than anything our ancestors actually thought or did. Did you know that Germanics and Celts were known for their religiosity? They were. You wouldn’t know that from the average person today who is ostensibly a Heathen or Celtic Polytheist (or most other types) but they were. Not even Conan the Barbarian was as impious. He didn’t refuse to worship Crom out of irreverence but rather because Crom simply doesn’t like being worshipped. This means that Conan would absolutely worship Crom if Crom enjoyed that. The Modern Heathen is less pious than Conan the Barbarian who doesn’t worship at all

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      1. I did know this, actually. The Romans, whom I accord a level of respect, wrote as such. Authors such as Tacitus were bound by Civic and State codes of personal conduct. So I do not buy the claim of “everything I don’t like is ebil Roman propaganda.”Was there some? Sure. But Greeks and Romans did not often intentionally misrepresent, they occasionally misunderstood doctrines of subjugateds or assimilateds. I digress. It would seem I was not shouting into the void – most of my comments on WP are insta-flagged as spam. Fair enough, they’re probably annoying anyway. Irregardless, well-met!

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        1. Yeah, I realized too late that a couple of your comments had gotten flagged as spam, by which point the comments section had been automatically closed, which meant I couldn’t respond, which was really annoying as you were making some great points. Since then I’ve been watching the spam folder more carefully hoping that we’d get the chance to converse.

          And yup, while the Romans (and even more so the Greeks) made a strong us vs them distinction that doesn’t mean that they automatically considered barbarians to be inferior. Indeed, they proudly acknowledged that many of their cultural institutions had been borrowed from their neighbors and held up others as exemplars to shame their compatriots. They also encouraged assimilation without having to give up one’s traditions (until the Christians most examples of religious intolerance had a political motivation, including the suppression of the Bacchanalia.)

          Oh man, I’ve been there for plenty of those arguments (and heard stories of much worse) so I’m glad to see things beginning to change and the stigma around devotion disappearing.

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          1. No worries – it happens with most every site on WP. You can always write me on my site, too – if the Spirit/s ever move/s you. I always respected that about Religio Romana. I still do. I use it in my own practise – probably wrongly. My understanding of the Bachanalia is that it was eventually transformed into the Liberalia, which was… shall we say… more “refined.” Cannibal maenads, the occasional fatties on litters, drunken philosophers and pageants in beast forms might not have been so conducive to Rome’s austerity measures. Less any the things commonly associated with the less hinged popular image of Dionysian cult – again, I peradventure most of that is chalked up to misunderstanding, because the more I read, the more I sympathise with Zagreos and his subsequent reincarnations into destabilising society.

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            1. That’s definitely part of it, but it was even more the political activities of the Bacchants. Not only did they come from regions which had put up a strong resistance to Roman encroachment and in many cases sided with the Carthaginians, Rome’s arch-enemy before Persia, they also led several rebellions — such as Spartacus’ famous slave revolt — and were involved in organized crime on a grand scale, if Livy and some playwrights of the period are to be believed. In fact, some of the rituals and customs of the Mafia have clear Bacchic antecedents. So basically we were trouble-makers — and not just in Southern Italy.

              Of course, the flip side of that is that Bacchic associations could also be incredibly conservative* and pro-monarchy, as well as drawing members from the wealthy and elite, not just the unwashed hoi polloi, contrary to the impression one might get if their only exposure to Dionysianism is through Reddit and similar online shitholes. Ever and always Dionysos is the great “AND”, the transgressor of our limited conceptions and arbitrary boundaries, the uniter of opposites.

              * Both politically and socially. There are Bacchic lex sacra which treat abortion as equivalent to murder, which wasn’t the mainstream position within Greco-Roman religion. Indeed, few other lex sacra even bother mentioning such things, whether pro or con. And I think that’s part of why Dionysos does. He is intimately concerned with the lives of women. And the rule didn’t just stop at saying abortion is murder; it prescribed cleansing and other rites of passage to help the woman process her grief and other feelings, as well as help her reintegrate into life and society after this disruptive encounter with death. (The term used could refer either to abortion or miscarriage.) These are things which the women probably received nowhere else, but were in desperate need of. And the fact that Dionysos thought of that and made it a prerequisite for participation in his mysteries is just one of innumerable reasons why I adore him.

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              1. That he is the protector of all life, especially young life, and could also manifest as a newborn in need of nurturing and defense by his divine and mortal Nurses, was also probably a factor in his stance on abortion.

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                1. It makes me think of a half-sarcastic analysis I read in which Iesos Christos is a disguised Dionysus. It would simultaneously be the funniest and most tragic comedy of errors (maybe) ever.

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              2. There’s so much there. I did NOT know this about the pro-life aspect of Lord Dionysus. It makes sense, all considered. That he tended to woman’s welfare in that way, at that and other times, is heart-warming. I am beginning to see that perhaps I have much to gain from building an understanding of the God. The balance between transgression and moralism, of following and breaking a compass, is attractive to me.

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    2. only an idiot full of impiety and hubris refuses to bow before the Gods. This has been a problem in Heathenry forever, despite numerous examples in the oh so precious lore of Heathens of old doing just that: prostrating themselves before the Holy Ones. Asatruar tend to like the idea of Gods without the actual realities of either devotional living or actual Deities.

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      1. Fair. Prayer is therapeutic. There are many (secular) studies to back that up. It affects brainwaves. Ancestral commemoration, likewise, irrespective of one’s feelings of their individual ancestors, improved success rates of rote tasks in such studies.

        Anyway. I know personally, I feel better at prayer. Whether to Wōden or Hermes, more recently Dionysus or even the Holy Ghost or deist Big G God of my youth. I may not prostrate, but I do kneel and incorporate prayer into yoga and restorative stretching.

        A few of my mangled prayers I put up here, the ones that aren’t private or relative to persons I know.

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