Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth

In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.

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Who Is God of Furniture?

Do an image-search for Green Man Chair. Go ahead. You'll be amazed at what you find.

There must be hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of Green Man chairs out there. I've got a couple down in the dining-room myself.

And that's just the chairs.

We tend to think of the Green Man as a being carved in stone, but that's mere coincidence of survival. Stone outlasts wood.

Artists have been carving (and painting) Green Men for some 2000 years now but, starting in the Middle Ages, Green Men (aptly enough) began to sprout everywhere.

What could be more appropriate than that the image and likeness of the God of Plants should be rendered in wood: the symbol and the reality in one. To sit in the Green Man's Chair is to be embraced by the Lord of Vegetation.

Well, they say there's a god for everything. In the Wide World of Polytheism, I'd never before asked myself, Who is God of Furniture?

But throughout human history, the vast majority of furniture has been made from wood.

So I think we can guess.

 

 

 

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Poet, scholar and storyteller Steven Posch was raised in the hardwood forests of western Pennsylvania by white-tailed deer. (That's the story, anyway.) He emigrated to Paganistan in 1979 and by sheer dint of personality has become one of Lake Country's foremost men-in-black. He is current keeper of the Minnesota Ooser.

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