[pnpgm] To Ben'dar about Cernunnos

[Robert Maxwell]

As we walk, Strie'bog will talk about Cernunnos for those who would like
to listen.

"Ben'dar, you asked me about Cernunnos.  Shocking as it may seem, I
don't know where to begin.  Throughout all of my life, I have heard the
stories and been a participant in the services to the Court of Life. 
Never have I had to look at it from the outside.  Thank you Ben'dar, for
you have allowed me a chance to look at my faith in a different way."

"To start, you must understand something about me.  My mother is a
Daughter of Cernunnos.  As such, her love for the Lord of Life is
boundless and true.  This she instilled in me.  My father though was not
of this faith.  He honored Cernunnos, and even died protecting the
sacred forest, but he was an outsider to the Vassa."

"My father was a missionary of Dawana."  He pauses for a moment,
looking around to those that listen, "I am not sure if you know of that
land.  I my self have never seen it, but my father spoke of it often. 
My mother fell in love with my father because of his faith and the love
with which he held the harmony of nature.  My father was a priest of
Omael and Manu.  What the Dawana preach is that there is a place for all
thing in exisitence, and that our greatest virtue as living creatures is
our ability understand our environment and our place within it.  Within
this teaching is a message of peace and respect with drew my mother's
heart to my father.  I am a product of a druidic heritage tempered with
Dawanese thought.  Because of this, the Forestal of the Sacred Forest
decided that it would be improper to train me as a druid.  He instead
began my instruction as a bard."

"Bards are given more freedom than the druids.  We must uphold the
brehonic code and laws, act as judges when required, and carry the lore
of our people, but we are not held to the rigid codes of the druids. 
The Forestal knew that I carried a love of my father's faith, for I
often quoted from the Dawanese holy books my father taught me to read. 
Lukily, Miklavz, is patient, and saw that the ideas presented by my
father were not contrary to my mother's faith."  Looking away for a
moment, "I never had a desire to follow the teachings of the Dawanese. 
There is something I always found incomplete, and my mother's blood
called me to my current path.  Still, there is much that I have learned
looking to the teachings of Omael and Manu."  He laughs, "I have always
believed that they would side with Cernunnos in preserving and enhancing
life."

"Of course, it can be said that it is the grace of Manu that brought us
all together on this path."

After a few minutes, "Cernunnos is the Lord of Life and Nature, ruler
of the Court of Cernunnos and of Life.  He is the slain god that rose
again...."


I'll continue this a little later.

Robert.