How I am attached to the river Rhine and what it means for my spirituality, plus a blast from my Pagan journey past.
I have had a strange attachement to the river Rhine, since I was small and I moved 11x in 23 years, but the Rhine was almost always there and I consider places my home as long as the Rhine is nearby, or the spirituality is in tune like in England, but that is different story.
Anyway, as soon as I am at the Rhine I feel grounded, at peace. I feel like I belong, which is a very rare emotion for me.
TL; DR: There is river deity called Rhenus, associated with the river Rhine, which can be traced back to Celtic roots and was described as early as in the antiquity. It solves my confusion/confliction about walking the Norse Pagan or the Celtic Pagan path for now.
When you live in the Rhine valleys you grow up with the personification of Vater Rhein / Rhenus pater / Father Rhine.
The imagery of Vater Rhein was often used during the Rhine romatic period, so there are a some monuments to be seen. (I will add that to my travel to-see list.)
But there is also a personified deity! It is called Rhenus and the name can be tracked back to Celtic roots. Early Greek depictions describe Rhenus as hybrid creature, a bull with human body, flowing mane and beard. Similar to a minotaur, right? Only during the Christianization his attributes became more human.
Also, the allegory "Rhenus with broken horns" was even used as a Roman description of the defeated "barbarian tribes" around the Rhine, which means both Celts and Germanic people.
This brings me to the authors of Byzantine and late antiquity, which described that the Celts and the Germanic people dipped their newborns into the Rhine to see whether they were conceived in wedlock or just to toughen them up.
Also there are several sacred stones with inscriptions to honour Rhenus across Germany, Netherlands, France and Switzerland. The ones in Germany are actually quite close to where I live.
So, what does that mean for my spirituality? I am looking forward to research into that, because it would give me a reason why I am equally drawn to Germanic / Norse deities and the Celtic deities, which are to be honest quite similar, but not yet the same.
It would put together two pieces of my spiritual / pagan puzzle that I have been trying to solve for years.
Blast from the past: When I was 7 years old I was making my first offerings to a deity that I have learnt to understand as Rhiannon and I was strangely fascinated by the White Stag. I did not know back then that it was Paganism. It just felt like the right thing to do!
I hit puberty and Odin from the Norse pantheon called me. I knew he was there. But I was in denial until a few weeks ago. I was in denial, because I did not want to follow any Pagan metal stereotypes, especially enhanced by the band Amon Amarth. I was working with Skadhi, cause I felt connected to her, too, but I have lost that connection a year ago. I have been wondering, felt lost, until I finally realized that I got the Futhark rune that is associated with Odin as a tattoo. Strangely enough I got it tattoed in a Celtic knot design, cause I wanted to connect both my fascinations / attraction with the Celtic and the Norse. It is super good to see this puzzle come together now! I always felt that working with e.g. Mannan Mac Lír was appropiation, cause I do not think/ know that I have any ancestors there nor did I grew up on the British Isles, respectively the Isle of Man. But I also feel especially Mannan intensely when being on the British Isles! Anyway, those two hearts beat in my chest. Who know where it is coming from? A previous life? My hypersensitivy to my surroundings? I know it is there and I can finally starting to work with it.
I’m super insecure about showing and sharing the Pagan / Witch part of me, although I have technically been wandering this part since I was 7 years old, so for roughly 17 years now. T_T
