What I posted yesterday was not what I had set out to post. I’d set out to post about Manannan, originally, and I ended up talking about the BP oil spill and rambling about how depressed I get with the state of the world.
Well, I guess that is fitting.
Anyway, what I had wanted to say was this.
1) After my first little trip to the beach, I was hanging out with a friend and he informed me that the beach I’d gone to was on the edge of a lake.
I felt really stupid. But then I looked at a map and saw the lake connected to the ocean via a river, so it still counted. I think Manannan/Manawyddan was/were amused.
2) I went to the real beach the other day and went and stood barefoot in the water (got some really weird looks from some people, because it was rainy and who does that in BC I mean honestly it’s not even July when summer actually starts and goes for 2 weeks). Talked to Him/Them for a little bit. Asked why His voice was so muffled, and He responded “Well, I’m underwater — there’s going to be interference!” I laughed.
But then I got to thinking. I realized that my interactions with Brighid and Manannan/Manawyddan have been far more muffled with regards to hearing Their actual voices than my interactions with Morrigan. Morrigan is the only deity Whose voice I’ve heard in my head Loud and Clear. And I wondered in my head about this, and heard a sort of “Of course — She’s claimed you. Her voice would be the loudest,” from Him/Them.
And I went away thinking the Gods must think I’m fairly slow on the uptake, but I think They like me anyway.
It also brought up these ideas in my head, which have been there for a while, but I finally articulated them (to my mom, natch). To me, the Celtic deities are more primal and wild — less anthropomorphic than, say, the Greek pantheon. Brighid and Manannan do not appear in human form to me — not anything clear, at least. If you asked me to describe Their features, I would not be able to. I could only tell you what I feel. Brighid is fire and hearth and sun and sparkling life force and the strength of the forge’s heat and the deep still coolness of the spring. She is fresh spring days and endless green and love and heat and warmth and love. Manannan is deep blue and sea creatures and mystery and mist and longing and warm the way a swim on a summer’s day is warm and gentle rain cleansing pain and lament and laughter and love and relaxation and safety and fatherly yet sensual and not in a creepy incestuous way but more a He’s got my back way, and I can see the sensual side of Him even if it’s not directed at me, it’s like what I can’t do with my parents which is to acknowledge that they may have sex at some point with people. I can accept that with Manannan.
Morrigan, however, appears as a woman — well, a Queen, a Warrior — to me, or She sends an animal messenger. I do sense Her attributes, but not in the raw, primal way I sense them from Brighid and Manannan. I think this has something to do with the dynamic of O/our relationship. And I also feel it’s because She feels I’m not ready to deal with Her in a non-anthropomorphized way. Which…may be accurate. I’m highly unstable right now.
I know what I’ll feel when I connect with Morrigan’s primalness. I can articulate that now — it’s sex and death and blood and ownership and dirt and a dagger and dark flight and claws and pain. And so much more. And I’ve felt it…a bit. But not on the same scale.
Not yet. I have work to do before I can feel that, before I’m ready.
So I better get on it.