The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

It's about who one honours, what's relevant to one's actual practices, not private mysticism.

 
Thanks, this shortens my list a lot from what I originally was going to post.

What sort of crowd do you run with, anyway?

Lavender: keeper of the future histories, one of a hive mind, observer, communicator/translator. (One peculiarity I feel moved to mention: Lavender's headless but not...I know she has a head on her shoulders and a face--when human-shaped--but no matter how I try I can never find it.)
Foxglove, irreparably damaged healer, lover, warrior, high seas pirate and urban survivalist.
Rose, possibly the same bailiwick as Lavender but with plurality in eddies rather than a single thread of fate/consequence, the hive of manyforms as one, the observed and enigmatic. Does (has done) an unpredictable bit of everything on unpredictable occasion.
Marigold, both steampunk pirate queen and castled inland faery queen. Bit of a dragon lady: bootstraps, gumption, honor, duty. Possible solar associations.
Hawthorne, the giant psychopomp who is eerily nice.
Poppy, the gatekeeper.

So I'm going to do an initial post to set this up for anyone who wants to, to throw in with comments on "What sort of crowd do you run with, anyway?" and post my individual stuff in a bit.

Of the many, many gods I venerate, there are a few that stand out as important to my practice:
Above all, Zeus. As the head of a family and household now, Zeus' patronage of the home, sovereignty, and the family is important to me; his protection of guests and patronage of hosts is also of value, since I host people at my home at least twice a week and I take hospitality very seriously.

Hermes is very important to me, not just because I've had experiences of him directly, but because he is the patron of my profession. I work in telecommunications and IT, which fits readily into Hermes' domain over communication and commerce.

Cernunnos has been a god I've focused on for a long time. I've always loved the outdoors, the woods, and exploring them; and Cernunnos has felt, to me, like a deity of the wilderness. Whenever I've walked in the woods, I've felt a numinous presence and protection, which I've ascribed to both Cernunnos and local spirits-of-place. To an extent that I can't quite specify, for reasons I can't quite place, but feel very strongly about, Pan has the same place in my mind and pertains to the same subjects.

And of course, Hekate. My wife and I have had many experiences involving her, both her wrath and her grace, which has been rather tempestuous. I honour her as a protector of the home and its boundaries on par with Zeus, and defender of the hearth just as much as Hestia and Vesta. And as not-insignificant parts of my religion pertain to the cult of the dead, Hekate and Hermes both figure into many of my religious rituals.

One of the reasons I did kennings rather than names was I wanted to put the emphasis on realms of interest rather than what people would assume from seeing names?  So I could show up the commonalities in things.  I can say that most but not all of mine are known mythological figures, but not all from the same set of mythologies.

 
Best idea.

I'm a syncretic panentheist sort of Witch, so sometimes my UPG runs contrary to recorded mythology, and that can piss people off. Which, you know, is not my intention!

So anyway here's my list (where I copy somewhat from Darkhawk's because it's worded perfectly):

• The Creatrix: unknowable one, from who all things emerge and unto whom all things return.
• The Serpent and the Peacock: the bright and dark twins, divine paradox and ecstasy.
• The Guide: keeper of keys, walker between worlds, torchbearer.
• Queen of Witchcraft: the ancient dark, the changing moon, the power within.
• Lord of the Hunt: ruler of sex and death, the beast within and without.
• Lord of the Dead: ruler of the shadow and protector of souls.

I'm not going to do names, because reasons.  And to give myself a sense of the boundaries of the work I'm going to do the Powers that I chose to put in my personal design of the Tarot rather than try to figure out 'how much interaction counts for interactiveness' or anything else.  (It being the Majors of the Tarot, there are a lot of figures here, one, but also it's a fairly complete, ahhh... system? that way?)

 
So this exercise has been useful to me on another level, which is that the one of my Majors I hadn't figured out how to design finally has started sorting it out, because I neglected to include:

The demon executioner, the crusher of grapes, lord of blood.

One thing I like about this kenning method of description is that one can see how, even if two people honor the same Name, they can still experience it quite differently.

 
Yes yes yes

This is very much true, and super interesting to me.