Now that I know who I’m working with for sure, I can finally talk about Aengus Óg and the Irish side of my practice in detail.
But first, I need to say something about the Irish deities since they may be new for some of you.
If you know the Norse gods as I do, then you know they’re not picky about who they interact with. They’ll adopt new devotees by walking into their lives, scooping them up, and carrying them back home with no “if’s,” “and’s,” or “buts” about it.
The Irish gods aren’t like that. They’re far more reserved and, from what I understand, will only really involve themselves with people they consider “theirs.” Who they consider “theirs” seems to be based in something other than genetics or nationality, but the criteria still exists.
This is to say that the way I’m going to portray the áes dána is going to be a bit different compared to how I portray the Norse gods. Namely, I can’t pull you all directly into the bit with Aengus like I can with Loki and Odin. It wouldn’t be right.
So bear with me if my language sounds kind of stilted, because I’m still getting a feel for a “happy medium” of depicting my interactions with Aengus, while not misrepresenting what to expect from one of the áes dána.
I’ll start by catching you up to speed:
I first met Aengus in 2020 when he appeared to me as Eochu Bres. Back then, I was going through a pretty bad existential crisis thinking I was a bad person, and...well...I needed a villain to talk to about it.
Bres appeared, and while he was regal and beautiful to look at, his features seemed kind of...uninspiring. But I wasn’t really noticing that at the time. Instead I was focused on how polite he sounded, how intelligent he seemed, and how worldly his way of thinking was. It was really unexpected for someone known for being an inhospitable king.
As the years went by, I began to notice a few things: The first was that he gradually became more honest with his presentation and started to show more personality, expression, and unique features. The second was that he was blisteringly good at communicating through tarot readings. This isn’t a skill spirits and deities learn effortlessly, from what I understand, and every time I did a reading with Bres it seemed second nature for him.
The real tipping point came when I asked him to teach me magic. He was super excited about this and it became very clear very quickly that magic is his expertise. This was exciting but also bewildering because Bres isn’t depicted as magically-inclined in his stories. It got me wondering just what the heck his role was as a deity before getting cast as a mediocre villain.
At some point, maybe before or after this, I began to notice Bres’s energy. It looks and feels like the sky, with lights in it that shift and change with his thoughts and feelings. He also started to appear with blond hair (though he’ll still have black or even brown hair sometimes depending on his mood) and began to wear a formless robe made out of some otherworldly substance. This robe also changes color and character depending on his mood.
Seeing him without a disguise took me some time to get used to, because his appearance shifts when his moods change; when he’s happy he looks and feels like a summer’s day. When he’s sad he gets all gray, dreary, and rainy. When he’s exhausted he looks like a crumbling ruin. And so on. I’ve seen him take on a few inhuman shapes, but he doesn’t typically transform from one thing to another like Loki does. His shapeshifting quality is different, more like he’s embodying a landscape that matches the mood he feels.
He never told me he was Aengus. He let me figure that out myself, and when I did, everything about him suddenly made sense.
The áes dána aren’t the “gods of” things the way the Roman or Greek gods are, so Aengus isn’t the “god of love” nor is he the “god of youth” like we now try to characterize him as. But “loving” and “youthful” are definitely qualities that define my experiences of him. He’s always been exceptionally kind to me. He gives me wonderful advice and helps me whenever I felt low. He shares his insights about the world and his experiences whenever I ask (and I ask a lot). He’s taught me how to care for myself and how to grow in ways I didn’t know were possible. If Loki taught me about fun and freedom of expression, then Aengus taught me about kindness, knowing the spirit of self, and finding home within the self.
I can’t say if he’d have this type of relationship with everyone, and I’ve definitely seen him be dark at times. But I hope to share more about him in ways that people will enjoy, because he’s become as important to me as Loki has, in a different way.
