Deities and Fortuna
I think your post indicates much of what I have felt. Although I was baptized and raised a cradle Catholic, I also had my tribal traditions I was raised within, descendants of the Late-Woodland culture that transitioned to Upper Missippians (the far reaches of the Cahokia-centered trading system) who made the Effigy Mounds. The Catholics (as their Judaic trunk did before them) posited a Supreme Creator that existed before anything. This agreed with our tribal stories of Earthmaker, we called "Ma'Un" (ma (the earth/ground)-'Un (to-do/make), and the Power we called "Wakanda" (wa(that-which-is)-kan (a mystery-beyond-age-or-understanding)-da (to-be-located-in-a-place). Beyond my Catholic or tribal teachings, my experience was eminently and undoubtedly animistic, everything was alive in some way and could be related to.
Later I understood that gods and goddesses were of many sources, and I came to dislike the word god or goddess, or even deity...too loaded. I also still felt the One Source, Creator of all that is seen AND UNSEEN. But these other-than-human. some older, some younger (yes! some "gods" are YOUNGER than human!)...whether angels (fallen or unfallen), powers, elemental forces, thunder, stones, winds, rivers, genius loci, a little man under the water, a white deer, a strangely acting bear, a raven trying to communicate, a mystery with a sense of intelligence and connection and communication...I followed the Absarokee (Crow) convention, and called them Persons, with a capital P. Some seen, some unseen but seen through their actions as wind bows a stem of grass.
And of course as I learned of my ancestors, the ones I knew when they were alive, Uncle Marvin, great-Grandpa and great Grandma, Grandma Head, Mee-maw, and later Grandpa, Grandma, Uncles, Aunts...I knew of their love and I knew them as persons, and though I knew they were dead, yet there was something of them that was not dead, both in the mirror when I looked deeply into my eyes, heard in the way I laughed, and "out there" somehow. And the chains of generations extending back into the past, people whose name I did not know, but who lived both in me and "out there." These too were Persons. Persons who knew me, who were me, and who I could talk to and ask for help.
Only as an adult as I began to study magical traditions of the GD and others did I learn of egregores and servitors and of the experiment people did in Canada where they "made up" a ghost...and it came into existence with rappings, and sounds. I could begin to see how either consciously a group could create a being...or even UN/SUB-Consciously through intense events, needful things, and generations of habit, culture, belief, assumptions. And these things could come into existence...as gods, spirits. And perhaps some would experience these as gods...or reactivate half-forgotten gods and goddesses. As long as there have been humans, this would have happened.
So I have come to feel that _for myself_, I worship only the one Creator of all, for I am not an oath-breaker, I did take baptismal vows and I will see them through. And in fact, all the traditional Indians I know of believe in one Supreme Creator, but that that Creator has helpers designated for certain tasks. Just as I make friends with human beings, with thegood ones, fellow creatures under the Creator (some stronger and older than me, some seen or unseen), I will make friends as best I can with all good Persons. I respect all these as fellow creatures. Now the bad Persons, by that I mean the ones who seek to do me harm, but their actions they have chosen to be Enemy, and therefore I will not disrespect my Enemy, yet will I fight him, alone or with the aid of the good Persons with whom I make friends. Some we think of as bad, we merely need to follow rules of conduct (offerings before crossing streams for example). A vision quest is nothing more than seeking to make friendship with a Person.
As far as Greco-Roman mythology goes, I like Fortuna, so real still. Fortuna was even recognized into the middle ages. "O Fortuna" (Carmina Burana...the MIDI...you may recognize the tune from the film Excalibur...the words)...
O Fortuna (O Fortune)
velut luna (like the moon)
statu variabilis (you are changeable),
semper crescis (ever waxing)
aut decrescis (and waning)
vita detestabilis (hateful life)
nunc obdurat (first oppresses)
et tunc curat (and then soothes)
ludo mentis aciem (as fancy takes it)
egestatem (poverty)
potestatem (and power)
dissolvit ut glaciem (it melts them like ice)
Sors immanis (Fate - monstrous)
et inanis (and empty)
rota tu volubilis (you whirling wheel)
status malus (you are malevolent)
vana salus (well-being is vain)
semper dissolubilis (and always fades to nothing)
obumbrata (shadowed)
et velata (and veiled)
michi quoque niteris (you plague me too)
nunc per ludum (now through the game)
dorsum nudum (I bring my bare back)
fero tui sceleris (to your villainy)
Sors salutis (Fate is against me)
et virtutis (in health)
michi nunc contraria (and virtue)
est affectus (driven on)
et defectus (and weighted down)
semper in angaria (always enslaved)
Hac in hora (So at this hour)
sine mora (without delay)
corde pulsum tangite (pluck the vibrating strings)
quod per sortem (since Fate)
sternit fortem (strikes down the strong man)
mecum omnes plangite! (everyone weep with me!)
I also like the idea of coming up with your own "deities." Nature deities, sure, of thunder, the ocean, of snow, hurricanes, etc. But what about deities (and this relates to the "offices" of spirits perhaps!) of modern times...the God of the Car (Ogun serves in this for the Yoruba), the Goddess of Oil (Oh Thou Most Desirous, Black and Shiny One...do not seek thy peak as yet!), the Internet God (I'm sure Hermes has a hand in it), ...can we personify Global Warming (The FIFTH Horseman of the Apocalypse)?
Later I understood that gods and goddesses were of many sources, and I came to dislike the word god or goddess, or even deity...too loaded. I also still felt the One Source, Creator of all that is seen AND UNSEEN. But these other-than-human. some older, some younger (yes! some "gods" are YOUNGER than human!)...whether angels (fallen or unfallen), powers, elemental forces, thunder, stones, winds, rivers, genius loci, a little man under the water, a white deer, a strangely acting bear, a raven trying to communicate, a mystery with a sense of intelligence and connection and communication...I followed the Absarokee (Crow) convention, and called them Persons, with a capital P. Some seen, some unseen but seen through their actions as wind bows a stem of grass.
And of course as I learned of my ancestors, the ones I knew when they were alive, Uncle Marvin, great-Grandpa and great Grandma, Grandma Head, Mee-maw, and later Grandpa, Grandma, Uncles, Aunts...I knew of their love and I knew them as persons, and though I knew they were dead, yet there was something of them that was not dead, both in the mirror when I looked deeply into my eyes, heard in the way I laughed, and "out there" somehow. And the chains of generations extending back into the past, people whose name I did not know, but who lived both in me and "out there." These too were Persons. Persons who knew me, who were me, and who I could talk to and ask for help.
Only as an adult as I began to study magical traditions of the GD and others did I learn of egregores and servitors and of the experiment people did in Canada where they "made up" a ghost...and it came into existence with rappings, and sounds. I could begin to see how either consciously a group could create a being...or even UN/SUB-Consciously through intense events, needful things, and generations of habit, culture, belief, assumptions. And these things could come into existence...as gods, spirits. And perhaps some would experience these as gods...or reactivate half-forgotten gods and goddesses. As long as there have been humans, this would have happened.
So I have come to feel that _for myself_, I worship only the one Creator of all, for I am not an oath-breaker, I did take baptismal vows and I will see them through. And in fact, all the traditional Indians I know of believe in one Supreme Creator, but that that Creator has helpers designated for certain tasks. Just as I make friends with human beings, with thegood ones, fellow creatures under the Creator (some stronger and older than me, some seen or unseen), I will make friends as best I can with all good Persons. I respect all these as fellow creatures. Now the bad Persons, by that I mean the ones who seek to do me harm, but their actions they have chosen to be Enemy, and therefore I will not disrespect my Enemy, yet will I fight him, alone or with the aid of the good Persons with whom I make friends. Some we think of as bad, we merely need to follow rules of conduct (offerings before crossing streams for example). A vision quest is nothing more than seeking to make friendship with a Person.
As far as Greco-Roman mythology goes, I like Fortuna, so real still. Fortuna was even recognized into the middle ages. "O Fortuna" (Carmina Burana...the MIDI...you may recognize the tune from the film Excalibur...the words)...
O Fortuna (O Fortune)
velut luna (like the moon)
statu variabilis (you are changeable),
semper crescis (ever waxing)
aut decrescis (and waning)
vita detestabilis (hateful life)
nunc obdurat (first oppresses)
et tunc curat (and then soothes)
ludo mentis aciem (as fancy takes it)
egestatem (poverty)
potestatem (and power)
dissolvit ut glaciem (it melts them like ice)
Sors immanis (Fate - monstrous)
et inanis (and empty)
rota tu volubilis (you whirling wheel)
status malus (you are malevolent)
vana salus (well-being is vain)
semper dissolubilis (and always fades to nothing)
obumbrata (shadowed)
et velata (and veiled)
michi quoque niteris (you plague me too)
nunc per ludum (now through the game)
dorsum nudum (I bring my bare back)
fero tui sceleris (to your villainy)
Sors salutis (Fate is against me)
et virtutis (in health)
michi nunc contraria (and virtue)
est affectus (driven on)
et defectus (and weighted down)
semper in angaria (always enslaved)
Hac in hora (So at this hour)
sine mora (without delay)
corde pulsum tangite (pluck the vibrating strings)
quod per sortem (since Fate)
sternit fortem (strikes down the strong man)
mecum omnes plangite! (everyone weep with me!)
I also like the idea of coming up with your own "deities." Nature deities, sure, of thunder, the ocean, of snow, hurricanes, etc. But what about deities (and this relates to the "offices" of spirits perhaps!) of modern times...the God of the Car (Ogun serves in this for the Yoruba), the Goddess of Oil (Oh Thou Most Desirous, Black and Shiny One...do not seek thy peak as yet!), the Internet God (I'm sure Hermes has a hand in it), ...can we personify Global Warming (The FIFTH Horseman of the Apocalypse)?