![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
endymions_bowerI think that there is not enough appreciation in the polytheist community for the impact of human patriarchy and sexism on our traditions. It seems as though the only reason for embracing change in our traditions is because something is unworkable or onerous today, but we have the right and responsibility to be more critical of our traditions than that. Otherwise, we essentially elevate empty forms over the living relationship with our Gods.
Our traditions as passed down from the ancients are most important as means for contacting the Gods, even just simple awareness of Them. But the traditions are also carriers of the human injustices of their era, and I think sexism is particularly important in this respect. The pantheons as we know them are significantly more masculine than feminine and others, and masculine deities operate most of the power.
This is not to say that we may not read the gender disposition of deities symbolically; really, we must. In Platonism, gender is a pattern of activity in deities, not an identity per se. Hence Rhea is a "paternal" (patrikos) Goddess in Proclus. But this isn't sufficient, because our view of the Goddesses in the traditions has inevitably been narrowed by Their reception. Reception is a crucial concept in Platonism; beings have variable fitness (epitêdeiotês) to participate the Gods. It is not surprising, then, that patriarchal cultural structures inhibit the fitness for participation in the illumination from Goddesses. In turn, what is recorded in the traditions and passed down in lineage structures is far narrower than what could be experienced.
I'm aware that there are issues that come up around this, the notion that people don't bother to educate themselves, or aren't respectful. But to affirm the Gods as existent, living entities, is to realize that They are more important even than the traditions bringing Them. For me, that's always going to trump even issues as meaningful as cultural appropriation. Preserving the traditions is important because we don't know what we might yet make of any scrap of information. Traditions can surprise us.
The issue of reception goes all the way down to the individual. Each person receives from a God what they are capable of experiencing. A person can participate certain elements of a God's nature, certain potencies, on a very high level, but be quite deaf to others. What such a person receives from the God is valuable information for other worshipers, but it can't be the last word. Even if—especially if!—it affirms what is recorded in the tradition, because such confirmation can have many purposes in the relationship.
It is the living relationship that comes first; and so confirming the tradition has the personal value of reassuring us Who is with us. Reaffirming traditional strictures can have value for us also in that we expect to pay a high price for something valuable. But it is precisely such assumptions that are thrown into question in the relationship with the Gods.
I don't deny that it is inconvenient that the relationship with the Gods is so peculiar, so variable from case to case. It's bad for organizing, for managing the community. But that's why managing communities is primarily a political, not a theological matter.
***
On Divine Disability
1/16
(As is my usual practice, my words are the ones not in italics. Apologies if I've messed up any of the threading.)
In Egyptian theology, we have many myths of divine injury and healing; healing never returns us to the previous state. Many prosthetics in Egyptian myth. One value of these is that humans are given a role to supplement a God's loss. To take a Hellenic example, one meaning for Hephaistos' being lamed is that He is the agent of human technology. So His disability is directly related to a potency of his in which we especially participate. Osiris' phallus is lost on the mortal plane because a crucial part of His resurrection lies in mortals going on. In this sense, His phallus is the mortal phalli, Hephaistos' walking is the mortal kinesis. I don't want to distract anyone from the mysteries of identification with these Gods through the experience of disability through this sort of reading, however. That embodiment, that presencing of the God, is sustaining for individuals and for communities.
Yes, and that's also suggested by His fall from Olympus to Earth, a "phase change".
@DaphneLykeion: The permanent disability however make these gods in line with processes of transformation and power. I think of it this way that Hephaistos who makes the greatest and powerful armor is himself physically unsound. His superior craftsmanship is inseparable from the fact that he is lame, whereas smiths are usually robust. As if an exchange of his vitality of form for the soundness and superiority of the forms that he creates. This exchange between his vitality and that which he creates is not separate from the destruction of his limbs. I think of it this way that Hephaistos who makes the greatest and powerful armor is himself physically unsound. His superior craftsmanship is inseparable from the fact that he is lame, whereas smiths are usually robust. As if an exchange of his vitality of form for the soundness and superiority of the forms that he creates.
@GalinaKrasskova: You see this with Weyland the smith too, a semi-divine Power.
@DaphneLykeion: Fascinating! It would seem that there is an exchange ongoing, from the process of disabling that lends its gift. The hand which is torn from a guard make him quite superior in his art. The torn eye giving the greatest sight.
@GalinaKrasskova: I could certainly see that with Odin and Heimdall.
@DaphneLykeion: The disabling on the gods acting as a process of strengthening some particular attribute to superior level.
@GalinaKrasskova: Precisely and it's interesting with Odin that He chose to pluck out His eye for that reason.
@DaphneLykeion: This would be related to sacrificed gods who by their all out death provide life/fertility. All different scopes. And this would provide new insight into Hera laming intentionally her son. Not as an act of cruelty as the myth seems to lend, for in Argos cult evidence shows very close relationship.
@GalinaKrasskova: She is the maker of heroes.
@DaphneLykeion: Exactly. If Hephaistos in Argos was called the war-like Zeus when he is lame, it would suggest a notable Heroic nature.
Also suggestive regarding the ontological status of warfare.
@DaphneLykeion: Quite so. And so we find a lame god who is superior in crafting physical forms and who is a great warrior.
1/17
Such acts localize the moment of self division or diremption of each henad, which releases the common space of being. Within the pantheon, it may be that all subsequent moments of divine injury participate this moment, as structurations of the field. A subtle moment of this in Egyptian theology is Re's self injury, which generates Hu and Sia, utterance and perception. Utterance and perception in this way become available for mortals to participate, and also subject to independent inquiry, epistemology.
Our traditions as passed down from the ancients are most important as means for contacting the Gods, even just simple awareness of Them. But the traditions are also carriers of the human injustices of their era, and I think sexism is particularly important in this respect. The pantheons as we know them are significantly more masculine than feminine and others, and masculine deities operate most of the power.
This is not to say that we may not read the gender disposition of deities symbolically; really, we must. In Platonism, gender is a pattern of activity in deities, not an identity per se. Hence Rhea is a "paternal" (patrikos) Goddess in Proclus. But this isn't sufficient, because our view of the Goddesses in the traditions has inevitably been narrowed by Their reception. Reception is a crucial concept in Platonism; beings have variable fitness (epitêdeiotês) to participate the Gods. It is not surprising, then, that patriarchal cultural structures inhibit the fitness for participation in the illumination from Goddesses. In turn, what is recorded in the traditions and passed down in lineage structures is far narrower than what could be experienced.
I'm aware that there are issues that come up around this, the notion that people don't bother to educate themselves, or aren't respectful. But to affirm the Gods as existent, living entities, is to realize that They are more important even than the traditions bringing Them. For me, that's always going to trump even issues as meaningful as cultural appropriation. Preserving the traditions is important because we don't know what we might yet make of any scrap of information. Traditions can surprise us.
The issue of reception goes all the way down to the individual. Each person receives from a God what they are capable of experiencing. A person can participate certain elements of a God's nature, certain potencies, on a very high level, but be quite deaf to others. What such a person receives from the God is valuable information for other worshipers, but it can't be the last word. Even if—especially if!—it affirms what is recorded in the tradition, because such confirmation can have many purposes in the relationship.
It is the living relationship that comes first; and so confirming the tradition has the personal value of reassuring us Who is with us. Reaffirming traditional strictures can have value for us also in that we expect to pay a high price for something valuable. But it is precisely such assumptions that are thrown into question in the relationship with the Gods.
I don't deny that it is inconvenient that the relationship with the Gods is so peculiar, so variable from case to case. It's bad for organizing, for managing the community. But that's why managing communities is primarily a political, not a theological matter.
***
On Divine Disability
1/16
(As is my usual practice, my words are the ones not in italics. Apologies if I've messed up any of the threading.)
@GalinaKrasskova: Ever contemplated the Mystery behind our scarred and/or disabled Gods? Odin, Tyr, Hodr, Heimdall, Loki? They are unique and holy.
@Roewoof: I never thought of them as disabled which is interesting. I always saw their injuries as sacrifices/strengths.
@GalinaKrasskova: I didn't think about it much until a discussion with a classmate yesterday, who specializes in disability services. It intrigues.
@Roewoof: I've been reading articles by disabled authors who are empowered by the term, so not naming the gods as disabled is an interesting thing to meditate on.
@GalinaKrasskova: Odin holds that space for me--his scars were self chosen. Also, with Odin and Heimdall, even Tyr to some degree it's sacrifice, but not Loki or Hodr. We don't know why Hodr is blind. I think there is a powerful mystery here.
@Roewoof: I never thought of them as disabled which is interesting. I always saw their injuries as sacrifices/strengths.
@GalinaKrasskova: I didn't think about it much until a discussion with a classmate yesterday, who specializes in disability services. It intrigues.
@Roewoof: I've been reading articles by disabled authors who are empowered by the term, so not naming the gods as disabled is an interesting thing to meditate on.
@GalinaKrasskova: Odin holds that space for me--his scars were self chosen. Also, with Odin and Heimdall, even Tyr to some degree it's sacrifice, but not Loki or Hodr. We don't know why Hodr is blind. I think there is a powerful mystery here.
In Egyptian theology, we have many myths of divine injury and healing; healing never returns us to the previous state. Many prosthetics in Egyptian myth. One value of these is that humans are given a role to supplement a God's loss. To take a Hellenic example, one meaning for Hephaistos' being lamed is that He is the agent of human technology. So His disability is directly related to a potency of his in which we especially participate. Osiris' phallus is lost on the mortal plane because a crucial part of His resurrection lies in mortals going on. In this sense, His phallus is the mortal phalli, Hephaistos' walking is the mortal kinesis. I don't want to distract anyone from the mysteries of identification with these Gods through the experience of disability through this sort of reading, however. That embodiment, that presencing of the God, is sustaining for individuals and for communities.
@GalinaKrasskova: also something i think worth teasing out: healing not returning us to the previous state....begs the question of what is healing?
@DaphneLykeion: [RE: Hephaistos] It seems as some principle of transformation. As a god who is made lame, from previously being whole, that it gives him a certain access into changing a substance of one state into that of another. Breaking down and recombining that renders a specific service from the original form that the original could not.
@DaphneLykeion: [RE: Hephaistos] It seems as some principle of transformation. As a god who is made lame, from previously being whole, that it gives him a certain access into changing a substance of one state into that of another. Breaking down and recombining that renders a specific service from the original form that the original could not.
Yes, and that's also suggested by His fall from Olympus to Earth, a "phase change".
@DaphneLykeion: I wasn't really thinking so much as a phase change but rather an undergoing of an "alchemical change". That the transformative process which renders change to create a greater product requires destruction and reform. In my mind this act of destruction inflicted makes the subject bearing higher potential to affect the world. Although not lamed I can see this situations were divinites are killed and brought back. Or even those gods who were "consumed" by Kronos and delivered again from him. But these are on a different scope from the more permanent evidential transformations that involve destruction.
Yes, I think this is key, to distinguish the change whereby a God acquires a disability from other changes. My theory would be that this corresponds to an extraordinary capacity being acquired by mortals. One could test this hypothesis by looking at myths of divine disability to see whether there is a human capacity that corresponds in some sense to the disability suffered by the God.
@DaphneLykeion: The permanent disability however make these gods in line with processes of transformation and power. I think of it this way that Hephaistos who makes the greatest and powerful armor is himself physically unsound. His superior craftsmanship is inseparable from the fact that he is lame, whereas smiths are usually robust. As if an exchange of his vitality of form for the soundness and superiority of the forms that he creates. This exchange between his vitality and that which he creates is not separate from the destruction of his limbs. I think of it this way that Hephaistos who makes the greatest and powerful armor is himself physically unsound. His superior craftsmanship is inseparable from the fact that he is lame, whereas smiths are usually robust. As if an exchange of his vitality of form for the soundness and superiority of the forms that he creates.
@GalinaKrasskova: You see this with Weyland the smith too, a semi-divine Power.
@DaphneLykeion: Fascinating! It would seem that there is an exchange ongoing, from the process of disabling that lends its gift. The hand which is torn from a guard make him quite superior in his art. The torn eye giving the greatest sight.
@GalinaKrasskova: I could certainly see that with Odin and Heimdall.
@DaphneLykeion: The disabling on the gods acting as a process of strengthening some particular attribute to superior level.
@GalinaKrasskova: Precisely and it's interesting with Odin that He chose to pluck out His eye for that reason.
@DaphneLykeion: This would be related to sacrificed gods who by their all out death provide life/fertility. All different scopes. And this would provide new insight into Hera laming intentionally her son. Not as an act of cruelty as the myth seems to lend, for in Argos cult evidence shows very close relationship.
@GalinaKrasskova: She is the maker of heroes.
@DaphneLykeion: Exactly. If Hephaistos in Argos was called the war-like Zeus when he is lame, it would suggest a notable Heroic nature.
Also suggestive regarding the ontological status of warfare.
@DaphneLykeion: Quite so. And so we find a lame god who is superior in crafting physical forms and who is a great warrior.
1/17
Had some further thoughts on divine injury and disability. Note the value of certain founding moments of injury in diverse theologies, such as the castration of Ouranos in Hellenic theology or the dismemberment of Ymir in Norse theology. In these cases, the injury/dismemberment of a primordial God establishes what I would call "pantheon space". (In systematic Platonism, pantheon space is the intelligible-intellective or noetico-noeric plane, or so I have argued.)
Such acts localize the moment of self division or diremption of each henad, which releases the common space of being. Within the pantheon, it may be that all subsequent moments of divine injury participate this moment, as structurations of the field. A subtle moment of this in Egyptian theology is Re's self injury, which generates Hu and Sia, utterance and perception. Utterance and perception in this way become available for mortals to participate, and also subject to independent inquiry, epistemology.
A question which occurred to me, is what would be the significance of a given theology having more injured/disabled Gods than another? If we follow out the theory propounded in last night's discussion, then it might be that the theology with more injured/disabled Gods would be experiencing more elements of experience as occurring immediately within the bodily presence (parousia) of the God.
