An interesting thought on Deities and their sacred creatures

[☆Dreamwind☆]

We've all heard that plants and animals are sacred to specific deities, and we know from the myths that not every deity was there right from the start. It makes me wonder if anyone has ever discovered if the oldest creator Gods hold long extinct species of plants and animals sacred and dear to their hearts? It wouldn't surprise me if that were the case.

 

[VoidCat]

Probably is the case. I never thought about that

 

[Quintessence]

The gods I honor in my tradition are mostly the local gods/spirits. I live in one of the most anthropogenically altered states in the country. Many of the persons who used to live here are either extirpated from the state or dramatically reduced in abundance. In my experience communing with the sprits/gods of the land, they have a long memory but are also inevitably subject to the currents of change as much as anything else is. The legacy of Tallgrass Prairie ecosystem here remains, for example, even if the plant persons that made the soil dark and rich here are now almost entirely eliminated from the land. It is... kind of like ghosts? I'm not sure how to put it into words.

 

[1137]

We've all heard that plants and animals are sacred to specific deities, and we know from the myths that not every deity was there right from the start. It makes me wonder if anyone has ever discovered if the oldest creator Gods hold long extinct species of plants and animals sacred and dear to their hearts? It wouldn't surprise me if that were the case.

In Egypt, most of the animals are known/alive, or entirely fabricated, to my knowledge. Like Thoth as an Ibis, but Setesh as a mythical creature.

 

[Bear Wild]

We've all heard that plants and animals are sacred to specific deities, and we know from the myths that not every deity was there right from the start. It makes me wonder if anyone has ever discovered if the oldest creator Gods hold long extinct species of plants and animals sacred and dear to their hearts? It wouldn't surprise me if that were the case.

The way I look at it is the modern animals and plants carry the ancestral wisdom with them as do humans. Even if an animal is extinct its wisdom was passed on to the those that live today.

Now according to Welsh mythology, "In all of my time I have never known the Owl of Cwm Cowlyd as anything other than ancient. There is no one in the world as old as the Owl of Cwm Cowlyd."

 

[Quintessence]

The way I look at it is the modern animals and plants carry the ancestral wisdom with them as do humans. Even if an animal is extinct its wisdom was passed on to the those that live today.

Yes, that's a good way to put it. The legacy of the ancestors is present in the now and accessible to any who wish to explore it. Sometimes, when I've talked to the trees, they'll share feelings of things that feel very, very old. I had that with American Sycamore in particular, only to later learn that botanically, this particular species is an older evolutionary lineage and some of its weird characteristics are present because it evolved alongside megafauna that no longer exist in the present. The ancestral memory is there, carried forward.