2017 was a rough year for many of us. The year seemed to fly by and yet it seemed to crawl so slowly.
...From the Oak: Let’s hear it for the God!
Many are those that focus on female divinities, leaving male divinities in the shadows if they get mentioned at all. This is a shame. Here I will share my thoughts, stories and prayers on male divinities. Currently focusing on divinities placed in an atheist "graveyard".
Melia/Merit Brokaw
How do you write about a goddess when there is so little known? Furrina is the next deity from the atheists’ “graveyard” and I’ve been stuck on what to write for her for months. She is of ancient origins, probably an Etruscan goddess adopted into the Roman pantheon as a goddess of springs.
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I am probably going to offend some jazz aficionados, and it’s embarrassing given that Jose and I live in the neighborhood of jazz,
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As a Roman Polytheist, I can tell you that Furrina is related to water. On July 25, the Furrinalia was held for the Goddess Furrin
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I like this connection to modern day applications!
Nabu is one of the most important Mesopotamian deities. His name can be interpreted to mean brilliant, one-who-names, announcer, or herald. Associated with Apollo by the Greeks, Mercury by the Romans, and Thoth by the Egyptians, he was the scribe and minister of Marduk, head of the pantheon.
Today I’m going to tell you about Reshep, a Syrian god of war and thunder, who became popular in Egypt. In Egypt, he was also associated with pestilence. This god is the latest divinity from the atheists’ graveyard.
Gong-gong is the Chinese god of floods and is the next divinity I am remembering from the atheist “graveyard”. July is the start of the flood season for most rivers in China. It is a huge challenge to those who work the land. The rivers are a double-edge sword; without water nothing will grow but with too much water, lives and crops can be lost. So it is very much a love/hate relationship with these fast moving rivers. The Chinese have several eccentric river gods and Gong-gong is one of them.
Nergal is the next "graveyard" divinity that I am honoring. I found his tales very interesting, especially that he was associated with Hercules. Nergal was conceived in the underworld when his mother went to rescue her rapist from his punishment.
I've been on staff for this small retreat for [mumble] years and have attended for many more before that. Dragonfest is a family-friendly pagan and polytheist retreat situated in the foothills outside Denver, Colorado. This retreat is my home away from home that I only get to visit for a short 5 days, once a year. It is the place I dream of when stress has taken over my life. It is the place where I feel the most accepted. Since it has been awhile since I've posted anything due to an extremely busy summer, I thought I'd tell you about this year's Dragonfest which ran August 3 - 7, 2016.