Nemeton Segomâros

Îuos Lugous – The Feast of Lugus

I. This is a Gaulish ritual for Îuos Lugous, or Lughnasadh. It follows the pattern of other Gaulish rituals I have written, with the exception of the Natus, in this case, a praise poem directed to Lugus. Probably the best offerings to give would be hard apple cider, good wine, or hard liquor of any kind. The ritual should take place on the first of Elembiuos, or else the new moon closest to the first…
Noēseis

The Nature of the Gods (VI): Mundanity

Each henad, or member-unit of the set of ultimate units, must be regarded as containing infinite potency, simply because it exists, since there is an infinite potency between zero, nonexistence, and one, existence. But it does not seem to us that individual henads are omnipotent; instead they seem to form a hierarchy, in fact a multitude of hierarchies. The brief response to this discrepancy is that these hierarchical relationships, since they express the will of…
Speaking of Syncretism

Pantheons as the Battleground of Syncretism

In modern polytheist discussions, a great deal of ink has been spilled—both to define and to avoid defining—what is the most basic and essential unit of polytheist theology and devotion: namely, “Deities” (and, on other occasions, other divine beings have also been defined, e.g. Ancestors, Land Spirits, Hero/ines, etc.). While that is an important and noble pursuit, and one often fraught with pressures both from within and without—due to the immensity of the task and…
Nemeton Segomâros

The Holidays

I. Rationale for the Placement of Holidays: As we have seen in our column on the Coligny Calendar, Garrett Olmsted translates the word IVOS as “festival”, and finds five major and two minor clusters throughout the year. If the calendar starts at Samhain, or close to it, as we have hypothesized, then we can very roughly place these clusters on the Gregorian Calendar as well. We find that they coincide very roughly with the traditional…
Kemet Today

Year 24 Oracle of Aset

I am Aset the Great, Mother of God, Great of Heka. I am Aset the Widow, She Who Mourns, She of the Throne. I hear your prayers. I hear the prayers of the people. I tend to your needs. The year is new. The year is old. The year has come to be as one. To stand up together as one. To speak out. To be heard. To be who you are and what you…
The Dionysian Artist

A Polytheist Artist Proposition

We live in a world saturated in art. Our contemporary master pieces are found on billboards and seen on television as advertising. This current culture’s greatest musicians are carefully crafted by an executive board of mega power-mongers competing with other mega power-mongers. Even the most profound of art forms – the theatre – is manipulated and evaluated by non-artistic producers to determine their risk of investment. If our peoples go down in history, we will…
Ørgrandr Lokean

Breaking Loki’s Bonds

The following is intended to be a consecutive 9-day practice, ideally performed at night. In the Northern mysteries, nine is the number associated with initiation, death and rebirth. Each day begins with an invocation to one of the heiti (sacred names) of Loki, followed by a seated meditation, followed by a magical action to externalize what was experienced in the meditation. The goal of this practice is to identify a part or parts of yourself…
Featured Voices
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FOUNDATIONAL POLYTHEISM:

A primary focus in the material that I teach is on considerations of establishing a firm foundation for polytheistic frameworks of discussion, practice, cult-building, worship, spirit-work, and inter-faith engagements. This is the guiding philosophy behind writings on discernment, distinctions, differentiations, definitions – “The Ds” – and on hashing out elementary ideas for “101” primers, and on building living tradition beyond the blog. It is why so much of my writing and talking circles back to…
Nemeton Segomâros

The Coligny Calendar

1. Basics: The Coligny calendar was unearthed in 1897 at Coligny, in France.  It consists of 16 columns inscribed on a sheet of bronze.  At the time of its discovery, it was in fragments.  Much of it is missing.  It is the longest single text in the Gaulish language.1 As we will see, the calendar is a thorough application of the Samos and Giamos principles applied to time. The calendar consists of a cycle of…
Noēseis

The Nature of the Gods (V): Number, Figure, Time

The set of the Gods is not formed by the class characteristic ‘God’, but by that of uniqueness, that is, by being units or henads, while the character of ‘godhood’ comes from the position of this set, the set of absolutely unique individuals, relative to all that is. The character of godhood in the henadic manifold thus expresses in the purest form Proclus’ maxim (discussed here) that ‘Gods’ are whatever things, in a given ontology,…
Noēseis

The Nature of the Gods (IV): The Two Kinds of Group

If the form of multiplicity exhibited by the henads, namely, a multiplicity all of the members of which are in each one, is the primary and ultimate kind, then whatever other kinds of multiple there are must be derivable from it in their form. Two elementary kinds of multiplicity are known as homoiomerous (or ‘homoeomerous’) and anhomoiomerous (or ‘anomoeomerous’). (It is a problem to ascertain whether this is the only exhaustive division.) Homoiomerous multiplicity is…
Nemeton Segomâros

Iextâ – Language and Identity

The Gaulish word Iextâ apparently meant “language”.1 However it additionally meant rather more than that, for the cognates in modern Celtic languages include expanded meanings. The Goidelic, and later Irish icht meant “people” or “tribe”, without any linguistic connotation, while the Middle Welsh ieith, and later iaith, meant “language”, “nation” and “race”.2 We can assume, then, that the earlier Common Celtic and Gaulish word likely carried a similar connotation. Iextâ is the Gaulish word for…
Speaking of Syncretism

What Deadpool Can Teach Us About Hero Cultus

The title of the present article, I suspect, might cause a lot of people to have reactions that may not be remotely measured in relation to what I am going to discuss subsequently. If you are such a person, I’d recommend reading the entire piece before you decide to get upset, and certainly before you decide to comment. So, perhaps I should just get a few caveats and concerns out of the way before proceeding…
Nemeton Segomâros

Invocations

Here are a few invocations, in Gaulish and English, to enable you to call on the Dêuoi. To Cernunnos: Gediyins gwuyûmi Eti woxtlus wegyûmi Carnonon wediûmi Tigernon Caiti Dîclâwetos Cingi Dêwos Arelayetyo Marwon Eti detyo ulânon Yo dîclâwetis Cingon Dêwobo, anson gediyins Dêwobo beretyo. Prayers I pour out And words I weave Carnonos I invoke The Lord of the Wood The Opener of the Way The God Who Guides the Dead And gives prosperity That…