Now I'm considering the possibility of these deities being their own entities.
My question is this: With literally thousands of gods to choose from, how do you decide which ones are real? If they are all real to you, which ones do you decide to worship and why?
Answer: I am going to re-phrase your “question” by separating it into two questions:
A. Which deities do you decide to worship—and why?Answer: I’m in my 60’s now, and I’ve been active in Wicca since about 1984, and active in the local Neo-Pagan community since 1986.
B. How do you decide which deities are real?
As I practiced the religion, my understanding of the Divine widened (Earth & Starry Sky/Goddess & God/living Earth & Spirit) was enriched. It is like a beautiful and intricate, multifaceted jewel. It can be difficult to truly perceive all the facets—and yet amazingly simple at the same time.
A. Which deities do you decide to worship—and why?When I started out in the 1980’s, I had read Starhawk’s The Spiral Dance, 1979, and Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon, 1979. I perceived “All the Goddesses were one Goddess, and all Gods are one God, and they are known by many names…”
When my husband and I eventually found a coven, they were using the Goddess-in-Triad and the Oak King and Holly King. This Coven was drawing from ideas from the Farrars’ Eight Sabbats for Witches, 1981. The names and stories were Welsh-Celtic drawn from the Mabinogion. These tales were compiled from manuscripts, written in Middle Welsh c. 1350–1410, and were put together from earlier oral traditions. (We—of course—all bought the paperback edition to read in Modern English.)
Blodeuwedd was the Flower Maiden, Arianrhod was the Lady of the Silver Wheel and the Mother, and Cerridwen was the Crone who owned the magical Cauldron of Cerridwen. As such, Cerridwen held great power and knowledge. She has often been described as a Crone Goddess, creating a triad with Blodeuwedd and Arianrhod. She is the keeper of the cauldron of inspiration and rebirth, the mother of transformation and change, and the white lady of inspiration and death.
Lleu Llaw Gyffes was the Oak King, and Gronw Pebr was the Holly King. The Oak King and Holly King are personifications of the summer and winter in various folklore and mythic traditions. The two kings engage in endless "battle" connected to the seasonal cycles of the year and the planting and harvesting of crops. The coven HPS had attached these deities’ names to the cycle and seasons of the Wiccan Eight Sabbats.
The point of this information is: If you are in a Coven you likely end up working with some deities connected to that specific Coven’s practice. That being said the HPS and HP encouraged the Coven members to learn about—and connect with other deities for the moon circles (esbats), other rituals, and magick. This particular coven also honored the faery-spirits.
We were encouraged to also personally work with a deity. The deity I decided to personally honor was Aine. Aine is an Irish Goddess of summer—as well as a Faery Queen.
Now let’s skip ahead. As the Earth turns and a few years pass, my husband and I ended up working as a pair of solitaries—because life happens and things just change.
We were still part of the larger Pagan community, and we still attended local gatherings. Duirng that time, I honored a variety of different deities.
Through a rather convoluted process, I invoked and made offering to different deities for different reasons: requesting assistance or aid, giving thanks for help and insights…yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. This form of practice is a bit like working with specialists.
The God or Goddess in question will either choose to answer or not. (Personally, I have never thought it was a good idea to command and conjure Gods and Goddesses to do whatever bidding you wish. The HPS and HP of the original coven agreed with this reverent/religious theology regarding deities and spirits.)
If you do get an answer or assistance, be certain to give any promised offering. (It’s only polite, as well as respectful.) Sometimes, I would state “I give you this cup of wine…(or insert other offering).”
I would also frequently add: “If there is anything else you would like, please let me know—and please remember I can be kind of dense when getting messages—so just keep at it, and if I understand it and if I CAN do it—and IF I find it reasonable—I will do it.”
As I have always been more familiar with the mythology of Greek, Roman, and Italic deities, I eventually began working more with them. These included Aradia, Diana, Hecate, Fortuna, Terra Mater/Gaia, Mercurius, Phoebus Apollo, Luna, Jove …
I tend to work with/honor/venerate the Moon Goddesses the most.
B. How do you decide which deities are real?Well, I tend to think they are ALL real.
Yet, the best criteria is: “Which deities answer you?”
Sunday, June 20, 2021, Myth Woodling