Gods as Others

[fuzzyjayling]

Referring back to my post about terrain and maps, I (and many others) experience an consistent inner-space or other-space which contains, among other things, Others*, residents, guides, denizens, whatever word you want to use. Moving your inner eye, your consciousness, to that place, and walking, flying, moving around, talking with its inhabitants, is an important concept. Neo-pagan circles tend to refer to that as shamanic journeying, whether that's accurate or a cultural appropriation (or perhaps my own misunderstanding of what they're talking about); but I tend to simply call the whole concept as I stated it "journeying".



I had some interesting discoveries when following this line of thought out. One of them had to do with the fact that I used to journey to speak to someone I called Mom. Mom was a goddess figure, very kind and personal, and as her name would imply, motherly. Sometimes she gave me the advice I needed, sometimes she let me learn the lessons I needed the hard way. ^^;

But I had this realisation that, essentially, she was appearing to me as one of those people. A part of the map, perhaps, connected to something larger and more mysterious.

That other-space is such a great place to contact such energies and relate to them on a less abstract level. When they appear to you as a person, an animal, a fae creature, it's easier to relate directly. The particular appearance, mannerisms, and place may be a metaphor, but it's effective.

Dove and Sparrow were also people I met in that other-space, and we have become very close over time.

Many people have experienced an extensive, perhaps indefinitely sized other-space, with hundreds, thousands, or more such inhabitants (whole cities full). It makes one wonder who all and what all you might find in there. That's one thing that keeps me going back.



(Definitions)

* Others: Nothing to do with this story. >.> (Gore TW on that one, sorry.)

Comments

[finch]

This reminds me a bit of the backlash on Tumblr against people who seem to have Loki (it's almost always Loki) hanging around chatting with them about mundane things or commenting about them going to the mall or whatever. Why shouldn't a god interact on that level, like any other system member, if both parties are okay with that?

[fuzzyjayling]

Yeah. The way I look at this is that gods in general are beyond a typical-for-this-world level of understanding. Why would they comment on going to the mall? Who knows. Maybe he sees it as one more data point in a longer arc of events. Maybe he's curious about this world in the modern age. He's quite possibly in all places at all times (or even outside of typically known time and space), and I doubt his attention is even fixed on one point at a time. So why not commenting on going to the mall, and being involved in Ragnarok, and helping someone with a trial in South America, and...

It's also possible those people are experiencing something like a manifest archetype. My brain wants to tie in knots just pondering how that hooks into things. :D

The question I tend to ask in regards to gods is not "why" but "why not". They're a (theoretically) higher order of being; who knows what their motivations or abilities are.