Celtic Contemplation Cube

[triadruid]

Yesterday at Lughnassadh I took an oath to finish naming, carving, and decorating the club I found/made for calling on Dagda Mor at Samhain last fall. The unspoken part of that oath was that I need to work on my woodworking skill in order to accomplish this task in a manner befitting him. I also have taken to putting something on my desk at work for each of the Fire Festivals, until we get to the next one. My maypole will have to come down soon, but I haven't figured out yet what will replace it.

So today on the drive in to work, I get hit with an idea for a wooden cube with the names of important deities carved into the edges, in ogham. Each face could represent a particular concept, and spinning the cube to that face for the day would give me deities that I might choose to work with in regards to that concept. So I started sketching out the edges, and this is what I ended up with:

	Brighid F l i d a i s 1 M e d b Danu
Flidais O g h m a 2 M a n a n n a n Nuada	Danu M a n a n n a n 3 M o r r i g a n Dagda Mor	Medb M o r r i g a n 4 G o i b h n i u Herne
	Dagda Mor N u a d a 5 H e r n e Lugh
	Lugh O g h m a 6 G o i b h n i u Brighid

The faces seem to have come into a coherent pattern at this point, thanks to featherynscale:

1. Female deities
2. Steadfastness, or Loyalty, or something similar
3. Oldest deities
4. Deities for when you're "out of your mind"?
5. Male deities
6. Creative/crafty deities

I think I've got twelve Celtic deities I like having there now, but the problem comes in the layout. Ogham is written bottom-to-top, left-to-right. Ordinarily this means up, across, down, or occasionally up, across, up again. Dealing with a three-dimensional space isn't really accounted for. If you try to lay them all out left-to-right, you end up with two opposite faces 'clockwise', two opposite faces 'counterclockwise', and two faces with two 'angles' emanating from one corner and meeting on the opposite corner. Bollocks!

So a second idea is to put them all B->T and L->R respective to their own face (this ends up looking like the double-angle figure I got earlier). Starting arbitrarily one one side, I end up with six sides that all have a 'meeting' point in the top right corner:

	>--------->
^ | | | | | | ^	x	^ | | | | | | ^
	>--------->

This seems to work out much better, plus it has the added benefit that the faces are lined up with respect to themselves and their nearest neighbors, not along an arbitrary main axis. It will probably mean I have to rework what face goes next to what, and stop thinking so linearly.

The last problem (besides the spelling of names) seems to be the 'feathering' of the ogham to show what direction it goes. On a regular rod, you can cut the >-- into the beginning of the edge and it doesn't interfere with anything. In three dimensions, that's frequently the end of another edge (on 11 out of 12 corners, in fact)! So I'll have to mull over the way to indicate this without cocking up the rest of the cube's grace.

Comments

[blackfyr.livejournal.com]

I do not feel competent in this area to comment of whether you should do this or not - that is between you and the gods. But I think you should spell Ogma's name correctly, if you're going to use it. "Oghma" is a modified version of his name that is only used in certain linguistically required circumstances. The base version of the name, the one that's used when no other words are around it to modify it, is Ogma.

Celtic languages are weird in that the forms of words change based on the forms of the words around them. This is one of those cases.

I'm not sure, but I think Maeve might also be better spelled Medb.

[agrnmn.livejournal.com]

Language, especially anything that pre-dates writing is a fluid thing and any particular spelling/pronnuciation is more likely than not merely the result of political winds rather than any spiritual truism. But that's just the .02 of a practicing asshole rather than devout Druid therefore your mileage may vary.

[blackfyr.livejournal.com]

The spelling/pronunciation of Irish has little, if anything, to do with politics. This particular form of morphology has existed Irish for as long as we have written records of the language - and that's around 1500 years or so.

[agrnmn.livejournal.com]

So, by 500 CE all the Irish speakers were unified and of one mind about spelling and pronunciation? And if not the the choice did not relate to who was in power at the time funding scribes?

Interesting Idea

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

I like the idea a lot. And, since you're still in the "germ of an idea" phase, I'll simply comment on the concept and not be all stuffy about details.

It's an interestesing combination of divinatory methods. I wonder -- how do you want the tool to serve you? Is it about deities to keep in mind, correspondences and associations or something else? Would you be "spinning" in response to a question, or simply looking for your theme of the day?

Depending on how you reason this through, six sides may not be enough. Or, one die may not be enough.

An excellent ambition, no matter what. I can't wait to see the prototype and test it in action.

[bean-drui.livejournal.com]

that is an awesome idea. you could even use it for divination....

Re: Interesting Idea

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Actually, while the divinatory aspect of it occurred to me, it wasn't at all my primary intention. It seems to be more of a focusing tool for when I have something in particular to work/meditate on during the day. For instance, I think I've deciphered (with featherynscale's help) that the fourth face may be "deities for when you're out of your mind", which is certainly something I could use help with from time to time.

I got a couple of cubes to try it on, and kittenpants has already been intrigued by the fact that it has 12 faces...

BRAT-tacular!

[kittenpants.livejournal.com]

uh... cubes still have 6 faces, yes?

12 linear vertices, which may not help me much since I can't think of a good way to write their names along an angle. Ogham, sure, it's made for it. Greek, not so much.

Plus there's the problem of having thirteen deities in the "Twelve Olympians"

six of one, a dozen of the other...

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Ehhh 12 edges, yes.

[mysticbane.livejournal.com]

Here, maybe this link might help you out a little bit as far as Dieties goes....

http://baharna.com/celtic/

[blackfyr.livejournal.com]

Of course not. But the pronunciation pattern (of which the spelling is simply a record) was fixed long before then. The scheme by which it was indicated in writing has evolved over the intervening centuries, but political maneuverings had little to do with how the writing of it was made.

Please remember, you are talking about a language that has at least 5 different ways to spell a silent consonant. Every consonant has at least three different ways to pronounce it and (if I'm remembering it correctly) 4 different ways to pronounce vowels. And they had to figure out how to do this with only 20 letters in their alphabet. Putting down the difficulties of making this readable by someone on the other side of their country (and sometimes across an ocean) by claiming it was political is somewhat demeaning and dismissive of the work of a lot of people over time.

Re: BRAT-tacular!

[zylch.livejournal.com]

kittenpants ain't the only one with that thought. I'm still trying to figure out some of the catches, but the 13 is easy enough: make a clear cube, or find a clear/translucent box, and put something representing Hestia in the center. Or you could ditch Dionysos, depending on how daring you feel.

And then there's always the possibilities inherant in a dodekahedron.

[agrnmn.livejournal.com]

Of course not. But the pronunciation pattern (of which the spelling is simply a record) was fixed long before then.

So there were no regional variations in dialect? I think it highly naive to assume politics held no sway. Those who have power and money get to decide what books get written. If the books were written in a certain region they would likely hold to that dialect. Why is it automatically demeaning and dismissive to have politics involved in something? Politics is deeply involved in language as in everything else. Our disdain for the process of governance and it's reach into our lives does not give us leave to dismiss it. And language is not some shining beacon of virtue.

You yourself say it has evolved, which is my point. There will be variations in spelling and pronunciations that will rise or fall for a variety of reasons (and some of them will be political reasons). Given that how do you chose the "proper" form of a particular word? Why is this one better than that one? I know the French have a government ministry that decides what is proper French. Is this the case for Gaelic or was the proper form decided in a vote or town meeting?

[blackfyr.livejournal.com]

I did not say "no sway." I said it had little impact. And, until modern times, this is true. In modern times, the Irish gov't set down a standardized spelling scheme because they were the only ones who could do it. I have no idea what amount of campaigning to place, though I doubt severely that political power was a major force in that standardization.

However, we are not speaking about modern Irish spelling when we talk about the names of the gods. Those were written down in various places around the country for hundreds of years and the base forms, and the patterns of lenition, etc., are rather consistent. Since this is consistent across the boundaries of kingdoms within Ireland, I don't see where you can claim any political pressure would have set the spelling for these names.

Does this satisfy you, or do you want to keep pounding away on your drum about political forces making changes? If you do, feel free, for I will no longer try to involve myself in your political fixation.

[agrnmn.livejournal.com]

The point is not politics but the mutability of language. Your claim is that there was one "proper" way of spelling a particular god's name I merely suggested politics as a reason that might have caused a belief that there is only one way to spell this. Language is inherently unstable and I found it interesting that there was a proper way to spell a name that likely changed over it's life span prior to writing. You seemed knowledgeable about the language so I thought I'd ask. Sorry about the politics thing didn't know it was so upsetting.

[blackfyr.livejournal.com]

Your claim is that there was one "proper" way of spelling a particular god's name I merely suggested politics as a reason that might have caused a belief that there is only one way to spell this. Language is inherently unstable and I found it interesting that there was a proper way to spell a name that likely changed over it's life span prior to writing.

There is no evidence that this gods name has ever been spelled any other way. The variations in spelling are all because the way a word in Irish (and, as far as I know, all other Celtic languages) is pronounced changed radically based on the words on either side of it. The base word has not changed, just the way it is said, and thus spelled. You can have two consecutive sentences in Irish that use the same word and they will be spelled and said differently, depending on how the words around it are said and spelled. This is not a change over a long period of time, this is a change in seconds. For example, the name "Bob" can be pronounced either "bob" or "wob" depending on whether there's a hard consonant or a soft consonant or a soft vowel or a hard vowel right before it. And the "wob" pronunciation is spelled "bhob." There are only 20 characters native to the Celtic written language, but they are used to describe some 50-60 letter sounds. The spelling shifts to account for all those changes.

The problem I was having was you were trying to ascribe to politics what was be done because that's how the language works in conversation.

[agrnmn.livejournal.com]

This has been an interesting discussion. Unfortunately the medium is somewhat limiting and seeing as how my interest is piqued I would love any book suggestions you might have for me. In return I offer The Power of Babel : A Natural History of Language by John McWhorter. It is an interesting overview of the evolution of language, the pop culture references can be annoying but don't necessarily interfere with the thesis.

[blackfyr.livejournal.com]

I wish there were a single book, or even a small set, that I could point you toward. Unfortunately the information is so scattered that the best I can do is suggest you check out the reading list on the Imbas website (http://www.imbas.org) to start from. And I would suggest avoiding almost anything from Llewellyn books or Douglas Monroe (or any books that include a significant number of those in their bibliographies).

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

I assume this is the same sort of linguistic trick that's happening with Morrigan/Morrighan?

If so, it makes sense that Ogma would be the base form. H's seem to be the most common form of lenition in modern Gaelic languages but I am unclear if that was always the case. Do you have a resource you consider trustworthy on the matter, as it applies to deities/heroes?

[blackfyr.livejournal.com]

Precisely the same trick. As for sources, both Miranda Green and James MacKillop's books are good.