#all sappy

[jeohnjk]

listening to good indie music makes me feel things i’ve never felt before like nostalgia or some shit

[an-stoirm]

how did you meet lugh

…*cough* Oh gosh, that’s quite a story …

Once upon a time, I didn’t have a religion! No, not even a vague NeoPagan one. I was sure I wasn’t Catholic, nor did I think I was really any sort of religion based in the Bible, so I just kinda floated around thinking there was some sort of divinity but hadn’t thought about it beyond that. And I was in high school and worried about other things, so my priorities weren’t really “set” in figuring out a religious and/or spiritual path for myself.

Then one day in my late junior year, I was browsing the Philosophy section when I saw this BRIGHT yellow spine: The Idiot’s Guide to Wicca and Paganism. Hey! My old friend was Wiccan! I was curious about this before. Hm. I opened it up, started to read the introduction, and it sounded perfect. At the time, anyway. So I bought it. I went home and read it over. All this stuff sounded great! Sounded just what I needed, what I felt was right.

(Of course, this book is utter shit. I don’t recommend it at all. This book probably got its sources—if any—from Ravenwolf, Cunningham, and Margaret Murray. NOT useful, not accurate, and certainly not credible. But yet…it was my start.) 

In this book, you had to pick two gods! A patron and a matron. (This whole concept is repulsive now that I know more about paganism as a whole, and especially now that I know about Gaelic Polytheism.) I decided to look at the ~Celtic~ deity list because my dad’s side of the family was Irish, so I should go with those roots! 

Lugh was listed, who I pronounced wrongly at first. And so was was Brigid. I picked those two names. They sounded nice! Hey, Lugh was even a ~sun god~. That sounds warm! (But no, Lugh is not a sun god. That concept is foreign to the pre-Christian Gaelic religion.) 

Now, I had these names, but then what? I was suppose to do a ritual with both of them. There was a convoluted NeoWiccan ceremony listed…but I don’t think I really went with that. Or, at least, I didn’t follow it to the T. I was having troubles with depression and anxiety at this point in my life. They were getting worse, and I was in semi-denial of it all. I think I picked an evening when I hadn’t gone to school that day because I didn’t have the energy. Depression zaps the energy out of me so easily. I was on the wrong medication at the time, so that didn’t help.

So, ignorant-and-naive me ~called upon~ Lugh and Brigid (pronouncing both those names as though they were English words, not Irish) to my … circle? I don’t recall if I casted a circle or not. I had two tea candles to represent both of them. I had a small tarot deck to try to communicate with them. It was late in the house, probably well close to midnight, and the lights were out.

And I cried. 

I cried and asked for help. I was scared. I didn’t know why I was so tired, why I was so weak, why I was so scared even. I asked what I should do. And Lugh actually answered me: I’ll take care of you. That’s what the Tarot cards said, anyway.

I placed the two tea candles into a small metal bucket. Then I wrote on a piece of paper “depression” and threw it on top of the candles. The flame raised and I could feel both Brigid and Lugh squashing the illness.

…Of course, that didn’t heal me, but I continued to honor Lugh afterwards. In that ritual-type-setting, Brigid seemed to step back with this understanding that Lugh would help me, therefore she wouldn’t be needed.

I have slowly been acquiring better information about Lugh and the culture He is from. I first learned how to pronounce His name in a skype chat with a NeoWiccan I met online. Then I learned He wasn’t really a Sun God. Now, I’m learning more about how to honor Him within His parent culture.

Given my beginnings three-ish years ago… I’m really surprised Lugh has stayed around. I have gone through long periods of not speaking to Him or praying to Him because either anxiety or depression—or both—got too strong for me to focus on anything but the bare essentials. Recently, I’ve been swept up with school and helping my boyfriend. I don’t know what He saw in our first meeting that made Him feel like He should protect me… but I hope I can live up to it somehow. I plan to figure it out and try, anyway.

-big breath- So TLDR? I found His name in a crappy NeoPagan-NeoWiccan book that called Him a sun god, asked Him for help, and He obliged. 

ADDENDUM: This thought came in my mind after I queued this ask: I often hear that you don't choose what gods you honor, they choose you. And I always felt down that I did choose--however poorly, sloppily, and naively--to honor Lugh before He gave me any signs.

However... Since I was young, I always found thunderstorms comforting. When I got older, it became a sorta UPG that "God" sent a thunderstorm to soothe me whenever I was upset. After I found Lugh, I decided He was then sending me thunderstorms. Well, as it would turn out, Thunderstorms are actually something lore attests as an association to Lugh. So...maybe...Lugh had been sending me signs for over a decade before I stumbled upon Him. Maybe that's why His name felt so warm when I read it on that list. Maybe He did choose me before I knew who He was, before I knew to even look. 

This is a rather comforting thought to think about...