How did you first meet your deity/deities?

[Aine Rayne]

Hey Aine!

For me, my first deity approached me kinda in the manner you described in your post (bolding mine)!!  I was never terribly religious as a child, although we did go to church regularly.  When I started thinking about getting back into religion/finding one that worked for me, I had been thinking deeply about what I wanted from religion/spirituality, and woke up one morning with an image of a place in my head, and one word echoing.  The word?  Hestia.
I'd not really heard of her before, so I did some exploring, and said "Oh, that's what I'm looking for!"
Since then I have approached other deities in the Greek pantheon, generally because I require their help rather than Hestia's.  A couple actually got brought in by Hestia, as in she could see that I needed more/different help than I was getting so "here's who you need to speak to".
Hestia has currently distanced herself from me, but very much in the way that currently I need others, therefore although she is my primary deity, she is not relevant therefore doesn't need to hang around.  She'll drop in every so often to check on me, and will be around if I need her, just not prominently.
However, I think I have a different experience with my deities than most who follow them do.  For me, the way they come to me and thus the way I go to them is very much like a sibling relationship i.e. sometimes I need help, sometimes they want me to do something, and sometimes we just meet up for coffee and chat.

Athe

 
Yeah, see for me, I pretty much know what I want out of religion/spirituality. For me it's I need a support center, someone who I know has more foresight and power than I who I can turn to when earthly beings can't help me. Someone I can talk to when I'm upset or just want to say hi. I like worship, but it's definitely important that I can know they're there and feel a personal relationship. The distance I always felt in general and in church was a big reason for me leaving my birth religion (that and humans, some problems between me and other parishioners over my relationship with my boyfriend contributed hugely to leaving). And I want it to be a spirituality that I can eventually share with my children, even if they follow a different path. I don't want my kids to have to deal with the same troubles that non-judgmental, loving Christians have to deal with from the extremely loud close-minded minority Christians who make it seem like they're the majority. Though I'm aware that being pagan in this country can cause a lot of personal problems too, but I don't want them thinking they can turn to Deity for comfort and help because they're constantly afraid of rage and damnation. Thwaps perhaps, but not Hellfire. Know what I mean?

[goosesilverwolf]

Hey all.

I first met my Goddess in a dream. In the dream, I was in my favourite coastal place (near Thornwick Bay), and the waves were crashing on to the beach. To the right hand side is a cave, where I heard movement. Then a beautiful lady emerged, long hair, unhumanly beautiful. She sat beside me and these were her exact words: ''I am Aphrodite, and this is only a half dream, for I am real. I am your matron, and will keep you protected. Respect my wishes and I will never leave your side''.

I immediately woke up and felt as if there was someone else in my room. From that moment I knew that I had met my deity and that I should do all in my power to worship her and honour her.

[Shadow]

1. I think it's not a good idea if you go into this looking for a patron. Personal experience aside, it leaves you closed to any manner of new and wonderful opportunities if you become focused on the act of finding a god or pantheon to celebrate.

I think this is really good advise FWIW. When I first started out on my path 12 years ago it seemed as though everyone had a patron and this made me desperate to find one. Being from Scotland originally, I also believed that I should be concentrating on Celtic Gods and so I learnt as much about them as I could, waiting for one to come knocking. Guess what, no one ever did and I soon got very disheartened.

I spent some time researching different pantheons and my attentions were recently drawn to Aphrodite, Athena and Dionysus. I now have an altar to them, I make regular offerings and I talk to them when I get the chance. I still wouldn't class them as my patrons however, just deities I am working on building a connection with.

[earth_dragon]

So, as some of you may know I'm new to the paganism bandwagon. I have no idea how to approach the gods, or which ones I really want to approach for that matter. So, I was wondering how you all did it? I know some of you had the gods come up to you basically going "wassup! so, you're mine now, let's get going shall we?" but still, I'm sure all of you at some point had to decide which deity you wanted to approach and how to go about approaching them. How did you do this? Any tips for me? Please and thank you.

 
I can only tell you from my own experience, but for the longest time I tried to *makes* the deities talk to me, and it just didn't work. I know that sounds strange. But for so long I just wanted to feel them around me, hear their voices. I was on the Wiccan path so I kept trying to connect to the Lord and Lady.

Finally I gave up. I gave up trying to make the gods speak to me. I basically followed the Wiccan path but with no connection to Lord and Lady. But here recently Brighid has been speaking to me. I'm not exactly sure why, but she sort of reached out and grabbed my sleeved and said, Hold on, a minute there! It's been nice. I'm still new to the idea of deity, really, so I'm doing tons of research. But this feeling of calling, it's nice!

[SunflowerP]

 

A Reminder:

Hi, goosesilverwolf, Just a quick note:  Please remember to quote, even if you're just  replying to the first message in the thread.  It makes the discussion  easier to follow, and it's required by  our  rules. This isn't a formal warning, just a reminder.  No  reply is necessary, but if you have questions or need clarification,  please feel free to contact a member of staff privately. Thanks! Sunflower, TC Forum Staff

[goosesilverwolf]

A Reminder:

Hi, goosesilverwolf, Just a quick note:  Please remember to quote, even if you're just  replying to the first message in the thread.  It makes the discussion  easier to follow, and it's required by  our  rules. This isn't a formal warning, just a reminder.  No  reply is necessary, but if you have questions or need clarification,  please feel free to contact a member of staff privately. Thanks! Sunflower, TC Forum Staff

I appologise for that. I am new to the tapatalk app for the forum and wasn't sure how to quote/unquote... I have since figured it out

[Fier]

I'm sure all of you at some point had to decide which deity you wanted to approach and how to go about approaching them. How did you do this? Any tips for me? Please and thank you.

Like you, I also wanted a deity to take me under their wing. But since no one was knocking on the door, I decided to go looking myself. Being a sort of crafty person, I had some interest in Minerva, so I began reading about her and researching ancient Roman religion. (She had me do a lot of reading.) Through my research I came across the Etruscan Minvera, Menrfa or Menrva. While researching some on the Etruscan deities, I came across this image of Turan (the Etruscan goddess of love and beauty, associated with Aphrodite) riding a swan, which I thought was full of awesome. I tucked Turan into the back of my mind to research more later.

Through my research I also learned that it was customary to pray and sacrifice to Janus first before other gods, so that he may open the way to communicate with them. Through honoring Minvera I began to honor Janus, and started to grow an interest in him in his own rite.

Eventually I saw that I wasn't creating any more interest in Minerva, and stopped honoring her, but did continue to work with Janus for awhile.

Then one day I got a song stuck in my head. "I'm So Pretty" from West Side Story. I also got feelings of giddiness and charm and began to muse about love goddesses like Turan, Venus, and Aphrodite. After a few days I zeroed in on Aphrodite as the source of my interest and have been working with her since. (That was just back at the beginning of February.) I wouldn't say she thwapped me, exactly. And I certainly wouldn't say she's my patron. She is who I am working with at the present and for the forseeable future.

So, basically, I started out looking and learning one place and slowly made it somewhere worth parking for a bit. I feel like this post took me a long time to write and that I didn't really say much, so I hope it was somewhat helpful. :ashamed:

[Helmsman_of_Inepu]

1. I think it's not a good idea if you go into this looking for a patron. Personal experience aside, it leaves you closed to any manner of new and wonderful opportunities if you become focused on the act of finding a god or pantheon to celebrate.

The 'you must immediately find a patron' idea is overdone in my opinion. I think it's a bit like having the exclusive goal of finding a marriage partner, and not talking to anyone who isn't potential mate material.

Some people marry their high-school sweethearts. Others will say "OMG, what was I thinking?" But maybe it's a better goal to cast a wider net and make friends.

I pester a large number of the Netjeru on a daily basis. If I had statues of them all, the table would probably collapse. Some I do prayer/offering projects to help other people, some I ask for help with things I'm working on. Some I give offerings to just because. To one I say: "Time to wake up- I brought you some myrrh!"

There are soooo many Kemetic deities. For the most part, they don't seem very jealous of each other.

[Aqua]

My first meeting with my patron was something like " you don't get what you want, you get what you need."
So, I was lying in bed and thinking "I'd like to meet my patron" when I heard dogs barking. When I looked up the window, I saw 3 dogs looking at me and barking. The moment I've made eye contact with them, they runned off.
Then, first thing in the morning, I started searching for a god or goddess associated with dogs and found Hekate and became very intrested in her.
So I made her a shrine, introduced myself to her and made a connection since then.
She may be a silent goddess, but I know for sure she's always there for me and she is making me feel confident. I couldn't ask for a better goddess.

[Aine Rayne]

The 'you must immediately find a patron' idea is overdone in my opinion. I think it's a bit like having the exclusive goal of finding a marriage partner, and not talking to anyone who isn't potential mate material.

Some people marry their high-school sweethearts. Others will say "OMG, what was I thinking?" But maybe it's a better goal to cast a wider net and make friends.

I pester a large number of the Netjeru on a daily basis. If I had statues of them all, the table would probably collapse. Some I do prayer/offering projects to help other people, some I ask for help with things I'm working on. Some I give offerings to just because. To one I say: "Time to wake up- I brought you some myrrh!"

There are soooo many Kemetic deities. For the most part, they don't seem very jealous of each other.

 
Lol well that makes me feel better about not having statues XD and it's not that I feel like I must have a patron now, or that I'll be a bad newbie pagan if I don't, or that I can't start my new path without one, I just like having a deity to worship, talk to and pester and ask for help from and I want one who'll be fine with all that lol I'm trying to make sure I don't close myself off to others or ignore any heys or nays. You'll discover I have the potential to be intensely paranoid and neurotic, so that's part of the reason I'm like "hello? anybody there? *runs in circles so as not to run headlong into a wall* i'm here! am I doing this right?" So, I'm fine with making friends, that's what I'm trying to do now