Personally it's more about climate-type and nature-type.
I find that many deities or spiritual practises are heavily centered on the landscape/climat where it originated. You have your mountain gods, desert gods, sea gods, deciduous forest gods, grassland gods, savanna gods, your jungle gods etc. and so forth.
It just doesn't really make sense to invoke a sea god or adopting practises related to the sea when you live 100 miles inland, hold rituals for a dessert deity when you're surrounded by lush wetlands, that sort of thing.
It's not about continents and fixed geographic loactions as much as about biomes.
So to go back to druidry, the eastern half of north america, southeastern Austrailia, Central Europe, south west russia, japan and so on all share the same biome as the UK and druidic practices would make sense as far as I'm concerned. But less so if you're living in a desert biome - like say Arizona.
Being a Celtic Pagan living in Arizona, I'd have to agree with you. It's more difficult here than when I was living in Maine, for example. At the same time, I'm not going to change my spiritual path based on where I'm living, I just have to deal
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i didn't know the NA tribes in the southwest had river dieties. iirc, NA don't have river dieties (and i'm prepared to be proven wrong). also, having lived in new mexico for 8 yrs, i don't remember that feel from the rivers that i got from other places.
You're probably right. I was just using that as an example, since there isn't even a river with actual WATER in it within 50 miles of me. I've never heard of any canal or floodwash deities, NA or otherwise. Probably a bad example, now that I think of that. I still don't feel it would be proper to invoke a Celtic deity into a desert river, but that's just my thoughts on it
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when i lived in new mexico i felt a deeper connection with the land than i did with the locals who didn't welcome a red headed gringa. but i do agree, the land is very powerful in that part of the country.
Since I wrote my last comment, I spoke to my boyfriend who has lived here most of his 43 years, and is quite a bit more sociable with the NA community and the desert landscape than I am. Meaning, he fishes and camps all over, is as in touch with nature here as anyone, and is more, well, sociable than I am. :P
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I'm not sniping at you (it's obviously just a typo), but the idea of a "dessert deity" sounds like a humorous essay waiting to happen. (Ever attended a pagan community potluck where EVERYONE brought the same thing? Clearly we were inspired by the dessert deity....)
I've been plauged by the tyop faerie today - not sure why but everything I've written have contained the most horrendous typos that I haven't caught. :P
I find that many deities or spiritual practises are heavily centered on the landscape/climat where it originated.
You have your mountain gods, desert gods, sea gods, deciduous forest gods, grassland gods, savanna gods, your jungle gods etc. and so forth.
It just doesn't really make sense to invoke a sea god or adopting practises related to the sea when you live 100 miles inland, hold rituals for a dessert deity when you're surrounded by lush wetlands, that sort of thing.
It's not about continents and fixed geographic loactions as much as about biomes.
So to go back to druidry, the eastern half of north america, southeastern Austrailia, Central Europe, south west russia, japan and so on all share the same biome as the UK and druidic practices would make sense as far as I'm concerned.
But less so if you're living in a desert biome - like say Arizona.
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I've been plauged by the tyop faerie today - not sure why but everything I've written have contained the most horrendous typos that I haven't caught. :P
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