Sunday, August 31, 2014

Magick in Action Blog Challenge 1: Viewing the Divine

Today I decided I would try creating a blog challenge loosely based on a transgender blog challenge I did a few months ago.  You can find the ongoing list of questions on this page (or in the link in the sidebar), along with details on the project.  They're a nice mix of social issues and practical questions.

The question I'm choosing to answer is:
How do you view the Divine?  Do you acknowledge or worship any Deities?  If so, what do you feel is the most appropriate way to honor them?
I have gone through a laundry list of different ways to be Pagan since I first converted back in I think 1997.  Like most Pagans I started off heavily influenced by Wicca and was going by the duotheistic "All Gods are One God, All Goddesses are One Goddess" system.  This was before I transitioned female-to-male and began identifying as queer, so it made more sense then than it does now.

Right now I consider myself a mostly-hard polytheist.  What I mean is that I acknowledge all of the Deities worshiped by humanity as being distinct individuals with their own desires, preferences, and cultural contexts, but I simultaneously view them as being parts of one major entity that I just refer to as "The Universe."  The big difference between this and regular soft polytheism (in which all Deities are viewed as one conglomerate Deity) is that I see all things as being a part of that one major entity.

I was a raging hard polytheist for a long time when I was going through a rebellious reconstructionist period sometime in the mid 2000s.  What changed that was something similar to the Gaia theory--the idea that the Earth can be viewed as an organism--and a smaller-scale but similar understanding that humans and other Earth life are actually systems of many organisms working together to maintain one entity.  For instance, cell by cell a human is built of more bacteria than actual human cells.  With the recognition that humans could be to the Earth what beneficial bacteria are to humans, the conclusion was that Deities could be considered one singular organism along with other entities sharing their space.

However, this mentality typically only really rears its head when I'm either doing very deep meditation or thinking about spiritual environmentalism.  The Gaia theory is excellent for motivating oneself to care about the environment, for instance.  For the most part I work as a hard polytheist.

Do I worship any Deities?  Yes.  Every once in a while a Deity flicks in and out of my life, but for the most part I have developed close relationships with select few Gods and Goddesses.  My Patron God and Father is Set from the Ancient Egyptian pantheon, who has been with me for well over a decade and is tattooed on my right deltoid.  When I was a Kemetic Orthodox member, I was divined as being a son of Set as well as Wepwawet, who I still honor, although to less a degree.  Coming in third is Sekhmet.  I also have some dealings with Djehuty/Thoth, who I work with because he is considered a Patron of computers, which is the field I'm currently in.

How I worship my Gods varies a bit, with most of it falling under a roughly Kemetic formula but with a modern and queer twist to it.  I have been known to view Set and Heru/Horus as consorts in queer workings, but this is pretty rare nowadays.

I occasionally try working with some Northern Tradition Gods and Goddesses, notably the Rökkatru (the more chaotic, dark Deities who white supremacists tend to hate; bonus!).  Notable among these are Loki and Sigyn, with Sigyn being the more common of the two.  I do not formally worship them, although in the future I might.

I don't feel that people are necessarily obligated to worship Deities in a reconstructionist manner, although when asked my opinion on the subject I do believe people should start with that and see where the relationship evolves from there.  Trying to fit Deities you have no relationship with into a Wiccan-esque ritual and just expecting it to just work out is something I find somewhat annoying, although to be fair most people who do this believe in the All Gods Are One God thing I was talking about above.