Poem: "Of Liminal Bent"
Nov. 17th, 2018 04:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis is the freebie for the November ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by prompts from alexseanchai. It also fills the "liminal time" square in my 9-30-18 card for the Fall Bingo fest.
"Of Liminal Bent"
There have always been those
who walked between the worlds,
who were not merely one or the other.
There have always been those
of liminal bent, attracted to others
of their own gender, or falling
between genders themselves.
They are winkte and seiðmaðr,
galatur and kurgarra.
In some cultures
they were loved,
and in others feared;
but they were always
known for their power.
They knew men's ways
and women's ways.
They saw into both
the world of matter
and the world of spirit.
They held in their two hands
the earth and the sky.
They walked between
the sea and the shore,
the forest and the field.
They went forth by
dawn and by dusk,
worked magic by
half-moon light.
Those of liminal bent
drew their power from
all that lay between.
So it was, so it is,
so it shall ever be.
Today we arise and
walk in the sunlight,
speak over the far air,
and tell inconvenient truths.
We take up our sovereignty,
don robes of royal purple.
We still go between, and
some people still listen.
We are those of liminal bent,
and its powers are born in us.
* * *
Notes:
Liminality is the quality of all that lies between other concepts. It is associated with transition, danger, and power.
A winkte is a Lakota person with traits that cross over sex/gender lines, considered a third sex/gender. Today two-spirit is an umbrella term spanning various sex/gender categories from many tribes that go beyond the typical masculine and feminine roles.
A seiðmaðr is a Norse man who works magic through receptive homosexual activity. It was link with nið, which had profound legal implications. These concepts were terrible and terrifying, powerless and powerful, a contradiction -- and inextricably linked with Loki, the gendershifting trickster.
The galatur and kurgarra appear in "The Descent of Inanna." In most translations, the galatur and kurgarra are described as "two sexless beings." Yet if they are both sexless, the same, why do they have different names? This combined with various interpretations of other bits of Sumerian and Babylonian lore has led some people to describe them instead as neuter and hermaphrodite, agender and transgender, or asexual and bisexual. English words don't really fit, because modern culture draws the lines in different ways than the ancestors did. But the concepts of "both" and "neither" seem to apply. In any case, the service of Inanna and Erishkegal attracted a variety of people who in some way differed from the ordinary sex/gender roles of their time.
crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by prompts from alexseanchai. It also fills the "liminal time" square in my 9-30-18 card for the Fall Bingo fest. "Of Liminal Bent"
There have always been those
who walked between the worlds,
who were not merely one or the other.
There have always been those
of liminal bent, attracted to others
of their own gender, or falling
between genders themselves.
They are winkte and seiðmaðr,
galatur and kurgarra.
In some cultures
they were loved,
and in others feared;
but they were always
known for their power.
They knew men's ways
and women's ways.
They saw into both
the world of matter
and the world of spirit.
They held in their two hands
the earth and the sky.
They walked between
the sea and the shore,
the forest and the field.
They went forth by
dawn and by dusk,
worked magic by
half-moon light.
Those of liminal bent
drew their power from
all that lay between.
So it was, so it is,
so it shall ever be.
Today we arise and
walk in the sunlight,
speak over the far air,
and tell inconvenient truths.
We take up our sovereignty,
don robes of royal purple.
We still go between, and
some people still listen.
We are those of liminal bent,
and its powers are born in us.
* * *
Notes:
Liminality is the quality of all that lies between other concepts. It is associated with transition, danger, and power.
A winkte is a Lakota person with traits that cross over sex/gender lines, considered a third sex/gender. Today two-spirit is an umbrella term spanning various sex/gender categories from many tribes that go beyond the typical masculine and feminine roles.
A seiðmaðr is a Norse man who works magic through receptive homosexual activity. It was link with nið, which had profound legal implications. These concepts were terrible and terrifying, powerless and powerful, a contradiction -- and inextricably linked with Loki, the gendershifting trickster.
The galatur and kurgarra appear in "The Descent of Inanna." In most translations, the galatur and kurgarra are described as "two sexless beings." Yet if they are both sexless, the same, why do they have different names? This combined with various interpretations of other bits of Sumerian and Babylonian lore has led some people to describe them instead as neuter and hermaphrodite, agender and transgender, or asexual and bisexual. English words don't really fit, because modern culture draws the lines in different ways than the ancestors did. But the concepts of "both" and "neither" seem to apply. In any case, the service of Inanna and Erishkegal attracted a variety of people who in some way differed from the ordinary sex/gender roles of their time.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-17 11:07 am (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2018-11-17 11:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-17 03:38 pm (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2018-11-17 08:32 pm (UTC)Also, that's one of my favorite myths, and they're two of my goddesses. I tend to portray Erishkegal as the Goddess of Thankless Tasks.
IT ME!
Date: 2018-11-17 03:55 pm (UTC)YEAH.
Representation MATTERS, dammit. Thank you.
Re: IT ME!
Date: 2018-11-18 10:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-17 05:24 pm (UTC)so it shall ever be.
There really have always been these people, haven't there? But acceptance - not just tolerance, or knowledge, but acceptance - is hard to come by.
Well ...
Date: 2018-11-17 08:39 pm (UTC)The Vikings were batshit homophobes. And whose cosmology ends with a massive godwar that nobody survives? Uh huh. This is why queerbashing your trickster is a terrible, horrible idea.
Contrast that with Lakota and Sumerian cultures, which were accepting and respectful. "The Descent of Inanna" is one of the few stories in which a problem is solved, not with violence, but with emotional first aid.
Re: Well ...
Date: 2018-11-17 09:02 pm (UTC)...huh
Re: Well ...
Date: 2018-11-17 09:26 pm (UTC)It's better than chess, and it actually works with most death deities. They get no sympathy. It knocks them right off their script.
=O
Date: 2018-11-17 10:28 pm (UTC)(The Young Wizards fan in me approves of problems getting solved through emotional first aid.)
Re: =O
Date: 2018-11-17 11:14 pm (UTC)I linked a version of it, just click on that.
>> (The Young Wizards fan in me approves of problems getting solved through emotional first aid.) <<
:D
I write that a lot. For an example of what happens when aliens try to invade Terramagne, see "Touching Someone's Pain."
For Young Wizards fanfic, see Schrodinger's Heroes, where the characters often get turned into cats. LOL_HEROES has some examples, especially Star, and Saash has her own page.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-18 02:02 am (UTC)Also, reacting to the fic links in order:
"Touching Someone's Pain" - I am now going to incorporate EFA into my everyday language. Like TLC!
Also QUILTBAG is a new acronym on me, but I think I like it.
And as for LOL_HEROES - they're such good cats! ;a; Even Evil!Schrodinger. I have a weakness for feline fluffers. Star is adorable, and as for Saash... she is the cat of the rat-squelching scream.
I love her.
Re: the YW crossover fics - aha! Hanukkah has come early!
(Lastly: for bonus points, Caitlin Decter - one of the main characters in the WWW Trilogy - has a cat named Schrodinger, though he's a three-colored tabby.)
Thoughts
Date: 2018-11-18 02:16 am (UTC)Yay!
>> "Touching Someone's Pain" - I am now going to incorporate EFA into my everyday language. Like TLC! <<
I'm glad I could turn you onto that. It's a tremendously useful skill. I've written a lot about it. Check my How To tag for things like introducing EFA for adults.
>> Also QUILTBAG is a new acronym on me, but I think I like it. <<
:D It's fun.
>> And as for LOL_HEROES - they're such good cats! ;a; Even Evil!Schrodinger. I have a weakness for feline fluffers. Star is adorable, and as for Saash... she is the cat of the rat-squelching scream.
I love her.<<
Saash is one of my favorites.
As for Evil!Schrodinger, well, I ship Good!Schrodinger/Evil!Schrodinger. <3
>>(Lastly: for bonus points, Caitlin Decter - one of the main characters in the WWW Trilogy - has a cat named Schrodinger, though he's a three-colored tabby.)<<
Fascinating.
Received gnosis
Date: 2018-11-18 12:13 am (UTC)Ragnarok was about Ithunn, who was not mature before the death of Baldur. A bearer of seithr, a friend of most Aesir and Vanir (including Loki and Odin), who worked in the kitchens of Freyr. She was the innocent whose wisdom made her the unnamed companion in certain wisdom-tales. She, a shapeshifter and animal-friend, a keeper of medicines and ages and the wisdosm of the many peoples and their ways. Ithunn was servant of Hel in her time, learning the medicines of life and death, for Hel is a keeper of nurses and doctors (while Odin is both king and grave-god). She went to learn from the dwarves, and returned with the seax knife she carries yet, forged by her hand.
Bragi was mentioned as her husband in written myth -- turns out, that name is a mask for a word-keeper whose form is a woman's. As you say, no Viking would have allowed her to be as she is, but the gods understood.
But who else is Ithunn?
She is Ithunn of the Rainbow Eye. IT IS SHE WHOSE HAND WIELDS THE SWORD BIFROST, bridge across all reality, passage between life and death.
Ragnarok has come and gone, and we are in its aftermath, which need not resemble the Fimbulwinter (that was merely one way the End of the Age could have gone). Ragnarok was her rise to her true seat, as Odin's seneschal, because she knows the people of every way and kind. Which was resisted until every diety had been tested by Bifrost's touch, because she was believed to be nothing more than a cook-maid despite keeping the secrets of eternal youth and power, including resurrection and immortality, as well as the truth of every corruption and the means of killing gods. She made war because almost nobody believed "our little adopted girl" (born Vanir, adopted into the Aesir) was worthy of the role, and her maturity drew testing to prove her strength. Loki was already dead; but she tested the dead as well as the living.
Afterward, she brought them all back so the people would know: There is no end to immortal Truth.
Believe as you will.
Re: Received gnosis
Date: 2018-11-18 02:53 am (UTC)Re: Received gnosis
Date: 2018-11-18 03:24 am (UTC)Re: Received gnosis
Date: 2018-11-18 03:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-17 06:10 pm (UTC)We have ALWAYS been here.
Yes ...
Date: 2018-11-17 09:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-17 06:45 pm (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2018-11-17 09:00 pm (UTC)