I’m sorry, but I need to postpone today’s Mythology Mondays post. (Gwyn ap Nudd was the winner, by the way!) It’s not ready, and I’ve been under the weather for the past week or so. I need a bit more time to put it together and instead of rushing and trying to finish it today (and having the work suffer, as well as my health), I’m just going to put it off till next Monday.
WHICH MEANS there will be a new post on Monday the 16th AND on Monday the 23rd — I don’t want to get off schedule, so I’m going to do two weeks in a row.
Soooo I need your votes! Voting usually would close at midnight on Monday, but as the Gwyn ap Nudd post will be up that day, I’m extending the poll length to Tuesday, the 17th. Let me know who you want to read about on the 23rd. (Also, I’m changing up the poll this time ’round and allowing two choices per voter.)
Thanks for understanding, everyone. I’ll see you on Monday!
This week we are talking about another one of my fave gods.
Manannán Mac Lir is the Irish god of rain, mist, the sea, and the Otherworld.
He first came into my life several years ago, and he’s been a huge part of it since. I’m going to try to talk about him a bit more neutrally in this post than I usually do at my religious blogs, but it’ll be hard, because I really love this dude.
Ok, so. Manannán.
Manannán is a psychopomp god — that means he’s a guardian deity between the realms of life and death. A word that can be used to describe this type of deity is “liminal” — it means “of or pertaining to a threshold,” from the Latin limen.
You can see this liminality in the things associated with him. Mist, of course, is very much associated with the idea of things being “in-between” — but so is rain, being a common weather pattern with both fall and spring, the seasons in between the extremes of winter and summer. (Mind you, depending on where you live, your rainy times of year might last a loooooot longer than seems normal. *Glances at both Ireland and BC*)
This day is tough for a lot of people, myself included.
If it’s tough for you, here’s a small, friendly reminder:
I’m thinking warm thoughts to you this Father’s Day. Take care of yourself, and don’t let others tell you how to feel about today. However you feel is your own thing, and it’s valid. <3
Welcome to another instalment of Mythology Mondays!
The winner of our poll was The Dagda, a member of the Tuatha De Danann. (Runner-up was Manannan Mac Lir.)
I actually put him on the poll because I saw a post about him on Folklore Thursday a while back, and the picture shared of him made him look a lot like my husband. Or my husband looks like him. Anyway, it inspired me to read up more on him. (I’ve since discovered the picture is from Heroes of Camelot.)
Anyway, the Dagda — High King of the Tuatha De Danann for about 80 years.
The Tuatha De Danann is, in short form, the main family of gods from pre-Christian Ireland. They’re somewhat analogous to the Olympians of Greece — not the only supernatural beings there, of course, but some of the heavy-hitters, with a massive family tree that takes years to understand.
The Dagda is one of the “big guys” within the Tuatha De. He’s a chieftain, a druid, and a father-figure. (One of his epithets is “all-father,” though that might have more to do with his prolificness than a fatherly attitude — he sired a lot of kids.) He’s considered a very powerful god, especially as he’s said to have control over the weather, the seasons, and life and death itself.
The Dagda is well-versed in Druidic magic, and he has several magical items in his possession. One is his cauldron, which is so big it’s said the ladle can hold two grown people in it. This cauldron is known as the “cauldron of plenty” — it’s bottomless and apparently leaves no one unsatisfied (except cowards and oath-breakers).
Another item is his massive club, so big he apparently had to drag it in a wagon behind him, or across the ground. The hammer/head end of his club can kill many people at once (probably because of its massive size; I don’t know, just spitballing here), but the handle can bring people back to life. See: power over life and death.
Dagda also possesses a magic harp made from oak wood. This harp could change the seasons or the emotions of people. It also straight-up murdered some folks. Yes, the harp did. A harp.
Welcome to another installment of Mythology Mondays!
Today we’re going to learn a bit about Hera, Greek Queen of the Gods.
(Thanks to Kayla for suggesting her in the comments on my Facebook post!)
Hera gets a bad rap, honestly, especially with TV shows like Hercules: The Legendary Journeys being one of the main ways most modern Westerners know of her. She’s seen as jealous and shrewish, a vindictive, scorned wife of the king of the gods.
But let’s be real for a moment: if your partner slept around as much as Zeus did (according to the myths), wouldn’t you be a little cranky? I mean, assuming it’s not an open relationship (and for Zeus and Hera, it wasn’t).
One of the main things people know about the Greek gods these days (if they know anything) is that Zeus…was a bit of a player. And by “bit of a player” I mean he had sex with pretty much everything. Most mythological creatures in Greek mythology? Yeah, they exist because Zeus is their dad.
And the thing is, this is after he and Hera are married. In the beginning, they were both born of Cronos and Rhea (yeah, they’re sister and brother, which is honestly pretty common in a lot of mythologies; I know, it’s kinda weird; just go with it). However, Cronos was told his son would usurp him. So he ate all his kids, natch.
Welcome to the first instalment of Mythology Mondays!
Every other week (to start) I’ll be posting a short intro to a figure from mythology. Any mythology that I know something about is up for grabs — Hellenic, Roman, Irish, Buddhist — you name it, I might cover it.
I’ve studied a lot of mythology over the years, both because I enjoy it and because it is rich fodder for fantasy world-building. Also because I’m a polytheist, but you already knew that, I think.
Please note, for the purposes of these posts, the term “mythology” is not a pejorative. As an anthropological term, it is merely descriptive, referring to a body of work of stories told by a religious or cultural group to explain the truths of their worldview.
Calling something myth does not actually comment on whether or not it’s real. It’s important to remember that there is a difference between cosmic truth and literal fact, and they are not mutually exclusive concepts.
Myths reveal what a religion’s or culture’s cosmic truths are — that is, truths about the culture’s cosmology, or how they view the cosmos. They don’t comment on the existence or not of the figures within them. That’s up to members of the religion or culture.
I’m kicking off Mythology Mondays with one of my favourite dudes: Hephaestus.
My last post here was Valentine’s Day. That’s ridiculous. Granted, this time I actually have an excuse: school did kind of eat my face.
It was all worth it, though! Check out these puppies:
If you can’t see the image, it’s a list of all the classes I took and my final grade in each of them. A+ across the board. I SLAYED this semester. I AM THE LIZARD KING
And then I slept for the past three weeks, basically. I have really just been sleeping for most of this entire time. Sleeping and watching movies with my husband because we now have access to a bunch of movies on demand.
Now I’m arising from my sleep like a leviathan from the depths of the ocean and looking at summer like the tasty morsel it is. It’s time to get some shit done. I need to get my tits up and ACCOMPLISH STUFF.
This is an actual photo of the wall above my desk. It’s super motivating.
(Side note, if you haven’t seen Bad Moms, it is a really funny film and I highly recommend it.)
Things I want to accomplish this summer include:
◆ Clean my freaking house so I actually have a place to do homework come Fall.
◆ Finish all my current WIPs and hopefully another book. (What am I CRAZY?)
◆ Read a LOT.
◆ Give my mom a really excellent 70th birthday. It’s a BIG ONE!
◆ Have a nice birthday myself.
◆ Cuddle Lord Tyee the wundermutt.
◆ Get ahead in my Medical Terminology book in preparation for next semester. (halp)
◆ Be more active here and at my other blogs. Mostly here, though. And, like…with a purpose.
Honestly, no idea if I’ll accomplish all this stuff, but I’m hopeful. At any rate, the last one I’m going to be starting with next week. I’m going to try to actually blog here on a regular basis, on actual topics that I know a little about. I hope that these posts I’m going to write are helpful and informative and entertaining for you all.
There, of course, will still be the regular “omg what am I even doing with my life” type posts, but hopefully those won’t be the ONLY thing that happens because they tend to happen once every few months. I’d like blogging here to be a weekly thing, eventually. However, it might start out as every other week, until I can get more into the habit.
Anyway, that’s all the news that’s fit to print DEAR GODS I HAVE TO STOP USING THAT PHRASE, TALK ABOUT DATING MYSELF.
*cough*
I’m going to sign off now, and work on some more writing. As a reminder, if you want to be first to know when From the Ashes is done, sign up for Loony Nation. If you want to be second to know, join my Patreon. If you want to be third to know, join my reader’s group on Facebook. And if you just want to find out with the rest of the world, just…keep doing what you’re doing, I guess? I mean you’re reading this post, so I assume you’re following me online somewhere.
See you all next week! Have a great weekend, and happy mother’s day. Unless mother’s day is a shitty day for you, in which case I’m sorry for reminding you about it. *offers hugs and cookies*
Last week I got a notification from Student Loans that — after I had spent many hours of my time doing my application and filling out the paperwork that would let them send me money, and started preparing my appeal for the full amount of money — I was no longer eligible for loans and wouldn’t be getting any.
Ever.
Ok, not ever; I have a flair for the dramatic. BUT not until my principal of 50K is paid down, which fuck me, may as well be ever.
There is a bright side to this news — the reason I’m no longer eligible to receive funding is because my RAP (Repayment Assistance Plan) has gone into Stage 2. What does Stage 2 mean? It means the government has started paying off my interest AND principal at about half the rate I would be expected to pay it off if I actually made any money.
However, this long-run bright side is hard to see with such BLOODY SHITTY TIMING.
Couldn’t they have like, I don’t know, messaged me a year ago and said “Hey in a year your RAP will go into Stage 2, here’s what that means, just a heads up”? Would have meant I would have gotten off my ass sooner and gone back to school, which would have meant at least ONE semester funded, and preparation for the lack of funding for the rest.
Instead, nope, middle of first semester, NO warning: “Oh by the way? That $1,300 you were really counting on to pay March/April rent? HAHAH NO.”
Needless to say I’ve been in a bit of a depressive episode since Thursday. That day actually saw me sobbing on a bench at campus, which was…totally fun and not at all embarrassing. And now Mom, Mr. Katje, and I are struggling to find a way to come up with the money to survive this semester.
I’m visiting Mom right now and we’re going to have a small private party-slash-fundraising thing here, which should help, and she’ll also be doing a Scholarship Sale at her bookshop Tea & Talk. I’ve also put together a note on FB detailing ways to help — it’s public for now, so you should be able to see it.
I’m also trying to get paid hours in as much as I can, even though that’s almost impossible with school. Most of my time these days is spent studying or working on homework, and when I’m not doing that, I’m in class, and when I’m not doing THAT I’m cleaning the house or sleeping. Study Break was MUCH NEEDED this week, and my trip to PR to see my mom has already resulted in many naps.
Anyway, that’s the State of the Katje. I haven’t let it break my streak of writing every day this year, though. Still going strong on that.
Will see you all again soon, if I can figure out something to talk about.
I don’t know about you but my 2018 so far has been pretty awesome. Well, I say awesome. I mean, it’s been good.
I’ve started doing that Year in Pixels thing — I wasn’t even going to, but the planner I bought and put into my binder had it already laid out on a page so I was like, hey, why not — and I’ve decided that when deciding if a day was good or not, I’m not going to let the 5 shitty minutes color my view of the entire day. I am committing to being relentlessly positive about life, on top of very ambitious and driven. So I’ve had mostly good or great days this year, with the exception of a row of “so-so” days when I was down with the sickness (OH-WAH-AH-AH-AH).
Also with the exception of a couple of bad days, courtesy of Student Loans.
Some background: Student Loans now does things through an online dashboard. You apply there and get info about your loans there. Since sending off my declarations on the 4th I have checked my dashboard relentlessly for news. They didn’t get my declarations until the 11th, and then didn’t update my page for another several days, and THEN last Sunday they told me my total funding was $1,293.
I feel like I’m saying that a lot these days. Every New Year’s I turn to the past year and scream BURN IN HELL YOU ASSHOLE and then turn to the next year like it’s going to be better. And then it’s not. Or it is in some ways, but worse in other ways.
Anyway, this year is no exception. 2017 was long and hard and yet surprisingly short, and while I’m glad it’s over I also want to hit Pause for a few days because I am so not ready for 2018, y’all.
