I went out to these pools looking for dragonflies and damselflies. There were lots of them, large reddish-brown ones gliding over the water with smaller electric-blue one on the edges. I couldn't get close enough from the path to get a decent pic of any of them, but I thought this dead tree, alive with lichens, made a good subject. And there was so much else around these pools. Lots of unusual things like Marsh Cinquefoil and dwarf downy birches. But more than any of the individual things, the feeling of so much life all dancing to the tune of some magical impulse - the Green Man and the Green Lady dancing together through the longs days of the season of Midsummer.
What should I call them? I've been discussing in some other forums whether we should know the names of the gods or whether they are beyond names and so we can choose whether or not to give them names as part of our communal religious life, or whether we should just experience them as what they are in themselves. I can never decide when I'm discussing what the right answer is. But when I'm out on a day like this all the questions dissolve and I just feel this
being all around me.
What a beautiful way of putting it - the questions dissolve and you just feel the divine around you. I like the questions, too - are the gods beyond names? I'd say they are beyond names, but we aren't :D So, we give them names to make it easier for us, but sometimes we get trapped and think those names "are" the gods, rather than just a name to help our understanding of the divine. Then we need to do what you did, and find a way to commune with them in silence, just being!
ReplyDeleteThanks Kerry, yes I think you are right. The names can get in the way but we probably need them for our sakes.
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