RealPagan- Paganism for the Real World

Imagine that your home is in the center of a village and you can go no farther than you can walk at a moderate pace, in any direction, which will allow you to leave home at dawn and return home before sunset. The average mileage a person can walk, unhindered and on flat terrain in good weather is about 2-3 mph.

Now imagine that all of the resources needed to sustain you spiritually must be found within the radius defined by the above exercise.

What/who are the spirits/deities of your limited environment?  Where are the power nexuses located? How do you discern them? What natural resources do you have available to you to use, such as minerals and herbs? Can you form or perceive archetypes here?

You are directly connected to your current location. How can you utilize the powers available to you without stepping out of your limited environment?

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I would first think about how I would live day to day in such an environment. (an environment that would not be too alien to people living even 100 years ago. I think the way we live now is so completely different than the past 100,000 years of humanity). What would I need to live? Food, water, shelter.

First would be water. What would be a convenient source? A stream, river or spring (also a well but that would take some work). The first thing that comes to mind for me here are the Naiads. I remember hiking in some very dry hills in Novato and coming across what was probably a very old open well, in the middle of nowhere. It was very interesting. I definitely felt something there. 

Next would be food. Food from crops we've grown. Fruit, nuts, roots growing wild where we live. Fish and wild game (I'm not a vegetarian). There are plenty of myths associated with agriculture and with hunting but I can't think of anything associated with food that grows wild.

Next would be shelter. The first thing that pops to mind for me are tomten. This is because I recently read a story to my 2 y.o. daughter about a tomte that protected a little girl who that was left abandoned at home when her parents were killed (Swedish Fairy tales, they're a little grimm). A tomte is a residential spirit, sometimes thought to be the spirit of the first owner of the house or farm. They are small and can have little pointed hats, looking a little bit like gnomes. They can be protective and helpful or they can be mean and mischievous.

I kind of took that towards myth and fairtale, maybe someone could respond and bring this back more towards deity. Ooh, maybe I should have talked about the Corn Mother. I think it's Cherokee, but I've seen the myth attributed to other tribes too.

Well thought out, GrimmWolf. Our ancient ancestors would indeed base their belief system on primarily food and shelter. I think with a little research, you would find that many if not most of the local spirits of a place became major deities as people made distinctions between macro and micro influences. For instance, large weather events would be ascribed to major deities as opposed to the more minor spirits that would protect the home.

One example of an archetypal entity that oversees wild plants as well as farmed ones is Circe. In the tale of Her grief due to the loss of Her daughter, Persephone, to Hades, Circe caused an almost permanent winter that devastated the land and all growing things.

Anyway, the point of this exercise is to use the intuitive tools that our ancient ancestors did to identify the spirits and deities that currently abide in our time and place. The Corn Mother that you reference...is She really here in Sonoma County? Perhaps She would be a lesser deity here than, say, Iowa, if at all. I would first define the indigenous flora and fauna and then branch out to the agriculture and animal husbandry introduced by humans in Sonoma County to find the appropriate spirits/deities here. 

Certainly a spirit akin to Bacchus was brought here by the vintners, wouldn't you say? And what about the redwoods, a native species? Wouldn't that replace the yew of the Nine Scared woods of Britain for us, perhaps?   

It would be nice to derive a local version of the Nine Sacred Woods. For Sonoma, besides Redwood, I would have to include Oak and Bay. Maybe also Manzanita and Willow (Although those are more like bushes).

Let's add madrone!

GrimmWolf said:

It would be nice to derive a local version of the Nine Sacred Woods. For Sonoma, besides Redwood, I would have to include Oak and Bay. Maybe also Manzanita and Willow (Although those are more like bushes).

So, a little research identified the trees native to Sonoma county. They are:

The Oaks

Valley

Live

Black

White

Canyon

Blue

Interior Live

And the rest

Bay

Madrone

Buckeye

Douglas Fir

Red Alder

White Alder

Big Leaf Maple

Redwood


GrimmWolf said:

It would be nice to derive a local version of the Nine Sacred Woods. For Sonoma, besides Redwood, I would have to include Oak and Bay. Maybe also Manzanita and Willow (Although those are more like bushes).

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