Nature of our Deities

I recently watched a great You Tube video of Ronald Hutton talking about Roman Paganism in Britain. As he was talking about Roman ideas about deity, it caused me to think about how I think about the nature of deity. Since I am a hard polytheist, Roman ideas are fairly easy for me to understand. The Romans believed that humans needed to get the attention of deities to derive any benefit from them. To me this means that deities have their own ways of being that do not always include us. From my own ritual experience, this makes sense to me. While the Guardians of the Directions regularly show up, the deities I am devoted to show up sometimes and sometimes not. When I think of creating sacred space, I think about my ideas of the creation of the Universe as well as wanting to create a pleasing space to for the deity I'm working with to engage with me and to communicate.

When I call to Hekate, I feel a certain way. When I recently did a prayer to Ganesha, I played a mantra to him and clearly felt his energy. When I was much younger and in college, walking across campus one night by myself, I suddenly felt fear which was unusual. I immediately called on Diana, who to me was a strong and protective deity of women, and felt her energy fill my body and the fear left me. To me, our prayers at our altars or shrines, develop our relationship to deities that then can be called upon when we need them. They will know us and know of our devotion.

Hutton also talked about shrines or temples where people might go to have a one on one with a deity or small group would do ritual and that larger religious festivals were held outside the shrine or temple. Often there were other deities around any temple or shrine to any particular deity. He noted that scholars really don't know what was happening with the Romans twinning Roman deities to native British deities, but it is clear that Romans recognized the deities of specific places and believed it was important to acknowledge them with offerings.

The Shrine project we are starting here in Pueblo, also has this in mind. By making offerings and praying at the shrines, we are developing a relationship with that deity. We are asking them to notice us, delight in the shrine or offerings we make. As we build energy at the shrines or other power spots in Pueblo and the surrounding areas, we can fill ourselves with that energy and bring it back to our home altars, our backyards, or any home shrines we may have.

Additionally, we might consider a large festival at some point in time, where we have a sacred BBQ and provide an altar for the Goddesses and Gods to have their portion, while we feast as well. Hutton also remarked that during Roman times in Britain, it was a multi-religious, multi-ethnic and a multi-cultural society. Certainly, that is what we would expect of a Pagan society. Pueblo is already multi-ethnic and multi-cultural and could use some help becoming multi-religious.

While I don't consider myself a re-constructionist, I do find learning about our Pagan past has inspiration to offer us all. With a bit of creativity, we can bring such inspiration into present time and find out what it brings to us.

I do subscribe to the occult notion that thoughts are things. When we give our thought energy to deities of our Pagan past, we are continuing to enliven them and in some cases, bringing them back to life or bringing them back into our consciousness. Whatever we give our attention to, grows. That is one idea underpinning the shrine project. As we use the shrines and think of those deities, we bring them in our consciousness and they in turn can bless us with their presence in our lives and in our town.

Sulis Minerva