Liber Pagani: a Myth

Abstract

What follows is a condensed myth, part of a guidebook intended for soldiers who identify as Pagan in the US Army. This piece is in conversation with the many deep ecologists and animists who have shaped my ecological and theological understandings. This myth explores relatedness, subjectivity, and morality in a sacred animate world where violence is inherent to being. Most central is relatedness, that is relatedness to the environment, the anima, and in the context of warrior culture, relatedness to the enemy, and one’s own impulses to aggression. Much of the symbolic inspiration of this piece comes from Panel A of the Gundestrup Cauldron, an iron age silver cauldron discovered in northern Denmark. This story is also inspired by the themes of Indo-European myth, paleolithic cave art, Jungian and Neo-Jungian thought, and the metaphysical understandings of the Xam and Yukaghir hunting cultures. This work is also inspired by the biographies of the A’aninin warrior and healer, Bull Lodge, and the Tibetan Yogi, Milarepa. Most of all, this story is shaped by my encounters with the wild Puma, Elk, Bear, Rattlesnakes, rivers, and peaks of my home: the Rocky Mountains.