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Author Topic: Searching for the Gods  (Read 1449 times)

Geroth

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Searching for the Gods
« on: December 26, 2014, 06:59:55 am »
It took me ages to finally find the gods I felt I resonated with. I had always had a love for Ancient Greece and I was disappointed when did not resonate with me. I looked into just about every ancient culture you could think of, Gaelic, Brythonic, Babylonian, Roman, Gaulish, Hispano-Celtic, Slavic, Chinese, Kemetic, Hindu, Christian, Canaanite etc. Nothing fit. I did not feel a pull. Until I found Heathenry and I began to research Asatru. The more I looked into the Northern path, the more I felt like I was on the right track but the Norse stuff still never felt quite right. All of a sudden I found a book on Anglo-Saxon Heathenry and I instantly felt a real connection.  I read tons of books and tried to learn as much as I could about the deities and the culture. I felt like I had finally found where I belonged.
 
A year later and as time has gone on my interest in Anglo-Saxon Heathenry has changed and now I am not so sure. Despite my attempts, I have still yet to feel a connection with any of the deities. It has left me in a pickle of a situation. I never felt much of a connection with any other deities of the other cultures I looked into. I have tried prayer, giving offerings, reaching out and looking closely for signs but nothing, not a thing.

In the past I have been drawn to a couple of deities from other pantheons at numerous times but just when I think they might be calling me, my interest suddenly goes away and I am back to square one. I have no idea why this happens but it’s occurred more times than I can think of.

Does anybody have any advice on what I should do?

Faemon

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Re: Searching for the Gods
« Reply #1 on: December 26, 2014, 07:27:25 am »
Quote from: Geroth;168176
I have tried prayer, giving offerings, reaching out and looking closely for signs but nothing, not a thing.

In the past I have been drawn to a couple of deities from other pantheons at numerous times but just when I think they might be calling me, my interest suddenly goes away and I am back to square one. I have no idea why this happens but it’s occurred more times than I can think of.

Does anybody have any advice on what I should do?


What makes you think that it shouldn't happen? I mean, I hope the "Gods are not Pokémon you do not have to catch them all" sentiment is a way to discourage appropriation, and not a way to shame sincere seekers of divine connections...but I consider it much more difficult to tell from the outside if a person approaches with one or the other.

But instead of looking at established faiths outside and trying to cram them in to fit the hole in your heart, why not get an idea of the shape of what's missing, first?

I'd suggest making up a pantheon to find out what that is. Hear me out: If or when your interest wanes from deities that you've made up, you wouldn't have offended any people or divinities and I believe that what you made up would become a valuable clue as to what aspects you really yearn to make a connection with. That can become a sort of avenue for interested deities to come through, and maybe eventually you'll find out which culture or tradition they've been established. They might even be completely forgotten or a new upstart, possibilities that I hope wouldn't be too off-putting since you seem to really want to root yourself in traditional and long-established practices. But personal gnosis is just weird, and it seems to be such a huge factor that I'd start with that.
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Darkhawk

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Re: Searching for the Gods
« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2014, 03:16:31 pm »
Quote from: Geroth;168176
Does anybody have any advice on what I should do?

 
Have you, in your various researches, encountered anything that spoke to you ritually, or which supported your ethics in ways that you valued, or which otherwise, in practical terms, was meaningful for you?

If you have, I would suggest you pursue that, and worry about the idea of "callings from the gods" later, if at all.  My experience is that doing the actual work of a system does much more to clarify questions of the gods than anything else, but that requires actually finding a system that works, committing to doing things with it, and doing them.
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

Altair

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Re: Searching for the Gods
« Reply #3 on: December 26, 2014, 03:56:30 pm »
Quote from: Faemon;168179

I'd suggest making up a pantheon to find out what that is. Hear me out: If or when your interest wanes from deities that you've made up, you wouldn't have offended any people or divinities and I believe that what you made up would become a valuable clue as to what aspects you really yearn to make a connection with. That can become a sort of avenue for interested deities to come through, and maybe eventually you'll find out which culture or tradition they've been established. They might even be completely forgotten or a new upstart, possibilities that I hope wouldn't be too off-putting since you seem to really want to root yourself in traditional and long-established practices. But personal gnosis is just weird, and it seems to be such a huge factor that I'd start with that.


This approach that Faemon describes can work quite well. It worked for me; I ended up mapping my own subconscious beliefs, and ended up with new gods.
The first song sets the wheel in motion / The second is a song of love / The third song tells of Her devotion / The fourth cries joy from the sky above
The fifth song binds our fate to silence / and bids us live each moment well / The sixth unleashes rage and violence / The seventh song has truth to tell
The last song echoes through the ages / to ask its question all night long / And close the circle on these pages / These, the metamythos songs

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