Brighid and Otherworld Goddesses

Soliwo left a message in the Meadowsweet Commons asking a bit more about Brighid in her dark aspect, and possible connections with Persephone. Below is what I wrote in response:

Soliwo, It's good to hear from you!

And what a wonderful synchronicity that you've shared about Persephone! A couple weeks ago, I received a new DSLR camera as an early solstice present, and one of my first projects with it was experimenting in low light conditions to test the limits of its settings and sensor quality. Inspired by some of photographs I'd seen recently and an impulse purchase of a pomegranate at Whole Foods - I decided to do a series inspired by Persephone's story! I've shared the results here if you want to see them. :)

It's interesting, because I don't really have a relationship with Persephone at all. Maybe it's because of being woefully over-educated in the Greek myths when I was younger, but for me the Greek deities have that same "abstract" feeling as you describe feeling towards the Celtic gods. For a long time, I felt that abstraction about the Celtic gods, too, and it was only after shifting my perspective that I realized maybe there was a different way of approaching Celtic gods than Greek ones.... if that makes any sense. I'm still exploring, so I'm not sure I can go into detail about what that difference might be, but in my experience the Celtic deities are much more like complex, multi-faceted people with overlapping roles and relationships (and all of them very closely tied into the natural world), whereas the Greek deities seem more like personifications of cultural movements, forces or aspects (and more "civilized" or urban than wild or connected to the wilderness).

I think the gods, like ordinary people, are influenced by the cultures they belong to and the landscapes they inhabit. And like people, they can also change and adapt over time. It's good to be wary of cultural (mis)appropriation, but I wouldn't worry too much about eclecticism and syncretism. We have lots of evidence that this kind of cultural blending and exchange was going on all the time in the ancient world. Heck, half of the archeological evidence we have for the Celtic deities comes from the Romano-Celtic period when the Romans began writing things down and carving human-looking statues of gods that had once resided only in abstract designs and natural earth formations. (And the other half comes from the lingering folk traditions and reinterpretations of Celtic Christianity!) In my experience, striving too hard for some kind of purity in adhering to the "original" beliefs and practices of our ancestors can be unhelpful and even stifling for our spiritual relationships.

So I guess part of my advice at this point - if you're looking for advice! - would be to explore widely and pay attention to how you feel when you're trying to connect with the gods. You're bringing your own modern cultural assumptions and patterns to whatever relationship you have with them, and they have their own cultural foundations as well. How those cultural patterns interact will shape your relationship with them. And some of it will be on an intuitive or subconscious level. When I first started studying Celtic mythology and culture, I felt like I was drowning in a sea of unfamiliar, unpronounceable names and nonsensical stories. It felt like I was dialing an old phone number given to me by a friend of a friend, and only getting the dial tone of a disconnected line. But I kept reading and exploring, and letting my subconscious work its way through all the information and start making those connections. I paid close attention to when I felt closest to the gods, and could see how important ritual and physical interactions were for me. (F'ex, physically cutting into and handling a pomegranate down in the dank atmosphere of the basement brought home to me the personality of Persephone more than any story about her I'd ever heard.) After years of that kind of exploration, slowly the Celtic culture began to feel more and more like a natural place to be. Instead of drowning in unfamiliar waters, I was swimming like a fish! :) That's when the gods stopped being abstractions for me - though there are still times when I feel distant or disconnected from them.

So.... you asked about Brighid as a possible Underworld goddess. This is one of those times when the answer is a bit complicated because Greek and Celtic cultures are different. The Celts didn't exactly have an idea of an "Underworld" in the same way the Greeks did. For one thing, the Celts believed firmly in reincarnation - either into this same world, or into a paradisiacal otherworld often referred to as a Land of Summer, Land of Youth or Island of Apples. There were gods associated with this Summerland, but the ones I know of are male (for instance, Manannan mac Lir, god of the sea). Also, the Celts didn't just have one Otherworld, though you can generally refer to all of the other worlds collectively by the singular term. The Otherworld for the Celts wasn't above (like a heaven) or below (like an Underworld) but right here, just on the other side of our reality, separated only by a thin veil or mist. It was the realm of the Sidhe or the Faery folk - but who they are is also a complicated thing: some think of them as gods, some as the beloved dead, some as (fallen) angels (a Celtic Christian concept). My impression is that the Celts weren't very keen on clear-cut hierarchies, so trying to delineate deities from Sidhe from the dead isn't always easy.

Okay, so - could Brighid be associated with the Underworld/Otherworld? Yes and no. She is definitely a goddess of the threshold and the liminal spaces, like you said, and she has that connection (through marriage to Bres) with the "darker" forces of chaos and wilderness. As a member of the Tuatha de Danann, she is also one of those who withdrew into the Sidhe (burial) mounds when the Milesians came and conquered Ireland. On the other hand, she has tended to be associated more with the light, order and structures of culture and civilization (for instance, through her ties to poetry, healing and smithcraft, which all held important cultural significance in Celtic society), rather than with the wilder, darker aspects of death and dying. In my relationship with her, even in her darker aspect she has a deep connection with the stars, points of light in the darkness that give guidance and direction, and that spin through the emptiness of space in a fairly orderly fashion. ;) So I think that Brighid could definitely help you work with Underworld/Otherworld relationships and aspects of your spirituality - but she'll bring a particular perspective and energy to that work that will be different from Persephone or some of the other Celtic deities. Does that make sense?

If you want to explore some Celtic gods and goddesses that might have more obvious ties to the Underworld/Otherworld, there are a couple I can recommend.

- Caer Ibormeith. She is a Sidhe who transforms from a
maiden into a swan every other Samhain and back again on the next. The swan - as a water fowl - has connections to the three realms of land, sea and sky and is thus considered a particularly powerful Otherworld animal who can pass between the worlds. Caer Ibormeith's name means "yew berry." The yew tree has many associations with death and resurrection, and the seed of the yew berry is poisonous to human beings (another connection between death (poison) and new life (the seed)). Samhain, obviously, has connections with death and the beloved dead, and as a Sidhe Caer Ibormeith occupies that ambiguous place between the gods and the dead. I worked with her for a while several years ago, and through my relationship with her eventually came to my relationship with Brighid. (Some of the shared UPG of some folks I've talked with online point to the possibility that the swan is also a sacred animal of Brighid's, and so Caer Ibormeith and Brighid might share a closer relationship or even be two aspects of a single goddess.)

- Rhiannon. In Welsh mythology, Rhiannon is a Sidhe Queen who marries Pwyll (and later, after Pwyll's death, remarries with Manawydan fab Llyr, the Welsh deity who is similar to and/or the same as Manannan mac Lir). Before meeting Rhiannon, Pwyll has his own adventures, including switching places with Arawn, the King of Annwn, in order to defeat Arawn's enemy. Annwn is the closest you'll probably get in Welsh mythology to the concept of an Underworld - it is characterized as a land of the dead, though a paradisiacal one of eternal summer and youth. By switching places with Arawn and defeating his enemy, Pwyll earns the title "King of Annwn" for himself. One of his trials during this adventure is to resist the seduction of Arawn's wife (who mistakenly believes Pwyll is Arawn) - there is some suggestion in the mythology that Rhiannon is actually this same Sidhe Queen who was married to Arawn, though it's not clear. In either case, when she weds Pwyll, Rhiannon is effectively marrying the King of the Dead, as well as having connections to the Otherworld in her own right through her lineage as a Sidhe. Later as a widow, she marries Manawydan who is the only one to return from a war with the Irish - Manawydan, like his Irish counterpart Manannan, also has ties to the Land of Eternal Youth and so can also be thought of as an Otherworld "King of the Dead" type of figure. Rhiannon herself also has connections to death and rebirth/renewal, f'ex in the story of how her son is stolen from her as a baby and she is framed for his death.


I mention both of these because I've worked with both of them (though not as closely as with Brighid), and they both seem to me to have that same kind of quality as Persephone - being maidens or queens who are in relationship with "the dark" and death, but who are also able to cross the thresholds between the worlds. If you want to know more about Caer Ibormeith, I've written a short story inspired by her, and you might also want to explore a bit into the story of Aengus Og and his relationship with her. For Rhiannon, you might really enjoy reading the novel by Evangeline Walton based on the Welsh myth: it's called Prince of Annwn and it's the first book of her quartet based on the Mabinogion.

I hope some of this has been helpful and isn't too overwhelming! Make sure to come back and let me know how you're doing and what you're exploring - I'd love to hear!

Pomegranate Still Life

Inspired by some of the photographs shared to the Pagan Newswire Collective's Flickr page — and the fact that I just got a new DSLR camera and I wanted to test its limits with low lighting and such — I did a series of still life photographs inspired by the story of Persephone. Here are some of them: