Some thoughts this evening that fluttered through my head and I opened discussion on as a topic on my forum, but words I liked and wanted to share as an open form writing here...

What happens to old gods when all who believed in them are gone? Do old gods die?

I've often written over the years in my belief that a god is only a god because he/she/it has followers. Or, more appropriately, a god is only a god because there is a need for a god.

But what happens when another god's people come and wipe out the rival followers? What happens when there is no one left to sing the songs; give offering; make prayer; worship? What becomes of the god who's name has been lost? Who's ways have been forgotten? Who's will has been diminished?

What is a god without a people?

I see existance as an extention of one, core creator. The Divine. Of Her (as I refer from my own perspective) there are then thousands of emissaries - angels, gods, prophets, etc. - who are born of a need of the people. Each culture gave birth to their own specific being; their own diety - Ra, Zeus, White Calf Buffalo, Bridget, etc. - but what happens when thost cultures and those people are no more?

When a god has not even a name any longer because the words have fallen to ash, what is left? Does that being enter into the world again - born anew in a new form? As a new god? As something else? Do gods "fall" ? Do they become as their followers once were - mortal? Human? Do gods walk on mortal feet, treading millenia after the last spark of their power faded away into death and oblivion?

Who mourns the death of a god?

And if that god on mortal feet inspires back a return to old ways, ways of their origins; encourages people to remember and seek the dreams that gave birth to the god to begin with, is the god reborn? Or does another take it's place, the original lost forever in a sea of nothing?

Thoughts I had this evening. Not new ones, these things I've wondered years now, remembering times so long ago there are no names left. Remembering places which humanity has long since lost. Wondering the path that old gods walk and where it might lead next.

Just thoughts in the night...

~ flowers bloom near Memory and Dream at 8/16/2002 02:59:54 AM ~ ~