Formatting is bugging me... posting anyway...
One of the
biggest dangers of error in designing one's own religion is that one will
simply make symbols of the parts of oneself one likes best, and then worship
them. Without the guidance of an experienced ancient Celtic polytheist it is
difficult to judge which of the great gods should be given attention. Pagans
attempt to deal with the problem through 'Patronage', often modeled vaguely on
West African models. What is usually missing is that in those models there is
no sense that one chooses what god will become one's patron. Patronage is
determined by divination, and the results can be surprising.
In modern
Paganism it is more common for folks to focus on gods and spirits that resonate
with the obvious and positive parts of our personalities and preferences. That
can be fine, but it tends to create blind-spots in one's mythography. It seems
that I'm not more immune to that than anyone else.
I'm creating
another deck of cards. I've authored a full divination system, and fooled with
an effort to pack ritual resources into a nice, pocket-sized box - you can see those
here. Now I'm trying to expand the 'Temple Deck' in the Traveling Magic
kit. I've added new cards for the deities, bringing the full deity-eidolon set
to nine gods of Gaelic and/or Tuatha De Danann provenance. In an effort to
amuse myself the set will also contain a 'grimoire deck' with ritual text
artfully arranged on cards for, I hope, convenient transport and ritual use. There
are invocations for each of those nine gods. More about all that down the road.
Here's the point:
I reached a
point of trying to decide who the ninth god would be, and asked myself (and
some friends) what I was missing. Referencing the obvious Book of Invasions
list of Gaelic gods it became clear that I needed
a Nuada image and invocation to have the set be even vaguely complete. I'm
familiar with the famous tale of Nuada of the Silver Arm, of course, who is
King of the Tuatha Dé when they arrive, and is eventually
dethroned and restored, before passing away and giving his throne to the next
generation of gods. I also knew of his association (linguistic, at least) with
the North British god Nodens, who was a healer of war-wounds, associated with
the ford of a river, where warriors traditionally met. From those bits I felt
confident devising this image:
As I turned
to the next step, the writing of an invocation, I realized that I had simply
never written an invocation to this important Irish god in all my years!
Perhaps it is because he rather vanishes in the stories, and is supplanted by
kings whose folkloric persistence has been greater. In any case he had simply
never been a part of my work. I did what any good modern Druid does, and turned
to my library of books.
I'll spare
you the details in favor of summarizing my results. Nuada seems to me to be the
Indo-European Law/Warrior king to balance the Dagda's Magic/Poetry king. Nuada
is the god of the Well of Wisdom, balancing Dagda's presence as the Sacred
Fire. He is the husband of the White Cow Queen - Boann - who is tricked by the
Dagda into birthing the Wonder Child. He is the ancestor or father of Fionn,
and shares with that figure the traits of hunter, leader of the war-band and
keeper of inspiration - his name probably means "he who catches". He
holds both the Sword of Victory and the Stone of Sovereignty and is, himself,
the Once and Future King, as his arm is stricken from him and restored. In my
reading I discovered several titles that seemed to lend themselves to
invocation.
I'm
satisfied with the effort, though I need to look into what might be proper
offerings for such a god. I suppose I'll have to actually invoke him, soon
enough.
So again,
I suppose the lesson here is to be aware of one's blind spots, to note what one
has not noted, to know what one doesn't know. May we all grow in wisdom.
1 comment:
yes!
I started honoring Nuada a few years back (on Tuesdays). My first attempts were met with a feeling of "What? No one honors me, what are you doing?" Gradually though, that faded away.
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