Creideamh Sidhe is the belief and practice around the Sidhe, the Good Folk. A big part of this folkloric common faith is to not refer to the Neighbours as "fairies" as it is seen as disrespectful. Instead you should use euphemisms like: Good Neighbours, The Good People, The Folk, The Gentry etc. Traditionally in Ireland the Sidhe were not thought of as Disney fairies who spread joy and magic, they were to be respected and feared, whatever you may do to them they will gladly do back to you ten times harder. There is a story of where someone being rude to a stranger who may be Aengus Óg and this stranger shows himself to be a part of the Sidhe and curses him tenfold.
Even if you didn't cause the Sidhe to be mad at you, there is still the possibility to get caught in the crossfire of warring Sidhe or caught up in their celebrations. With events like the Wildhunt or the Sidhe Gaoithe (Fairy Wind) or even stepping into a Lios/Raths (Fairy Forts) can easily get you into the shit list of the Good Neighbours. Even if not on their bad side, they are known to try and get humans back to their realm, where time moves odd. A well known story is a man who was approached by the Queen of the Sidhe and was taken to her party. There he danced with her in a trance for what felt like hours. He eventually finds a way out and finds the whole world has been made strange. He asks a stranger for the time and he finds seven years has passed. Red and white are colours traditionally connected to the Folk. Traditional offerings to them are red apples, milk and honey. I offer these to my plants when I can.
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Having dreams about the gods or enlightenment or metta (loving-kindness found in Buddhism) is not new for me but has ramped up recently for some reason. I’ve been lucid dreaming most nights for the past month. I used to train myself to lucid dream but stopped years ago. I haven’t picked up any of my old methods, I honestly had forgotten about lucid dreaming until it started happening again. I wake up a lot of mornings with this looming feeling that I’ve done something or figured something out that was weighing on me, but I forget what it was. It reminds me of the time I was lucid dreaming and started to interrogate myself with the Socratic method to figure out parts of myself. That dream was very blurry but I do remember walking up to a massive face sewn onto a tear in my dream cosmos. I talked to them a lot but I’ve forgotten of course what it was.
Now last night I dreamed of something. I forget what, but I woke up with an understanding of who featured in it and that it was important. I had dreamed of Durga Maa, nurturing me and giving me strength. She was a kind presence in the dream. She told me to stop worrying. I know I worry too much. It feels like drowning in a sea, I feel like one day I will be gone forever, I will have no say in my life. It could be a coincidence, I was chanting mantras all day yesterday keeping Ishvara in mind. I was rereading my old hymns and imagining writing some more with my new understanding. -Neela. In Shaktism there is a belief that Devi, the goddess in Hinduism, pervades the whole world and livens the cosmos up. Another name for Devi is Shakti which means power. Often the gods consorts are called their shaktis, without their wives they cannot do their jobs. She is the active creative principle (Prakriti) and Her consort is the passive creative principle (Purusha). Since Devi wakes everything up with Her power by pervading them there is a belief held by some that world is inherently more sacred than when viewed through Vaishnavism or Shaivism.
While nature spirits like yakshasas or yakshinis are viewed somewhat negatively, Devi pervading the world is viewed as good. This does seem to then deny a thought of animism until also taken into consideration Hinduism's general view on the human soul and all souls. In the Gita Krishna tells Arjuna he is within the hearts of all, even many artworks of Hanuman ji show him opening his chest to reveal Shiva and Parvati. God is within the hearts of all, animating us and reminding us to do good and follow our dharma. God is not outside the asuras and yakshasas. As a part of our collective personal healing journey we allow ourselves to explore religion and spirituality (given that we are respectful and go through proper means) this has made us an interfaith system as stated before in another post. But one thing that we occasionally think about is what will happen when we die? If there is an afterlife, which one do we go to? Do we all go to the same one or are we separated?
This post has taken way longer than expected, we've been switching a lot while writing this. Hopefully everyone has been able to express themselves truthfully in this post. Content warning for brief mentions of integration and final fusion. The world has historically been full of many differing and conflicting religions. There are multiple ways to conceptualise the divine through theism, the majority theism in the world as of now is monotheism. I hold the opinion that the divine is inherently multifaceted and that we as individuals try to make sense of something so unknowable. We shouldn't punish people for experiencing something differently than how we do. I want to encourage more interfaith dialogues, the first step being approaching one another in good faith. We shouldn't see someone of a differing theology and say they are inherently wrong and should be punished. There are some misunderstandings on polytheism that I hope to shed a light on, in no way am I trying to convert anyone or be antagonistic towards monotheism.
Being a part of a system means that I share my brain and life with other distinct personality states that have different values, beliefs, goals, likes and dislikes. Instead of forcing everyone to believe and do what I do, we all work together to make sure that we can all live a fulfilling life. A part of this life is allowing ourselves to explore different religions without shame or being made to feel like we are committing a grave sin.
Around half of us are atheists or agnostics, they often just say "well I don't really think about religion." and leave it at that. The other half are mostly polytheistic (maybe because we experience our being as many so why can't the divine experience it that way as well?) with one monotheist. It feels near impossible to find a physical community where we can allow ourselves to explore our individual religions. Australia isn't that aware of mental health outside of depression and generalised anxiety, having to explain to someone that I share my brain and life with other inside-people can lead to the assumption I'm possessed. This is may be absolutely useless to everyone else, but for us this is a good map of who we have been and want to be. When I say "I" I am also meaning "and who ever I was at that time."
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