From: ciaran@county.lmt.mn.org (Ciaran Benson)
Subject: Re: Lithuanian myth, ect.
Reply-To: ciaran@county.lmt.mn.org (Ciaran Benson)
Organization: LaserMaster Technologies, Minneapolis, MN
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 92 22:20:58 GMT

In article <NqDFqB1w165w@korova.uucp>, popec@korova.uucp (Mr. Charlie) writes:
> ... the Indiana University Press. 
> They are offering the following:
>   Of Gods And Men:  Studies in Lithuanian Mythology
>   Algirdas julien Gremias
>    This first translation of Apie Dievus Ir Zmones is a brilliant 
>    Convergence og Greimas' historical and folklore studies.  As both 
>    story teller and explicator, he gives rise to the cultural memory of 
> his people by deciphering the symbolic world of lituanian mythology.

 [...]

> Don't know if Thor Finn or for that matter Ciaran Benson, (was that the 
> person who was Lithuanian, as stated a few post back?), are THAT 
> interested, but there you are.

  Interested? _INTERESTED_?

  Yee Freeking Ha !!!

  Consider it Ordered (let's see, a copy for me, a copy for loaning
out, a copy for grandma, a copy for my mother, a copy for my sister,
a copy to offer to the Goddess in Her guise of the local University
library ...)

> Odd how I am reading posts about 
> something as obscure as the Teutonic Knights subjectection of Lithuania 
> and then to read this the next day.  Jung called it serendipity.
> More proof, but of what?
> By the way, when the Teutonic Knights attacked the Baltics, wasn't the 
> region then a united kingdom called Samogita? Anyone recall or have 
> relevant history books to check?  I believe that many years ago I read 
> that Samogita was the last major Pagan country in Europe before the 
> Catholic Church destroyed it.

  Odd how I was just wondering to myself what direction my learning
was going to take next.  Finish trying to learn Japanese?  Take another
year of Mandrin (frankly, bo- hun\ how\ [look, ma, ASCII inflections!], and
I mean _BO-_HUN\_ how\)?, start trying to piece together some semblence of
an understanding of the history of Lithuanian and Mongolia and try to
piece those ancesteral places into my primarily Helenistic belief structures?

  Well, I guess I'll be spending some time at the Lithuanian institute and
picking up Japanese on the side (hmmm, possible joke there ...)

  Serendipity?  Hmmm ... my grandmother always told me that magic is the
sideffect of doing things right.  Maybe this all this was just right at
the right time in the right way.

  Maybe magic and serendipity are the same thing -- especially from an
experiential zen point of view (no memory, no memory of experience, only
experience -- everything happens when it should).

  Funny joke, though -- there's a street in Minneapolis where all of the
MAJOR institutes are located; the Swedish institute, various Masonic and
Bulwinkle lodges, the Lithuanian institute, and lots and lots of big
impressive Greek and Roman facades scattered along nearly a mile of tree-lined
asphalt.

  I don't think ANYONE knows the real name of the street, we just call it
Temple Road.

  But that it were ... >sigh< ... some days I could really go for a local
marble-lined temple to Demeter.  When I walked through the Luvre (I really
haven't a clue how to spell that -- the big gallery in Paris), I was kind
of wandering aimlessly until I walked into the Helenist Period rooms.

  Right in the middle of the room was Persephone, full height, eye-to-eye.
I thought I was going to die.  I thought I was dead.  I turned to see what
she was looking at, and there behind me was a towering 20-foot tall Athena.

  One really beautiful thing about the Luvre is that no one bothers you as
long as you don't try to touch the art -- genuflecting in front of statuary
seems not only tolerated, but welcomed by the guards.

  Those statues still echo with the sound of (as has been said) thousands of
voices engaged in elegant piety.

  Intimate relations with the Goddess in "the raw" is fine, but I _WISH_
there was just _ONE_ Pagan temple in the Twin Cities with creches for the
various traditions.

  Hell, even if there was a Chatholic cathedral in the area with a creche to
Joan de Arch I'd be satiated.

  Another potentially funny story (Pagans in cathedrals) there ... but later.

  Blessed be, Ciaran.

  $uslinit; include oblig.sig <<
  "...And here, Queen Aphrodite, pour heavenly nectar into gold
   cups, and fill them gracefully with sudden joy."  -- Sappho >>