#journey to God

[dramoor]

“We are profoundly not alone. A great cloud of witnesses cheers us on as we journey with them towards the fulfillment of all things in the hands of God.”

~Fr. Stephen Freeman

(Image via facebook) 

[wonkyjaw]

Quilt update. This is split somewhere in the blues and I have to sew that together and then I have to add one more yellow row to the top. Then the quilt top is finally, finally done.

[royaltea000]

“A thousand generations serve to praise…”

[lunarwednesday]

Kindly Miquella... I see you've thrown away... Something you should not have... Under any circumstances.

[ruporas]

your love returns in tragedy (ID in alt)

[ryin-silverfish]

So You Want to Read More about Chinese Mythos: a rough list of primary sources

"How/Where can I learn more about Chinese mythology?" is a question I saw a lot on other sites, back when I was venturing outside of Shenmo novel booksphere and into IRL folk religions + general mythos, but had rarely found satisfying answers.

As such, this is my attempt at writing something past me will find useful.

(Built into it is the assumption that you can read Chinese, which I only realized after writing the post. I try to amend for it by adding links to existing translations, as well as links to digitalized Chinese versions when there doesn't seem to be one.)

The thing about all mythologies and legends is that they are 1) complicated, and 2) are products of their times. As such, it is very important to specify the "when" and "wheres" and "what are you looking for" when answering a question as broad as this.

-Do you want one or more "books with an overarching story"?

In that case, Journey to the West and Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen Yanyi) serve as good starting points, made more accessible for general readers by the fact that they both had English translations——Anthony C. Yu's JTTW translation is very good, Gu Zhizhong's FSYY one, not so much.

Crucially, they are both Ming vernacular novels. Though they are fictional works that are not on the same level of "seriousness" as actual religious scriptures, these books still took inspiration from the popular religion of their times, at a point where the blending of the Three Teachings (Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism) had become truly mainstream.

And for FSYY specifically, the book had a huge influence on subsequent popular worship because of its "pantheon-building" aspect, to the point of some Daoists actually putting characters from the novel into their temples.

(Vernacular novels + operas being a medium for the spread of popular worship and popular fictional characters eventually being worshipped IRL is a thing in Ming-Qing China. Meir Shahar has a paper that goes into detail about the relationship between the two.)

After that, if you want to read other Shenmo novels, works that are much less well-written but may be more reflective of Ming folk religions at the time, check out Journey to the North/South/East (named as such bc of what basically amounted to a Ming print house marketing strategy) too.

-Do you want to know about the priestly Daoist side of things, the "how the deities are organized and worshipped in a somewhat more formal setting" vs "how the stories are told"?

Though I won't recommend diving straight into the entire Daozang or Yunji Qiqian or some other books compiled in the Daoist text collections, I can think of a few "list of gods/immortals" type works, like Liexian Zhuan and Zhenling Weiye Tu.

Also, though it is much closer to the folk religion side than the organized Daoist side, the Yuan-Ming era Grand Compendium of the Three Religions' Deities, aka Sanjiao Soushen Daquan, is invaluable in understanding the origins and evolutions of certain popular deities.

(A quirk of historical Daoist scriptures is that they often come up with giant lists of gods that have never appeared in other prior texts, or enjoy any actual worship in temples.)

(The "organized/folk" divide is itself a dubious one, seeing how both state religion and "priestly" Daoism had channels to incorporate popular deities and practices into their systems. But if you are just looking at written materials, I feel like there is still a noticeable difference.)

Lastly, if you want to know more about Daoist immortal-hood and how to attain it: Ge Hong's Baopuzi (N & S. dynasty) and Zhonglv Chuandao Ji (late Tang/Five Dynasties) are both texts about external and internal alchemy with English translations.

-Do you want something older, more ancient, from Warring States and Qin-Han Era China?

Classics of Mountains and Seas, aka Shanhai Jing, is the way to go. It also reads like a bestiary-slash-fantastical cookbook, full of strange beasts, plants, kingdoms of unusual humanoids, and the occasional half-man, half-beast gods.

A later work, the Han-dynasty Huai Nan Zi, is an even denser read, being a collection of essays, but it's also where a lot of ancient legends like "Nvwa patches the sky" and "Chang'e steals the elixir of immortality" can be first found in bits and pieces.

Shenyi Jing might or might not be a Northern-Southern dynasties work masquerading as a Han one. It was written in a style that emulated the Classics of Mountains and Seas, and had some neat fantastic beasts and additional descriptions of gods/beasts mentioned in the previous 2 works.

-Do you have too much time on your hands, a willingness to get through lot of classical Chinese, and an obsession over yaoguais and ghosts?

Then it's time to flip open the encyclopedic folklore compendiums——Soushen Ji (N/S dynasty), You Yang Za Zu (Tang), Taiping Guangji (early Song), Yijian Zhi (Southern Song)...

Okay, to be honest, you probably can't read all of them from start to finish. I can't either. These aren't purely folklore compendiums, but giant encyclopedias collecting matters ranging from history and biography to medicine and geography, with specific sections on yaoguais, ghosts and "strange things that happened to someone".

As such, I recommend you only check the relevant sections and use the Full Text Search function well.

Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studios, aka Liaozhai Zhiyi, is in a similar vein, but a lot more entertaining and readable. Together with Yuewei Caotang Biji and Zi Buyu, they formed the "Big Three" of Qing dynasty folktale compendiums, all of which featured a lot of stories about fox spirits and ghosts.

Lastly...

The Yuan-Ming Zajus (a sort of folk opera) get an honorable mention. Apart from JTTW Zaju, an early, pre-novel version of the story that has very different characterization of SWK, there are also a few plays centered around Erlang (specifically, Zhao Erlang) and Nezha, such as "Erlang Drunkenly Shot the Demon-locking Mirror". Sadly, none of these had an English translation.

Because of the fragmented nature of Chinese mythos, you can always find some tidbits scattered inside history books like Zuo Zhuan or poetry collections like Qu Yuan's Chuci. Since they aren't really about mythology overall and are too numerous to cite, I do not include them in this post, but if you wanna go down even deeper in this already gigantic rabbit hole, it's a good thing to keep in mind.

[sanflawoah]

Everyone's talking about Wukong vs Kratos. But what about Lingji ft. Mimir?

[monkeyzilla]

Shithead number 1 and shithead number 2

[cobbbvanth]

you get assigned gay by kenny ortega. you then get assigned not gay by disney but they let you keep the fruity hats. you come back next year and get assigned gay by kenny ortega again, this time complete with a homoerotic dance sequence. you return again the following year and are assigned not gay by disney, this time accompanied by a heterosexual prom date. you return 15 years later and are finally assigned gay by disney because they now think it's profitable. you are ryan evans in high school musical.

[mokolat]

[lazyveran]

teen being wanda's son has got to utterly piss off agatha in a truly deep, soul cutting way. i mean, not only is wanda the scarlet witch, a being of complete power, the woman that trapped her in a goddamn revolving door of tv tropes for 3 years, but she also cheated her way into keeping her imaginary son.

in agatha's eyes wanda maximoff got everything she's ever wanted, and its not fair. no wonder she immediately turns on the vicious, ice-cold malice towards teen as soon as it clicks into place. not only did she care for him (what a kick in the balls that is), she's also just been taunted with her dead son's voice, while wanda's stands in front of her posturing over morality (of all things, it was absolutely the worst time of all to start yapping about that. agatha's just been told her mother wished she killed her at birth, i really dont think she was up for a chat on ethics)

[blushspatula]

My love.

[lavena]

New headcannon of Captain Marvel having all the gods on his side.

I'm talking the wind doesn't move against him, doesn't matter if there is a torrential down pour or the wind is moving north at 80 mph, If Cap moves to look North. The wind will change to south so his cape flutters and his hair flows around his eyes. If he wants someone to hear his voice the wind will take it, if it is a private conversation the wind will muffle him.

If there is a big fight that was hard won the clouds will lightly part to make a spotlight shine on their champion.

Animals will visit and bring gifts. Stars will wink at him. Plants reach towards him. Artists gain inspiration through him.

The gods love Billy Batson, the wind will pick up spare change and interesting articles to bring to him. The rain will fall lightly on him, and his subway never floods. There always manages to be clean water in a canteen, or a helpful critter that leads him to food. Lightning will punctuate his anger and flash violently behind him, blinding those he is angry at, giving him time to run.

[royaltea000]

Mama a monkey behind you

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Started a new book series, and has been a journey...an Odyssey, if you will.

[babacontainsmultitudes]

RIP Will Campos the only person who was murdered this episode.