kaberett | Where the gods live

sorrillia noted that I have, several times in the past few weeks, used phrases like where the gods live, and asked me to expand a bit on my current relationship with religion and deities.

The short version is: whether or not supernatural entit[y/ies] exist is pretty much irrelevant to my life. I try to be kind and compassionate and good, to minimise the harm I do, and I want to be doing this because it is right rather than because I am scared of the consequences if I don't. Smaller me, sad and scared and with no idea what to be if not Catholic (but certain that Catholic was no longer a path they could take in good conscience), defiantly asserted that any God worth worshipping would understand this, and any other didn't deserve to be.

Since then, I have come rather more to terms with my atheism.

So how does this fit with my talking about where the gods live? Mmm. I recognise the value of ritual and the familiar (I've known beauty in cathedrals in the stillness of the day): that's why I go to Mass on All Souls', and why I light candles, and why I will sometimes find a chapel to sit in, in the cool and the quiet and the filtered-down light.

And I recognise the value of religious restrictions arising from if you do this thing, you will die; therefore, don't. And that is some of what I mean when I talk about gods, these days: it's why I make offerings to glaciers and pour out libations for mountains, because in doing so I remind myself that these things are large and they are old and they will kill me without compunction or hesitation for being just the slightest bit careless; they insist upon respect.

So: stillness and quiet and a sense of space are what I mean, really: something you can capture a little of inside a church, but which I prefer in a setting where I am physically, as well as emotionally, reminded of the vastness of space and of time. That sense of wonder, of awe - yet not of insignificance - is what I am talking about, because this is an astonishing and beautiful place that we live in, and I can find it easy to forget when I am forever rushing.

-- which is some of what I mean, also, when I say that learning to love a city feels, to me, like learning to love people: learning how to know the lares and penates, and how to find the heart of quiet in something so large.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Would you say that it is animism, or a solid reflect for nature based on the preponderance of evidence that nature can kill us easily.

For all that I will pick up a rock and stroke it and say "gosh, you're a long way from home" or "oh, mustn't you be tired", I think it is pretty much entirely a very strong awareness that nature can and will kill me easily. I mean, I've done a lot of hiking in bits of Alps with 200m drops down the side of the path, or near glaciers full of crevasses, or with awareness of rockfalls etc; and I've done a lot of field work in relatively remote places such that you do actually have to take care not to fuck up in ways that kill yourself; and I have witnessed Mountain Rescue and the lifeboats being scrambled often enough that I have very, very strong feelings on not dragging anyone else into danger because I've fucked up. When your planning routinely has to include "I need this much water to not die", or "my pack needs to contain enough that if I get stranded with a broken leg I won't die of exposure overnight"... yeah.

Definitely solid respect for nature, then. Which is always a very healthy thing.

I want to be doing this because it is right rather than because I am scared of the consequences if I don't
yes please
that is my biggest thing

the value of ritual and the familiar
I have been burned of my previous rituals, of my previous familiar, and I know what I would like to establish in its place, but. But it is hard to go out and purposefully change things, even if they have already changed around me. It is hard to start something and think one day but until then, it is stilted and awkward and confusing and just so hard.
(and the one place I could feel safe in the almost-familiar is a place I have never been before, a place I cannot currently get to, a place I will never be able to go to regularly; and the one place I have a familiar is one of the least safe places for me to be, ever, anymore. and that combination drains me so much that new establishments become even harder. to think of why they need establishing.)

Out of spoons today, so thank you and <3

Where the gods live

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