
Part One: The Opening of the Ways
[Illustration is one of the fine Enodia marble relief works, from Kozani in what was once Macedonia, and dated to mid-late 2nd-3rd century AD; assumedly a votive offering. ‘Enodia’ can be seen written across the top, next to Her head. Note also the presence of the Horse and Hound thereupon – and, of course, that which is in Her Hands]
Now, many are familiar with their most obvious occurrence – in relation to Hekate, and indeed right there in the theonymic of ‘Trivia’ (‘Tri-Via’ – Three-Roads, and where these become joined). It should seem pretty easy to simply suggest the causation for the association as being ‘where barriers between worlds are thinner’ and leave it at that. It would not be – necessarily – inaccurate to do so. But in light of what I have uncovered, it would be missing a great deal.
This notion of a place where one might ‘cross over’ is quite inherent not only in the ‘traversable’ function of Roads, but also in the connotation of ‘Enodia’ ( Ἐννοδία ) – another theonymic epithet of Hekate, encountered in Her Orphic Hymn (indeed, the rather aptly enumerated first Orphic Hymnal in the corpus), as its very first word. This refers to not only a figure ‘upon the Roads’ (a ‘Wanderer’, perhaps? Between Worlds?), but also rather more specifically to a deific that is ‘at the gate’ (We are cognizant of ‘Hermes Enodia’), ‘of the point of transition’ between two areas along said road. The Gates of a City, for example – or, it occurs to me in light of some of the associations of both Hekate and Artemis (Two of the Diva Triformis ‘Facings’), Death and Birth, respectively. The Road, nevertheless, goes ever onwards.
Yet ‘Roads’ are one thing – the joining, the Crossing of Roads, not entirely the same. And lest we be accused of reading too far into ‘Einodia’ – the next theonymic of Hekate in that aforementioned Hymnal is ‘Trioditis’; which is, of course, the figure of the ‘Three-‘ (‘Tri-‘) ‘-Roads’ (‘-Hodos’ (ὁδός) or ‘-Hodios’ (ὅδῐος) give one a sense as to the term) and their meeting. There is also the rather less frequently encountered hailing for Her of ‘Tetraoditis’ ( τετραοδῖτις ) – which, as one probably expects, is She of the Four Roads[‘ Meeting].
Which is rather handy because the major exemplars for ‘Crossroads’ conceptry that we encounter in the Hindusphere tend to be of the decidedly four pathed variety – Catuspatha being just exactly that. ‘Catur’, familiar to any speaker of a Romance language (and cognate with ‘Quad’, etc.), plus ‘Patha’ ( पथ ) … which, perhaps surprisingly, both means ‘Path’, and is also directly cognate with our modern English ‘Path’. How convenient !
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where we shall, ourselves, ‘cross over’ – into my more familiar ‘native’ terrain of the Hindusphere, in earnest.
—
Thus concludes the first excerpt from our full-length piece:
https://aryaakasha.com/2022/09/17/of-goddesses-gods-and-ghosts-at-the-crossroads-a-comparative-indo-european-exploration/
Pingback: Of Goddesses, Gods, and Ghosts at the Crossroads – A Comparative Indo-European Exploration [Extract 1] – Glyn Hnutu-healh: History, Alchemy, and Me
After spending the past day and a half enthralled by your articles, of which I have now read around 30 to 40, and with 90 more added into my backlog to read later, I can now comfortably say that stumbling upon this veritable repository of Mythoccultic Wisdoms has been the most entrancing happenstance I’ve had for, like, at least a week or two? Hahaha sorry, that was my feeble attempt at being humorous.
In all seriousness though, I deeply appreciate you providing this amazing space for those of us with a similar interest in studying the ancient esoterica passed down to us by our shared ancestral progenitors. What makes your journal so remarkable in my eyes is that you are an actual scholar of these hidden wisdoms and display a true academic depth, as displayed through your uniquely personal scriptorial style. I cannot convey through words how deeply it sets your work apart from the usual unintellectual derangement I usually see from other blogs claiming to be dedicated to the same pursuit yet simply spew nonsense coated in a thin veneer of half understood pseudo-scholarship.
Apologies for the long winded spiel, I’ll cut myself off now lest I carry on and earn little more your ire. The last bit I’ll say is that your work here is so magnificent a synthesis between scholarship and praxis that I quite literally made this account for the sole sake of subscribing to you and so that I may give you this message along with my regards.
With my most heartfelt gratitude-
—Typhaiosophaon, fellow scholar of our ancestral wisdoms
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I thank you for the kind words and for taking the time to read. I’m glad somebody is.
As you have no doubt noticed, there is no inherent disfavour toward the ‘long-winded’ here when it comes to setting one’s thoughts to text, so no need to apologize.
You can also find our efforts on youtube (and I should get back to doing videos &c.), a facebook page, and occasionally on other platforms as well. I keep meaning to do more to make the findings ‘more accessible’, as well as bringing to publication any of the … rather heavy weight of unfinished drafts which have been behind the regrettable slowing of my output-rate over the past year or so.
In terms of ‘praxis’ – I’d rather pointedly intended to have (pretty much) everything we put out, basically capable of standing upon the strength of academic analysis; however, of course, the fact that we don’t approach our subject in the manner *of* various academics out there (some of who seem to treat the whole thing as a kind of creative literature exercise), but rather from a standpoint of “yes, we’re writing about actual Deities (&c.)”, no doubt tends to help considerably. It also helps considerably that when it comes to some areas in particular – we don’t simply have to go off (often outmoded) secondary literature, or primary texts in (sometimes questionable) translation … but can, indeed, directly engage with the living tradition and all which that entails.
That said, while we’ve deliberately allowed an increasing quotient of our ‘actually doing various of the things we write about’ to come through in the ‘writing about’, &c. – we’re also limited in how much we can and do make overt reference or express recounting of ‘above-ground’ and in public (sometimes by request, sometimes by initiatory strictures, sometimes because we’re rather cautious about leaving certain things around easily accessible for the incautious to pick up and play around with).
In any case, I thank you once again for your kind words and the effort you’ve taken in reading what’s available here, and taking the time to comment.
If there are areas of interest you’d like to see delved into, we do consider suggestions / requests, from time to time.
[-C.A.R.]
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