Pagan Tropers Unite!

Unless you get natural lucid dreams all the time, it might not be something you can make a decision about? Where I'm from, for instance, there's this superstition that if you dream of somebody you know personally who died, and they offer you something to eat...don't take it, or you'll die soon too. But that old wives' tale advice makes it sound as though the dreaming mind can always remember that this individual is deceased and remembers what actions the superstition recommends. That's not often the case. I prefer to think of it as, if you dream of somebody dead sharing food with you, it can mean that you are emotionally nourished by their memory. (Unless you have an eating disorder, or unless they're rude about it, or the food isn't very good and turns into a velociraptor on a unicycle juggling flaming lollipops and you don't like it because in the dream you feel like you have both always known that you're allergic to eating unicycles...Dreams, you know.)

So, as for the lion aspect of Jesus being your answer to a recurring dream question, or Gaia (mother of Atlas?) or Mother Mary but hopefully not Ayn Rand ("mother"/author of Atlas Shrugged ?) stamping out a bad thing...Interesting, but I wouldn't call it dangerous unless you start looking to dreams for prophecies like it's an ego thing especially if that's against your tradition—but I think some Protestant sects don't prohibit dream exploration? I would think a lot of folk Christianity grants it as a thing that happens, nothing to necessarily get an exorcism over or anything...but, your discernment, your religious community, and your spiritual experiences are ultimately yours to decide what's what about it.

This blogger is writing a thesis (sociology, I think?) on disability representation in Christian theology, appears to have some christo-pagan leanings, but linked for relevance because that blog of theirs generally focused on a sort of Pop Culture Pagan practice around Narnia.

Great post! I very much concur.

I suppose this was inevitable given Haik and Jason-Momoa-Aquaman been working with me so much and the Moana soundtrack has become part of my life now, but the night before yesterday, I had way too many flashbacks that even Dionysus couldn't help. (Not that he literally couldn't, it's because I was freaking out and refusing to let guys into my spirit-room.)

Eventually I started rage-flailing in some random direction and ended up on Te Fiti.

Even sixteen-year-old Moana is a few inches taller than me, yay. /sarcasm

On the nice side, Te Fiti got rid of my flashbacks, and I'm pretty sure the wayfinders are my ancestors instead of pop-culture spirits (or Filipino gods taking Disney forms), seeing as the entire village was there instead of just Moana and her family, and Moana went "HELLO SMOLL PINAY COUSIN, YOU'RE FINALLY HERRRRRE!!! "

It does not help that for my story The Crocodile God, I affectionately deemed one of the ending scenes "the Te Ka turns back into Te Fiti moment, but with a dude."

—
Moritz has been sleeping more often than usual since Jason-Momoa-Aquaman, Bathala, and Haik have arrived. Apparently he's been tired from all the spirit-work he's been doing with me over the past few years, especially since I don't need him as much anymore.

I can never figure out what exactly "sleeping" means with the ancestors. Not all of them are "tired" because naturally, not all of them have been working with me on a near-daily basis like Moritz, but there's also a different meaning sneaking around that I can't quite pin down. On one level, Moritz is "tired," but everyone keeps assuring me that this is normal or even positive because it means he's not constantly on alert anymore.

Mostly because I tend to panic when I find Moritz sleeping and unable to wake up unless I shake him as hard as possible while screaming at top volume, seeing as that's a really bad problem here in meatspace and I still have trouble separating "spirit-world" from meat-world.

Thank you, Haik, you made one of my ancestors go into frequent mini-comas after telling him he wasted the past few years spinning his wheels and hiding out in the spirit-world. :/

—
There's something brewing spirit-wise in my story The Crocodile God. I'm going to enter it in a writing contest where the grand prize is circulation to publishers plus $10,000 (the top ten semi-finalists get circulation without the money), and Haik keeps affectionately telling me to hurry up and submit it already. Plus he assures me that once I'm finished with it in a couple more chapters, I can go back to the three OTHER projects I was trying to finish.

Circulation is always great, but I also realllllllly want the grand prize because 1) public validation that I'm actually good enough to make a living with art, and 2) MONEY. I'd only need $1-2,000 to pay off my credit card, get new headshots, and buy some nice stuff on my growing wishlist, and the other $8-9,000 would be squirreled away into a savings account while I save MORE money from my job.

Like, I want the prize money so bad that I caved and bought a money/abundance-attracting pendant from an energy-work artist website, since it was half-price with minor imperfections. I figure that at worst I'll have a nice necklace, and at best, the abundance-attraction works and I can finally save up enough to move out and start supporting myself with my art.

edited 30th Oct '17 11:44:54 AM by Sharysa

A Thing by Niko

Mine is a paradigm of paradigms - A paradigm is a tapestry - Its threads are currents of power and belief - Knowledge can be power if you use it - And wisdom is knowing what to do with the power you hold - If you use it, knowledge can be power - Currents of belief and power are its threads - A tapestry is the best metaphor for a paradigm - And all paradigms are contained within my paradigm -

Another Thing by Niko

The white ones, who fell the great fall in love with Her - the green ones, Her elder children who came before us - The red ones, Her younger children who went before us - The black ones, who climbed out of Her womb that was their grave - Us, those who must learn at Her knee or perish -

edited 3rd Nov '17 10:02:11 PM by nekomoon14

There needs to be a Like button.

I concur.

Not-so-long story short, I'm trying to teach myself to get into the habit of writing poetry, no matter how shytti I think it turns out at first. And I guess "devotional" poetry is a good place to start.

I've stumbled upon devotional poems by chance, btw.

What an awesome find

Welp, I caved and finally bought "The Forgotten Children of Maui" since Lumawig barged into Takotsubo only semi-invited.

See, the Maori's Maui has four brothers, and Maui throughout Polynesia is strongly tied to the wind (thanks to being a sailor and a shapeshifter who likes bird-forms, plus there's a lot of literal myths where he pisses off one/all of the Four Winds.) The Four Winds are characters in my play, so I keep getting drawn to write about the sibling relationships between them and Lumawig.

Also I was trawling Sacred-Texts and found out that BANYAN TREES ARE HOW MAUI GOT THE SECRET OF FIRE. Apparently banyans are really really flammable, which is why Polynesia associates them with Maui the fire-bringer, and ancient Filipinos said that fairies live in banyan/baliti trees and refuse to touch them or get too close. Which is very sound advice for dealing with fire as well. Hrrrrrrrrgh, so much Mythopoeia fuel.

edited 11th Nov '17 12:58:26 AM by Sharysa

Gosh, I need to pay more attention to this thread... I seem to always miss out on topics discussed in my absence that actually interest me. For one, the mention of the Sinister Tradition makes it sound very interesting to me, considering my very strong interest in dark rites and how they work (disclaimer: to study, not to use^note fiction writing being the obvious exception). But how to go about finding it and other related sources, hmm...

And also the more recent topic of true dreaming. So, as I understand, is that where aspects of a dream affect you in real life? I do not think I ever had a true dream before, and not a lucid dream either (well, the latter only once in a very mundane setting, and I instantly woke up once I realized I was dreaming)... but I get a lot of recurring locations appearing in dreams.

One recurring location that used to come up a lot was a beach, and/or a resort next to it, where sometimes I would clearly feel some sort of anxiety or fear, and other times a tidal wave even swallows the coastline. And there was a related setting that was a very deep swimming pool I was afraid of swimming too deep in. Naturally, I interpreted this as a real-life fear of the ocean or otherwise deep water. Then about seven years ago, when I flew out for my grandmother's funeral, my mom and I took a side trip one day out to a nearby beach. Here I decided to be bold and swim out a ways, and everything turned out just fine. Once I was back on shore, I found a shell about as big as my hand buried in the sand under a wave that had just retreated. So I quickly grabbed it, just a second before a large-ish (yet gentle) wave washed over me. I kept the shell afterward, even used it in rituals. Ever since that day at the beach, I never had an ocean-related dream ever again. Not to this day. And I still have that shell and still use it in rituals, usually placing it in the west as a symbol of water while calling the quarters.

I have always been curious about lucid dreaming especially, but that single one I had happened six years ago, and nowadays I hardly ever have any dreams period. Which is kind of strange because I do reasonably well with spirit travel (or astral travel; not sure about the correct term), which I practically always do in some form during a ritual or sometimes right before falling asleep even. (For example, on the fall equinox I traveled to the inside of a hill that I had just discovered was a fairy mound, and on Halloween/Samhain I found a dinner party where everyone who had ever died or was otherwise a disembodied soul/spirit was invited - latter must have taken place in a veeeeeeeery large room.) Perhaps I'm simply one of those people who is not very susceptible to such things, considering how easily grounded I am - during the aforementioned spirit travel for instance, I always feel the presence of my body, though perhaps that is just a tether so that my soul does not become lost.

This end of October was particularly interesting, as earlier this year I moved to a place just a couple of miles away from several cemeteries, most of them clustered in a single area. My apartment is on the third floor and has a view that points in the direction of those cemeteries, though not necessarily with a view of them. I remember coming home from a walk around the neighborhood that night (in costume of course because Halloween, lol), and just before entering my apartment, I looked over at the view and saw/felt this huge aural cloud of sorts over in the direction of the cemeteries (the kind that defies physical sight and you have to kind of look indirectly at). Later during the ritual I flew right into this cloud, and I think that was why it was particularly easy for me to find that dinner party. (A bunch of people there must have been in attendance, or maybe even everyone.) Needless to say, the legends of the veil between the material and "ethereal" planes grows thin surely felt true that night.

Anyway, end rant/status report, hope it wasn't too boring.

edited 13th Nov '17 9:05:12 PM by ladytanuki

That ocean dream was AWESOME.

My dreams tend to be standard "sorting out emotional/mental static" or "jumbles of nonsense."

Like yesterday, I had a dream that my niece's dog caught and ate a mouse. Because we have at least one mouse wandering uninvited in the house, and I'm a little jumpy about rodents right now.

@ladytanuki The Sinister Tradition is an interesting read and there are kernels of what I understand as “truth” embedded in it, but there’s something off about it, and I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly that is, something that makes it seem like someone’s playing a roleplaying game rather than practicing real magic or sincere religion. The tradition itself is very reminiscent of things I’ve heard in other left hand magic and dark witchcraft systems, but that’s kind of par for the course with these sorts of publications. The Order of Nine Angles is one of the groups we might call “Theistic Satanist” but they’re technically demonolaters like me, which is why I had an interest in learning more about their theories and practices.

True dreams don’t fade away after we’re done with them like ordinary dreams do. They can ask us questions that we can only answer in waking life or give us answers to questions we’ve only ever asked in the silence of our minds. They can connect us to ghosts and fey, to celestial and chthonic spirits. True dreams can tell us about the past, about the future, about distant places in the present. Sometimes true dreams are spirit journeys, of course, and hedge-crossings, but those can be undertaken in waking meditations and trances and such. Lucid dreams can lead to true dreams but true dreams are more involuntary.

That sounds exactly like a true dream, or at least a half-true dream. Do you practice a lot of water magic? It seems like the water might have been calling out to you. And gave you a gift to boot.

Demonolators?

Demonolatry is the worship of demons, though we generally think of them as old gods and / or semi-divine beings "replete with wisdom" rather than evil spirits.

The water magic thing is actually a really interesting possibility. One thing I do remember after the ocean dreams stopped was feeling overall calmer when near the ocean; there were several times when I would actually gaze at the waves and be instinctively reminded of where life started on this planet, seeing an odd sort of life in it. That and I also have had good experiences with using water-based tools in workings - been pretty good with making potions for one, and I use a scrying bowl filled with water for blessing things and contacting the dead. Weird part is that I don't even consider water my primary element - that would be more like darkness or earth, though water is complementary with both.

You may have really helped me realize something about myself with that. Thank you.

edited 20th Nov '17 1:01:36 AM by ladytanuki

The sea is EXTREMELY magical in almost every region with a coastline. Ever since I watched Moana and I started getting in touch with indigenous Filipino culture, I keep wanting to go to the beach all the time, and sometimes it gets so bad that I want to jump off the pier (despite my lack of swimming abilities).

I'm glad I could help. I recently saw this diagram of the four classical western elements and earth and water were on the horizontal axis ( west and east ), while air and fire were on the vertical axis ( north and south ), and it made a lot more sense than the "traditional" earth north, air east, fire south, water west configuration. I think of darkness as being the "mother" of water and earth.

I've heard of that sort of impulse ; the sea calls to people and they want to jump into it - on the one hand it's a beautiful expression of a desire for union with the spirit realm and on the other it's the sea trying to eat us

That is genuinely the most perfect way of describing my current feelings, lol. THE SEA IS TRYING TO EAT US.

Whenever I get enough time to learn to swim, I'll probably feel more of the "desire for union with the spirit realm" part.

I can't swim either. I won't even go into the water at Alameda beach because I fully expect that I will fall into one of those sinkholes and the sea will get me

So ever since I bought the abundance-energy pendant, I can retain money a lot better since random problems aren't happening as much. Very good step in the right direction. And a few days after I got the pendant, I got asked to be an online press-writer for a local theater company, since I've been reviewing the shows I could watch and the theater director wanted to make things official. Not sure if I'm getting paid for it, BUT he specifically asked me because the theater scene in SF is largely white and male, so a Filipino woman's voice is needed. :D I've still got a couple weeks to go on whether I want to get a refund on the abundance pendant, but so far things are looking nice.

Haik is unusually invested in making me happy (seeing as I have depression and all). The main problem is that I don't trust him about whatever he says regarding my meat-space life, since that whole thing with Moritz went nowhere. Haik's not surprised, really. Hurt, but not surprised.

Recently, Odin dropped in to remind me about that happiness-rune tree seed he gave me, which he said I should plant "when I feel joy."

It's just been stuck in the Otherworld refusing to grow, no matter what Spirit-Me tries to do to it, so I must have forgot about it for at least a few months.

I'm just drinking hot chocolate with Bailey's Irish Cream after Thanksgiving dinner. Dionysus is happy, other spirits are happy with the turkey and potatoes. I'm content but also tired since I work at a grocery and we had to work on Thanksgiving, lol.

"The sea is trying to eat us"... Interestingly that is the exact feeling I felt when I had those ocean dreams.

I don't think I've ever felt called to the ocean in any way in real life though... except for that one time where I found the shell. I already live very close to the coast anyway. Though in my case I have a very different problem when it comes to ocean water. I am quite a good swimmer, but I cannot handle cold water. The Pacific Ocean in general is quite chilly; that beach where I found the shell bordered the Atlantic so it was more tolerable.

Alternate ways of interpreting the directions are interesting indeed. There was this one pagan group I used to be a part of, and in their tradition they called eight directions, representing the elements of ice, wind, water, fire, earth, darkness, light, spirit. Eight is a good number for balance and wholeness (and is important in some religious traditions, like Buddhism), so I can understand that. Though when alone I use four - well, actually five, with spirit at the center.

I wonder what would happen if you gave that seed physical form and planted it somewhere in real life. Gifts from the otherworld given to mortals could stay in the person's mind, but sometimes it can be more meaningful to bring that gift onto the material plane, so to speak.

I remember doing that myself just a few months ago, actually. There was this time several years back when I took a walk out onto a meadow on the night of a full moon, when I came upon a group of fairies engaging in some sort of celebration. Since there was no defined circle or barrier of any sort, I decided to join in, dancing with them for a while... and afterward, one of them bestowed upon me something called the Star of Confidence, meant to inspire and energize me when mortal worries drag me down. In the years afterward I kept forgetting that I even had this star in my possession. Then I finally decided to give it physical form, infusing it into a stone. And with it I wrote something of a short prayer/incantation so that I could call upon it at any time. It worked! Holding the stone and speaking that little prayer has proven to work for me thus far, at least temporarily.

edited 24th Nov '17 1:13:05 AM by ladytanuki

Thanks for the suggestion! Gonna see if I can find something to charge up with Odin's joy-rune.

And speaking of sea-related gifts, I mentioned a while back that I found a piece of sea-glass that looked like a shark tooth at a picnic with friends. I made it into a necklace (which I'm wearing right now) and now I'm trying to figure out why exactly the Pacific Ocean gave me a "glass shark tooth," but it's surprisingly hard to find cultural meanings for glass. For sharks, most of the meanings are Western or modern. I can only find really general stuff about sharks in Polynesian culture (strength and protection, often very masculine as well), and nothing for Filipino culture.

Just checking in with y'all. I probably won't stay. I'm still around, still Pagan, more-or-less well (barring a knee injury I am recovering from)...I just haven't been hanging around TV Tropes much at all. Hope everyone here is doing all right.

Hello! And I hope you recover soon. *hug*

Double-posting because guess what the Ocean dropped in the parking lot at my work which is not even close to the beach, right after I wondered what I should charge up with Odin's happiness-rune energy???

To be fair it's still close to the ocean itself, being that I'm on an island, but "a lost sea-turtle pendant in a grocery story parking lot" is still suspiciously specific.