Deities in Sewoch
While deities do exist for the Sewoch, they are not at all similar to Otani deities. In Otan deities live on another plane of existence, creating, destroying and interceding in the lives of mortals on their own whims. In Sewoch, the deities are ever present and always ready to converse with the faithful.
Sewochi deities are never intercessors. They do engage in whimsical activity, much as do the deities of Otan, however, they never interfere in the affairs of mortals. They set examples, and give detailed instructions to mortals on how to achieve a state of Temokiro. They are said to be an a continuous state of Temokiro themselves, even when engaged in whimsical affairs.
The other major difference with Sewochi deities is that they are shared across the two leading Sewochi religions. Practitioners of both Medigemi and Kilesa may call on the same deity for different reasons, but both acknowledge the same group of deities.
Arenigwade
Arenigwade is the god of love and self love. He is a jealous god, however, and is quick to stir to extreme emotions. At best Arenigwade will help the penitent to align their feelings for sexual and fraternal love into a positive step toward Temokiro. At worst, Arenigwade will enrage his followers into fits of anger and jealousy. It is said that this god brings the highest highs and the lowest lows of any of the Sewochi gods.
Arenigwade guides his followers toward love, an necessary step in the path to Temokiro. Followers must learn to love themselves, to love others, to love the path that they are on and most of all, the experience of love. Like their god, followers of Arenigwade will see their love quickly turn to anger if their paths toward love, and ultimately Temokiro, is blocked. These followers will lose their anger completely and immediately once the path is unblocked, and will return to the activity that increased their feelings of love.
Important steps in the path of Arenigwade include the masteries of:
- Love of self
- Love of others
- Love of community
- Love of universe
- Love of experience
Bicha
Bicha is the god of the Sun and the god of intellect. Bicha is depicted as a condescending god, taking pity on the less intelligent gods for their lack of knowledge or understanding. Even when others do understand, Bicha will take the natural stance that they do not understand things well enough to be of a concern. He will not tolerate those who try to correct him on the very rare occasions that he gets something wrong. His path to Temokiro is through a complete understanding of the universe.
Followers of Bicha believe that all knowledge comes from within and that they have 'a priori knowledge of all things in the universe. These followers will nonetheless, take up in-depth studies to remind their forgetful spirits of that knowledge they might have set aside. Bicha's followers will spend much of their time reading, studying nature and the movement of the sun, stars and planets. They achieve the state of Temokiro not when they understand, but fully experience the knowledge that they understand. This is done trough a combination of meditation and empirical observations.
Important steps in the path of Bicha include:
- Experiencing the motion of Sewoch and the Sun
- Experiencing the natural path from birth to death
- Experiencing the relationships between elements
- Experiencing physical causality (or lack thereof)
- Experiencing the intricacies of time
Biritukanama
Hamirawi
Inigogo
indigo
Keyi
Meweledi
Moti
Semayawi
