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Author Topic: Finding deities to work with  (Read 2695 times)

Cali

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Finding deities to work with
« on: February 03, 2020, 08:23:30 am »
For a while now, I've been studying Druidry and Paganism in general. I've been a bit confused as to what kind of specific deities I should be working with. A few days ago, on the advice of a close friend I went to a well known psychic in my town. Though a bit skeptical, I decided to go to see what they had to say. During my reading with this psychic, I asked the them to help me find deities to work with on my Druidry path. To do this, the psychic pulled out two decks of cards, The Gods and Titans Oracle and Mythic Oracle: Wisdom of the Ancient Greek Pantheon and from there they said they could tell what kind of deities I should be looking into more. I shuffled the decks and decided to pull two cards from each deck. The cards I pulled were:

The Sky Father, Helios, The Green Man and Ullr.

The Sky Father to me has always been Thor (I've always felt drawn to him, although I know he's not the head of a pantheon or a father god, he is none the less a sky deity). Helios, as the psychic said and I though also, could stand for any number of solar deities out there (which are deities I've never really looked at in all honesty). The Green Man to me symbolizes either Cernunnos or potentially an Earth deity like Gaia. The Ullr card though really puzzled me. I must say, I've never had any connection with Ullr and researching him a bit, I can't say I felt drawn to him specifically. However, contemplating on it, could the cards be referring to a deity associated with hunting and/or bows and arrows? Maybe even a war deity?

Apart from Thor, which I'm fairly confident is the deity meant by the Sky Father card, does anybody have any suggestions or advice on how to find out who the other deities are who are being referred to by the cards?

Darkhawk

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Re: Finding deities to work with
« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2020, 04:20:21 pm »
For a while now, I've been studying Druidry and Paganism in general. I've been a bit confused as to what kind of specific deities I should be working with.

Let's stop here and take a minute.

"What specific deities should I be working with?" is basically the same question as "What specific people should I marry?" or "Who are my destined friends?"  There is no should; there is only what relationships you build and how they work out. Some people want to have those kinds of relationships; some people do not; it works differently for everyone, though with some broad common similarities.

I am guessing that you want to cultivate those relationships, but I've seen enough people think they're "supposed to" to want to make clear: this is not mandatory.  This is something that matters to many people, but it does not need to matter to you.  There is no "should" involved here.

Quote
The Sky Father to me has always been Thor (I've always felt drawn to him, although I know he's not the head of a pantheon or a father god, he is none the less a sky deity).

So here's a thing for you: "I've always felt drawn to him" is 100% a place to start.  You don't need an alternate reason.  Thor is, from everything I know about him from lore and experience with devotees, a really chill dude to hang out with, and going, "Hey, Thor, wanna split a cold one? My treat" is a fine way to start.  (One of the members of my ritual group is a Thorsman.)

Quote
Apart from Thor, which I'm fairly confident is the deity meant by the Sky Father card, does anybody have any suggestions or advice on how to find out who the other deities are who are being referred to by the cards?

So for the record I don't think I've ever seen one of these "what gods should I" card readings or whatever work out to make sense for the person who's looking for answers.  It's always something like "one makes sense, one or two I can force to make sense, and then there's this... whatever it is" every time I've seen someone describe one.

I think the most sensible thing to do with that sort of reading is: if it pulls up something that seems meaningful, go with that.  If there are things that inspire your curiosity, feel free to pursue that further in whatever way makes sense.  If it seems like a kettle of WTF, keep open the possibility that it might make sense as an influence in your environment in retrospect, but don't worry about it.
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

Eastling

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Re: Finding deities to work with
« Reply #2 on: February 03, 2020, 04:58:29 pm »
Apart from Thor, which I'm fairly confident is the deity meant by the Sky Father card, does anybody have any suggestions or advice on how to find out who the other deities are who are being referred to by the cards?

As Darkhawk says, the first step is not putting too much stock in some random visit to a psychic who doesn't even know you. They may be an excellent psychic, I don't know, but "here, pull some cards from this deck" is not a foolproof way to Find Your Deity(TM).

Since you feel some kind of draw to Thor, looking into his mythos and maybe making some basic gestures of worship (prayer, simple offerings) in order to see how it feels for you seems like a good next step. You don't need to wait for him to hit you with lightning.
"The peacock can show its whole tail at once, but I can only tell you a story."
--JAMES ALAN GARDNER

Anon100

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Re: Finding deities to work with
« Reply #3 on: February 03, 2020, 06:12:34 pm »

I am guessing that you want to cultivate those relationships, but I've seen enough people think they're "supposed to" to want to make clear: this is not mandatory.  This is something that matters to many people, but it does not need to matter to you.  There is no "should" involved here.


Just an added thought to all the good advice you already have here.
I've read enough of other peoples experiences on here to say that some people end up meeting their deity but then have a long journey of getting to know and trust them/each other before they learn their identities. Some have even come as complete curve balls.
There really isn't a universal set formula other than, perhaps, the advice to take it slow, as far as I'm aware.

Eastling

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Re: Finding deities to work with
« Reply #4 on: February 03, 2020, 06:35:38 pm »
I've read enough of other peoples experiences on here to say that some people end up meeting their deity but then have a long journey of getting to know and trust them/each other before they learn their identities. Some have even come as complete curve balls.

Seconding this.

In some ways my relationship with the divine is pretty storybook (a somewhat X-rated storybook to be sure, but still) but my Powers still made me spend a year rigorously getting to know them before giving me a clear identity to work with.
"The peacock can show its whole tail at once, but I can only tell you a story."
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arete

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Re: Finding deities to work with
« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2020, 09:38:29 am »
For a while now, I've been studying Druidry and Paganism in general. I've been a bit confused as to what kind of specific deities I should be working with. A few days ago, on the advice of a close friend I went to a well known psychic in my town. Though a bit skeptical, I decided to go to see what they had to say. During my reading with this psychic, I asked the them to help me find deities to work with on my Druidry path. To do this, the psychic pulled out two decks of cards, The Gods and Titans Oracle and Mythic Oracle: Wisdom of the Ancient Greek Pantheon and from there they said they could tell what kind of deities I should be looking into more. I shuffled the decks and decided to pull two cards from each deck. The cards I pulled were:

The Sky Father, Helios, The Green Man and Ullr.

The Sky Father to me has always been Thor (I've always felt drawn to him, although I know he's not the head of a pantheon or a father god, he is none the less a sky deity). Helios, as the psychic said and I though also, could stand for any number of solar deities out there (which are deities I've never really looked at in all honesty). The Green Man to me symbolizes either Cernunnos or potentially an Earth deity like Gaia. The Ullr card though really puzzled me. I must say, I've never had any connection with Ullr and researching him a bit, I can't say I felt drawn to him specifically. However, contemplating on it, could the cards be referring to a deity associated with hunting and/or bows and arrows? Maybe even a war deity?

Apart from Thor, which I'm fairly confident is the deity meant by the Sky Father card, does anybody have any suggestions or advice on how to find out who the other deities are who are being referred to by the cards?
You need to introspect. Welcome to paganism! :)

Noctua

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Re: Finding deities to work with
« Reply #6 on: February 06, 2020, 08:41:35 am »
Just an added thought to all the good advice you already have here.
I've read enough of other peoples experiences on here to say that some people end up meeting their deity but then have a long journey of getting to know and trust them/each other before they learn their identities. Some have even come as complete curve balls.
There really isn't a universal set formula other than, perhaps, the advice to take it slow, as far as I'm aware.

This has been my experience (both ways). My first deity when I started into paganism years ago was Minerva- I felt drawn to her because she's involved in a lot of the things that I value in my life (education, learning, arts and crafts especially textile arts, medicine, etc.) so I built up a relationship with her over several years by building a shrine to her, giving offerings, having occasional check-ins with her etc. She's the one who helped me get through Nursing school, and when I go to work at the hospital I always know that I'm also doing her Work.

More recently, I've had Bast come and thwap me upside the head unexpectedly. My Blue Star grove did a ritual just before the winter holidays for our ailing pets (both myself and one of my grove mates had cats who were sick at the time) and for this purpose we called Bast and Anubis. Bast just sorta . . . stuck around with me since then, showing up in my dreams and for a while popping up every time I tried to meditate. I've started wearing perfume for her, and am in the process of tweaking my kitchen shrine to her liking.

So I guess my advice is that although it can be the big grand magical connection where a deity shows up, it can also be just a steady building of a quiet relationship. To be honest I don't think I'd have even had the experience I had with Bast if I was just starting, it seems to take time to build up your experience and intuition to be able to open the door for deities to pop in unexpectedly.

Yei

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Re: Finding deities to work with
« Reply #7 on: February 06, 2020, 06:33:16 pm »
For a while now, I've been studying Druidry and Paganism in general. I've been a bit confused as to what kind of specific deities I should be working with. A few days ago, on the advice of a close friend I went to a well known psychic in my town. Though a bit skeptical, I decided to go to see what they had to say. During my reading with this psychic, I asked the them to help me find deities to work with on my Druidry path. To do this, the psychic pulled out two decks of cards, The Gods and Titans Oracle and Mythic Oracle: Wisdom of the Ancient Greek Pantheon and from there they said they could tell what kind of deities I should be looking into more. I shuffled the decks and decided to pull two cards from each deck. The cards I pulled were:

The Sky Father, Helios, The Green Man and Ullr.

The Sky Father to me has always been Thor (I've always felt drawn to him, although I know he's not the head of a pantheon or a father god, he is none the less a sky deity). Helios, as the psychic said and I though also, could stand for any number of solar deities out there (which are deities I've never really looked at in all honesty). The Green Man to me symbolizes either Cernunnos or potentially an Earth deity like Gaia. The Ullr card though really puzzled me. I must say, I've never had any connection with Ullr and researching him a bit, I can't say I felt drawn to him specifically. However, contemplating on it, could the cards be referring to a deity associated with hunting and/or bows and arrows? Maybe even a war deity?

Apart from Thor, which I'm fairly confident is the deity meant by the Sky Father card, does anybody have any suggestions or advice on how to find out who the other deities are who are being referred to by the cards?

It might be worth looking at a religion as a whole, rather than focus on any specific god. Remember, we polytheists have multiple gods (well, ok, there are some who do devote themselves to a single god from an otherwise polytheistic pantheon). You don't even have to like them. But if a religion communicates a series of values, beliefs, or understandings to you, then there is no reason you can't be a part of that religion. So if Thor interests you, maybe have a look at the kinds of values espoused by the pantheon, and see if they suit you. Same for the Greek, or Celtic. You can do the same for non-Reconstructionist faiths, such as the Horned God from Wicca (I think). Unfortunately, I don't know much about these other pantheons, so I can't be more specific.

Of course, having a good relationship with the gods would be a big help, especially for conducting rituals.

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