Waincraft questions
These are from 
limnaia :
Firstly - what's the first thing you'd suggest to do/research/whatever to someone interested in Waincraft, but as you put it, not living in your head? Where do you start? With the gods? The Tribes? The elves? There seems to be so much that someone could potentially draw on, that it's hard to figure out where to begin.
Good question. I'll handle each portion by itself. The first arena of research, which will encompass most of the 5 Beings as well as give insights to the cosmology, is the varied European and Central/northwestern Asian mythologies. The ones that have had the largest impact, naturally, on the formation of Waincraft, are those to which
snaegl and I are drawn to, the Celtic and Germanic
For the Gods, by and large, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic will put you in contact with most of the various God-faces. For some others, the God-faces might involve native Italic, Greek, Basque, or Ugric (particularly Finnish) mythologies, and a couple can even be found in Hungarian and Georgian mythology. The key is to keep your mind open and note the threads of similarity. They tend to turn into a tapestry after a while.
The Folk (also called elves and dwarves) are almost exclusively located in northwestern Europe, at least how they are conceived in Waincraft. These are the races of the light and dark beings that aren't quite synonymous with the land spirits - the pixies and daoine sidhe, the kobolds and goblins, light elves and Unseelie and nissen.
The Tribes is the hardest. Obviously, each one of the animal groups represented in the Tribes was a sacred animal for many, often most, of the peoples that Waincraft draws from. However, their nature and function is almost entirely derived from experience and shared gnoses. For this, the best I can offer is to approach them yourself and get to know them on their own terms. A good starting point is the practice, mentioned by
snaegl here, of divining your own ancestral tribes and working from there. The Tribes, really, are one of the major things that sets Waincraft apart from other syncretic or eclectic paganisms, whether you view them as an extension of ancestor-work, or as a totemic system.
Secondly - What is the stance on syncretism/squishy polytheism and so on? I know it's part of Waincraft, but I don't think I've found a good description of how it works in practice.
By its very nature as a tradition of blended elements, syncretism is one of the driving forces of Waincraft. While the traditional names of the Gods, and a lot of the terminology used with reference to the other Beings, cosmology and practice derive from ancient Eurasian customs and systems, I've been striving to maintain the fine balance between setting up a mythohistorical framework and allowing for real, personal experience of the beliefs and beings as they manifest in each practitioners locale. That can't really be done if the systems are set in stone, so syncretism allows for one person to worship the Lord of the Mountain as Thor the giant-killer who sweeps across the plains of the American Midwest in driving thunderstorms and raging winds, while another might pray to him as Sucellos the Giver, bringer of the autumn rains off the Cascades and coastal cliffs, cooling the heat and deadly fires of the Santa Ana winds. The key is that, in the Waincraft paradigm, they are in a relationship with two of the different ways one God might manifest Itself, forming a shared experience that each practitioner might come to know the Deity behind the masks better.
In Waincraft, the idea of syncretism is synonymous with the fact that beings, even humans, are not always the same person in each scenario, but that doesn't take away from our unified existence. We can, and should, try to get to know as many faces of a person as appropriate, and thereby become closer with them.
And finally - you've mentioned once or twice that Waincraft is partly influenced by Feri - in terms of the fey current and so on. I'll be honest, even studying Feri for a little while and I still haven't gotten my head about that concept. Can you explain how it relates to Waincraft? And in your opinion, would the two traditions blend well?
The largest relationship of Feri to Waincraft is that they are both essentially American in their composition - Anderson Feri is one of the first entirely American traditions of traditional witchcraft, and Waincraft is a religious correspondence to the social and cultural reality that is America's melting pot.
Beyond that, the relationship of the primary gods to each other and the origin of the world owe a lot to Feri cosmology. The Lady of Night, beyond all of the material from mythology, includes in her make-up a great deal of the Star Goddess, and the Shaman-Father and Lord of Plenty are her Divine Twin lovers. I've included some variation of the ecstatic creation featured in Feri tales in all of my Waincraft origin tales, because it very much speaks to the ecstatic and often sexual nature of many of the gods. The two triads of Niamh/Mari/Ana and Dian/Crom/Arddhu quite nicely dovetail with Red Lady/Holy Earth/Witcher and Green Lord/King of Waters/Lord of Plenty.
Well, I think that covers everything. If you have any other questions, or anyone else for that matter, leave them in the comments.
This entry was originally posted at http://nicanthiel.dreamwidth.org/112996.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
limnaia :
Firstly - what's the first thing you'd suggest to do/research/whatever to someone interested in Waincraft, but as you put it, not living in your head? Where do you start? With the gods? The Tribes? The elves? There seems to be so much that someone could potentially draw on, that it's hard to figure out where to begin.
Good question. I'll handle each portion by itself. The first arena of research, which will encompass most of the 5 Beings as well as give insights to the cosmology, is the varied European and Central/northwestern Asian mythologies. The ones that have had the largest impact, naturally, on the formation of Waincraft, are those to which
snaegl and I are drawn to, the Celtic and Germanic
For the Gods, by and large, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic will put you in contact with most of the various God-faces. For some others, the God-faces might involve native Italic, Greek, Basque, or Ugric (particularly Finnish) mythologies, and a couple can even be found in Hungarian and Georgian mythology. The key is to keep your mind open and note the threads of similarity. They tend to turn into a tapestry after a while.
The Folk (also called elves and dwarves) are almost exclusively located in northwestern Europe, at least how they are conceived in Waincraft. These are the races of the light and dark beings that aren't quite synonymous with the land spirits - the pixies and daoine sidhe, the kobolds and goblins, light elves and Unseelie and nissen.
The Tribes is the hardest. Obviously, each one of the animal groups represented in the Tribes was a sacred animal for many, often most, of the peoples that Waincraft draws from. However, their nature and function is almost entirely derived from experience and shared gnoses. For this, the best I can offer is to approach them yourself and get to know them on their own terms. A good starting point is the practice, mentioned by
snaegl here, of divining your own ancestral tribes and working from there. The Tribes, really, are one of the major things that sets Waincraft apart from other syncretic or eclectic paganisms, whether you view them as an extension of ancestor-work, or as a totemic system.
Secondly - What is the stance on syncretism/squishy polytheism and so on? I know it's part of Waincraft, but I don't think I've found a good description of how it works in practice.
By its very nature as a tradition of blended elements, syncretism is one of the driving forces of Waincraft. While the traditional names of the Gods, and a lot of the terminology used with reference to the other Beings, cosmology and practice derive from ancient Eurasian customs and systems, I've been striving to maintain the fine balance between setting up a mythohistorical framework and allowing for real, personal experience of the beliefs and beings as they manifest in each practitioners locale. That can't really be done if the systems are set in stone, so syncretism allows for one person to worship the Lord of the Mountain as Thor the giant-killer who sweeps across the plains of the American Midwest in driving thunderstorms and raging winds, while another might pray to him as Sucellos the Giver, bringer of the autumn rains off the Cascades and coastal cliffs, cooling the heat and deadly fires of the Santa Ana winds. The key is that, in the Waincraft paradigm, they are in a relationship with two of the different ways one God might manifest Itself, forming a shared experience that each practitioner might come to know the Deity behind the masks better.
In Waincraft, the idea of syncretism is synonymous with the fact that beings, even humans, are not always the same person in each scenario, but that doesn't take away from our unified existence. We can, and should, try to get to know as many faces of a person as appropriate, and thereby become closer with them.
And finally - you've mentioned once or twice that Waincraft is partly influenced by Feri - in terms of the fey current and so on. I'll be honest, even studying Feri for a little while and I still haven't gotten my head about that concept. Can you explain how it relates to Waincraft? And in your opinion, would the two traditions blend well?
The largest relationship of Feri to Waincraft is that they are both essentially American in their composition - Anderson Feri is one of the first entirely American traditions of traditional witchcraft, and Waincraft is a religious correspondence to the social and cultural reality that is America's melting pot.
Beyond that, the relationship of the primary gods to each other and the origin of the world owe a lot to Feri cosmology. The Lady of Night, beyond all of the material from mythology, includes in her make-up a great deal of the Star Goddess, and the Shaman-Father and Lord of Plenty are her Divine Twin lovers. I've included some variation of the ecstatic creation featured in Feri tales in all of my Waincraft origin tales, because it very much speaks to the ecstatic and often sexual nature of many of the gods. The two triads of Niamh/Mari/Ana and Dian/Crom/Arddhu quite nicely dovetail with Red Lady/Holy Earth/Witcher and Green Lord/King of Waters/Lord of Plenty.
Well, I think that covers everything. If you have any other questions, or anyone else for that matter, leave them in the comments.
This entry was originally posted at http://nicanthiel.dreamwidth.org/112996.html. Please comment there using OpenID.