Tag: Solitary Pagan

ORIGIN

Greek. Messenger of the gods.

KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP

circa 800 BC but probably earlier until Christianization (circa AD 400).

CENTER(S) OF CULT

Pheneos (Arcadia); otherwise few specific places, but strongly associated with wayside shrines and cairns.

ART REFERENCES

probably certain prehistoric phallic figures marking boundaries; Parthenon frieze; Hermes of Praxiteles in Olympia.

LITERARY SOURCES

Iliad, Odyssey (Homer); Theogony (Hesiod).

Hermes is the son of a nymph, MAIA, who consorted with ZEUS. He was born in the Arcadian mountains, a complex, Machiavellian character full of trickery and sexual vigor.

His most significant consort is APHRODITE.

He is a God of boundaries, guardian of graves, and patron deity of shepherds.

Perversely, he patronizes both heralds and thieves and is a bringer of good fortune.

According to legend Hermes as a day-old infant stole the cattle of his elder brother APOLLO while playing the lyre.

Legend accords to him the invention of fire also generated on his first day.

Hermes’s skills at theft were put to use by the other gods of Olympus, who sent him to liberate ARES from a barrel and to bring King Priam of Troy into a conciliatory meeting with the Greek war hero Achilles after the death of Hector.

Classical art depicts Hermes wearing winged golden sandals and holding a magical herald’s staff consisting of intertwined serpents, the kerykeion.

He is reputedly the only being able to find his way to the underworld ferry of Charon and back again.

Hence he was sent to bring both PERSEPHONE and Eurydice back from Hades.

In company with other Greek gods, Hermes is endowed with not-inconsiderable sexual prowess which he directs toward countryside nymphs and with which he also maintains a healthy and thriving population of sheep and goats!

He was often represented in wayside shrines in the form of a phallic pillar or post which was regarded as a funerary monument, hence the role of grave guardian.

n electrical charge.

There are 2 types of souls. Those that use their minds to live life with, and souls that use their hearts. The soul uses both but typically one makes the most decisions, certainly not all in most cases.

There are souls that are led through emotions, feelings, hormones, the spur of the moment, the thrill of excitement, the physical is their way of interpreting the spiritual. These souls are souls that need only action and excitement to enjoy their life. When talking with a heart soul, be gentle, only emotions rule these spirits. Their native tongue is gentleness. All souls, though, understand love.

There are souls that are led through ideas, philosophy, discussion, reflection, discipline, the mind is their tool for interpreting the spiritual. These souls are souls that only need privacy and things to mull over with a few close friends perhaps. This is the soul that reads life through what they see and hear and interpret, who shy away from the gregarious action.

These souls understand the truth, their native tongue is fact over opinion. All souls, though, understand love. When you are attempting to speak to a spirit, lead them with what their native tongue is. The deity knows each language of the world, and more beyond this. The deity does this through understanding how a soul reads and interprets the living world around them.

Do not get lost in translation. That is dangerous, it only brings problems and negativity to those spirits involved. If you have a problem prefer to speak to the spirit inside of the people you talk to in their native tongue. The languages people speak are typically easy to understand. After all, we didn’t make it this far just to kill each other over miscommunication.

These deities may be invoked for strength, success, energy, inspiration and increase.

Apollo

Apollo, the Greek Sun God, was twin brother of Artemis, the Moon Goddess. As god of the solar
light, Apollo made the fruits of the Earth ripen, and at Delos and Delphi where he slew Python, the
first crops were dedicated to him.
(Python, the great lightning serpent, was the son-consort of the Mother Goddess in her form of
Delphyne, the Womb of Creation, fertilised by Python. Python in this sense predated all other gods
and was later called the Dark Sun, Apollo’s alter ego. The Ancient Greeks rededicated his shrine to
Apollo.)
Apollo was god of prophecy as well as music, poetry, archery, healing and divination. He is very
strongly animus and is good for all rituals of power, ambition and inspiration, as well as those areas
under his patronage. Men tend to work better with him than women.

Aine

Aine is daughter of Manananann, Celtic Sea God and ruler of the Isle of Man and goddess of the
cycles of the solar and lunar year. Even during the twentieth century, she was remembered on the Hill
of Aine in Ireland, by torchlight processions and burning straw at midsummer and also at the old corn
harvest, Lughnassadh, at the beginning of August. She is also linked with love, fertility and healing.
Ama-terasu Omikami
Ama-terasu Omikami is the Ancient Japanese Sun Goddess. Her name means ‘Great August Spirit
Shining in Heaven’ but she is also called Shinmet, ‘Divine Radiance’ and O-hiru-me-no-muchi, ‘Great
Female Possessor of Noon’.
She is good for female-focused Sun rituals and for ceremonial magick.

Helios

The Greek god Helios, known to the Romans as Sol, was regarded as the Sun itself. He ascended the
heavens in a chariot drawn by winged snow-white horses to give light and in the evening descended
into the ocean. Homer wrote:
‘Drawn in his swift chariot, he sheds light on gods and men alike; the formidable flash of his eyes
pierces his golden helmet, sparkling rays glint from his breast and his brilliant helmet gives forth a
dazzling splendour. His body is draped in shining gauze, whipped by the wind.’
He is especially associated with the life force and renewing health and energy.

Horus

Horus was the Ancient Egyptian Sky God, represented as a falcon or a falcon-headed man. His eyes
were the Sun and Moon and his wings could extend across the entire heavens. He was frequently
associated with the morning aspect of Ra, the Sun God, and worshipped as Re-Harakhte. The son of
Isis and Osiris, he is often depicted as an infant on his mother’s lap and together the parents and child
form a trinity.
Horus brings clarity of mind and purpose and the ability to seize upon an opportunity, and is effective
for uncovering secrets, deception and illusion.

Lugh

Lugh, the Celtic ‘shining one’, who gives his name to Lughnassadh, Celtic festival of the first harvest,
was the young solar deity who replaced the Dagda, father of the gods, as supreme king. He was
associated with sacrifice, as the Sun King who was reborn each year at either the mid-winter solstice
or the spring equinox.
Legend has it that when Lugh arrived to join the Tuatha de Danaan, he went to the palace of Tara and
asked for a position in the court. (The Tuatha de Danaan were the ancient Irish gods and goddesses,
literally ‘the tribe of Danu’, who was the creatrix goddess.) He said he was a carpenter, but was told
that the company of gods already had one.
Lugh then declared he was a smith but again was told that the deities possessed such a craftsman. He
then announced that he was a poet, then in turn a warrior, historian, hero and sorcerer. Each position
was filled. Lugh then demanded whether any one person could perform all these tasks as he could. As
a result, he was admitted to the Tuatha de Danaan and eventually became their leader.
You can invoke Lugh especially at the time of Lughnassadh, for the reaping of benefits sown earlier
in the year, but also at any time for adaptability, versatility, innovation and originality.

ORIGIN

Roman. Messenger god.

KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP

circa 400 BC to circa AD 400.

SYNONYMS

Psychopompus; Oneicopompus;

HERMES

(Greek); Mercury.

CENTER(S) OF CULT

Circus Maximus (Rome).

ART REFERENCES

sculptures and carvings.

LITERARY SOURCES

Aeneid (Virgil), etc.

One of the twelve major deities of Olympus, Mercury is modeled closely on the Greek god Hermes.

In Roman mythology, he is the son of JUPITER and the plains goddess MAIA, born in a cave on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia.

He is attributed with the invention of the lyre made from tortoiseshell, and with various misdemeanors, including the theft of cattle from APOLLO, an allegory on the blowing away of the clouds (Apollo’s herds).

Mercury also personifies the wind.

Apollo presented Mercury with the gift of his winged baton, the caduceus, which had the power of resolving conflict and dispute.

The gods also presented Mercury with winged sandals or talaria and a cap or petasus.

Originally he was a god of riches but became a patron of travelers and thieves.

The French for Wednesday, Mercredi, derives from his name.

His main annual festival, the Mercuralia, took place in Rome in May and his statues were frequently placed as boundary markers.

As Psychopompus he leads the souls of the dead into Hades, and as Oneicopompus he oversees the world of dreams.

The thrice greatest Hermes,” a
mythological blend of the Egyptian god Thoth, who governed
mystical wisdom, magic, writing and other disciplines,
and was associated with healing; and the Greek
god Hermes, the personification of universal wisdom and
patron of magic, the swift, wing-footed messenger god
who carried a magic wand, the caduceus. The ancient
Greeks associated Hermes with Thoth so closely that the
two became inseparable. “Thrice greatest” refers to
Hermes Trismegistus as the greatest of all philosophers;
the greatest of all kings; and the greatest of all priests.
Both Thoth and Hermes were associated with sacred
writings. As scribe of the gods, Thoth was credited with
all sacred books. In some Egyptian writings, he was described
as “twice very great” and “five times very great.”
Hermes was credited with the authorship of 20,000
books by Iamblichus (ca. 250–300 b.c.e.), a Neo-platonic
Syrian philosopher, and more than 36,000 by Manetho
(ca. 300 b.c.e.), an Egyptian priest who wrote the history
of Egypt in Greek, perhaps for Ptolemy I. According
to myth, both Thoth and Hermes revealed to mankind
the healing arts, magic, writing, astrology, sciences and
philosophy. Thoth recorded the weighing of souls in the
Judgment Hall of Osiris Hermes conducted the souls
of the dead to Hades. Hermes, said Francis Barrett in
Biographia Antiqua, “. . . communicated the sum of the
Abyss, and the divine knowledge to all posterity . . .”
Hermes Trismegistus provided the wisdom of the light
in the ancient Egyptian mysteries. He carried an emerald,
upon which was recorded all of philosophy, and the caduceus,
the symbol of mystical illumination. Hermes Trismegistus
vanquished Typhon, the dragon of ignorance
and mental, moral and physical perversion.
The surviving wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus is said
to be the Hermetica, 42 books that profoundly influenced
the development of Western occultism and magic. These
books, probably authored by a succession of anonymous
persons date to between the third century b.c.e. and the
first century c.e.

The Laws of the Universe are created in such a way that nothing escapes punishment and no good deed goes unrewarded. The Deity lives in everything that exists and is therefore omnipresent. It is believed that the laws of the universe are to keep a perfect balance. If the balance of life, peace, love, hate, comfort, sleep, rest, action, force etc. is tipped, it may only be tipped back by forcing the soul that has tipped it to live through the life of the person, or persons, that have been affected.

A fine example of the tipping of the great scale of life is murder. If a person kills someone it is believed that the deity will take the soul of the killer and place them in the lives of all of their victims. In the end, the killer hasn’t killed anyone but themselves. This is how the deities keep balance in the universe, by forcing the law of justice to unfold so that each person who has had their scale tipped, may find their scale tipped again to where it was when it was created.

Of you can,  envision everyone as a spirit inside of a giant bubble. Every Bubble is inside of another bubble and when one bubble is moving around and rams into another bubble they bounce and hit all the bubbles around them. It could be family, friends, loved ones, anyone. Anyone can be a bubble who is affected by another bubble. But once the edge decides it’s the limit, then they all hit the edge and bounce back with an equal force to the original push, causing a balance.

Nothing should be kept out of harmony. Disrupting harmony can be very easy to do. Anything that has caused movement on the earth has the ability to upset the balance has disrupted harmony. The question is, was it severe enough to cause one spirit to call the deity down to oversee a matter? The answer is, has the balance in a person’s life, any balance, been tipped by an outside force? If yes, then yes, there will be consequences. Consequences can be both good and bad. Just as you may damage someone’s life, you may also bless it as well and living through that is a reward in itself.

Invoke these deities for rituals involving all aspects of the environment and for healing the planet.

Gaia

Gaia is the all-embracing and all-nourishing goddess of the Earth. It is said that she supplies in her
bounty all the necessary plants to cure any disease and, in spite of human pollution, she constantly
heals and renews the planet. She is also a goddess of marriage.
She is the natural focus for all green rituals.
Tellus Mater
Tellus Mater was the Earth Mother of the Romans, the alter ego of Ceres, the grain mother, and
guardian of the fertility of people, animals and crops. However, Tellus Mater is also the mother who
receives the dead in her womb to comfort and restore and so, like Gaia, she is a excellent goddess for
all green magick and rituals for healing pollution or deforestation.

Wophe

Wophe, or White Buffalo Calf Woman, is the sacred creator woman of the Lakotas and other peoples
of the American Plains. Legend says she fell from a meteor and as she began her Earth walk, she was
discovered by two young Lakota scouts who were hunting for buffalo.
She wore a pure white buckskin dress, her long hair flowing behind her like a sea of corn. She sang
into the souls of the men that each should act on his thoughts. Eagerly the first, not recognising her
sacred nature, hurried towards her and a white mist covered them. The sound of rattlesnakes was
heard and when the cloud lifted, there were only the bones of the young man. She told the other to
inform the elders of the tribe that she would come to them next morning with a great gift for the
people.
A huge ornate ceremonial tepee was erected and in the morning she entered, carrying a special bundle
on her back and singing a holy song. The men kept their eyes lowered when she entered, as she had
instructed. She unfastened the bundle and took from it the buffalo calf pipe, which is still the most
sacred religious object of the Lakota today.
The woman instructed the men in how to smoke the pipe, which in its smoke symbolised the visible
Spirit, in the bowl Mother Earth and in the stem Father Sky, so that it might be used for prayer
offerings to her and for bringing peace to divided nations. On her visits she also taught sacred
ceremonies for restoring balance and healing to both Earth and people. She then set off to leave the
camp, walking towards the West.
When she reached the outskirts, she rolled over on the ground and was transformed into a buffalo,
changing colours several times. Finally, she changed into a white buffalo calf, rarest of the species,
promising that when she was seen again she would restore harmony to a troubled world. The people
followed her teachings, the corn grew, the seasons continued to flow in succession and they were
hungry no more, as buffalo became plentiful.
By the end of the nineteenth century, however, there were in reality fewer than 200 buffalo left, where
only years earlier it was estimated there had been several million. In the summer of 1994, a white
buffalo calf was born in Jamesville, Wisconsin. As the prophecy had told, the white buffalo has
changed its colours since birth, going from white to black to red to yellow and back to white. Since
each colour represents one of the four directions, the buffalo is seen by many Native Americans as a
symbol of the rebirth of hope. One visionary interpreted the birth of the white buffalo calf as
signifying that the human race will be united, in spite of differences in creed and colour, and join
together in peace.
Wophe is therefore an important symbol not only of the revival of the Native American wisdom, but
also of healing and reconciliation of all people and of the land and all its creatures

These deities are for the hunt, instincts, willing sacrifice and ecstasy.

Cernunnos

Cernunnos, meaning ‘horned one’, was a generic term for the various Horned Gods of the Celtic
tradition. The god dates back to the shamanic figures portrayed on cave walls. Cernunnos was lord of
winter, the hunt, animals, death, male fertility and the Underworld, and was sometime portrayed as a
triple or trefoil god, an image later assimilated by St Patrick with his emblematic shamrock.
Other forms of the Horned God include Herne the Hunter, the Greek Pan, god of the woodlands, and
Dionysus, Greek god of vegetation and the vine, whose ecstatic mystery cult involved ritual
dismemberment and resurrection.
Cerunnos’ importance has been in his continuing presence as the Horned God, the male principle in
witchcraft through the ages, in modern Wicca and other neo-pagan faiths. He is also invoked for
prosperity, fertility, instinctive power and knowledge of when it is necessary to hunt, whether to find
employment or a home, and as protection against predators of all kinds.

Dionysus

Dionysus, sometimes depicted as a Horned God, was a god of the grain, who died and was reborn
every year as a child in a basket, representing the seed corn. He was the Greek god of fertility, ecstasy
and wildness, who bestowed great abundance on his followers; his cult performed savage rites at
Eleusius where human flesh was eaten as the bread of life. Not an easy deity to use, without great
experience and restraint, as the excesses carried out under his name need to be kept in check while
invoking the free spirit and the renewal of life. He is potent for breaking away from destructive
situations or, ironically, bad habits such as alcohol.

Osiris

Osiris became one of the most important and popular gods in Ancient Egypt, mainly because he
promised non-royal believers that resurrection and salvation from death were for everyone, poor as
well as rich. Originally he was identified with each dead pharaoh, and his son Horus was identified
with the reigning successor.
Osiris married his sister Isis, and his brother Seth married Isis’s sister Nephthys. According to legend,
Osiris was at first made an earthly king by his father Geb, the Earth God. Osiris ruled wisely, teaching
his people about agriculture and the arts. But Osiris’s brother Seth was jealous and vowed to kill him.
Seth invited Osiris to a feast and showed the guests a fine coffer, promising that whoever fitted inside
would be the owner. Osiris stepped inside the coffer and it fitted perfectly. Seth slammed the lid tight
and he and his followers threw the chest into the Nile.
Isis searched for her husband and at last discovered the chest at Byblos on the Phoenician coast. She
brought Osiris’ body back to Egypt and conceived a son by her dead husband, hiding herself in the
rushes of the marshes of the delta while awaiting the birth.
Seth discovered the body of Osiris, hacked it into pieces and scattered them throughout Egypt so that
he could never be restored to life. But Isis searched once more and, assisted by Nephthys, remodelled
the bones into Osiris’ form and restored her husband to life once more.
When their son Horus, the Sky God, became a youth, he fought to avenge his father against Seth. The
divine judges, including Thoth, god of wisdom, met in the Great Hall of Judgment and decided that
Osiris should become not a living king once more, but eternal King and Judge of the Underworld.
Osiris was also god of vegetation, the fertile, flooding Nile and the corn, and so represented the annual
dying of the land and rebirth with the flood. He is normally pictured as a man, bound in mummy
wrappings.
Osiris is an important icon of the annual cycle of sacrifice and resurrection but, as with all the
sacrifice gods, it is the female power that causes the resurrection. Like other sacrificed and restored
gods, Osiris thereby represents the integration of animus and anima and sacred sex magick. He can be
used in rituals for the balance of male/female energies or where the female in the High Priestess role
takes the lead. He is also good for any magick that relies on a cycle of regeneration following a
natural ending.

These deities can be invoked in rituals concerning the family and the home.

Frigg

Frigg was the Viking Mother Goddess whose jewelled spinning wheel formed Orion’s belt; as
patroness of marriage, women, mothers and families, she can be invoked for all rituals concerned with
families and domestic happiness. She invited devoted husbands and wives to her hall after death so
that they might never be parted again and so is goddess of fidelity.
As Ostara, goddess of spring, she was known among the Anglo-Saxons and is remembered in the
festival of Easter as a fertility goddess and bringer of new beginnings.
In her role as Valfreya, the Lady of the Battlefield, Frigg recalls the Northern tradition of warrior
goddesses and offers courage to women.

Hera

Hera, the wife-sister of Zeus, is a the supreme Greek goddess of protection, marriage and childbirth
whose sacred bird is the peacock. She is a powerful deity of fidelity and is called upon by women
seeking revenge upon unfaithful partners.

The deity is one with everything, nothing exists without their spirit in it. The deity exists within you just as they exist within every human and animal, plant, insect, and object that can be touched or held or observed. When you suffer it just so happens that so does the deity. They experience everything you experience because they are inside of you, and because of this, you are never alone. All the people on this earth have named the deity as a mother or a father, male or female, or both. Some say that they don’t exist and that’s fine also. Just as the deity is all the greatness in the world, they are also all of the darkness in the world. The deity allows war to happen, and sickness, and hate. They do not separate themselves from the darkness in this life. They create defeat, anger, pain, vengeance, and all the things that come with destruction. This is true because the deity is a reflection of all living things. If sickness and vengeance and all other things exist within each living thing, then surely the deities experience it also. Why they created this is a whole other matter. Surely, though, the reason may be that it is created to bring balance which brings peace into our lives.  People will often have what they refer to as trouble with their faith in Paganism. It may be impossible for there to be such thing as a problem with their faith,

This feeling could be boiled down to two things. One is that its negative energy that’s messing up the view of your soul. The second thing is this may be is a calling to another faith. It is possible that there is no such thing as having the wrong faith. You may have bad morals according to some opinion or another, but you will never have the wrong faith or lack of faith. If it means you decide to turn Atheist, or Christian, or Muslim, then that’s just what the deity wants you to go through so that the plans they have for you in this world can come out and form. No matter what the deity has in store, it is perfectly normal and alright to have a path outside of Paganism, and no Pagan should ever belittle you for it. Most Pagan will have the seed of understanding attached directly into the deity and everything is always good in their eyes no matter what the situation holds. Hold firm to the deity and life will work itself out the way it is supposed to work itself out. The deity speaks to each person differently and no one person is the same nor are they meant to be the same. Each person has their life to live which is separate from everyone else on the planet.