What do you do when your patron deity wants to talk to you all the time?

[MarsPrincess]

I am a polytheist but I don't understand yet what hard polytheist and soft polytheist means. I started out originally with Mars Roman God and Fortuna Roman Goddess as my patron male and female deities. Now they've brought Minerva Roman Goddess and Jupiter Roman God to be my patron deities too. So now I've got 4 patron deities.

Mars Roman God was the first patron deity I had when I self initiated with Mars to be a solitary witch. We have grown very attached to each other and Mars just wants to talk to me all the time and bugs me sometimes when I am going to bed. Mars just can't stop talking to me. I wonder if Mars is trying to get me to do more spiritual work with him. Maybe my reluctance in doing healing work is making him frustrated. I've told him I am not comfortable being a paid professional healer but maybe he thinks that he can protect me while I do professional healing work to earn a living.

I'm not too sure myself what Mars wants at the end of the day from me but he is always sweet and caring towards my daily needs and comforts me as I am constantly stressed about being out of job.

I've tried telling Mars I can't talk to him all the time but he just talks all the time.

What do you do when your patron deities want to talk to you all the time? In what ways can you make personal boundaries and positively influence them to give you some personal space?

Thanks
MarsPrincess

[carillion]

I am a polytheist but I don't understand yet what hard polytheist and soft polytheist means. I started out originally with Mars Roman God and Fortuna Roman Goddess as my patron male and female deities. Now they've brought Minerva Roman Goddess and Jupiter Roman God to be my patron deities too. So now I've got 4 patron deities.

Mars Roman God was the first patron deity I had when I self initiated with Mars to be a solitary witch. We have grown very attached to each other and Mars just wants to talk to me all the time and bugs me sometimes when I am going to bed. Mars just can't stop talking to me. I wonder if Mars is trying to get me to do more spiritual work with him. Maybe my reluctance in doing healing work is making him frustrated. I've told him I am not comfortable being a paid professional healer but maybe he thinks that he can protect me while I do professional healing work to earn a living.

I'm not too sure myself what Mars wants at the end of the day from me but he is always sweet and caring towards my daily needs and comforts me as I am constantly stressed about being out of job.

I've tried telling Mars I can't talk to him all the time but he just talks all the time.

What do you do when your patron deities want to talk to you all the time? In what ways can you make personal boundaries and positively influence them to give you some personal space?

Thanks
MarsPrincess

I must first say I've never had the experience of a deity talking to me but there are others here who can address the boundaries issue. It would help if you could explain what you mean by 'talks' to you. Do you hear his voice or have intrusive thoughts/words in your mind? Or....?

[Castus]

I am a polytheist but I don't understand yet what hard polytheist and soft polytheist means. I started out originally with Mars Roman God and Fortuna Roman Goddess as my patron male and female deities. Now they've brought Minerva Roman Goddess and Jupiter Roman God to be my patron deities too. So now I've got 4 patron deities.

Mars Roman God was the first patron deity I had when I self initiated with Mars to be a solitary witch. We have grown very attached to each other and Mars just wants to talk to me all the time and bugs me sometimes when I am going to bed. Mars just can't stop talking to me. I wonder if Mars is trying to get me to do more spiritual work with him. Maybe my reluctance in doing healing work is making him frustrated. I've told him I am not comfortable being a paid professional healer but maybe he thinks that he can protect me while I do professional healing work to earn a living.

I'm not too sure myself what Mars wants at the end of the day from me but he is always sweet and caring towards my daily needs and comforts me as I am constantly stressed about being out of job.

I've tried telling Mars I can't talk to him all the time but he just talks all the time.

What do you do when your patron deities want to talk to you all the time? In what ways can you make personal boundaries and positively influence them to give you some personal space?

Thanks
MarsPrincess

 
Are you quite certain these are Roman deities?

[Faemon]

I am a polytheist but I don't understand yet what hard polytheist and soft polytheist means. I started out originally with Mars Roman God and Fortuna Roman Goddess as my patron male and female deities. Now they've brought Minerva Roman Goddess and Jupiter Roman God to be my patron deities too. So now I've got 4 patron deities.

You sound like a hard polytheist to me, if you're sure it's Fortuna and not "...or maybe Urd, or Moira...Whatever, I don't care which one."

Although I think it was either HeartShadow or Sunflower here who identified as "Hard polytheist, but the gods are weird"? And I think Jack's coined this in-between term "Squishy Polytheism".

What do you do when your patron deities want to talk to you all the time? In what ways can you make personal boundaries and positively influence them to give you some personal space?

 
I'm more of a Jungian philosopher than I am "into" supernatural interpretations, so, if something takes up my attention like that then I trust that it's something that my psyche keeps digging up because it needs attention. I could repress it (banish, go on psychic shutdown) and it can come back some day later, maybe, in another form, more powerfully, but maybe also at a better time when I'm more equipped to confront it...or, I can give it attention and consideration (but remain assertive, consideration doesn't mean you bend to anything that talks loudly and confidently and insistently enough).

[Jenett]

I am a polytheist but I don't understand yet what hard polytheist and soft polytheist means. I started out originally with Mars Roman God and Fortuna Roman Goddess as my patron male and female deities. Now they've brought Minerva Roman Goddess and Jupiter Roman God to be my patron deities too. So now I've got 4 patron deities.

Let's take this in smaller pieces.

'Hard polytheist' and 'soft polytheist' are terms some people use to talk about how they see a world which has many gods. In general, hard polytheists believe that each and every individual named deity is a different being, distinct from every other deity (like I am not you, and I am not Randall, and I am not anyone else on this forum, but we're all still people.)

Soft polytheism is a term for people who think that the different names of deities are facets of a greater divine power, that just uses different names, attributes, and so on to make it easier for humans to deal with.

Some people are sort of in the middle: for example, I generally treat deities as distinct beings if they introduce themselves to me that way, but I've had a few interactions with specific deities that make me wonder if it's the same deity going by a different name in two or more places. (Just like I'm Jenett in most of my personal life, and Jennifer at work.)

(As an aside: you don't necessarily need to say "Mars Roman God" every time you mention the name: most people will certainly recognise the names of Roman deities around here, and if not, it's easy to ask. Of course, if that's something a deity's asked of you, that'd be different.)

On to your specific question now, though I'm taking the two quotes below in a different order than your post.

What do you do when your patron deities want to talk to you all the time? In what ways can you make personal boundaries and positively influence them to give you some personal space?

First, there's another recent thread on the board you might find useful to read that talks about some of this, and some different ways to set useful boundaries.

My usual advice is in that thread, but basically that I believe it's healthy (for you, for the deities, and for everyone else in your life) for you to set boundaries. The ways someone can do that vary a lot, though.

Mars Roman God was the first patron deity I had when I self initiated with Mars to be a solitary witch. We have grown very attached to each other and Mars just wants to talk to me all the time and bugs me sometimes when I am going to bed. Mars just can't stop talking to me. I wonder if Mars is trying to get me to do more spiritual work with him. Maybe my reluctance in doing healing work is making him frustrated. I've told him I am not comfortable being a paid professional healer but maybe he thinks that he can protect me while I do professional healing work to earn a living.

 
There are several things that come to mind for me with this part.

First, you could set a limit about when you get contacted - maybe making time for a morning and evening devotional, and asking for more involved contacts at those times, then having time to relax before you go to bed.

Some people find it useful to have a particular physical thing they do (lighting a candle, lighting a stick of incense, putting on a piece of jewelry, sitting in a particular place, putting on a shawl or piece of clothing) that indicates that they are receptive to contact, and then taking it off is a sign that now is not a good time.

In terms of the content of what you're getting, it's hard to tell without some more information. (Don't feel you need to answer the following here, though if you choose to, people might have more suggestions.) Things you might think about include:

- Have you asked Mars for specific help with getting a job? Is it possible that the pushes you're getting toward a particular field are coming as an answer to that (or some other) request?

- What does your current spiritual practice include? Is it possible that he would like more of a particular practice?

- Do you currently have a method besides the contact you're getting for cross-checking things? These might include a method of divination, a way of sorting out different kinds of information (like talking to a good friend about it, or someone familiar with the pantheon in question), or meditation that is not focused on directly contacting the deity who's already talking to you.

Basically, the idea is that you want to look for ways to learn more about the direction you're being encouraged to go, and to understand why a deity might be pushing that. (Just like if you had a job, and your boss was pushing you to go in a particular direction, you might want to ask your boss why, but you might also talk to a co-worker you trust, or a friend who gives good advice, or someone else who's familiar with your field.)

- It sounds like you've got particular concerns about a particular kind of work. There's an awful lot of roles that can fall under 'healing profession'. Is it possible that some of these might be a better fit for you than the ones you're thinking of right now?

(This would involve looking at what your specific concerns are, exploring other possible lines of work, and then figuring out what it would take to get hired doing that, and whether that's a reasonable short-term goal for you.

But, for example, if your concern is that you'd get burned out working with patients all the time, there are options for either learning better shielding and filtering skills, for working in a field of medicine that deals less with very sick people, or for going into something that helps with patient care but doesn't work directly with patients.

I was talking to a woman at the local laundromat (she was a tourist from out of town) who was a labour and delivery nurse because she couldn't cope with dealing with very ill people all the time. I know other people who work doing medical research or support services where they can help a lot with quality of life and overall healing, but aren't doing direct care.

- Are there ways you could do some of the healing work you're being asked to do, without doing it full time? For example, volunteering at a local hospital or hospice. Some people run a massage or other healing practice part time, or only take a limited number of clients each week.

I used to work with a teacher for a particular body modality (Feldenkrais Technique, which many people haven't heard of) which is about teaching people to use the bodies they have. But he also balanced that between one on one work, class lessons, and making sure he had lots of time to spend with his wife and kids. There's lots of options.

[SunflowerP]

Although I think it was either HeartShadow or Sunflower here who identified as "Hard polytheist, but the gods are weird"? And I think Jack's coined this in-between term "Squishy Polytheism".

 
Not me. I can't say for sure if it was Shad, but it sounds like something she might say. What I've said for years is 'polytheist, poached medium-hard' (there used to be a thing on TC about using egg-cooking parallels).

Sunflower

[AineLlewellyn]

I've tried telling Mars I can't talk to him all the time but he just talks all the time.

What do you do when your patron deities want to talk to you all the time? In what ways can you make personal boundaries and positively influence them to give you some personal space?

Thanks
MarsPrincess

 
I would be questioning whether it is really the god talking, or just your brain nattering off. Whenever I've had a god pestering me an unusual amount, meaning near constantly, I've always asked if it's actually my brain or my imagination at play. This is mostly because I doubt that the gods really have time to chime in about the littlest issues in our lives. Not that they can't, but in my experience, more often than not the 'constant god chatter' is actually 'constant brain chatter'. And taking time to parse those out helps me hear the gods better.

[Faemon]

Not me. I can't say for sure if it was Shad, but it sounds like something she might say. What I've said for years is 'polytheist, poached medium-hard' (there used to be a thing on TC about using egg-cooking parallels).

Sunflower

 
Oh, I like that! Sunny-side up, over-easy, scrambled polytheist here. :p

[Juniperberry]

I've tried telling Mars I can't talk to him all the time but he just talks all the time.

One of the most helpful techniques I've come across is backtracking. While I don't doubt that you could be feeling Mars' influence on a consistent basis, sometimes we mistake our own stream of consciousness for something that it isn't. That's where backtracking comes in. Follow your thoughts backwards and see if they are ultimately connected in one train of thought. If they are, then you're mind is just rambling at you. However, if the thought really seemed to pop out of thin air with no connection to any thing else, then it could be more than an internal ramble.

That's not to say that your own stream of consciousness isn't valuable and informative, but knowing when it's solely internal and when it's divinely* influenced will help you set boundaries for yourself and feel more composed with your thoughts.




*these external-internal thoughts aren't always from divinity, the term just works for this post.

[MarsPrincess]

In terms of the content of what you're getting, it's hard to tell without some more information. (Don't feel you need to answer the following here, though if you choose to, people might have more suggestions.) Things you might think about include:

- Have you asked Mars for specific help with getting a job? Is it possible that the pushes you're getting toward a particular field are coming as an answer to that (or some other) request?

- What does your current spiritual practice include? Is it possible that he would like more of a particular practice?

- Do you currently have a method besides the contact you're getting for cross-checking things? These might include a method of divination, a way of sorting out different kinds of information (like talking to a good friend about it, or someone familiar with the pantheon in question), or meditation that is not focused on directly contacting the deity who's already talking to you.

Basically, the idea is that you want to look for ways to learn more about the direction you're being encouraged to go, and to understand why a deity might be pushing that. (Just like if you had a job, and your boss was pushing you to go in a particular direction, you might want to ask your boss why, but you might also talk to a co-worker you trust, or a friend who gives good advice, or someone else who's familiar with your field.)

- It sounds like you've got particular concerns about a particular kind of work. There's an awful lot of roles that can fall under 'healing profession'. Is it possible that some of these might be a better fit for you than the ones you're thinking of right now?

Hi Jenett thanks for the lengthy reply. Many things for me to think about.

I've asked Mars for income streams and he suggested doing energy work healing. I used to do Reiki but I don't feel comfortable with it anymore and I had previously gotten help from my patron deities to remove the Reiki attunements. Mars was suggesting that along with my personal spirituality, he said energy work healing in other modalities than Reiki might be able to earn me some income. I don't really know how to deal with clients' questions sometimes so I feel daunted to be professional energy work healer.

I currently do automatic writing and meditation while the candle offerings burn and I draw a pentacle on each spell I write and speak out aloud to my patron deities. My patron deities sometimes confirm that it is them by telling me in automatic writing things or words important to me for a short while in life many years ago which I have long forgotten. My hands move without my own will of exercising them when I do automatic writing and I ask Archangel Michael to standby and offer a dish of sea salt to make sure its not spirits but patron deities talking to me. But that's just my personal practice and UPG stuff, I don't expect others to work like my own style and I don't really expect people to believe that from my own style that I can actually contact and communicate with my patron deities.

[Jenett]

I don't really know how to deal with clients' questions sometimes so I feel daunted to be professional energy work healer.

I know there are resources out there that help with that, though it's not something I have handy at the tip of my brain.

(And you can find help with some related topics: for example, you might look at how massage therapists handle this kind of thing, or tarot readers - Christine's Jette's book on being a professional tarot reader has a chapter on how to deal with complicated client situations, for example, and I know it comes up as a conversation topic sometimes on the Aecletic Tarot forum.)  

I currently do automatic writing and meditation while the candle offerings burn and I draw a pentacle on each spell I write and speak out aloud to my patron deities.

 
I'd suggest adding another mechanism with a layer between your brain and what's going on - automatic writing and meditation are great things, but the thing about both of them is that if you are doing things with what's in your own head (rather than getting information from a deity or other being), there's no filter between your head and those tools.

Using something like Tarot or runes or another physical divination system can help provide that. Working with another person who can help give feedback (through *their* meditation, automatic writing, aspecting of a deity, or whatever else) can help do that. Simply talking it out with someone who is a good listener and able to ask relevant questions can do that. But the point is, for a balanced view, you want things that don't rely on the exact the same sources over and over again. And since automatic writing and meditation come back to what's in your head, that can be seen as effectively the same source.

[Redfaery]

What do you do when your patron deities want to talk to you all the time? In what ways can you make personal boundaries and positively influence them to give you some personal space?

Thanks
MarsPrincess

 
I had a problem like this in Japan with Benzaiten-sama (what Sarasvati likes to be called over there.) The signal clarity was awesome, so she was talking to me constantly. It got to the point that I couldn't always tell what was her and what was just my brain going off on its own. Eventually, she figured out that she needed to just tell me when it was her, and give me a heads-up when I was confused.

So yeah, I'd try just asking Mars if you could arrange something that would work for the both of you. Maybe there's a time you could set aside to talk?

[Redfaery]

I had a problem like this in Japan with Benzaiten-sama (what Sarasvati likes to be called over there.) The signal clarity was awesome, so she was talking to me constantly. It got to the point that I couldn't always tell what was her and what was just my brain going off on its own. Eventually, she figured out that she needed to just tell me when it was her, and give me a heads-up when I was confused.

So yeah, I'd try just asking Mars if you could arrange something that would work for the both of you. Maybe there's a time you could set aside to talk?

...OK. I didn't quite get off my chest what I wanted to say the first time, so I'm doing it now.

Keep in mind that you haven't given many details (which is perfectly understandable), so my impression of what you are experiencing may just be flat out wrong. If it is, go ahead and tell me. I'd rather be corrected than go on my merry little way in ignorance.

However, from what you've told here, and from how it compares to what I know my own experience to be, I would take a step back and evaluate this whole situation with your patron gods and their communications, because honestly, what you've told me makes me more than a little suspicious that something more is going on than a chatty god.

Please seek out an outside and impartial source to verify that the entities communicating to you are indeed gods, and are actually the gods they say they are. Also, if you haven't done so already, try to impartially evaluate your own mental state and ask yourself if you may be simply experiencing something that's going on inside your head.

I don't know much about contemporary worship of Mars, but he doesn't seem the kind of fellow to bug people in the middle of the night for a chat. So that makes me worried. I speak from my own experiences as someone who is constantly "ridden" by a god. I'd ascribe the same level of socialization and social competence to deities that I would to most humans (We can argue about Loki...but I would say that it's precisely because he knows the rules so well that he can flout them with such panache!).

Waking a friend up to chat is generally considered rude. I'd be worried that any entity that behaved in such a way was either totally ignorant of social boundaries, or even worse, that it intentionally ignores them. I'm not saying this to be mean. I have Aspergers syndrome. I have pathological trouble setting boundaries and obeying social norms, and I often refuse to play by the rules neurotypical society hands me. So I'm not saying that just because it "bugs" you means it's malicious or harmful. Still, even I know that I shouldn't engage in certain behaviors because they are hurtful, disruptive, or just annoying to others.

So again, find some external check on yourself. If it's not Mars, it's not necessarily a bad thing. You may still have found entities that are worthwhile and rewarding to work with, even if you yourself may have to be careful evaluating what they tell you. And yes, even if this is all in your head, that's not bad either...provided you acknowledge it and seek out mental health resources to cope with your issues.

[Redfaery]

...OK. I didn't quite get off my chest what I wanted to say the first time, so I'm doing it now.

 
I just wanted to add as a disclaimer that my opinions come from my experiences and my experiences alone, and I don't intend to sound as if my experiences are representative of anyone other than myself.

[MarsPrincess]

...OK. I didn't quite get off my chest what I wanted to say the first time, so I'm doing it now.

Keep in mind that you haven't given many details (which is perfectly understandable), so my impression of what you are experiencing may just be flat out wrong. If it is, go ahead and tell me. I'd rather be corrected than go on my merry little way in ignorance.

However, from what you've told here, and from how it compares to what I know my own experience to be, I would take a step back and evaluate this whole situation with your patron gods and their communications, because honestly, what you've told me makes me more than a little suspicious that something more is going on than a chatty god.

Please seek out an outside and impartial source to verify that the entities communicating to you are indeed gods, and are actually the gods they say they are. Also, if you haven't done so already, try to impartially evaluate your own mental state and ask yourself if you may be simply experiencing something that's going on inside your head.

I don't know much about contemporary worship of Mars, but he doesn't seem the kind of fellow to bug people in the middle of the night for a chat. So that makes me worried. I speak from my own experiences as someone who is constantly "ridden" by a god. I'd ascribe the same level of socialization and social competence to deities that I would to most humans (We can argue about Loki...but I would say that it's precisely because he knows the rules so well that he can flout them with such panache!).

Waking a friend up to chat is generally considered rude. I'd be worried that any entity that behaved in such a way was either totally ignorant of social boundaries, or even worse, that it intentionally ignores them. I'm not saying this to be mean. I have Aspergers syndrome. I have pathological trouble setting boundaries and obeying social norms, and I often refuse to play by the rules neurotypical society hands me. So I'm not saying that just because it "bugs" you means it's malicious or harmful. Still, even I know that I shouldn't engage in certain behaviors because they are hurtful, disruptive, or just annoying to others.

So again, find some external check on yourself. If it's not Mars, it's not necessarily a bad thing. You may still have found entities that are worthwhile and rewarding to work with, even if you yourself may have to be careful evaluating what they tell you. And yes, even if this is all in your head, that's not bad either...provided you acknowledge it and seek out mental health resources to cope with your issues.

 
Hi Redfaery, sorry for not giving even more information in my previous posts in this thread. It's just that I didn't know how to put it across until specific questions come to me.

It's because I had some experiences years ago with revamping some healing techniques and had been working with Mars and Fortuna on myself with those revamped techniques of energy work healing this past few months. I told Mars and Fortuna that they could use my revamped methods on any subjects they wanted to in their own free time if they wanted to use the methods and to come back to me with comments if they wanted to.

And so Mars was constantly bugging me to take it to a professional level and since I am financially not independent so he was like why not make it a career. Mars was saying I should set up a practice soon to avoid deep depression caused by my parents complaining that I am unemployed for a long time already. But I feel uncomfortable being a professional healer because when I was a psychic reader years ago, clients can tend to want to challenge me and say they can do a better job reading their own cards sometimes maybe because I was a young reader. I'm afraid that I might be challenged about my revamped healing methods. So I was crying to sleep lately and Mars just kept talking to me but I sometimes found it like he was nagging. I thought I probably needed to set boundaries with Mars about when he should talk to me.

So that's what's sort of happening.

--- MarsPrincess