I have come to find tremendous meaning and depth in the symbols of Wicca. The Turning of the Wheel and the celebrations surrounding them, the triple Goddess and the God of the hunt. The focus on the four classical elements and the ritual structure of it, as diverse as it may be.
I find myself less drawn to the things that make it 'witchier'. Any of the forms of fortune telling such as scrying, runes, tarot, etc, really just don't speak to me. Some of the non-divinatory pieces commonly found as trappings such as numerology and astrology really don't fit either. And they don't need to as none of them are quintessentially necessary to Wicca or Paganism, from my experience. Perhaps it's a knee-jerk geek reaction. Skepticism nearly to a fault is a hallmark, for better or worse, of the modern science community and for good reason. Frankly, skepticism is to science what food is to us humans.
So I guess what I'm really saying is that I'm not entirely sure I'm a Witch so much as I'm a Pagan. (queue the terminology forestorm)
I've also come fully to the realization that I am a hard polytheist, something I hear is becoming, or perhaps has always been, the case in Wicca. But more so than that I find myself disagreeing quite firmly with the idea of archetypes and thought-forms as a conception of deity. I don't see the Wiccan Goddess and God as symbolic of all gods and goddesses. The semi-popular Wiccan hymn that starts with a chant of "Isis, Astarte, Hecate..." kind of grates on me for that reason. Nor do I see those goddesses and gods as aspects of the divine feminine and divine masculine. In short, I feel the Wiccan God and Goddess are as real, tangible, and distinct as the old gods and goddesses. To put a stamp on it, if I get anything at all from Neo-Platonism or any other form of monism (as in mono meaning one, not monastery), it isn't in the form of "All Goddesses are one Goddess, all God are one God". Perhaps it all boils down to a single, unknowable entity, and perhaps that doesn't make a lick of difference to me if I can't know it.
So now that all the gods and goddesses are their own beings and we aren't being reductionist, am I about to pick myself a pantheon and become a reconstructionist? Kind of. To me the Triple Goddess and the Horned God are very much the central characters in my divine space, and they have been for the whole of my life as a Pagan. For whatever one might say about Wicca, its age, and its lineage, its central deities speak to me as themselves, not as core representations of others. And they do so louder than the others. And so while I feel I've had a connection with Demeter and Papa Legba of late, I'm not a priest of either so much as an... admirer, we'll say.
But that has left an interesting issue in my head. One that makes me wonder about whether or not the ancients struggled with it, too. And what's more it makes me wonder how reconstructionists and revivalists (my term here. I'm meaning groups that revive worship of specific pantheons without strictly aiming for authenticity) wrestle with it. If these are my chief deities, but I recognize the validity and stature of the other deities, how do I reconcile that with the fact that many of the other deities cover the same 'turf', so to speak. Can you view Odin, Apollo, Zeus, etc as real divine characters with their classical roles and myths without having to confront the inherent issue with overlap? With some deities, it's not a problem. Deities of love, war, oceans, etc, can easily share divine territory (yes, I'm getting middle-school mythology here. I know the traits of the gods are not that simple). But what of chief deities? What of the Norns and the Fates, who are said to govern all of destiny? The tale of Demeter and Persephone governed the Greek seasons, but there were others that served the same function.
Do I reoncile that by simply picking a winner? Do I take the truth versus factual distinction here by saying these are simply allegories? I'm inclined to take the latter path. As a science geek I know well how writing developed (at least so far as archaeology tells us) and that it had multiple likely origins. And certainly Odin didn't give the Egyptians heiroglyphs, nor did Thoth scratch out early Chinese characters on turtle shells thousands of years ago. But they are, in fact, real to me and their stories are important, if symbolic. And here I am in Religions 100 again learning about truth versus fact.
So now that all the gods and goddesses are their own beings and we aren't being reductionist, am I about to pick myself a pantheon and become a reconstructionist? Kind of. To me the Triple Goddess and the Horned God are very much the central characters in my divine space, and they have been for the whole of my life as a Pagan. For whatever one might say about Wicca, its age, and its lineage, its central deities speak to me as themselves, not as core representations of others. And they do so louder than the others. And so while I feel I've had a connection with Demeter and Papa Legba of late, I'm not a priest of either so much as an... admirer, we'll say.
But that has left an interesting issue in my head. One that makes me wonder about whether or not the ancients struggled with it, too. And what's more it makes me wonder how reconstructionists and revivalists (my term here. I'm meaning groups that revive worship of specific pantheons without strictly aiming for authenticity) wrestle with it. If these are my chief deities, but I recognize the validity and stature of the other deities, how do I reconcile that with the fact that many of the other deities cover the same 'turf', so to speak. Can you view Odin, Apollo, Zeus, etc as real divine characters with their classical roles and myths without having to confront the inherent issue with overlap? With some deities, it's not a problem. Deities of love, war, oceans, etc, can easily share divine territory (yes, I'm getting middle-school mythology here. I know the traits of the gods are not that simple). But what of chief deities? What of the Norns and the Fates, who are said to govern all of destiny? The tale of Demeter and Persephone governed the Greek seasons, but there were others that served the same function.
Do I reoncile that by simply picking a winner? Do I take the truth versus factual distinction here by saying these are simply allegories? I'm inclined to take the latter path. As a science geek I know well how writing developed (at least so far as archaeology tells us) and that it had multiple likely origins. And certainly Odin didn't give the Egyptians heiroglyphs, nor did Thoth scratch out early Chinese characters on turtle shells thousands of years ago. But they are, in fact, real to me and their stories are important, if symbolic. And here I am in Religions 100 again learning about truth versus fact.
I suspect I have a lot of meditating, ritual, and research to do before I come to any kind of satisfactory conclusion here. And I'm sure the conclusion is not nearly so important as the meditation, ritual, and research. But I think finally, over the past year, I feel I finally get what the gods are telling me. And while I don't have the whole picture, I've got some substantial pieces.
:) As I have said The Horned One isn't an aspect, He is His own person to me. Personality and all.
ReplyDeleteThere are some parts of myths I believe as learning tales, some parts as truth and others I am not sure of yet. I think we will always struggle with parts of it because we don't have the ability to know all. Or something. But struggle on we do!
Absolutely. I'm certainly not alone in this idea. I think there are a lot of folks out there who are trending this direction. Oh, and thanks for reading my neurotic craziness. :)
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