Finding the gods in our places again — Sharon Blackie

A couple of decades ago, when I was once again delving deeply into my roots in psychology and mythology, I discovered the writings of Kathleen Raine. I’d long admired her as a poet, but hadn’t really grasped the extent of her scholarship in the realms of the imaginal and the imagination – something I was working with and retraining in at the time, and in which I’ve continued to specialise (in one way or another) to this day. One of my favourite books of hers (and I’ve a fair collection) is an old copy of her 1967 essay collection, Defending Ancient Springs. And in that collection is an essay, ‘On the Mythological’, which all those years ago set me off thinking about the role that place plays in our mythology – or at least, the ways in which place used to play a role in our mythology, but has been sidelined for the many wonderful, but rather limited and human-centred, things that go on inside our own bodies. As those of you who’ve read If Women Rose Rooted will know, I’ve been banging on for a long time about the ways in which contemporary culture has confined us inside our own heads, about the ways in which modern psychology (the ‘official’ branches that have sidelined depth psychologists like Jung and Hillman) has encouraged us to think about the human experience as the only one worth studying or valuing. And which has encouraged us to see ourselves as separate from this beautiful, mysterious world in which we are so very clearly, and profoundly, entangled.

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Who Mourns the Sirens? — Myth Crafts

Sirens are often mistakenly thought of as a monstrous counterpart to the mermaid; evil temptresses lurking in the sea foam waiting to lure innocent sailors to their death with their songs. This was not so in the classical tradition; Sirens were in fact half-avian and it was their hybrid bird nature that was responsible for […]

via Who Mourns the Sirens? — Myth Crafts

Latin is not a dead language

Latin is the basis of the Romance family of languages and makes for an interesting study of Indo-European languages and philosophies. Not only does Latin’s descendants live on, but people have specific uses for Latin:

• Scientific: Naming new flora and fauna;

Genesis 1:26-28 King James Version (KJV)

²⁶ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

²⁸ And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

• Religion: The priest class, clergy, music, and even backmasking of religious prayers (such as the Lord’s Prayer) and music, sometimes done deliberately
• Freemasonry: Mottos for institutes of higher education, magickal mottos, pseudo-Latin (as in the Sacred Magic of Abramelin; naming a demon gives the magician dominion over it)
• The language of legal contracts
• Prefixes and suffixes for English words
• Abbreviations (e.g. = exempli gratia, i.e. = id est)
• Dates (e.v. = era vulgaris)

While it’s commonly referred to as a “dead” language, it means that average (aka “profane,” “mundane,” or “vulgar”) people don’t use it, and it’s not an everyday language of conversation.