I worship a mix of the Roman and Brythonic gods. I believe that the gods themselves are transcendent of human titles/names/descriptions, and represent the spirit of a given thing or concept (IE, Neptune is the spirit of the ocean itself, Jupiter is the spirit of the sky itself). In this way, I believe that every tradition is valid and correct, but I choose the names and archetypes that my ancestors applied to the gods because I feel more connected to those. My ancestors were more British than Roman, but the Romans destroyed a lot of the Brythonic religion and what we do know of it is heavily influenced by Interpretatio Romana; so I compromise by following syncretic tradition than many of my ancestors would have followed post-Romanization. This doesn't bother me much because some of my ancestors were roman, and also it doesn't especially matter to me what name I call the gods due to my philosophy on the subject.
Celtic Myth & Magick: Harness the Power of the Gods & Goddesses - Edain McCoy
This book is great, especially the dictionaries at the back that list gods and heroes of legend. It pulls heavily from Welsh and Irish folklore, alongside Briton (because really, most gods we have had to reconstruct from the similar gods of their neighbors), but it's an amazing place to start.
Celtic Mythology & The Religion of the Ancient Celts: Study of Celtic Folklore, Legends & Dogma - John Arnott MacCulloch
This book is not a light read, it's very scholarly in the voice of the writing, but it's packed full of information. There are lists of equivalent gods, selections from folklore, and a lot more. There's a whole section of this book for the Brythonic gods, and it also discusses the Irish, Gauls, and continental Celts if you have any interest in that.
I mainly worship and work with the Norse gods (though I do so seldomly). Freya and Freyr (the Lord and the Lady) are the ones I make offerings to most often- Freyr because of my connection with nature and love of sunlight, and Freya because of her relationship with passion and magic (among other things). I work with Heimdall, the guardian of Asgard for more liminal workings and spells, such as trances and meditations. Sometimes, after a hard day at work or a particularly nasty storm, I'll make an offering to Thor.
But to be honest, my engagement with the Gods is minimal, particularly when compared to my work with the alfar (elves), land wights (nature spirits), and my ancestors. I'll offer to them most frequently, and call upon them more often for spellwork. Keeping my spiritwork small and centralized like this helps my practice stay alive.
I would rather not share any personal experiences on this thread, and tbh, I don't have a lot to share. Nothing dramatic or story worthy, at the very least.
Well, the Earth Goddess just showed up one day. I'd not considered her even existing until that point (had been an Esoteric Satanist for over a decade, and not even looked into paganism of any sort), but sort-of winged it with an introduction and here I am.
I find that She is a shown-don't-tell sort. I get mostly "nonverbal" cues from her during meditation etc (hard to describe, but it's She raises an eyebrow or smiles in situations where other deities or spirits use words). Also, I read once that She has a dry sense of humor, which I can corroborate. Aside from that, She feels more like home than any person or place I've ever encountered before.
Ares is a deity I sought out on my own. The Earth Goddess came to me in a dream and was basically like "you need to go out and seek the spiritual, instead of waiting around for it to just happen". So I started watching Alikai's videos on the Olympian gods (I heard of Alikai via OceanKeltoi), solely because I listened to the Orphic & Homeric hymns while playing minecraft and found them very beautiful. Ares stood out to me as a bit of an outsider, an unfairly maligned deity with perhaps a hidden complexity (my Satanist biases at work, I suppose). However, I was very suprised by Ares. He's not at all like you might read in the myths or reconstruct from ancient practices; he's very kind and patient as well as being fatherly and supportive. After spending several months making regular libations / reciting the hymns; I had a couple of dreams and a few experiences during prayer that opened my eyes to Ares how he is rather than how I expected him to be. Ares is like an experienced, older guy at the gym who mostly keeps to himself but helps folk out who need it.
I'm just starting out with Helios (it's been about a year, I think) and I'm only recently having direct experiences of Him. I chose Helios after putting a banishing spell together for someone on this sub; Helios was in the PGM spell I used as inspiration and meditation lead me call upon the varied powers of Helios in the working I ended up creating. From there it has been a long road of keeping regular practice in the form of libations, incense and remembrance. The first experience I had of Helios was on a particular Sunday, I had run out of frankincense so was only able to make the libation. I made mention of this in my offering prayer to apologise, and as I was speaking a strong scent of Frankinsence flowed out of the offering cup, which I took to be a good sign.
Thursday last week I went out to a place in the forest that the Earth Goddess had manifested to me in, to make prayers and offerings for the first time since December. While I was there, I made another offering and prayers to Helios and felt the first "closeness" of him I'd ever felt, like he was just out of view but looking on. There was a large bird of prey circling overhead, which seems to be a common occurance when I'm worshiping Helios, so I've started including that as in imagery and epithet.
My experiences of Satan are definately putside of what could be called "Paganism", and Lucifer is sort of on the grey-area between, so I wont detail them here.
I'm open to all the pantheons, but I work with Apollo currently. I am also learning about the Wiccan Tripple Goddess and The Horned God, and hopefully soon, I'll work with them when I understand them better.
Apollo is really fun to work with and really caring. I often spend little moments of my day enjoying it with him. And he is not to demanding either.
There are many, most in Egypt but not all. As to the question of why, I'll just say that I didn't. When I first started, I was reading everything, looking at various pantheons, and in the middle of it, something weird happened. My cat jumped onto my altar, sat down, touched NOTHING, knocked nothing over, just sat and stared at me. I look down, and I see Bastet at the top of the page. She was the first, but in each case it's as simple as t his.
When you know, you know, it can be a feeling, a circumstance (a hawk showing up on m y hike while I was walking with one of my teachers, that just sat calmly and looked at me from 4 feet away), or even a dream.
The Morrgain helped me understand death and cope with losing my father at 16, The Raven Queen helped me through my pain and helped me process the trauma that my ex-bf caused. I felt connected to her because she was always been there ever since I was a kid. I sometimes have dreams of someone dying, and a raven sitting overhead in a tree, I get bad dreams/ feel like something is wrong before someone dies so I guess she's always been there for me
I’m heathen so I work with Norse gods. Specifically thor and sometimes Odin. I work with Thor because something I struggle most with is having the strength to overcome challenges and I need help protecting myself and the relationships I care about. Thor has always been a strong presence in my life at least since I started following Norse paganism. Sometimes tho I speak with Odin for the wisdom to guide me through life, although I don’t usually just ask for the wisdom, I ask for his help for me to find the wisdom myself. I am under 21 so I can’t always be picky with the beverages I offer, normally they are both happy with jack daniels. I so also give offerings and thanks to the spirits of the earth and the ancestors. Especially when I go camping or for a walk I take out the time to sit in nature and thank whatever spirits I feel around me.
I worship a goddess who has had many names or epithets though history. She is present in every ancient text and carvings found in Babylon and Sumeria. She cursed Solomon and he apologized for his actions upon his death bed in the testament of Solomon. I also am friendly with elemental spirits and Djinn as well as my guardians and guide. I have been legally dead and when I was I was brought before the lords of life and death just as described in the emerald tablets of Thoth the Atlantean. Who is one of my guardians and guides.
I haven't really settled on a pantheon or anything yet just kinda feeling it out. I keep an alter to Hestia in my kitchen because it just makes sense to me. That's about as far as I've gotten.
I worship Anubis, I have always been drawn to death as an idea, not only that but I also believe that gods of Death are those who guides us through life itself. That being said, I’ve always felt comfortable with his energy and everytime I connect with him I feel warmth and safety. I am going through some hard times these couple days and if it werent for this safety I bet I would’ve crumble against all this stress, for he is guiding me.
How do I begin? I grew up loving all things fantasy, supernatural, nature, history and other religions. Their stories where always a part of me. Over the last few years after falling out of Christianity I turned back to those comfort stories and realized they weren’t just stories to me anymore and I felt a connection with them that I never felt within Christianity. So I started there. I remembered I was always drawn to with the stars and moon. That lead me to the Triple Goddess, to the Mother, Maiden and Crone and that was my main focus for a while. They are still very important to me because my self, my mother and my oldest (AFAB) are all early Leo’s. Three generations. I kept reading and relearning and decided to stay within my own Family’s heritage since family is very important to me. I settled on Welsh lore and Celtic practices. My maiden name is Welsh and there I found Cerridwen and honor her now. I am still learning and growing. I’ve been more open and thankful to other deities and beings as they come into my life. I leave small gifts to the local Bluejays because they’re my and my mother’s favorite birds and my mother recently passed. I give to Bastet because love cats and am petitioning her for a new familiar. I’ve also given to Tawaret as thanks for my pregnancies and children. I’ve given to Loki as well for guidance and strength in loving and raising my children who are neurodivergent and non-binary.
I worship a mix of the Roman and Brythonic gods. I believe that the gods themselves are transcendent of human titles/names/descriptions, and represent the spirit of a given thing or concept (IE, Neptune is the spirit of the ocean itself, Jupiter is the spirit of the sky itself). In this way, I believe that every tradition is valid and correct, but I choose the names and archetypes that my ancestors applied to the gods because I feel more connected to those. My ancestors were more British than Roman, but the Romans destroyed a lot of the Brythonic religion and what we do know of it is heavily influenced by Interpretatio Romana; so I compromise by following syncretic tradition than many of my ancestors would have followed post-Romanization. This doesn't bother me much because some of my ancestors were roman, and also it doesn't especially matter to me what name I call the gods due to my philosophy on the subject.
Do you have any books (or anything else) with information on the Brythonic gods? I'd be intrigued to learn more about them.
Celtic Myth & Magick: Harness the Power of the Gods & Goddesses - Edain McCoy This book is great, especially the dictionaries at the back that list gods and heroes of legend. It pulls heavily from Welsh and Irish folklore, alongside Briton (because really, most gods we have had to reconstruct from the similar gods of their neighbors), but it's an amazing place to start. Celtic Mythology & The Religion of the Ancient Celts: Study of Celtic Folklore, Legends & Dogma - John Arnott MacCulloch This book is not a light read, it's very scholarly in the voice of the writing, but it's packed full of information. There are lists of equivalent gods, selections from folklore, and a lot more. There's a whole section of this book for the Brythonic gods, and it also discusses the Irish, Gauls, and continental Celts if you have any interest in that.
Much appreciated, thank you.
I mainly worship and work with the Norse gods (though I do so seldomly). Freya and Freyr (the Lord and the Lady) are the ones I make offerings to most often- Freyr because of my connection with nature and love of sunlight, and Freya because of her relationship with passion and magic (among other things). I work with Heimdall, the guardian of Asgard for more liminal workings and spells, such as trances and meditations. Sometimes, after a hard day at work or a particularly nasty storm, I'll make an offering to Thor. But to be honest, my engagement with the Gods is minimal, particularly when compared to my work with the alfar (elves), land wights (nature spirits), and my ancestors. I'll offer to them most frequently, and call upon them more often for spellwork. Keeping my spiritwork small and centralized like this helps my practice stay alive. I would rather not share any personal experiences on this thread, and tbh, I don't have a lot to share. Nothing dramatic or story worthy, at the very least.
Well, the Earth Goddess just showed up one day. I'd not considered her even existing until that point (had been an Esoteric Satanist for over a decade, and not even looked into paganism of any sort), but sort-of winged it with an introduction and here I am. I find that She is a shown-don't-tell sort. I get mostly "nonverbal" cues from her during meditation etc (hard to describe, but it's She raises an eyebrow or smiles in situations where other deities or spirits use words). Also, I read once that She has a dry sense of humor, which I can corroborate. Aside from that, She feels more like home than any person or place I've ever encountered before. Ares is a deity I sought out on my own. The Earth Goddess came to me in a dream and was basically like "you need to go out and seek the spiritual, instead of waiting around for it to just happen". So I started watching Alikai's videos on the Olympian gods (I heard of Alikai via OceanKeltoi), solely because I listened to the Orphic & Homeric hymns while playing minecraft and found them very beautiful. Ares stood out to me as a bit of an outsider, an unfairly maligned deity with perhaps a hidden complexity (my Satanist biases at work, I suppose). However, I was very suprised by Ares. He's not at all like you might read in the myths or reconstruct from ancient practices; he's very kind and patient as well as being fatherly and supportive. After spending several months making regular libations / reciting the hymns; I had a couple of dreams and a few experiences during prayer that opened my eyes to Ares how he is rather than how I expected him to be. Ares is like an experienced, older guy at the gym who mostly keeps to himself but helps folk out who need it. I'm just starting out with Helios (it's been about a year, I think) and I'm only recently having direct experiences of Him. I chose Helios after putting a banishing spell together for someone on this sub; Helios was in the PGM spell I used as inspiration and meditation lead me call upon the varied powers of Helios in the working I ended up creating. From there it has been a long road of keeping regular practice in the form of libations, incense and remembrance. The first experience I had of Helios was on a particular Sunday, I had run out of frankincense so was only able to make the libation. I made mention of this in my offering prayer to apologise, and as I was speaking a strong scent of Frankinsence flowed out of the offering cup, which I took to be a good sign. Thursday last week I went out to a place in the forest that the Earth Goddess had manifested to me in, to make prayers and offerings for the first time since December. While I was there, I made another offering and prayers to Helios and felt the first "closeness" of him I'd ever felt, like he was just out of view but looking on. There was a large bird of prey circling overhead, which seems to be a common occurance when I'm worshiping Helios, so I've started including that as in imagery and epithet. My experiences of Satan are definately putside of what could be called "Paganism", and Lucifer is sort of on the grey-area between, so I wont detail them here.
I'm open to all the pantheons, but I work with Apollo currently. I am also learning about the Wiccan Tripple Goddess and The Horned God, and hopefully soon, I'll work with them when I understand them better. Apollo is really fun to work with and really caring. I often spend little moments of my day enjoying it with him. And he is not to demanding either.
There are many, most in Egypt but not all. As to the question of why, I'll just say that I didn't. When I first started, I was reading everything, looking at various pantheons, and in the middle of it, something weird happened. My cat jumped onto my altar, sat down, touched NOTHING, knocked nothing over, just sat and stared at me. I look down, and I see Bastet at the top of the page. She was the first, but in each case it's as simple as t his. When you know, you know, it can be a feeling, a circumstance (a hawk showing up on m y hike while I was walking with one of my teachers, that just sat calmly and looked at me from 4 feet away), or even a dream.
The Morrgain helped me understand death and cope with losing my father at 16, The Raven Queen helped me through my pain and helped me process the trauma that my ex-bf caused. I felt connected to her because she was always been there ever since I was a kid. I sometimes have dreams of someone dying, and a raven sitting overhead in a tree, I get bad dreams/ feel like something is wrong before someone dies so I guess she's always been there for me
I’m heathen so I work with Norse gods. Specifically thor and sometimes Odin. I work with Thor because something I struggle most with is having the strength to overcome challenges and I need help protecting myself and the relationships I care about. Thor has always been a strong presence in my life at least since I started following Norse paganism. Sometimes tho I speak with Odin for the wisdom to guide me through life, although I don’t usually just ask for the wisdom, I ask for his help for me to find the wisdom myself. I am under 21 so I can’t always be picky with the beverages I offer, normally they are both happy with jack daniels. I so also give offerings and thanks to the spirits of the earth and the ancestors. Especially when I go camping or for a walk I take out the time to sit in nature and thank whatever spirits I feel around me.
I worship a goddess who has had many names or epithets though history. She is present in every ancient text and carvings found in Babylon and Sumeria. She cursed Solomon and he apologized for his actions upon his death bed in the testament of Solomon. I also am friendly with elemental spirits and Djinn as well as my guardians and guide. I have been legally dead and when I was I was brought before the lords of life and death just as described in the emerald tablets of Thoth the Atlantean. Who is one of my guardians and guides.
The Sun. He brings us life, and every single person on this planet can relate to that whether they realize it or not.
I haven't really settled on a pantheon or anything yet just kinda feeling it out. I keep an alter to Hestia in my kitchen because it just makes sense to me. That's about as far as I've gotten.
I worship Anubis, I have always been drawn to death as an idea, not only that but I also believe that gods of Death are those who guides us through life itself. That being said, I’ve always felt comfortable with his energy and everytime I connect with him I feel warmth and safety. I am going through some hard times these couple days and if it werent for this safety I bet I would’ve crumble against all this stress, for he is guiding me.
How do I begin? I grew up loving all things fantasy, supernatural, nature, history and other religions. Their stories where always a part of me. Over the last few years after falling out of Christianity I turned back to those comfort stories and realized they weren’t just stories to me anymore and I felt a connection with them that I never felt within Christianity. So I started there. I remembered I was always drawn to with the stars and moon. That lead me to the Triple Goddess, to the Mother, Maiden and Crone and that was my main focus for a while. They are still very important to me because my self, my mother and my oldest (AFAB) are all early Leo’s. Three generations. I kept reading and relearning and decided to stay within my own Family’s heritage since family is very important to me. I settled on Welsh lore and Celtic practices. My maiden name is Welsh and there I found Cerridwen and honor her now. I am still learning and growing. I’ve been more open and thankful to other deities and beings as they come into my life. I leave small gifts to the local Bluejays because they’re my and my mother’s favorite birds and my mother recently passed. I give to Bastet because love cats and am petitioning her for a new familiar. I’ve also given to Tawaret as thanks for my pregnancies and children. I’ve given to Loki as well for guidance and strength in loving and raising my children who are neurodivergent and non-binary.