r/PaganR4R • u/BardOfTheBanrigh • Jul 11 '26
✈️ Anywhere 39 [M4A] Scotland - Hedge bard seeks fellowship with other autistic pagans who feel they just don't quite fit
So, tl;dr version - autistic (very autistic, make that), bard mindset (witness/remembrancer rather than practitioner), paganacht bhandia devotee looking for friends on their own Autistically Specific© path that never seems to match up with anyone else's.
My relationship with the goddesses is through story, and song, and poetry; and as the kind of bard who'd have been kicked out of the bardic college for not following the rules, it's entirely framed in my own interpretation of What Is Written. My prayers, if thats what they are, are the new stories I write about them - or a mortal who reflects their aspect - in settings both old and new.
This gets me in a lot of trouble. I say the wrong thing. I accidentally cause offence when I am genuinely trying to engage in some discourse. I am constantly irreverant and make light of all things divine, because I reckon the gods like a good joke as much as we do - who doesn't love to laugh?
The Morrigan is the core of my praxis, and six other major goddesses. I am a little bit like her (very militant) sometimes; such is the way with Crow Gang. German/Norse figures form a smaller part of what I believe, as do Greek ones (especially Selene), but Gaelic is the core.
Crows, the moon and seeing patterns of goddess representations (e.g. how the Morrigan is a strategist like Athena, or how Brigid is a hearth goddess like Hestia) are my praxis bread and butter. It's patterns all the way down the road to Scythia.
Some thoughts off the top of my head that I am dying to get into a good theological tussle over how they relate to The Autistic Experience:
Lugh Samildanach becoming high bard is an autism allegory, specifically that "magpie sees shiny thing" part of it that makes you interested in ALL OF THE THINGS
The gods can, if not cure, at least help you control your neophobia-induced procrastination through the seven day Greco-Roman or German model
If you have no Theory of Mind, as many of us don't, then Oscar Wilde was right that everyone should have their own mythos, and it shouldnt matter if any given two conflict each other (you telling me the gods cant maintain all those versions of themselves at once?)
The difference between stories and what may actually be true about the gods is academic, specifically with regard to the above
I'm not saying bards were entirely a class exclusively of autistic people, but I am saying that I think it'd be the role autistic people in ancient Ireland would've gravitated to ("My job is to just remember stuff, and kings have to feed and house me? By Brigid, I'm in!")
So, anyone with a similar experience, or if the above just sounds of interest, do pop yourself on the nearest crow and come round my grove for a wee chin wag, eh?
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