Nov 17, 2023·edited Nov 17, 2023Liked by Ali Isaac
So many beautiful and moving words of wisdom in your piece, Ali, and experiences that resonate and make me want to reflect, and go to Oweynagat! Thank you
I have always been uncomfortable with the Morrigan stories, and just saying those few words may attract a 'so you should be, you are a man'. My discomforts start with the name. Morrigan sounds very modern, part latinised, part saxon. I wonder, 'How many translations has this been through?' I did like a local storytelling of the Hill Of Keash coming up with Mor na Coire Síoga, 'the infinate cauldron of the Sidhe.
Another discomfort is the war and warrior association as to me war is about creating divisions and the language always includes 'enemy'. Why do other humans have to divided enemy humans to fill fulfilled? Maybe I am overlooking the natural 'culling' that happens throughout nature, but interestingly most of this culling seems to be in the light, not the dark, and is an activity of the males of a species.
The Morrigan stories do seem to have a a beneficial motivation effect on women though. They help to break away feelings of being subservient, oppressed, controlled, and inner voices trapped from release. I feel those stories can encourage, 'yes, I can do this, and independently too. I do not need to ask for permission'.
I also find it sad that people relate to darkness as a realm of 'fear'. This is not helped by the fearmongering process of patriarchal driven religions and 'civilizations'.
I'll always like the simplicity of the oriental Yin Yang approach cold dark and warm light. Because of engrained patriarchal dominance, mention 'cold dark' and both words can strike up fear within many people. But its the cold dark where water flows and life flows too. Put some warmth on water, fire on water, even fire under a cold cauldron, and that life incubates and builds the physical temples of lifeform that carry life.
I tend to always imagine the Morrigan and other HAG stories as being the transformation from the debris of bodies where life has move on, such as after harvest, into the weaving of new life into these materials to create new born temples of life in mammals, birds, fish, plants, trees etc. I think the crow and raven related stories are wonderful for this. Birds that can gobble up pollutants, transform it, and shit it out as the best safe life giving fertiliser.
Sort of related to what you have written about I'm fascinated by the writing of another Substack writer Perdita Finn, who talks of communities being very much living with each other within a matriarchal line, everything starting in the dark and born from the dark and creating community. But when 'civilizations' form the patriarchal line takes over and there are divisions, disconnections, dictating centralization - and the whole thing collapses as the souls and life and banished away.
The dark is not seen or connected to as a place of incubation with life, but as a patriarchal description as a place of horned gods and goddesses, angry body burning eating serpents, and Satan and the Devil. The dark feminine is something to be very afraid of.
I think being 'responsible' for the dark is banishing fear ... and when that fear is gone, also what we had branded as the enemy has gone, and we have found balance again.
So many beautiful and moving words of wisdom in your piece, Ali, and experiences that resonate and make me want to reflect, and go to Oweynagat! Thank you
I have always been uncomfortable with the Morrigan stories, and just saying those few words may attract a 'so you should be, you are a man'. My discomforts start with the name. Morrigan sounds very modern, part latinised, part saxon. I wonder, 'How many translations has this been through?' I did like a local storytelling of the Hill Of Keash coming up with Mor na Coire Síoga, 'the infinate cauldron of the Sidhe.
Another discomfort is the war and warrior association as to me war is about creating divisions and the language always includes 'enemy'. Why do other humans have to divided enemy humans to fill fulfilled? Maybe I am overlooking the natural 'culling' that happens throughout nature, but interestingly most of this culling seems to be in the light, not the dark, and is an activity of the males of a species.
The Morrigan stories do seem to have a a beneficial motivation effect on women though. They help to break away feelings of being subservient, oppressed, controlled, and inner voices trapped from release. I feel those stories can encourage, 'yes, I can do this, and independently too. I do not need to ask for permission'.
I also find it sad that people relate to darkness as a realm of 'fear'. This is not helped by the fearmongering process of patriarchal driven religions and 'civilizations'.
I'll always like the simplicity of the oriental Yin Yang approach cold dark and warm light. Because of engrained patriarchal dominance, mention 'cold dark' and both words can strike up fear within many people. But its the cold dark where water flows and life flows too. Put some warmth on water, fire on water, even fire under a cold cauldron, and that life incubates and builds the physical temples of lifeform that carry life.
I tend to always imagine the Morrigan and other HAG stories as being the transformation from the debris of bodies where life has move on, such as after harvest, into the weaving of new life into these materials to create new born temples of life in mammals, birds, fish, plants, trees etc. I think the crow and raven related stories are wonderful for this. Birds that can gobble up pollutants, transform it, and shit it out as the best safe life giving fertiliser.
Sort of related to what you have written about I'm fascinated by the writing of another Substack writer Perdita Finn, who talks of communities being very much living with each other within a matriarchal line, everything starting in the dark and born from the dark and creating community. But when 'civilizations' form the patriarchal line takes over and there are divisions, disconnections, dictating centralization - and the whole thing collapses as the souls and life and banished away.
The dark is not seen or connected to as a place of incubation with life, but as a patriarchal description as a place of horned gods and goddesses, angry body burning eating serpents, and Satan and the Devil. The dark feminine is something to be very afraid of.
I think being 'responsible' for the dark is banishing fear ... and when that fear is gone, also what we had branded as the enemy has gone, and we have found balance again.
Thank you. Beautiful. jmb