Extant

extant

I was reading the book, The Lore and Language of Children.  I noticed a section about the winter solstice tradition of “Burying the Wren.”  - The wren, the wren, though he be small, his family is great...

I picked up the idea that the Otherside (afterlife) is a mirror world, everything is reversed.  I think I saw that recently on Magpie’s Facebook page: “ the place from where it is impossible to return in the same form.”

Suppose, they were expecting the wren to come back?  From the smallest bird dying, to the greatest bird being reborn?  The greatest bird might be the Firebird.  I will go take a closer look at the Firebird stories.  -And the Firebird in Russian Embroideries, wood carvings, paintings...

I was thinking about the word, extant.  I’m looking at thousands of photos of folk art on Pinterest.  I’m hoping to figure out what people believed by looking at their art.  This is my theme: Pagans Hidden in Plain Sight.  If we can assume that many of the old pieces of folk art were made with a pagan mindset - I notice, I said assume here.  Everything I’m doing seems to hang on that assumption.  Well, if that’s so, then we can see folkart as a source for recreating the pagan worldview.

Because I’m not interested in esoteric stuff (I had to look it up, esoteric means limited to a small group of people) - I want an understanding of what was widely believed in animist, pre-Christian societies.  Pre-Islamic also.  So, extant means remaining, found, surviving from long ago.  The ideas of a people remain in their art long after they are gone.

I found that the Willies occur frequently next to pictures of dragons.  And dragons seem to be female.  I started to wonder if dragons and Firebird might be the same thing.  I found pictures that seemed to link lions and unicorns to pagan ideas.  Heraldry seems to be loaded with pagan symbols.  Unicorns, I’m convinced are male...  There is a lot to discover in the folkart, but needed a key to open it all.  E.W. Barber’s book, The Dancing Goddesses, was my key.

Just a few seeds

I think I know why the polka has dots: they are seeds.  So far, I have NOT found anyone who agrees with me.  Am I crazy?

Yes, but I’m taking my medicine faithfully.

Today, I was waiting a long time.  I noticed that the birch trees were moving in the breeze.  The leaves flap just like quaking aspen.  It looked like the birches were dancing.  So, here is my list of reasons why the birch is a magic tree:  [Love your food] birch syrup, birch beer, edible cambium, possibly edible leaves - early spring only,  [Gift of fire] birch bark for fire starting, bark that moves when it burns, logs for warmth,  [Rebirth] birches regrow when they are cut down, first trees to appear after a forest fire/ old field succession,  [Sacred grove] birches may be planted in patterns, bent, and woven together.  Almost forgot to add: birch switches symbolize life, and they are used for fragrance in the sauna.

I’m frustrated to see another magazine publishing knitting patterns that refer to the Selbu Rose - the Auseklis, without any mention of its pagan meaning.  How can I be the only one to see it?  I should have written a letter to the Atlantic Monthly last year.  They did a Christmas article about the Auseklis, which they called a “snowflake” Wrong!  Their article traced the history back to the mid 1800’s and stopped without any mention of the Auseklis motif earlier history.  Maybe it’s too dangerous to mention that in very old folk art, the Auseklis is often beside the swastika.  I think I wrote about this already - I will not use the swastika, for obvious reasons.

Seeds — if you know to look for them, there are seeds everywhere in folk art.  Think of pomegranates in Turkish art, symbols of fullness and life.  Seeds are abundance, fertility, a happy future.

I wish I could write a little more clearly.  I would like to show everyone a simple, down-to-earth, not esoteric paganism based on only European art.  I met somebody who walked the Camino de Santiago, she told me that she saw animism in Galicia.  This suggests that I’m on the right track.  I can’t find much other help right now.  Seems that the people who know the answers do not speak English, so I will have to learn a new language to do my research...