Dear Belly,

I've posted this previously
but I thought you may enjoy it again:

"I come from a tribe of nature worshippers,
pantheists, believers in faeries, forest
sprites, and wood nymphs.
Who heard devils in their windmills, met them
in the woods, cloven-hoofed and dapper gentlemen
of the night.
Who named the god of thunder, who praised and
glorified bread, dark rye waving waist-high out
of the earth, and held it sacred, wasting not
a crumb.
Who spent afternoons mushrooming in forests of pine,
fir, and birch.
Who transferred Jesus from his wooden cross,
transformed him into a wood-carved, worrying peasant,
raised him on a wooden pole above the crossroads
where he sat with infinite patience in rain and snow,
wooden legs apart, wooden elbows on wooden knees,
wooden chin in wooden hand, worrying and sorrowing
for the world...

These people who named their sons and daughters after
amber, rue, fir tree, dawn, storm, are the only people
I know who have a diminutive form for God Himself,
"Dievulis," - "God-my-little-buddy."

Any wonder I catch myself speaking to trees, flowers,
bushes - these eucalyptus so far from Northern Europe.
Or that I bend down to the earth, gather pebbles, acorns,
leaves, boles, bring them home, enshrine them on
mantlepieces or above porcelain fixtures in corners,
any wonder I grow nervous in rooms and must step outside
and touch a tree, or sink my toes in the dirt, or watch
the birds fly by..."
(Al Zolynas. "LITUANUS: Qtly Journal of Arts
and Sciences." v. 49. No.2. Summer 2003.)

That's a lovely piece of writing.

Thanks Foxy :)

Yest it truly is and thanks from me foxy.
I am afraid the thread never quite took the direction I wanted.
But it underlined and answered my questions.
Remember I once buried myself in the arms of Jesus.
I wanted to believe I did very much so.
But time and the school of life showed me some using him to control and direct even insult others.
I researched my faith, found it wanting and grew a little more.
I understand the best comes from Gods all of them.
Foxy so too I see the worst from them all.
Some know, even those on their knees tomorrow know, God is not watching them.
But what a fine dream to follow.
No they will not tell us.
If they intended to it would have been done before you and I got born.
In one hundred years I think we will still have Gods for those who need them, want them, and if only those Gods did not intrude in politics or human rights, internal bickering I would have no problem with any of them.
Internal bickering? Boazy and so very many insist only their God has the right to exist in the minds of the dreamers.

Foxy

That connection with the natural is something 'pagans' shared with the first settlers of Australia.

In its attempt to differentiate itself from other belief systems, by placing humans outside the natural, formal religion and dogma has alienated us from the earth.

Hence our (humanity's) current plight as oil spills smother, irreplaceable resources are devoured and the very environment that sustains us, wasted.

Dear Belly,

You are somebody whose integrity to me is beyond
question and I feel it a privilege to share
cyber space with you. I count you as a friend.

Dear Severin,

Another friend...

Lithuanians have managed to preserve so many old
Indo-European forms in their language, and their
pre-Christian religion was very archaic.

Christianity of Lithuania began very late, at the
end of the 14th century. Traces of the ancient
faith can be found in folklore (tales, legends,
songs, incantations, et cetera) and in folk customs
as analyzed by ethnologists. Also certain features
of the ancient religion reveal themselves in
pre-Christian manners of burial and grave finds as
disclosed by archaeologists. An essential characteristic
of the ancient Baltic (Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian)
religion was its animism, the belief that within each
object there dwells an individual spirit or force
guiding its existence. Such a belief gave rise to a
veneration of natural phenomena and influences.

My grandmother for example, even though she considered
herself a Russian Orthodox,
still retained some of the archaic
practices such as - when it thundered and stormed
heavily she would pray to the God of thunder.
And at funerals part of the funeral wakes and burials
were the lamentation songs...the "raudos" which have
survived up until modern times. The dead were lamented,
praised, and bidden farewell. Thus preserving beautiful
pieces of lyric and extremely touching folk poetry.

These pagan customs are combined with Christian customs
today. Since Lithuania has re-claimed her Independence,
many people today are re-discovering their ancient roots.

Dear CJ,

I'm glad that you liked the work
I posted by Al Zolynas in my earlier
post. It made a huge impression on me
as well when I first read it.
Zolynas summed up Lithuanian beliefs so
beautifully.

I initially had that enlarge and printed on
a card which I gave to my nephew and his
fiancee at their wedding, along with a
marvellous wooden piece of Lithuanian Folk Art,
A sculpture of -
"Dievulis" or "Rupintojelis" (Man of Sorrows),
With All My Love.