Two Shintō shrines on Awaji Island are associated with the creation myth of Japan (国生み神話) in the earliest chronicles Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. At Onokoro Island Shrine (自凝島神社), visitors are encouraged to perform rituals to sacred stones for good fortune. The sekirei stone (鶺鴒石) is for couples, with a white and red cord, and I was surprised that my wife grasped my hand and prayed as we held the cords.
We also went to Izanagi Shrine (伊弉諾神宮), dedicated to the two founding gods or pillars (二神、又は二柱) of the archipelago. Worshippers believe that the founding gods dwell in the 900-year-old husband-and-wife camphor tree (夫婦楠). We have seen a similar tree at Ōmiwa Jinja in Nara (大神神社) where two trees merged into one at the base. We also noticed a connection to the Onokoro Island Shrine at the Izanagi Shrine, a small sekirei monument to married couples (夫婦鶺鴒像), and both sites included a bird motif.
The Bugis are Muslim, but their belief is strongly influenced by their ancestral #religion.
One #belief centres around the Monitor lizard. The animal is believed to have a human #soul & to be the twin of children. They are treated with respect.
Bugis also categorize people into 5 genders. Each is needed to keep the universe in balance.
Bissu, the #gender which is neither man nor woman, is the intermediary between humans & #gods.
Born of Rhea, last of her children
A young god from the womb of an eldeer
Fathered by Kronos, king of the heavens
Of an era long gone now
Destined to be consumed were you
For your father feared the future
Not knowing he was the cause
Of his very own demise
Raised on Crete, that sacred land
Where spirits of the land were tasked with you
Fed the milk of Amaltheia, the goat
And kept hidden by the songs of the Kouretes
Destiny was no match for your mother saved you
A stone she gave your hungry father
Who subsumed it into himself
As he would have done to you
A young and powerful god you were
Told tales of your father’s guilt
And your mothers desperate gamble
You grew to beauteous godhood
Destiny once more exerted her power
You rose to high Olympus
And to your father presented yourself
A cupbearer to serve him as he ruled
A scheming god, wise and patient
A cup you prepared for your father
Herbs and spices in his beloved wine
To induce in him a need to set off your plans
Destiny spun its threads
And into the tapestry of life set your story
As god after god was born anew
From the father’s body expelled
With divine power and righteous anger
The children went to war with their father
From the depths others released
To fight for you in this holy time
Destiny wove your righteous actions into fate
The great mother advised you and yours
Thunder was forged for you
To win this holy war in the heavenly realm
The war won you took a wife
And betrayed the children of Earth
Whose weapons helped your cause
And into the dark pits did you send them
So Destiny once more turned its spindle
The threads once more she wove into life
A new perophecy, a new fate
One we pray will not come to pass
And so you rule, O Heavenly Zeus
God of the mountain peaks
Stirring the clouds to storming
Bearer of the thunder that none yet dare face
As Spring approaches, take a moment to put your hands on the earth, in soil, and remind yourself that from her you came and to her you will one day return. Therefore, you are part of her blessing to the world. #pagan#hellenismos#polytheism#gods#olympus#religion#prayer
Maybe it wasn’t a very good idea to play a game about death right after playing a game about death. However, death is constantly looming, either slowly in the background or right before our eyes. It can be but a little diluted concept in the back of our minds, or it can be announced on a visit to the doctor. It can be a gamble because of our lifestyle, or it can be a gamble because of a diagnosis. It can come due to old age or earlier due to unforeseen circumstances. When people say that we should cherish the moments we have with each other it can come as a big cliche, and indeed it is. You can find the most beautiful words to describe the inevitable but, in the end, it’s very much our nature and the nature of all things living.
Try to imagine a world without death. I’ve tried it many times. It’s the realm of the impossible but we can make the exercise. How many would we be? Would we be constant for all eternity, or would more people be born? How could someone come into existence in a world where there’s eternal permanence? Would there be conflict and consequence like punishment for all eternity, without means to alleviate pain and suffering? Would there be eternal happiness in the arms of a loved one guaranteed to live forever? Would we jump into another relationship after those failed 500 years of marriage? Would there be years and the concept of time even? Would we become of another nature to adapt to a nature without renewal? Why would someone want this? There’s someone who wants this.
It’s very easy to spoil a game like Slay the Princess (StP) or any visual novel for that matter. Even games from other genres are a little difficult to write about if we don’t decide to include spoilers. Hold your thoughts about death because they will be a constant while you navigate StP. Not everything is about death, there’s more to the game and its nature, there’s loops and loops, of constant coming and going, and in the process, we witness love, violence, despair and our own reflected image in the mirror. All of it happens inside a cabin, or in another cabin in another time. The memories remain, but the path is another, although the same. StP felt more like a roguelike visual novel than a visual novel with many routes. It is in fact a visual novel with many routes and sub-routes and sub-sub-routes, but I liked to entertain the idea of a roguelike game where I was constantly dying and could come back to where I started now armed with valuable knowledge only to be surprised that nothing was how it was before.
You have to slay the princess; you just have to. And if you don’t, the world is going to end. What will you do? Look, I did everything or so I thought. I played the game for about 6 hours, and I got about three endings. If you decide to play the game the achievement bar is a good indicator of your progress. I’m at 37% therefore I haven’t seen half of the outcomes in the game. The princess is inside a cabin chained inside a basement. Your task is very straightforward, but which cabin you end up in or which princess will you find depends on your choices. It doesn’t matter if you live or die for the princess will always be communicating something. However, how do we know we have to kill the princess? We have a voice – the Narrator – that tells us to do so. But, since we go back and forth (or only forth) in this loop, how many are they?
The game is not only a quest about slaying the princess and preventing the end of the world. It’s also about the player and their journey to find their own identity. After all, we have to find a clue about why we have to kill a princess in the first place, and where to find some answers as to how to proceed towards the conclusion of our quest. It seems more complicated than it is. Even though it doesn’t look like it at first, the game has a start and an ending, and each route doesn’t take long to complete. The help of a guide for the completionists should come in handy.
Slay the Princess was created by Black Tabby Games and released in 2023 for PC. It has great art and extremely good voice acting. It was one of the indie games I looked forward to playing upon release, in 2023, but I only managed to play it now.
L'asso de pêche sportives saint-maixentaises, l’ #APIEEE, la Fédération de Charente-Maritime pour la pêche, la Fédération des Deux-Sèvres des asso. pour la pêche #AAPPMA, le Groupe ornithologique des Deux-Sèvres #GODS, la #LPO, #NE17, #PCN
I think coming into the right pantheon of Gods can feel like a homecoming because you have finally arrived at a mythopoetic vantage point in the cosmos that most completely resembles your experience of reality and its divine Stewards speak to you in the language of your own mind and body.
Did you know that in #ancient#Athens some men had to suffer as scapegoats for angry #gods ?
The Thargelia was an annual #festival for #Apollo & Artemis. While various rituals were performed, one involved choosing one (or two) very #ugly men, feeding them & either beating them & throwing them from a cliff, or casting them out of the city.
The 2 sacrifices were given necklaces of black figs & white figs - representing the #sacrifice from the men and women of Athens respectively.
If the #gardening#gods are kind to me, the lettuce seedlings will easily transplant to the raised #garden bed when they're big enough to go outside.
I'm a ham-handed #gardener, & when I transplant delicate seedlings I often dislodge so much soil that the tiny roots become exposed. So these open-ended cardboard rolls should hold long enough to simply place in the soil, as is, & let #nature do its thing!
Does anyone have good reference to learn about #mythology and stories around the world ? It can be books, webpages, even podcast ( even though I don't really like podcasts)... Thank you :ablobcatattention: #mythology#gods
Nooormally I put all the epag beads directly to the God of the Year's statue, and dress my Wepwawet statues appropriately (dark blue is this year's color), but two things happened: 1) I had to buy a proper statue for Nefertem, so that's still not here yet, and 2) I went to make my bead dressings and -did not have the beads I thought I did-.