A refuge

Why am I me, and why not you? Why am I here, and why not there? How can it be that… who I am didn’t exist before I came to be, and that, someday… who I am will no longer be…?

'[Eärendel] did not return. He forsook all whom he loved, ere he stepped on that shore. He saved his kindred by losing them.'

I love any version of Eärendil's story.

“but Curufin was most interested in the alien language of the Dwarves, being the only one of the Noldor to win their friendship. It was from him that the loremasters obtained such knowledge as they could of the Khuzdul.”

This line is SO fascinating to me not just bc diversity win! This war criminal is autistic but imagine:

You’re an elf from the Third Age perhaps trying to build better relations with the Dwarves. You decide to consult the loremasters and they all tell you much knowledge about the Dwarves is lost and what they have is very limited. They recommend you some books and you spend a week browsing the archives.

The first book you read is about Dwarven traditions, written by Curufinwë Atarinkë. Well you don’t want to be politically incorrect and read a book by a Kinslayer so you find another book. Maybe about their language, you should learn their language. Perfect! There are a few books about Khuzdul. You open the book. It’s written by Curufinwë Atarinkë. Whatever, maybe the next one will be-

It’s written by Curufinwë Atarinkë. And the next. And also the next. Every single book you can find is written by Curufinwë Fucking Atarinkë. You are reduced to panicky tears.

But when you are about to give up Varda herself graces you a book NOT written by Curufinwë Atarinke and you read the whole thing in two days. You check the sources.

Every single source is from Curufinwë Atarinkë.

Peace - Burial at Sea, by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851)

ziyouwujiaoniao

Been too long since I drew my favorite girl, Aredhel. <3

Siberian roe deer By: Max Steckel From: Lebensbilder aus der Tierwelt 1908

Watercolor WIP. Working on a very Feanor/Fingolfin themed water color painting because @antlered-vixen's Light Splintered and Sewn has taken up permanent residence in my mind and heart.

monogamy isn't actually all bad. I mean, without monogamy we wouldn't have cheating, which is objectively pretty hot

1 beer in: lmao I will write filthy Silmarillion D/s, with mutual degradation and incest. "take thy due place" wink wink. 12 beers in: weeping in the footnotes, going "but what if they do not merely glimpse at divinity in Union, but if togetherness itself is Godhood as an emergent system property and Eru is-"

Hey @starshadeemilyart I'mma address this in post rather than reply if that's ok, because this is a fascinating talk and it got loooooong. So!!! Despite being irreligious I've given all this a lot of thought. There is a commonality with pantheism in what I wrote, in the sense of expanding one's perception of the divine, and of incorporating it on some level into Creation. Of course, though, Tolkienian mythos is also deeply influenced obviously by Christianity, but also Saxon and Norse heritage, and, actually, Zoroastrianism, so it's all quite syncretic, and I'm trying to respect as many elements as I can. The thing that I think makes what I'm going for not pantheism is that Tolkien does include a very clear textual distinction between the ensouled and like the things are not ensouled. I think that cleaves a big line into what could be a universal mind/pantheist approach. Because no matter how huge of a nature lover Tolkien is, actual divine (that links to Eru directly) emanation he associates with the ensouled beings, and I don't want to stray from canon that much. And Creation more generally, or at least the non-ensouled aspects of Arda, occupy a strange position. Because they are the Song of the Valar/Maiar which... are aspects born of the Godhead of course, but gaining enough existence as separate entities to be deeply flawed. Tolkien himself in letters speaks of their failings, their, in his word, "fainenace" in the face of Morgoth, and calls them not gods or facets of god, but "angelic beings". So there is this mediation there, this degradation of divinity, Creation being two steps removed from Eru from where that direct link is lost, and the fallible Valar emerge as the material creators and that which imbues Creation. In contrast, the soul is directly and perfectly from Eru himself. One could see some parallels there I suppose with Sikhism, where the soul (atma) is considered to be part of God (Waheguru), a constituent, rather than the Biblical tradition were Ezekiel 18:4 claims souls belong to the dominion of God, are his, but are not of God.

So I guess I think what the Tolkien text does loosely permit is not exactly a pantheism or a universal Godhood, but rather a Godhood in conversation with its fragments which are also its constituents, which are all that contains fea. "Eru as not wholly distinct from the Eruhini," if one might put it that way. But also each Eruhin is not "a bit divine" because the constituent does not have the properties of the emergent. Divinity only begins to emerge/be glimpsed in the complex system - not the singular Eruhin but the Eruhini in increased togetherness and union. Hence in my conception the divine element to wedding/the sexual spiritual elf nonsense. [But also my brain is screaming about how Tolkien's Quenya for father, "Atar", is not just related obvs to the indieuropean root ph₂tḗr but also directly the exact name of the Holy Fire of Zoroastrianism, literally called "Atar". You know, the Secret Fire, the "burning and unburning fire" or "visible and invisible fire". He actually writes about this! And his concept of the brothers Manwe/Melkor are tied well to the later Zurvanite Ohrmuzd/Ahriman twins that are very similar.] Obviously my "take" for this fic specifically, that Eru and the Eruhini are in a component/emergent configuration is NOT "canon", and one would have to for example consider Finrod and Andreth both very wrong, as they speak of Eru being outside Creation and their hope he will find his way in - Tolkien making way for the concept of Christ. But then again, nothing obliged us to accept that they are not wrong - if the Valar themelves can be wrong in matters of faith, even, which is canon.

Thank you for the long reply!! Please please never apologize for saying big long things. You know I'm interested in this stuff lol.

But yeah, I see how this can't be pantheism or a universal mind because those concepts are based on the interdependence of consciousnesses (not souls, consciousnesses), whereas Tolkien is very specific that the Eruhini, but not animals and plants, have distinct, individual, immutable souls. So in that vein, your idea of fear as being constituents of God makes sense.

Unfortunately I don't know a lot about Zoroastrianism, but what you said about it is really really interesting!!!

I'm now thinking about the manner in which Arda was created by fallible beings according to the design of a perfect Being. Like what does that mean that the hands that built the world are fallible? Could Arda have actually been perfect before it was Marred? (My brain is distractedly now running away and jumping to the Platonic concept that matter itself is imperfect and flawed, whereas the "forms" are perfect...does Eru contain the "forms?") Maybe Arda was only able to be Marred because it was made by fallible hands? Could Melkor have marred something made directly by Eru? Oh fuck, now my brain is going to problem of evil questions because Eru told Melkor that nothing he is can exist if it hasn't been conceptualized by Eru Himself. THANKS LEE. (You do *not* have to answer these questions lol I'm just being kind of rhetorical and rambly as usual) Thank you for your invaluable contributions to the discourse as always.

WELL EMILY, I say, weeping, I'll have you know your rambling is sadly relevant. I actually, honest to God, keep stumbling onto these issues in the fic, because I've gone theological enough that I'm unironically having to read up on theodicy and soteriology to elucidate the minutiae of... well. Salvation, The Problem Of Evil re: Morgoth, the subtleties of predestination, and where the hell I'm going with the whole Luthien versus Fate arc. For fuck's sake, I'm not even religious! 😭 So. If you have a hot Morgoth take from your occultism days, drop it. [The moral here is, of course, "Kinky incest: not even once."]

Laura Footes (British, 1991) - Spring Awakening with Two Entwined Trees (2024)

Toby Stephens as James Flint BLACK SAILS | 2.06

I hate 2 say it but being a part of a “weird” subculture does not meaningfully inoculate you against a conservative moralizing impulse. You gotta unlearn that. Saying “cringe is dead” is not enough, you have to actually be okay with things that discomfort, perplex and/or disgust you.

Soma Faitanin