Tag: Solitary Pagan

ORIGIN

Greek. Goddess of the moon and of pathways.

KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP

circa 800 BC until Christianization (circa AD 400).

SYNONYMS

Hekate.

CENTER(S) OF CULT

Lagina.

ART REFERENCES

sculptures and reliefs.

LITERARY SOURCES

Theogony (Hesiod) etc.

Hekate is the daughter of Perses and Asteria and is subsequently honored by ZEUS as a goddess.

She is the mother of Scylla and is specifically a goddess of pathways and crossroads traveled by night.

Artistic representations show her carrying torches.

Where paths met, a triple-figure of Hecate rose from masks placed at the junction.

Offerings were left in roadside shrines and at junctions. In later times she tended to become syncretized with the goddess ARTEMIS.

Hekate is also the patron of Medea and other witches, and in some parts of Thessaly, she was worshiped by occult bands of female moon worshipers.

In variations of the DEMETER legends, Hekate plays a part in the return of PERSEPHONE from HADES.

She is also invoked as a bestower of wealth and favor

Odin (pronounced “OH-din”; Old Norse Óðinn, Old English and Old Saxon Woden, Old High German Wuotan, Wotan, or Wodan, Proto-Germanic *Woðanaz, “Master of Ecstasy”) is one of the most complex and enigmatic characters in Norse mythology, and perhaps in all of world literature.

He’s the ruler of the Aesir tribe of deities, yet he often ventures far from their kingdom, Asgard, on long, solitary wanderings throughout the cosmos on purely self-interested quests.

He’s a relentless seeker after and giver of wisdom, but he has little regard for communal values such as justice, fairness, or respect for law and convention.

He’s the divine patron of rulers, and also of outlaws.

He’s a war god, but also a poetry god, and he has prominent “effeminate” qualities that would have brought unspeakable shame to any historical Viking warrior.

He’s worshiped by those in search of prestige, honor, and nobility, yet he’s often cursed for being a fickle trickster.

What kind of literary figure – let alone a god whose historical worship spanned much of a continent and several centuries – could possibly embody all of these qualities at once, with their apparently glaring contradictions?

What’s in a Name?

As mentioned above, Odin’s name can be translated as “Master of Ecstasy.”

His Old Norse name, Óðinn, is formed from two parts: first, the noun óðr, “ecstasy, fury, inspiration,” and the suffix -inn, the masculine definite article, which, when added to the end of another word like this, means something like “the master of” or “a perfect example of.”

The eleventh-century historian Adam of Bremen confirms this when he translates “Odin” as “The Furious.” Óðr can take countless different forms.

As one saga describes Odin, “when he sat with his friends, he gladdened the spirits of all of them, but when he was at war, his demeanor was terrifyingly grim.”

This ecstasy that Odin embodies and imparts is the unifying factor behind the myriad areas of life with which he is especially associated: war, sovereignty, wisdom, magic, shamanism, poetry, and the dead.

War

In modern popular culture, Odin is often portrayed as being an eminently honorable ruler and battlefield commander (not to mention impossibly muscular), but to the ancient Norse, he was nothing of the sort.

In contrast to more straightforwardly noble war gods such as Tyr or Thor, Odin incites otherwise peaceful people to strife with what, to modern tastes, is a downright sinister glee.

His attitude is not far from Nietzsche’s dictum, “You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.”

In keeping with his associations with sovereignty, Odin doesn’t generally concern himself with average warriors, preferring instead to lavish his blessings only on those whom he deems to be worthy of them.

Many of the greatest Germanic heroes, such as Starkaðr and the Volsung family, have enjoyed Odin’s patronage.

He maintains particularly close affiliations with the berserkers and other “warrior-shamans” whose fighting techniques and associated spiritual practices center around achieving a state of ecstatic unification with certain ferocious totem animals, usually wolves or bears, and, by extension, with Odin himself, the master of such beasts.

Thus, as a war god, Odin is principally concerned not with the reasons behind any given conflict or even its outcome, but rather with the raw, chaotic battle-frenzy (one of the primary manifestations of óðr) that permeates any such struggle.

Sovereignty

Odin’s preference for the elite extends to all realms of society.

As the chief of the Aesir gods, he’s the divine archetype of a ruler. He’s the legendary founder of numerous royal lines, and kings are as likely as shamanistic warriors to claim him as their beneficiary.

The Germanic peoples, like other Indo-European peoples, originally had a three-tiered social/political hierarchy: the first tier consisted of rulers, the second of warriors, and the third of farmers and others occupied with production and fecundity.

The gods and goddesses can be profitably mapped onto this schema, and Odin, along with Tyr, corresponds to the first tier, the rulers.

The crucial difference between Tyr and Odin in this regard, however, is that Tyr has much more to do with rule by law and justice, whereas Odin has much more to do with rule by magic and cunning.

Tyr is the sober and virtuous ruler; Odin is the devious, inscrutable, and inspired ruler.

Paradoxically, Odin is often the favorite god and helper of outlaws, those who had been banished from society for some especially heinous crime, as well.

Like Odin, many such men were exceptionally strong-willed warrior-poets who were apathetic to established societal norms – Egill Skallagrímsson (Egil’s Saga) and Grettir Ásmundarson (The Saga of Grettir the Strong) are two examples.

The late twelfth/early thirteenth-century Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus even relates a tale of Odin being outlawed from Asgard for ten years so that the other gods and goddesses wouldn’t be tarnished by the vile reputation he had acquired amongst many humans.

Whatever their social stature, the men and women favored by Odin are distinguished by their intelligence, creativity, and competence in the proverbial “war of all against all.” Whether such people become kings or criminals is mostly a matter of luck.

Wisdom, Magic, and Shamanism

One of the greatest differences between monotheistic theologies and polytheistic theologies is that, in the former, God is generally all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving, etc.

Polytheistic gods are none of these things; like any human, tree, or hawk, they are limited by their particularity.

For Odin, any kind of limitation is something to be overcome by any means necessary, and his actions are carried out within the context of a relentless and ruthless quest for more wisdom, more knowledge, and more power, usually of a magical sort.

One of the most striking attributes of his appearance is his single, piercing eye.

His other eye socket is empty – the eye it once held was sacrificed for wisdom.

On another occasion, Odin “sacrificed himself to himself” by hanging on the world-tree Yggdrasil for nine days and nights, receiving no form of nourishment from his companions.

At the end of this ordeal, he perceived the runes, the magically-charged ancient Germanic alphabet that was held to contain many of the greatest secrets of existence. He is depicted as having subsequently boasted:

Then I was fertilized and grew wise;
From a word to a word I was led to a word,
From a work to a work I was led to a work.

Odin’s competitive side once drove him to challenge the wisest of the giants to a contest to see who was more knowledgeable and learned.

The prize was the head of the loser, and Odin won by asking his opponent something that only he himself could know.

Odin then claimed his prize and returned to Asgard.

Along with Freya, he’s one of the two greatest practitioners of shamanism amongst the gods.

His shamanic spirit-journeys are well-documented.

The Ynglinga Saga records that he often “travels to distant lands on his own errands or those of others” while he appears to others to be asleep or dead.

Another instance is recorded in the Eddic poem “Baldur’s Dreams,” where Odin rode Sleipnir, an eight-legged horse typical of northern Eurasian shamanism, to the underworld to consult a dead seeress on behalf of his son.

Odin, like shamans all over the world, is accompanied by many familiar spirits, most notably the ravens Hugin and Munin, the wolves Geri and Freki, and the valkyries.

The shaman must typically undergo a ritual death and rebirth in order to acquire his or her powers,[15] and Odin underwent exactly such an ordeal when he discovered the runes.

We’ve already, albeit briefly, discussed the berserkers and other distinguished “warrior-shamans” under Odin’s patronage.

This was the form of Germanic shamanism that was the most socially acceptable for men to practice.

The other main form of Germanic shamanism is contained within the magical tradition known as seidr, of which Odin and Freya are the foremost divine practitioners.

In traditional Germanic society, for a man to engage in seidr was effectively to forsake the male gender role, which brought considerable scorn upon any male who chose to take up this path.

As the sagas show, this didn’t stop some men from practicing seidr anyway.

However, even Odin wasn’t exempt from such charges of “unmanliness,” and was taunted for adopting the feminine traits and tasks that form part of the backbone of seidr.

Saxo, in the passage on Odin’s exile alluded to above, relates that “by his stage-tricks and his assumption of a woman’s work he had brought the foulest scandal on the name of the gods.”

Note also the reference to being “fertilized” in the verse quoted above – while this is certainly a metaphor, it’s a metaphor loaded with sexual implications that would have been immediately recognizable to any Viking Age or medieval reader or hearer of the poem.

A fuller discussion of the relationship between Germanic shamanism and gender roles can be found here.

For our present purposes, it’s sufficient to point out that, in the eyes of the pre-Christian northern Europeans, Odin’s practice of seidr made him a rather “unmanly” being incapable of fulfilling the expectations placed upon an honorable man.

But we’ve already noted Odin’s scant concern for the honor. He isn’t one to refuse any ecstatic practice, even those that bring him ill repute.

Poetry

Odin speaks only in poems, and the ability to compose poetry is a gift he grants at his pleasure.

He stole the mead of poetry, the primeval source of the ability to speak and write beautifully and persuasively, from the giants.

Ever since, he has dispensed it to certain gods, humans, and other beings whom he deems worthy of it.

The mead’s Old Norse name is Óðrœrir, “The Stirrer of Óðr,” and, as we have seen, óðr (“ecstasy, fury, inspiration”) is the root of Odin’s name as well.

This intoxicating drink, along with the power it grants, is yet another manifestation of his overflowing ecstasy.

The Dead

When Roman writers spoke of the gods and goddesses of other peoples, they generally tried to identify them with deities from their own religion. When they mentioned Odin, they glossed him as Mercury, the Roman psychopomp (the divine figure who guides those who have just died from the realm of the living to that of the dead, and, in due time, back to the land of the living again).

This is significant, because it shows that Odin’s associations with death were seen as being even more significant than his associations with war, or else he would have been glossed as Mars.

(This designation usually fell to Tyr or Thor instead.)

Odin presides over Valhalla, the most prestigious of the dwelling places of the dead.

After every battle, he and his helping spirits, the valkyries (“choosers of the fallen”), comb the field and take their pick of half of the slain warriors to carry back to Valhalla.

(Freya then claims the remaining half.)

He was a frequent recipient of human sacrifice, especially of royalty, nobles, and enemy armies.

This was generally accomplished by means of a spear, a noose, or both – the same manner in which Odin “sacrificed himself to himself” (Old Norse gefinn Óðni, sjálfr sjálfum mér) in order to acquire knowledge of the runes.

A common – and chilling – way of securing his favor in battle was to throw a spear over one’s foes, sacrificing them to the god with the cry, “Odin owns ye all!” (Old Norse Óðinn á yðr alla).

His mastery of necromancy, the magical art of communicating with and raising the dead, is frequently noted.[20]

While there are several reasons Odin maintains this commerce with the dead, including his desire to learn what knowledge and wisdom they possess, the most significant reason is his dread-driven desire to have as many of the best warriors as possible on his side when he must face the wolf Fenrir during Ragnarok – even though he knows that he’s doomed to die in the battle.

The Allfather

One of Odin’s countless names is “Allfather” (Old Norse Alfaðir), “because,” according to Snorri Sturluson, “he is the father of all of the gods.”

As we’ve already noted, Odin is listed as the divine ancestor of countless families from all over northern Europe.

He’s simultaneously an Aesir god, a Vanir god (the Vanir god Odr is only an extension or transposition of Odin), and a giant (his mother is Bestla, one of the first frost-giants).

One Old Norse poem even identifies him with önd, the breath of life.

What can we discern in all of this regarding Odin’s identity?

In the same way that Thor is the divine force whose presence the Vikings felt in the thunder, Odin is the divine force whose presence the Vikings felt in óðr.

To them, this inspiration/fury/ecstasy was not a profane phenomenon, but a sacred and even divine one that lay at the heart of countless different undertakings, including many that were both especially rarefied and especially decisive in the Vikings’ lives.

This is perhaps why Odin is the chieftain of the gods – the realms of life over which he presided were to the other aspects of life what a ruler is to common people.

The Norse saw their gods as the vital forces that held the cosmos together. As the “Allfather,” Odin was the vital force of vital forces – the “breath of life,” or something almost akin to Nietzsche’s “Will to Power.”

It’s surely no accident that Odin played a greater role than any other god in the creation of the world.

Without his vivifying ecstasy, and the enchantment, insight, and clarity that it brings, life – and in particular a life worth living – would be impossible.

Looking for more great information on Norse mythology and religion?

While this site provides the ultimate online introduction to the topic, my book The Viking Spirit provides the ultimate introduction to Norse mythology and religion period.

Aesculapius

Aesculapius was a healer, son of Apollo and the mortal Corona, who lived during the eleventh century
BC, and became a god after Zeus killed him with a thunderbolt for raising the dead.
The first shrine dedicated to Aesculapius was built in Athens in the fifth century BC by Sophocles.
Other shrines followed in rapid succession, the most famous at Epidaurus, which became a major
healing centre. Many were sited at sacred wells and springs. These shrines were dedicated to healing
and dreams, and were the principle vehicle for obtaining relief or cure of illness of all kinds.
When Aesculapius appeared to the dreamers, he would tell them the medicine they should use and any
treatment that should be followed. He can be invoked for healing and meaningful dreams, for good
health and for divination.

Ganga

Ganga is the Hindu water goddess who is manifest as the sacred river Ganges, daughter of the
mountain Himalaya. She is a natural focus for healing rituals, as well as for happiness, fertility and
prosperity, and for Water magick.

Iduna

Iduna is the Viking goddess of eternal youthfulness, health and long life. As goddess of spring, she
possessed a store of golden apples that endowed immortality, fertility and healing and so she can form
a focus for healing rituals, and for spells for beauty, health and the granting of wishes, especially those
using apples as a symbol.

Panacea

Panacea is the Roman goddess of healing, who takes away pain. Daughter of Aesculapius, she and her
sister Hygeia assisted in healing the sick in their dreams at the dream temples.
She is good for healing rituals for women, children and especially teenage girls.

Sulis

Sulis, or Sulevia, is the Celtic goddess of healing and especially of healing waters. Her name is
derived from the Celtic word for the Sun and her most famous site is the hot mineral springs that have
for at least 10,000 years poured from the ground in Bath, in south-west England. From Celtic times,
perhaps even earlier, the springs became a formal centre of healing.
Sulis became Sulis Minerva under the Roman occupation and she maintained her role as a healing
deity. The significance of the sacred springs continued and Edgar, the first king of England, was
crowned there in AD 973. In medieval times, the springs were still a focus for healing pilgrimages and
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Bath became a fashionable resort where the wealthy would
come to socialise and take the waters.
Sulis is potent for all healing water rituals. Because curse tablets as well as offerings have been
retrieved from the waters, she is also associated with justice through karma and the banishing of
sorrows.

Green Man A pagan deity of the woodlands, usually represented as a horned man peering out from a mask of foliage, usually the sacred oak. The Green Man, also called “Green Jack,” “Jack-in-the-Green” and “Green George,” represents the spirits of the trees, plants and foliage. He is attributed with the powers of making rain and fostering the livestock with lush meadows. He appears often in medieval art, including carved church decorations.

In spring Pagan rites, Green George, as he is usually called then, is represented by a young man clad from head to foot in greenery, who leads the festival procession. In some festivals, Green George, or an effigy of him, is dunked into a river or pond in order to ensure enough
rain to make the fields and meadows green.

As the woodlands deity, the Green Man shares an association with the forest-dwelling fairies (green is the fairy color). In some locations in the British Isles, the fairies are called “Greenies” and “Greencoaties.” “The Green Children” is a myth of two fairy children, a brother and a
sister, whose skin is green, and who claim to be of a race with green skin.

ORIGIN

Greek. Goddess of war and patron defender of many Greek cities.

KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP

circa 800 BC and earlier until Christianization (circa AD 400) and later.

SYNONYMS

Athene; PALLAS ATHENAE (maiden goddess of Athens); MINERVA (Roman).

CENTER(S) OF CULT

Athens but also Argos,Sparta, Gortyn, Larisa (Thessaly); Lindos and Ilion (Homer’s Troy).

ART REFERENCES

the Parthenon frieze and other sculptures and iconography throughout the Greek world, including notably the Athena of Phidias (Varvakeion) and the metope of Olympia in which she assists HERAKLES to support the sky.

LITERARY SOURCES

Iliad and Odyssey (Homer); Theogony and Hymn to Pallas Athene (Hesiod).

Athena is a principal goddess of the Greek pantheon and, according to Hesiod, the daughter of METIS (wisdom) born fully armed from the head of ZEUS.

A goddess of battle and allegedly a snake goddess, she is a deity who also stands for discipline against the more unruly conduct of such as
HERMES and POSEIDON.

Her most famed sanctuary is the Parthenon.

The olive tree is sacred to her, particularly that grown by tradition on the Acropolis, whose oil was given to the victors in the Panathenaia festival.

According to legend, she offered the olive to mankind.

Her symbol is the aigis—the skin of a sacrificial goat.

She is also associated with ship-building and with domestic crafts including wool work and spinning— Athenian women have traditionally woven the peplos at the Panathenaia festival.

In legend, she is the destroyer of Ajax and lures Hector to his death, while supporting such heroes as Perseus against the Gorgon monster, and Diomedes against ARES.

She also acts as a moderating influence in Achilles’ conflict with Agamemnon, the most notable instance of her characteristic ability for self-control.

Agni

Agni, the Hindu god of fire, is said to be manifest as the vital spark in mankind, birds, animals, plants
and life itself. He appeared in lightning, in celestial sun flares, in the sacred blaze rising from the altar
and in household fires.
Agni was the divine priest and acted as messenger to the gods, interceding with them on behalf of
mankind. The priest would chant:
‘Agni, the divine ministrant of the sacrifice,
the great bestower of treasure.
May one obtain through Agni,
wealth and welfare.’
Agni is still important as the god of domestic and ritual fire and for spells for the increase of wealth,
material goods, creativity and domestic protection.

Hephaestus

Hephaestus, Greek god of fire and metal-work, was thrown from Mount Olympus by his father Zeus
because he took the part of his mother Hera in a quarrel; as a result of the fall, he became lame. He
created armour, weapons and jewels for the gods in his workshop beneath the volcanic Mount Etna, in
Sicily, and as a reward was given Aphrodite as his unwilling bride. He was among the least
charismatic of the gods, but his Roman counterpart, Vulcan, fashioned Jupiter’s thunderbolts.
Hephaestus is patron of metal-workers in much of the Western world and in the Middle East from
where his cult originated. He is effective in all rituals for craftsmanship, for the acquisition of wealth
and treasures, for the development of skills and precision and for controlled power for a particular
purpose.

These goddesses are for transformation rituals, for endings that become beginnings and for accepting
what cannot be changed.

Cailleach

Cailleach, meaning’ the Veiled One’, is the Celtic name for a number of hag goddesses. These are powerful crone goddesses, who have retained their early associations with the winter. For example, the Scottish Cailleac Bhuer, the Blue Hag, manifested herself as an old woman wearing black or dark blue rags with a crow on her left shoulder and a holly staff that could kill a mortal with a touch. She roamed the Highlands by night during winter when her power was at its greatest. Cailleac Bhuer is credited with creating the mountains by flying through the sky dropping stones, and so is said by some folklorists to be the origin of megaliths and stone circles and the nursery rhyme, There was anold woman tossed up in a basket’. Hags are expert shapeshifters and as well as appearing as old women, they may assume the form of lovely maidens, hares, cats, stones and even trees.

Hecate

As well as being a crone goddess, Hecate is a goddess of good fortune, especially but not only of sailors and hunters. As goddess of the crossroads, where offerings were traditionally left to call up her blessings, she is regarded as the supreme goddess of witches and witchcraft and is akin to the Bone Goddess who transforms death into new more perfect life. She can be invoked for all waning moon
magic and for rituals for banishing sorrows and bad habits.

Seeking and attaining a spiritual relationship with the Triple Goddess or Cernunnos or Diana or any other number of deities from around the ancient world can be a very effective way into the Craft, and many people find their experience to be deepened and sharpened through the practice of more traditional, structured forms of Wicca. But some newcomers to Wicca and Witchcraft are unsure about the notion of “worshipping” deities and may feel strange about searching for one or more specific gods or goddesses to form relationships or alignments with. Borrowing from older traditions in this respect may not quite feel like an authentic approach to a spiritual search. It’s true that it takes time to find and cultivate an interest in and a relationship with a deity you weren’t aware of until recently, and people who were raised in monotheistic religions can struggle even more with integrating the concept of polytheism. But it’s also true that you don’t absolutely have to incorporate a belief in or a relationship with any specific form of the divine. You might just work with the idea of a Goddess and a God, or even less definitively identified energies of the Universe. Faith and belief are far more often developed and cultivated over time than immediately attained. Make effort to study and seek yours, but go at your own pace, and trust your intuition. No one can tell you you’re not a true Wiccan or Witch because your relationship with the divine doesn’t match their experience. (Well, some might, but in a religion with so many variations, it’s only natural that some will quibble about the details.) There’s no intermediary between you and the Universe, and there are as many paths to the Divine as there are people who seek it. If you do see connecting with deities as a possible part of your path, start doing some research. Read about them—in Wiccan books, in ancient myths, in poetry, in history books. (Watch out for bias in the history books, however—in the Judeo-Christian world, the deities of polytheism often get negatively and erroneously portrayed.) You may discover, as some Witches do, that a deity will actually find you, through images, dreams, seemingly “random” events or coincidences, or in other ways.

In Witchcraft, the gods are often seen as a part of nature, as are we, flowing through time and space.

That quality, that energy that we term as the deity is within everything.

As it is within everything, nothing is better than anything else.

There is inherent animism within Witchcraft, insomuch as we know that one thing is not better than another, that everything has its own inherent value.

It is something that we work with every day, coming up against our own notions of value, where we place the boundaries of our knowledge and experience upon the world.

When we have lost sight of the sacred, we look to other distractions in order to stave off the fear and longing of self-imposed separation.

The gods are energy; the gods are immanent.

They take on whatever form they wish, or whatever form we feel we are best able to communicate with and establish a relationship in order to learn and understand.

The gods may hold more power in certain regards than we do; for example, as a thunderstorm raging across the landscape may hold
terrible power, causing floods and damage to many homes, both human and other than human.

But we also have that power within ourselves, the tides that flood through us, our capacity for creation and destruction.

We simply act upon those tides to create harmony within our ecosystem as much as we can, for that is the purpose of the Hedge Witches Craft.

The earth knows what She is doing, and so storms and earthquakes happen.

The earth, as all beings are, is constantly seeking homeostasis, the balance point.

We can see the destruction of the storm, but we can also see the need for that storm to have happened, the part that we played in causing it, such as through global warming and climate change.

Though the gods may appear terrible and mighty, they are not better than us, just different.

Equally, the world over has deities of love and compassion, of empathy and peace.

These deities are not better than us, but serve as an example of how we too can work with their energy in order to create a harmonious union with everything around us.

Just as we don’t hold a person or a celebrity higher than ourselves simply because they exist, neither do we do so for any deity.

We are simply working with them, using the notion of co-operation and co-existence in order to live our lives in service to our Craft.

It may be important that we learn how to be in the world without losing our power, our autonomy.

All too readily we are willing to give authority and power over to a teacher, a celebrity, a god, and in doing so we are doing a disservice to ourselves.

It’s fine to respect people for what they say and more importantly for what they do, but we must also learn to stand on our own two feet and be the light that we want to see in the world.

Often when we meet people we admire, we lose ourselves: we forget our own inherent self-worth.

Just because someone has something to say, perhaps even something important, doesn’t make them better than you.

Just because someone knows more things than you do, doesn’t make them better than you.

We all know different things. Just because someone has had life experience, doesn’t make them better than you.

A child is just as important as an octogenarian.

In basic, it may be an idea not to give up your power to anyone.

Admire them, sure, respect them, but do not place them on any sort of pedestal.

This includes the Gods.

But what makes a god, a god?

How can we differentiate between something that is, say, the sidhe or fairy, or a spirit of place, from a god?

We, humans, are always so keen to label things, to put them in boxes, but really we need to do this to an extent in order to grasp some
concepts that at first may seem far too large to handle.

If we look at the spirits of place, this is the energy of a location.

It is also viewed as the energy of the land, the sea or the sky.

There is often a fine distinction between a god and the spirit of place, and that line can move about from entity to entity.

Divinity or deity is a force of nature that has the power to kill.

Therefore, a river, a storm, a flood, the sun, the process of birthing and dying: these are all gods.

They are all a part of nature.

There are also gods of human nature as well: gods of lust and rage, love and ecstasy.

For me, I feel this definition is still too limited; I feel that deity is something which operates on a much grander scale, whether or not it has the capacity to kill us.

So, I honour the spirits of place where I live, but the over-arching energy that holds it all together, say, the heathland in its entirety as delineated by natural boundaries, is to me a god.

The forest that lies to the north of the heathland is, to me, a god.

It would be difficult for the heath or forest to kill me; I might get bitten by an adder if I am not careful walking about in the sunshine, but the adder is simply a part of that greater energy, and not the energy itself.

Perhaps we can even see human beings as being a part of the greater energy of a god, or God if you want to use a capital “G”.

My teacher later described god as nature, and that, I think, hits closer to the mark for me.

It is more the path of the mystic, to be sure, but it still encompasses the feeling that God or the gods are something other than ourselves, bigger than ourselves, but still comprised of ourselves.

Ascribing gender to a god is yet another way for the human mind to grasp such a large concept as a god or a goddess, and is all part of
helping us to relate that power, to that energy.

Maybe one day we will lose the idea of gender altogether, in society and in relation to the gods.It’s a personal thing. In my work, some gods of the gods I work with have no gender, such as the god of the heathland.

I’m not sure if the forest has a gender.

But my lady Brighid I see as female.

It might be concerned with having ancestral gods, as well as finding out the gods of your own locality.

With ancestral, named gods, we are using all the past associations that have come with them through the mists of time.

We are also perhaps giving them new associations.

Brighid, for me, can also be seen as the goddess of technology, the spark of electricity.

Because she has been seen as a woman for thousands of years, I find that I can reach back through my own human heritage to know her as such, as my ancestors did thousands of years ago.

But really, when it all comes down to it, she is simply energy.

Much as we are.

Everything that exists and has ever existed is simply energy-given form.

Some we see, some we can’t.

We know the power and energy that the wind has, but we cannot see it; we can only see its effects on the environment.

When it comes to beings such as humans, or other animals, we know that we are comprised of countless atoms bouncing off each
other, moving and creating energy, that spirals upwards in layers of energy bound to a manifest form.

The table in front of me is energy-given form.

Though I can’t see that energy, what gives the table its solidity is the fact that atoms moving around are sustaining the manifest
form that I know as “wood”.

We also know that energy moves through things as well, through “solid” things.

There are atoms that can move through this table, through walls, through the human body.

Physics is a wonderful way to realise the true interconnectedness of all life.

So, for me, the gods are a collection of energy that is larger than the spirits of place, yet made up of the spirits of place.

It is a powerful energy that we can connect to.

If we look at it from a monist perspective, nature is god and god is nature.

That simplifies things to an extent, but may make it harder to relate to as it operates on such a grand scale.

That is why we have polytheists, those who work with many separate gods in  Witchcraft, as well as monists.

Life is the force that moves the dead Earth and all things that exist.

Death is the force that stops all things that move the living Earth and all things that do not yet exist.

All things live and all things die and nothing can live without dying and nothing can overcome anything else in lasting as the deity lasts.

As you treat the dead, so too the deity will force you to live through what they have lived through.

In life,

there is a death of the things you do not know, and in death,

there is a life of the things you do not know.

Neither life nor death can exist without the other

. The balance cannot tip too far to the right or the left.

The balance of life and death creates great harmony in the universe creating the feeling of the love of the deity.

The balance creates great harmony in all things that in turn creates satisfaction.

This is the meaning of Life and Death,

to know the fullness of the soul,

harmony, and balance,

the force of equality on a scale.

Dionysos’ sacred animals were the panther (leopard), tiger, bull and serpent. The god rode on the back of a panther or drove a chariot drawn by a pair of the beasts.
His sacred plants were the grapevine, ivy, bindweed (prickly ivy) and pine tree. Devotees of the god wore wreaths of ivy and carried pine-cone tipped staffs.

Below are examples of the god’s animals as depicted in ancient Greek art and photos of his sacred plants:-

1. Panther;
2. Grapevine;
3. Ivy;
4. Bindweed;
5. Pine tree.

SYMBOLS & ATTRIBUTES

Dionysos’ most distinctive attribute was the thyrsos, a pine-cone tipped staff. His other attributes included a drinking-cup (kantharos), fruiting grapevines and a panther.
The god was usually clothed in a long robe (chiton) and cloak (himation) and crowned with a wreath of ivy-leaves.

Below are some examples of his attributes as depicted in ancient Greek art:-

1. Pine-cone staff (thyrsos);
2. Thyrsos-staff head
3. Grapevines;
4. Drinking-cup;
5. Wreath of ivy-leaves.

THE BIRTH OF DIONYSUS

Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3. 26 – 28 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.) :
“Zeus fell in love with Semele and slept with her, promising her anything she wanted, and keeping it all from Hera. But Semele was deceived by Hera into asking Zeus to come to her as he came to Hera during their courtship. So Zeus, unable to refuse, arrived in her bridal chamber in a chariot with lightning flashes and thunder, and sent a thunderbolt at her. Semele died of fright, and Zeus grabbed from the fire her six-month aborted baby, which he sewed into his thigh. After Semele’s death the remaining daughters of Kadmos (Cadmus) circulated the story that she had slept with a mortal, thereafter accusing Zeus, and because of this had been killed by a thunderbolt. At the proper time Zeus loosened the stitches and gave birth to Dionysos, whom he entrusted to Hermes.”

For MYTHS of the birth of Dionysos see:
(1) Birth & Death of Dionysus-ZAGREUS (Orphic myth)
(2) Birth & Nursing of Dionysus

II. NURSED BY INO & THE NYSIADES

Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3. 29 – 30 :
“Zeus loosened the stitches and gave birth to Dionysos, whom he entrusted to Hermes. Hermes took him to Ino and Athamas, and persuaded them to bring him up as a girl. Incensed, Hera inflicted madness on them. As for Zeus, he escaped Hera’s anger by changing Dionysos into a baby goat. Hermes took him to the Nymphai of Asian Nysa, whom Zeus in later times places among the stars and named the Hyades.”

DIONYSOS, the youthful, beautiful, but effeminate god of wine. He is also called both by Greeks and Romans Bacchus (Bakchos), that is, the noisy or riotous god, which was originally a mere epithet or surname of Dionysus, but does not occur till after the time of Herodotus.

According to the common tradition, Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Semele, the daughter of Cadmus of Thebes (Hom. Hymn. vi. 56; Eurip. Bacch. init.; Apollod. iii. 4. § 3); whereas others describe him as a son of Zeus by Demeter, Io, Dione, or Arge. (Diod. iii. 62, 74; Schol. ad Pind. Pyth. iii. 177; Plut. de Flum. 16.) Diodorus (iii. 67) further mentions a tradition, according to which he was a son of Ammon and Amaltheia, and that Ammon, from fear of Rhea, carried the child to a cave in the neighbourhood of mount Nysa, in a lonely island formed by the river Triton. Ammon there entrusted the child to Nysa, the daughter of Aristaeus, and Athena likewise undertook to protect the boy. Others again represent him as a son of Zeus by Persephone or Iris, or describe him simply as a son of Lethe, or of Indus. (Diod. iv. 4; Plut. Sympos. vii. 5; Philostr. Vit. Apollon. ii. 9.)

The same diversity of opinions prevails in regard to the native place of the god, which in the common tradition is Thebes, while in others we find India, Libya, Crete, Dracanum in Samos, Naxos, Elis, Eleutherae, or Teos, mentioned as his birthplace. (Hom. Hymn. xxv. 8; Diod. iii. 65, v. 75; Nonnus, Dionys. ix. 6; Theocrit. xxvi. 33.) It is owing to this diversity in the traditions that ancient writers were driven to the supposition that there were originally several divinities which were afterwards identified under the one name of Dionysus. Cicero (de Nat. Deor. iii 23) distinguishes five Dionysi, and Diodorus (iii. 63, &c.) three.

The common story, which makes Dionysus a son of Semele by Zeus, runs as follows: Hera, jealous of Semele, visited her in the disguise of a friend, or an old woman, and persuaded her to request Zeus to appear to her in the same glory and majesty in which he was accustomed to approach his own wife Hera. When all entreaties to desist from this request were fruitless, Zeus at length complied and appeared to her in thunder and lightning. Semele was terrified and overpowered by the sight, and being seized by the fire, she gave premature birth to a child. Zeus, or according to others, Hermes (Apollon. Rhod. iv. 1137) saved the child from the flames: it was sewed up in the thigh of Zeus, and thus came to maturity. Various epithets which are given to the god refer to that occurrence, such as purigenês, mêrorraphês, mêrotraphês and ianigena. (Strab. xiii. p. 628; Diod. iv. 5; Eurip. Bacch. 295; Eustath. ad Hom. p. 310; Ov. Met. iv. 11.)

After the birth of Dionysus, Zeus entrusted him to Hermes, or, according to others, to Persephone or Rhea (Orph. Hymn. xlv. 6; Steph. Byz. s. v. Mastaura), who took the child to Ino and Athamas at Orchomenos, and persuaded them to bring him up as a girl. Hera was now urged on by her jealousy to throw Ino and Athamas into a state of madness, and Zeus, in order to save his child, changed him into a ram, and carried him to the nymphs of mount Nysa, who brought him up in a cave, and were afterwards rewarded for it by Zeus, by being placed as Hyades among the stars. (Hygin. Fab. 182; Theon, ad Arat. Phaen. 177; comp. Hyades.)

The inhabitants of Brasiae, in Laconia, according to Pausanias (iii. 24. § 3), told a different story about the birth of Dionysus, When Cadmus heard, they said, that Semele was mother of a son by Zeus, he put her and her child into a chest, and threw it into the sea. The chest was carried by the wind and waves to the coast of Brasiae. Semele was found dead, and was solemnly buried, but Dionysus was brought up by Ino, who happened at the time to be at Brasiae. The plain of Brasiae was, for this reason, afterwards called the garden of Dionysus.

The traditions about the education of Dionysus, as well as about the personages who undertook it, differ as much as those about his parentage and birthplace. Besides the nymphs of mount Nysa in Thrace, the muses, Lydae, Bassarae, Macetae, Mimallones (Eustath. ad Hom. pp. 982, 1816), the nymph Nysa (Diod. iii. 69), and the nymphs Philia, Coronis, and Cleis, in Naxos, whither the child Dionysus was said to have been carried by Zeus (Diod. iv. 52), are named as the beings to whom the care of his infancy was entrusted. Mystis, moreover, is said to have instructed him in the mysteries (Nonn. Dionys. xiii. 140), and Hippa, on mount Tmolus, nursed him (Orph. Hymn. xlvii. 4); Macris, the daughter of Aristaeus, received him from the hands of Hermes, and fed him with honey. (Apollon. Rhod. iv. 1131.) On mount Nysa, Bromie and Bacche too are called his nurses. (Serv. ad Virg. Eclog. vi. 15.)

Mount Nysa, from which the god was believed to have derived his name, was not only in Thrace and Libya, but mountains of the same name are found in different parts of the ancient world where he was worshipped, and where he was believed to have introduced the cultivation of the vine. Hermes, however, is mixed up with most of the stories about the infancy of Dionysus, and he was often represented in works of art, in connexion with the infant god. (Comp. Paus. iii. 18. § 7.)

When Dionysus had grown up, Hera threw him also into a state of madness, in which he wandered about through many countries of the earth. A tradition in Hyginus (Poet. Astr. ii. 23) makes him go first to the oracle of Dodona, but on his way thither he came to a lake, which prevented his proceeding any further. One of two asses he met there carried him across the water, and the grateful god placed both animals among the stars, and asses henceforth remained sacred to Dionysus.

According to the common tradition, Dionysus first wandered through Egypt, where he was hospitably received by king Proteus. He thence proceeded through Syria, where he flayed Damascus alive, for opposing the introduction of the vine, which Dionysus was believed to have discovered (euretês ampelou). He now traversed all Asia. (Strab. xv. p. 687; Eurip. Bacch. 13.) When he arrived at the Euphrates, he built a bridge to cross the river, but a tiger sent to him by Zeus carried him across the river Tigris. (Paus. x. 29; Plut. de Flum. 24.)

The most famous part of his wanderings in Asia is his expedition to India, which is said to have lasted three, or, according to some, even 52 years. (Diod. iii. 63, iv. 3.) He did not in those distant regions meet with a kindly reception everywhere, for Myrrhanus and Deriades, with his three chiefs Blemys, Orontes, and Oruandes, fought against him. (Steph. Byz. s.v. Blemues, Gazos, Gêreia, Dardai, Eares, Zabioi, Malloi, Pandai, Sibai.) But Dionysus and the host of Pans, Satyrs, and Bacchic women, by whom he was accompanied, conquered his enemies, taught the Indians the cultivation of the vine and of various fruits, and the worship of the gods; he also founded towns among them, gave them laws, and left behind him pillars and monuments in the happy land which he had thus conquered and civilized, and the inhabitants worshipped him as a god. (Comp. Strab. xi. p. 505; Arrian, Ind. 5; Diod. ii. 38; Philostr. Vit. Apollon. ii. 9; Virg. Aen. vi. 805.)

Dionysus also visited Phrygia and the goddess Cybele or Rhea, who purified him and taught him the mysteries, which according to Apollodorus (iii. 5. § 1.) took place before he went to India. With the assistance of his companions, he drove the Amazons from Ephesus to Samos, and there killed a great number of them on a spot which was, from that occurrence, called Panaema. (Plut. Quaest. Gr. 56.) According to another legend, he united with the Amazons to fight against Cronus and the Titans, who had expelled Ammon from his dominions. (Diod. iii. 70, &c.) He is even said to have gone to Iberia, which, on leaving, he entrusted to the government of Pan. (Plut. de Flum. 16.)

On his passage through Thrace he was ill received by Lycurgus, king of the Edones, and leaped into the sea to seek refuge with Thetis, whom he afterwards rewarded for her kind reception with a golden urn, a present of Hephaestus. (Hom. Il. vi. 135, &c., Od. xxiv. 74; Schol. ad Hom. Il. xiii. 91. Comp. Diod. iii. 65.) All the host of Bacchantic women and Satyrs, who had accompanied him, were taken prisoners by Lycurgus, but the women were soon set free again. The country of the Edones thereupon ceased to bear fruit, and Lycurgus became mad and killed his own son, whom he mistook for a vine, or, according to others (Serv. ad Aen. iii. 14) he cut off his own legs in the belief that he was cutting down some vines. When this was done, his madness ceased, but the country still remained barren, and Dionysus declared that it would remain so till Lycurgus died. The Edones, in despair, took their king and put him in chains, and Dionysus had him torn to pieces by horses.

After then proceeding through Thrace without meeting with any further resistance, he returned to Thebes, where he compelled the women to quit their houses, and to celebrate Bacchic festivals on mount Cithaeron, or Parnassus. Pentheus, who then ruled at Thebes, endeavoured to check the riotous proceedings, and went out to the mountains to seek the Bacchic women; but his own mother, Agave, in her Bacchic fury, mistook him for an animal, and tore him to pieces. (Theocrit. Id. xxvi.; Eurip. Bacch. 1142; Ov. Met. iii. 714, &c.)

After Dionysus had thus proved to the Thebans that he was a god, he went to Argos. As the people there also refused to acknowledge him, he made the women mad to such a degree, that they killed their own babes and devoured their flesh. (Apollod. iii. 5. § 2.) According to another statement, Dionysus with a host of women came from the islands of the Aegean to Argos, but was conquered by Perseus, who slew many of the women. (Paus. ii. 20. § 3, 22. § 1.) Afterwards, however, Dionysus and Perseus became reconciled, and the Argives adopted the worship of the god, and built temples to him. One of these was called the temple of Dionysus Cresius, because the god was believed to have buried on that spot Ariadne, his beloved, who was a Cretan. (Paus. ii. 23. § 7.)

The last feat of Dionysus was performed on a voyage from Icaria to Naxos. He hired a ship which belonged to Tyrrhenian pirates; but the men, instead of landing at Naxos, passed by and steered towards Asia to sell him there. The god, however, on perceiving this, changed the mast and oars into serpents, and himself into a lion; he filled the vessel with ivy and the sound of flutes, so that the sailors, who were seized with madness, leaped into the sea, where they were metamorphosed into dolphins. (Apollod. iii. 5. § 3; Hom. Hymn. vi. 44; Ov. Met. iii. 582, &c.) In all his wanderings and travels the god had rewarded those who had received him kindly and adopted his worship : he gave them vines and wine.

After he had thus gradually established his divine nature throughout the world, he led his mother out of Hades, called her Thyone, and rose with her into Olympus. (Apollod. l. c.) The place, where he had come forth with Semele from Hades, was shown by the Troezenians in the temple of Artemis Soteira (Paus. ii. 31. § 2); the Argives, on the other hand, said, that he had emerged with his mother from the Alcyonian lake. (Paus. ii. 37. § 5; Clem. Alex. Adm. ad Gr. p. 22.) There is also a mystical story, that the body of Dionysus was cut up and thrown into a cauldron by the Titans, and that he was restored and cured by Rhea or Demeter. (Paus. viii. 37. § 3; Diod. iii. 62; Phurnut. N. D. 28.)

Various mythological beings are described as the offspring of Dionysus; but among the women, both mortal and immortal, who won his love, none is more famous in ancient history than Ariadne. The extraordinary mixture of traditions which we have here had occasion to notice, and which might still be considerably increased, seems evidently to be made up out of the traditions of different times and countries, referring to analogous divinities, and transferred to the Greek Dionysus.

We may, however, remark at once, that all traditions which have reference to a mystic worship of Dionysus, are of a comparatively late origin, that is, they belong to the period subsequent to that in which the Homeric poems were composed; for in those poems Dionysus does not appear as one of the great divinities, and the story of his birth by Zeus and the Bacchic orgies are not alluded to in any way : Dionysus is there simply described as the god who teaches man the preparation of wine, whence he is called the “drunken god ” (mainomenos), and the sober king Lycurgus will not, for this reason, tolerate him in his kingdom. (Hom. Il. vi. 132, &c., Od. xviii. 406, comp. xi. 325.) As the cultivation of the vine spread in Greece, the worship of Dionysus likewise spread further; the mystic worship was developed by the Orphici, though it probably originated in the transfer of Phrygian and Lydian modes of worship to that of Dionysus. After the time of Alexander’s expedition to India, the celebration of the Bacchic festivals assumed more and more their wild and dissolute character.

As far as the nature and origin of the god Dionysus is concerned, he appears in all traditions as the representative of some power of nature, whereas Apollo is mainly an ethical deity. Dionysus is the productive, overflowing and intoxicating power of nature, which carries man away from his usual quiet and sober mode of living. Wine is the most natural and appropriate symbol of that power, and it is therefore called “the fruit of Dionysus.” (Dionusou karpos; Pind. Fragm. 89, ed. Böckh.) Dionysus is, therefore, the god of wine, the inventor and teacher of its cultivation, the giver of joy, and the disperser of grief and sorrow. (Bacchyl. ap. Athen. ii. p. 40; Pind. Fragm. 5; Eurip. Bacch. 772.)

As the god of wine, he is also both an inspired and an inspiring god, that is, a god who has the power of revealing the future to man by oracles. Thus, it is said, that he had as great a share in the Delphic oracle as Apollo (Eurip. Bacch. 300), and he himself had an oracle in Thrace. (Paus. ix. 30. § 5.) Now, as prophetic power is always combined with the healing art, Dionysus is, like Apollo, called iatpos, or hugiatês (Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1624), and at his oracle of Amphicleia, in Phocis, he cured diseases by revealing the remedies to the sufferers in their dreams. (Paus. x. 33. § 5.) Hence he is invoked as a theos sôtêr against raging diseases. (Soph. Oed. Tyr. 210; Lycoph. 206.)

The notion of his being the cultivator and protector of the vine was easily extended to that of his being the protector of trees in general, which is alluded to in various epithets and surnames given him by the poets of antiquity (Paus. i. 31. § 2, vii. 21. § 2), and he thus comes into close connexion with Demeter. (Paus. vii. 20. § 1; Pind. Isthm. vii. 3; Theocrit. xx. 33; Diod. iii. 64; Ov. Fast. iii. 736; Plut. Quaest. Gr. 36.)

This character is still further developed in the notion of his being the promoter of civilization, a law-giver, and a lover of peace. (Eurip. Bacch. 420; Strab. x. p. 468; Diod. iv. 4.) As the Greek drama had grown out of the dithyrambic choruses at the festivals of Dionysus, he was also regarded as the god of tragic art, and as the protector of theatres. In later times, he was worshipped also as a theos chthonios, which may have arisen from his resemblance to Demeter, or have been the result of an amalgamation of Phrygian and Lydian forms of worship with those of the ancient Greeks. (Paus. viii. 37, § 3; Arnob. adv. Gent. v. 19.)

The orgiastic worship of Dionysus seems to have been first established in Thrace, and to have thence spread southward to mounts Helicon and Parnassus, to Thebes, Naxos, and throughout Greece, Sicily, and Italy, though some writers derived it from Egypt. (Paus. i. 2. § 4; Diod. i. 97.) Respecting his festivals and the mode of their celebration, and especially the introduction and suppression of his worship at Rome, see Dict. of Ant. s. vv. Agriônia, Anthestêria, Halôa, Aiôra, and Dionysia.

In the earliest times the Graces, or Charites, were the companions of Dionysus (Pind. Ol. xiii. 20; Plut. Quaest. Gr. 36; Apollon. Rhod. iv. 424), and at Olympia he and the Charites had an altar in common. (Schol. ad Pind. Ol. v. 10 ; Paus. v. 14 in fin.) This circumstance is of great interest, and points out the great change which took place in the course of time in the mode of his worship, for afterwards we find him accompanied in his expeditions and travels by Bacchantic women. called Lenae, Maenades, Thyiades, Mimallones, Clodones, Bassarae or Bassarides, all of whom are represented in works of art as raging with madness or enthusiasm, in vehement motions, their heads thrown backwards, with dishevelled hair, and carrying in their hands thyrsus-staffs (entwined with ivy, and headed with pine-cones), cymbals, swords, or serpents. Sileni, Pans, satyrs, centaurs, and other beings of a like kind, are also the constant companions of the god. (Strab. x. p. 468; Diod. iv. 4. &c.; Catull. 64. 258 ; Athen i. p. 33; Paus. i. 2. § 7.)

The temples and statues of Dionysus were very numerous in the ancient world. Among the sacrifices which were offered to him in the earliest times, human sacrifices are also mentioned. (Paus. vii. 21. § 1; Porphyr. de Abstin. ii. 55.) Subsequently, however, this barbarous custom was softened down into a symbolic scourging, or animals were substituted for men, as at Potniae. (Paus. viii. 23. § 1, ix. 8. § 1.)

The animal most commonly sacrificed to Dionysus was a ram. (Virg. Georg. ii. 380, 395; Ov. Fast. i. 357.) Among the things sacred to him, we may notice the vine, ivy, laurel, and asphodel; the dolphin, serpent, tiger, lynx, panther, and ass; but he hated the sight of an owl. (Paus. viii. 39. § 4; Theocrit. xxvi. 4; Plut. Sympos. iii. 5; Eustath. ad Hom. p. 87; Virg. Eclog. v. 30; Hygin. Poët. Astr. ii. 23; Philostr. Imag. ii. 17; Vit. Apollon. iii. 40.)

The earliest images of the god were mere Hermae with the phallus (Paus. ix. 12. § 3), or his head only was represented. (Eustath. ad Hom. p. 1964.) In later works of art he appears in four different forms:–
1. As an infant handed over by Hermes to his nurses, or fondled and played with by satyrs and Bacchae.
2. As a manly god with a beard, commonly called the Indian Bacchus. He there appears in the character of a wise and dignified oriental monarch; his features are expressive of sublime tranquillity and mildness; his beard is long and soft, and his Lydian robes (bassara) are long and richly folded. His hair sometimes floats down in locks, and is sometimes neatly wound around the head, and a diadem often adorns his forehead.
3. The youthful or so-called Theban Bacchus, was carried to ideal beauty by Praxiteles. The form of his body is manly and with strong outlines, but still approaches to the female form by its softness and roundness. The expression of the countenance is languid, and shews a kind of dreamy longing; the head, with a diadem, or a wreath of vine or ivy, leans somewhat on one side; his attitude is never sublime, but easy, like that of a man who is absorbed in sweet thoughts, or slightly intoxicated. He is often seen leaning on his companions, or riding on a panther, ass, tiger, or lion. The finest statue of this kind is in the villa Ludovisi.
4. Bacchus with horns, either those of a ram or of a bull. This representation occurs chiefly on coins, but never in statues.

The summer solstice has long been a time when cultures celebrated the lengthening year. It is on this day, sometimes called Litha, that there is more daylight than any other time; a direct counterpoint to the darkness of Yule. No matter where you live, or what you call it, chances are you can connect to a culture that honored a sun deity around this time of year. Here are just a few of the gods and goddesses from around the world that are connected with the summer solstice.

Amaterasu (Shinto): This solar goddess is the sister of the moon deity and the storm god of Japan, and is known as the goddess “from which all light comes”. She is much loved by her worshippers and treats them with warmth and compassion. Every year in July, she is celebrated in the streets of Japan.
Aten (Egypt): This god was at one point an aspect of Ra, but rather than being depicted as an anthropomorphic being (like most of the other ancient Egyptian gods), Aten was represented by the disc of the sun, with rays of light emanating outward. Although his early origins aren’t quite known – he may have been a localized, provincial deity – Aten soon became known as the creator of mankind. In the Book of the Dead, he is honored with “Hail, Aten, thou lord of beams of light, when thou shinest, all faces live.”
Apollo (Greek): The son of Zeus by Leto, Apollo was a multi-faceted god. In addition to being the god of the sun, he also presided over music, medicine, and healing. He was at one point identified with Helios. As the worship of him spread throughout the Roman empire into the British Isles, he took on many of the aspects of the Celtic deities and was seen as a god of the sun and of healing.

Hestia (Greek): This goddess watched over domesticity and the family. She was given the first offering at any sacrifice made in the home. On a public level, the local town hall served as a shrine for her — any time a new settlement was formed, a flame from the public hearth was taken to the new village from the old one.
Horus (Egyptian): Horus was one of the solar deities of the ancient Egyptians. He rose and set every day, and is often associated with Nut, the sky god. Horus later became connected with another sun god, Ra.
Huitzilopochtli (Aztec): This warrior god of the ancient Aztecs was a sun god and the patron of the city of Tenochtitlan. He battled with Nanahuatzin, an earlier solar god. Huitzilopochtli fought against darkness and required his worshipers to make regular sacrifices to ensure the sun’s survival over the next fifty-two years, which is a significant number in Mesoamerican myths.
Juno (Roman): She is also called Juno Luna and blesses women with the privilege of menstruation. The month of June was named for her, and because Juno was the patroness of marriage, her month remains an ever-popular time for weddings and handfasting.
Lugh (Celtic): Similar to the Roman god Mercury, Lugh was known as a god of both skill and the distribution of talent. He is sometimes associated with midsummer because of his role as a harvest god, and during the summer solstice the crops are flourishing, waiting to be plucked from the ground at Lughnasadh.
Sulis Minerva (Celtic, Roman): When the Romans occupied the British Isles, they took the aspects of the Celtic sun goddess, Sulis, and blended her with their own goddess of wisdom, Minerva. The resulting combination was Sulis Minerva, who watched over the hot springs and sacred waters in the town of Bath.
Sunna or Sol (Germanic): Little is known about this Norse goddess of the sun, but she appears in the Poetic Eddas as the sister of the moon god. Author and artist Thalia Took says, “Sól (“Mistress Sun”), drives the chariot of the Sun across the sky every day. Pulled by the horses Allsvinn (“Very Fast”) and Arvak (“Early Rising”), the Sun-chariot is pursued by the wolf Skoll… She is the sister of Måni, the Moon-god, and the wife of Glaur or Glen (“Shine”). As Sunna, She is a healer.”

As well as wisdom, these gods and goddesses are for knowledge, truth and justice.

Athena

Athena, or Athene, daughter of Zeus, is the goddess of wise counsel, both in peace and war, of intelligence, reason, negotiation and all forms of the arts and literature. The owl is her sacred bird and the olive her symbol representing peace, healing and nourishment.

Hathor

Hathor is the Ancient Egyptian goddess of truth, wisdom, joy, love, music, art and dance and protectress of women. She is said to bring husbands or wives to those who call on her and she is also a powerful fertility goddess. Also worshipped as a Sky Goddess, Hathor is frequently shown wearing a Sun disc held between the horns of a cow as a crown. She was once entrusted with the sacred eye of Ra, the Sun God and her consort, through which she could see all things. She carried a shield that could reflect back all things in their true light. From her shield, she fashioned the first magical mirror. One side was endowed with the power of Ra’s eye to see everything, no matter how distant in miles or how far into the future. The other side showed the gazer in his or her true light and only a brave person could look at it without flinching. Hathor can be invoked for all forms of mirror magic and is also associated with gold and turquoise and so jewellery made of these can be a focus for her powers. In the modern world, she is the guardian of businesswomen. Fiercely protective in defence of her own, she is especially potent against physical and psychic attack.

Ma’at

Ma’at, the Ancient Egyptian goddess of truth and justice, was responsible for maintaining the correct balance and order in the universe. She was the daughter of Ra who created her to establish unity and order in the world. Ma’at is pictured as a woman wearing a single ostrich feather as a headdress. She was all-powerful, even over the king, who had to rule with truth and justice to attain eternal life. After death, a person’s heart was weighed on the scales of justice against the feather from her headdress to see if it was free from sin. She can be invoked for all rituals of justice, uncovering secrets, truth and trustworthiness.

Hermes

Hermes is the Greek messenger god who travelled between dimensions. He is associated with the wise Ancient Egyptian god Thoth and the later Roman Mercury. He is credited with great knowledge, healing powers and medical knowledge. The double entwined snake of Hermes’ and Mercury’s caduceus, or wand, which is often a living growing staff, is a symbol both of healing and of powerful communication. The snake forms two circles, the interlinked cycles of good and evil, life and death, light and darkness. The wings on the caduceus are for wisdom, guarding against gossip and malicious words as well as illness. Among Hermes’ many patronages were moneylenders and thieves and so he can protect against poverty and trickery, as well as helping you to speak the truth that is in your heart. Hermes can also be invoked for all medical and commercial matters, for good fortune of all kinds and for peaceful sleep.

Minerva

Minerva is the Roman goddess of wisdom, who ruled with Jupiter and Juno as the triumvirate of justice and wise power. She also controlled commerce and all crafts and is credited with the invention of music. She is often depicted in armour. Minerva, whose creature is the owl, can be invoked in employment rituals and for the development of skills, retraining and musical ability as well as for truth and justice. Unlike Bellona and the warlike gods, both Athena and Minerva are used in rituals for using legal means or oratory and persuasion, rather than direct action, to overcome injustice.

Thoth

Thoth was the Ancient Egyptian god of the Moon, wisdom and learning. He was also the god of time, languages, law and mathematical calculations, who invented the calendar and hieroglyphic writing. He is often depicted with the head of an ibis although he was worshipped as a baboon in Hermopolis. Appeal to him for all matters of magical wisdom, learning, intellectual pursuits, examinations and better time management.

For some practitioners, this charge is less important, but some may  believe that the male polarity or energies
are an integral part not only of the seasonal Wheel of the Year, but also of human experience, whether
you are working alone or as part of a coven. It is one I have found helpful, but you can create your
own through a god meditation by visualising a god form that seems relevant to you.

These are the words of the Father, who is son and consort of the Great Mother, born in the beginning
of She who created the universe from her own body, from her smiles and tears and ever-fertile womb.
‘I am He, the wild untamed power of the hunt, the horned beasts and the woodland, that offers food,
shelter and protection to people of all races, clans and creeds. I am Cernunnos, horned Lord of Winter;
as Master of the Animals and Lord of the Corn, I offer willing sacrifice for the land and people; as
King of the Dark Places beneath the soil, in the nurturing womb of the Mother, like all creatures who
have entered the gentle Earth, I grow strong again, resting but never slumbering, until I hear the call at
the darkest and coldest hour to be reborn as Lugh, radiant son; at that hour I bring the promise that the
Sun will not die, but as the wheel turns bring lighter days and the promise of spring as the mid-winter
yoke is conquered once more.

‘I bring power, strength, courage and nobility to defend the weak and the vulnerable, and to give of
my life blood to maintain what is of worth and just and lovely. Mine is not the path of ease, but of
ecstasy in the wild wood where the untamed instincts bow only to natural law and natural justice; as
the fruit of the sacred vine, Lord of the Dance, the young stag who masters the old; as the Barley
King, I dance and laugh and sing of the spirit that never can be broken, of the potency of the life force
coursing through my loins to bring increase and abundance, as fields and the animals and humankind
are made fertile by the sacred coupling beneath the may bowers and blossoming trees.

‘Birth follows death, plenty follows dearth, creation follows necessary destruction, and so renewed, I
dedicate myself to the sanctity of all life ruled by the highest of intent and in humility in the hour of
my greatest triumph.’