The Deities
All religions are structures build upon reverence
of Deity. Wicca is no exception. The Wicca acknowledge a supreme divine
power, unknowable, ultimate, from which the entire universe sprang.
I believe that the Divine is both within us and
outside of us - It resides within everything and surrounds us all.
Every deity that has received worship upon this
planet exists with the archetypal God and Goddess. The complex pantheons
of deities which arose in many parts of the world are simple aspects of
the two. Every Goddess is resident within the concept of the Goddess; every
God in the God.
Wicca reveres these twin deities because of its
links with nature. Since most (but certainly not all) nature is divided
into gender, the deities embodying it are similarly conceived.
In the past, when the Goddess and God were as
real as the Moon and Sun, rites of worship and adoration were unstructured-
spontaneous, joyous union with the divine. Later, rituals followed the
course of the Sun through its astronomical year (and thusly the seasons)
as well as the monthly waxing and waning of the Moon.
Today similar rites are observed by the Wicca,
and their regular performance creates a truly magickal closeness with these
deities and the powers behind them.
Fortunately, we needn't wait for ritual occasions
to be reminded of the Gods' presence. The sight of a perfect blossom in
a field of bare earth can instill feelings rivaling those of the most powerful
formal rite. Living in nature makes every moment a ritual. The Wiccans
are comfortable in communication with animals, plants and trees. They feel
energies within stones and sand, and cause fossils to speak of their primeval
beginnings. For some Wiccans, watching the Sun or Moon rise and set each
day is a ritual unto itself, for these are the heavenly symbols of the
God and Goddess.
Because the Wicca see Deity inherent in nature,
many of us are involved in ecology- saving the Earth from utter destruction
by our own hands. The Goddess and God still exist, as they have always
existed, and to honor them we honor and preserve our percious planet.
When envisioning the Goddess and God, many of
the Wicca see Them as well-known deities from ancient religions. Diana,
Pan, Isis, Hermes, Hina, Tammuz, Hecate, Ishtar, Cerridwen, Thoth, Tara,
Aradia, Artemis, Pele, Apollo, Kanaloa, Bridget, Helios, Bran, Lugh, Hera,
Cybele, Inanna, Maui, Ea, Athena, Lono, Marduk- the list is virtually endless.
Many of these deities, with their corresponding histories, rites and mythic
information, furnish the concept of deity for Wiccans.
Some feel confortable association such names
and forms with the Goddess and God, feeling that they can't possible revere
nameless divine beings. Others find a lack of names and costumes a comforting
lack of limitations.
Some, including myself, simply call upon the
God and the Goddess, without invoking a particular aspect or name.
I do invision them... I have my own picture in
my mind of what the Goddess and God look like to me. This I will keep to
myself for I feel it is private and personal.
They have been given so many names they have been
called the Nameless Ones. In appearance they look exactly as we wish them
to, for they're all the Deities that ever were. The Goddess and God are
all-powerful because they are the creators of all manifest and unmanifest
existence. We can contact and communicate with them because a part of us
is in them and they are within us.
BEFORE TIME WAS
Before time was, there was The One; The One was
all, and all was The One.
And the vast expanse known as the universe was
The One, all-wise, all-pervading, all-powerful, eternally changing.
And space moved. The One molded energy into twin
forms, equal but opposite, fashioning the Goddess and God from The One
and of The One.
The Goddess and God stretched and gave thanks
to The One, but darkness surrounded Them. They were alone, solitary save
for The One.
So They formed energy into gasses and gasses
into suns and planets and moons; They sprinkled the universe with whirling
globes and so all was given shape by the hands of the Goddess and God.
Light arose and the sky was illuminated by a
billion suns. And the Goddess and God, satisfied by Their works, rejoiced
and loved, and were One.
From Their union sprang the seeds of all life,
and of the human race, so that we might achieve incarnation upon the Earth.
The Goddess chose the Moon as Her symbol, and
the God the Sun as His symbol, to remind the inhabitants of Earth of their
fashioners.
All are born, live, die and are reborn beneath
the Sun and Moon; all things come to pass thereunder, and all occurs with
the blessings of The One, as has been the way of existence before time
was.
Scott Cunningham
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