By Cariadseren (Cariadseren) on Saturday, March 4, 2006 - 05:57 pm:
Dear All-sorry if this is disjointed I'm very new to both posting on the net and 'coming out' about hedgewitchery, so, anyway here goes......
I've read many of the postings on this, and was thinking about a few things. For a few years I've had dreams about a male hunter-he was always dressed the same and carried a bow. I first met him in a wood, and we walked and talked. The second time i met him we were in a room with all my friends and he appeared again. I wasn't surprised to see him again, a sentiment i had the first time I met him, because I knew him. i was totally calm and at ease with him-he almost felt like he was me (badly expressed but the closest i can get to describing how comfortable i was in his presence). no one else in the room was aware of him. we talked for ages. and though i can't remember exactly what he said, i distinctly remember him saying 'i have come to help you with how to be'. anyway, it wasn't till i started going to stone circles and hanging out with various pagan types that i realised who he was-to me he was the incarnation of male spirituality-Herne, Cernunnus to me, thought not Pan-my male was very much cold, wet-wooded northern European hunter.
Since that realisation, he has appeared to me, sadly, less often-but he still comes (especially if i can achieve trance outdoors at a scared site) and his presence is welcome.
However, I was wondering if anyone could recommend literature on the hunter. Things on the Greenman tend to be about bosses or shelia na gigs etc and more ephemeral things to me than the actual worship of the male spirituality. Work I've found on the male tends very much to be a celebration of male identity and relations to the hunter. (sometimes deliberately excluding women). Also does anyone have any idea why there
seemed to be so little on female relations to the male?-or just have I not got there yet.. ?(I know Christian repression of the female, makes it natural that the Goddess should receive attention-but this seems to be a bit of any easy explanation to me).
the male in the woodland has always been where i felt natural-and initially motivated any ritual i have done (though i didn't realise at first what i was doing were very simple rituals), and i was wondering if there whether other people had felt specifically drawn to the hunter-it surprised me when i realised who the person talking to me in my dreams was. Being a totally independent young woman i would have thought my natural inclinations would be to the Goddess first-is the male neglected?, or as i said above, have i just not got there yet? (this on the back of the
various threads on where people's craft experience comes from etc)
Cheers and sorry for the ramble,
Bright Blessings
Cariad