Khaire! I wanted to start by thanking everyone for all the love they showed This Post where I described the colors we at The Temple associate with The Theoi.
In a similar vein, I wanted to take a moment to describe the relationships / relationship dynamics that I currently have with the deities I honor, work with, and worship. This is by no means an exhaustive list of every entity I work with in my practice - but these are the main entities I work with on a regular basis.
1. Hestia - Goddess of Hearth and Home
The closest word I can think that describes my relationship with Hestia is Matron.
To me a Matron Deity is a feminine/female entity who guides, assists, nurtures, and protects those within their care. I’d say that Matron is a better description as opposed to “mother” - as I am hesitant to correlate my relationship with divinity with familial dynamics.
Hestia is the first of the Theoi I ever honored (at least consciously - Artemis-Diana is technically the first Hellenic/Roman deity I worked with) and for that reason She is incredibly special to me.
2. Apollo - God of Light, Music, & Art
Apollo is my patron deity. He is my guiding star, my inspiration - he is my Lord, my savior. He is such a core part of me. He lives in me in my music, in my love for my partner, in my artistic expression.
Hestia may be the fire on my altar, but Apollo is the fire in my soul.
The closest term I have to my relationship with Apollo is Guru. He my spiritual teacher, the one who guides me through the cosmos.
3. Hermes - God of Communication, Theivery, and Commerce
I would describe my relationship with Hermes as that of a tutor and a student. I wouldn’t say He is comparable to teachers or professors (those dynamics are too strict and professional) - and he isn’t comparable to elderly tutors, wizened by time and age. No, my relationship with Hermes is more that of a mentor. Someone who is just ahead of you, in the next phase of learning.
He is someone I can joke around with, someone who rides with me on long road trips as we listen to audio books together.
I would say our relationship is comparable to friendship, although not quite.
4. Aphrodite
My relationship to Aphrodite is something I have a hard time describing. She has taught me so much about self-love, self-acceptance, and self-worship (I speak about this relationship briefly in my Theoi Info Sheets page about her).
I honor Aphrodite's masculine form, Aprhoditus, as well in my personal practice.
The best word I can think to describe my relationship to Aphrodite is Acharya.
Archarya: A Sanskrit term for a spiritual teacher or preceptor, often associated with imparting spiritual knowledge and guidance.
5. Hekate
Lady Hekate has been guiding me since I was a very young.
As a child I would often make "potions" in the woods out of creek water and whatever flora was within arms reach. I had a fascination with spells, magic, and witchcraft from as early as I can remember. I grew up with a small obsession with skeleton keys and locks - and it wasn't until the past couple of years when I learned that keys are a symbol of Hekate.
While I'm not sure that any one word, term, or phrase can encapsulate my relationship and connection with Hekate - the Irish Celtic term Anamchara appears to be the best fit.
Anamchara: In Celtic spirituality, anamchara refers to a soul friend or spiritual guide who accompanies and supports an individual throughout their life journey, often operating in the background without explicit recognition.
This is in response to @unrecorded-pantheon-roundtable‘s first roundtable prompt: Who are your pantheon and how did you come to them?
My deities (mostly) have names that I keep secret / for-my-ritual-use-only, so I won’t be naming them here, simply listing some of the epithets I also use for them. I don’t really have a name for them collectively, but they are, so far, as follows:
1. The Hunter/The Horned One/ The Masked King: The leader of the Wylde Hunt (at least, the group of Wylde Hunters that I work with in my practice), king of fae and forest, wearer of many masks, psychopomp, god of sacrifice. Lover, king, sometimes monster. He appears either: cloaked in feathers, wearing tartan and colors of the deep forest; or in deep reds and blacks- angular lines and sharp teeth. For a while I thought them separate entities, but years of working with them has revealed them to be two sides of the same coin.
2. The Lady of the Lantern: presumably has been with me since I began my practice, cool and aloof, a silent guiding light in the darkness, goddess of death and rebirth, washer at the ford, always half-shrouded. Lover of The Wanderer
3. The Wanderer: for a long time I thought him to be Manannan MacLir, weathered hands and sun and sea-bleached hair, god of sailing/travel, face in the shoreline trees, controller of weather, the call of the journey. Lover of the Lady of the Lantern.
4. The Smith: gruff and short-tempered, god of forge and crafting
5. The Hearth Mother: keeper of the hearth and home, stirs the cauldron of abundance and warmth, a safe haven for The Hunter and his party’s weary heads to find rest, her domain is all things hearth, home, and garden
6. The Warrior Queen: rival of The Hunter, goddess of war and death, possibly a sister to The Lady of the Lantern, blood and pain and suffering, hardened strength
7. The Shining One: goddess of stars and night, of divination and mystery, inspiration, poetic muse
8. (Not really a deity, but he’s still important:) I also have a spirit guide whom I work closely with named Brannan. He’s sort of elven in appearance and is a keeper of knowledge/wisdom. He’s been with me since beginning of my druidry studies as guide and mentor.
The Horned One and The Lady of the Lantern have been with me since I began my journey with witchcraft, it simply took me time to stop calling them by the names of several other gods and goddesses and acknowledge that they are their own beings. The others come and go from my path, for a while I thought them to be deities such as Morrigan, or Brighid, Gofannon the Smith, Manannan MacLir.. but they change and shift with each reappearance, and they are now more or less archetypes that I work with and have been allowing to express themselves to me as they see fit. And of course, Brannan is a guide whom I met while doing journey-work and astral traveling type stuff in conjunction to various study programs.
A drawing I did of the goddess that has been appearing to me, and a sort of stained glass inspired mandala of the moon phases behind her. I’ve been wanting to do more with both of these pieces, but I’m not 100% sure which direction to take them in just yet.
He's the older kid at the skate park teaching a little boy how to do tricks without biting the dust.
He guides the hands of every tutor, sips coffee at 3am with philosophy professors, falls asleep in the library reading.
He leans on the shoulder of every good samaritan who stops to give you directions, or fix a flat tire.
He marches down city streets with the marginalized crying out "This is not how we should be treated!"
He comes dressed in tattered clothes to Starbucks, and sips his water in the corner while they eye him nervously, he smiles gently at the young woman who presses a dollar bill into his hand.
He has no home in the hearts of bigots, my god whose priests dressed in feminine garb, my god who so loved his foolish narrow minded mortals that he gave us the written word, so that we could learn from our past and become wise.
He sits in movie theaters crunching popcorn, the corner of his eyes crinkling with mirth as he watches a mortal portray him on the screen.
He volunteers at animal shelters, and feeds birds from a bench in the park. He sits in the sunlight and enjoys the whistling of the wind through the branches of the trees, drinking in the laughter of children and content chatter of parents.
And when I cry from loss, or failure, or frustration, when my soul cries out for escape, when I berate myself for my failings, I find him standing on my back porch. When I offer him a drink and try to hide my puffy red eyes, he only smiles, and asks, "Do you wanna talk about it?"
