So I’ve been thinking about syncretism a lot lately. I don’t know why; it’s just been on my mind. And then I read this post over at Adventures in Vanaheim and I got a bit of a lightbulb; that is, that the Aphrodite I know is syncretized with Naamah.
Cue chorus of spluttering “But but that’s ~*~pop culture paganism~*~! It’s wrong and dirty and evil, I tell you!”
If that’s your opinion, you may want to leave all my blogs well enough alone. Just as a heads up.
Naamah is just as real to me as Aphrodite or the Morrigan or Brighid or Manannan or any of the other gods I honor, worship, and work with. As are the other gods in the Kushielverse.
I haven’t, as of yet, done much work with Them, and I think it’s because I’ve felt a bit overloaded with the gods already in my life. But this thought of syncretism keeps coming back to me and I wonder…have I avoided working with Them because I felt I already was? Do I see Kushiel as connected to the Morrigan, because of my godslave, D/s relationship with Zir?
I don’t actually have answers to the questions of the rest of the Companions — but I can tell you I have a very strong feeling that I’m not just worshipping Aphrodite, but Naamah as well, and that I’m enough of a medium-scrambled polytheist that I can accept that Aphrodite is Aphrodite and Naamah is Naamah and sometimes They’re also each other and both at the same time.
So I think, when I’m able to set up a physical shrine to Her/Them again, it will be to both Aphrodite and Naamah. And I’ll see where it goes from there.
(No, I don’t know how this fits with my feelings of Aphrodite/The Lady of the Stars. Maybe the Lady of the Stars is Naamah too. Maybe not. I don’t have all the answers.)