[Main Blog Post] Thoughts on The Well and the Tree

[jprussell]

I've put together my first stab at talking through what I learned from The Well and the Tree by Paul Bauschatz, but it's a bit long, so I'm only going to post a link. I'm still experimenting with how best to get folks attention, solicit comments, and so forth, but I may have some other approaches in the future.

So, comment here or email me and I'll add it to the post there!

Comments

[deketemoisont]

"If you're looking for stuff on indigenous Mexican religion, open_space might be a good resource." - while I've seen him say interesting stuff, I think what he knows in practice is mostly European/Iberian Christian (which is also my impression regarding even mages of purely Amerindian race in the Andes), which can also at least partly be found in Brazil (e.g. Dogma and Ritual of High Magic in Portuguese is sold on some newsstands here). As someone not terribly inclined to the "hylic normie" ( https://violetcabra.dreamwidth.org/381271.html ) magic of most people (not meaning open_space as "hylic normie", but employers of folk magic in general), or to monotheism, the "reconstructionism" part was doing much of the heavy lifting in that description (I'm also not inclined to "Reconstructionism" in the narrow sense criticized by JMG, but I'd have looked into something clearly polytheistic with whatever philosophy the Mesoamericans had that could still be found). (Thanks, and in comments I just noticed open_space intends to write more about Mesoamerican relgion and thought than he did thus far!)

"the main dude makes me look laconic" - true; from a brief look, I thought he overdid it, while you're well-calibrated (for my taste; but then I'm sure you know how to be briefer in other contexts).

[jprussell]

Yeah, I first noticed open_space's Catholic take on things, but some of his comments have referenced Mexican "shamanism" and some other indigenous practices, so I'm not sure where his expertise extends, but he's shown good faith and reasonableness on JMG fora and has *some* exposure/connection to native Mexican polytheism, so I thought he might be helpful. And yeah, I think I understand where you're coming from on ambivalence toward "reconstructionism".

"'the main dude makes me look laconic' - true; from a brief look, I thought he overdid it, while you're well-calibrated (for my taste; but then I'm sure you know how to be briefer in other contexts)."

Hah! Thanks - I sure hope I do, considering "be concise!" is one of the main things I teach my students. That'd be awfully embarrassing if I'm actually terrible at that.

[deketemoisont]

I'll keep an eye on open_space's blog; thanks!

"That'd be awfully embarrassing if I'm actually terrible at that." - quite funny to anyone else, but that wouldn't be of much help to you!