The ancient unknown gods?

[LaughingCrow]

We've been wandering the Earth for quite a long time and for most of that time in most cultures didn't have a way to write down tales of the gods and spiritual practices, or like the Druids chose not to because they valued memorization.

This must mean that there were Deities who's names are forgotten, knowledge of them being lost to time. Have you ever encountered them, and how has that gone? Do you have a way you revere and worship these unknown gods?

[Eastling]

We've been wandering the Earth for quite a long time and for most of that time in most cultures didn't have a way to write down tales of the gods and spiritual practices, or like the Druids chose not to because they valued memorization.

This must mean that there were Deities who's names are forgotten, knowledge of them being lost to time. Have you ever encountered them, and how has that gone? Do you have a way you revere and worship these unknown gods?

Among my complicated deityblort of interconnected Powers are some ancient vaguely Minoan proto-Hellenic ones who have mostly been lost to history. I've struggled a lot to figure out how to name and describe them.

One option I've flirted with is simply not setting down specific names for them, just worshiping them by the aspects and epithets they reveal to me. Another method I've used is comparing and contrasting the myths of nearby cultures and trying to draw some basic conclusions from them, but that only works when you have information from surrounding cultures--which isn't true of all lost gods.

In the end, those of us who wind up following lost gods have to accept that the reconstructions we make of them will not be the same thing as their supposedly original lost forms. But they will find ways to contact us anyway.

[Jenett]

This must mean that there were Deities who's names are forgotten, knowledge of them being lost to time. Have you ever encountered them, and how has that gone? Do you have a way you revere and worship these unknown gods?

My primary personal deity work is with a goddess (and her consort) whose name I don't know, and haven't for the (pause for math) 16 years I've been working with her.

At this point, I'm pretty sure she's one of the many British deities of water who got offerings (usually associated with specific locations) whose names didn't survive. (There's a lot of resonance with the names we do know, but also differences, and a lot of 'that's not my name'.)

I'm pretty sure her location of origin is southern England, probably south-eastern, but I'm sort of at "The next step would be to rent a car and drive around and see what happens" which is a somewhat complicated logistical problem given I live in the US. I do have some other data, but it's things like specific flower smells, which are also surprisingly hard to pin down, and strong impressions of specific buildings (ditto)

Mostly, I work with what I have, and the actual 'do this thing for me, would you' requests on her end are sometimes a stretch but generally well within my scope of stuff I am glad to do.

[LaughingCrow]

My primary personal deity work is with a goddess (and her consort) whose name I don't know, and haven't for the (pause for math) 16 years I've been working with her.

At this point, I'm pretty sure she's one of the many British deities of water who got offerings (usually associated with specific locations) whose names didn't survive. (There's a lot of resonance with the names we do know, but also differences, and a lot of 'that's not my name'.)

I'm pretty sure her location of origin is southern England, probably south-eastern, but I'm sort of at "The next step would be to rent a car and drive around and see what happens" which is a somewhat complicated logistical problem given I live in the US. I do have some other data, but it's things like specific flower smells, which are also surprisingly hard to pin down, and strong impressions of specific buildings (ditto)

Mostly, I work with what I have, and the actual 'do this thing for me, would you' requests on her end are sometimes a stretch but generally well within my scope of stuff I am glad to do.

One of the reasons I asked is definitely because of a local goddess that I met a couple of years ago. Originally I just called her 'dark mother' - like with the feeling of the darkness beneath the earth where roots spread and grow and seeds germinate. Then when me and a friend started offering to her she became known to us as 'the mother of roots and thorns'. She's only around from spring equinox to autumn equinox and then someone else moves in and I don't get a good feeling and they want nothing to do with me. When I lived more out in the country I basically stayed inside on the autumn equinox because of it.

She's definitely asked me for things I can't give and has accepted alternatives lol.

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[LaughingCrow]

Among my complicated deityblort of interconnected Powers are some ancient vaguely Minoan proto-Hellenic ones who have mostly been lost to history. I've struggled a lot to figure out how to name and describe them.

One option I've flirted with is simply not setting down specific names for them, just worshiping them by the aspects and epithets they reveal to me. Another method I've used is comparing and contrasting the myths of nearby cultures and trying to draw some basic conclusions from them, but that only works when you have information from surrounding cultures--which isn't true of all lost gods.

In the end, those of us who wind up following lost gods have to accept that the reconstructions we make of them will not be the same thing as their supposedly original lost forms. But they will find ways to contact us anyway.

Definitely feel you with the 'names they reveal to me' because so far as I've experienced it's sort of titles instead of 'names'.

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[Jack]

One of the reasons I asked is definitely because of a local goddess that I met a couple of years ago. Originally I just called her 'dark mother' - like with the feeling of the darkness beneath the earth where roots spread and grow and seeds germinate. Then when me and a friend started offering to her she became known to us as 'the mother of roots and thorns'. She's only around from spring equinox to autumn equinox and then someone else moves in and I don't get a good feeling and they want nothing to do with me. When I lived more out in the country I basically stayed inside on the autumn equinox because of it.

She's definitely asked me for things I can't give and has accepted alternatives lol.

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Funny enough, this resonates quite well with an earth power who is one of my longest standing relationships - in her case in the winter she leaves the hearth and is basically the Goddess of Getting Your Ass Killed or Frozen In the Woods In Winter. Neat to run across other people doing similar things.

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[LaughingCrow]

Funny enough, this resonates quite well with an earth power who is one of my longest standing relationships - in her case in the winter she leaves the hearth and is basically the Goddess of Getting Your Ass Killed or Frozen In the Woods In Winter. Neat to run across other people doing similar things.

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The first autumn equinox after I met Her, I came home from work as soon as I started passing through the are where the woods beside the road get thick and dark I started to feel like I was being watched - but not in a good way. I often feel that I'm being observed in the woods or driving through them - West Virginia has interesting beings and spirits and they're very curious - but I felt very scared the closer I got to home.

Behind where I lived at the time was a huge thicket of brambled and blackberries, like no way to walk through. I sat in my car in the driveway, afraid to get out. I basically asked Her what was going on and after a moment I got a distinct 'go inside and do not come back out until morning, go now!' And then I asked if I should make some kind of offering to whoever was incoming as she was going to sleep for the winter. Definitely got a 'they'd rather eat you, so no'

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