Three Kindred

Deities: 

For myself I look at the Deities as companions, champions, and confidants.  I do not worry whether they may have been human, or if they may have always been something more, I accept that they exist and work to build a working relationship with them.  If we do look at them as people, they seem so far beyond us.  They are these huge, larger than life entities that seem impossible.  But perhaps they were merely people that, having an understanding of themselves, overcame adversity to do the impossible. But there is more to it than that. When I walk in the world it is just impossible to deny some higher power at work, some force that shapes and directs the universe itself.  But then, why not just one god?  Why does the world seem overflowing with different religions and deities? Well I think there are two answers here.  First… as we began to separate across the globe our root language changed.  New plants, animals, and energies came into our experience.  We altered our language as development in these new lands changed our development.  When language changes so then does culture.  If you look at the many religions of the world there are many that seem to have strong similarities to each other.  Concepts that were once one, now altered slightly by cultural changes.  The second reason… There is an infinite amount of experiences to be had living in the universe. As we grow and develop, we need guideposts to help us make sense of that which is beyond us.  Deities help us to comfortably package things of this nature.  As we are human, we make deities that are reflections of our humanity, only better… or worse, depending on the nature of the event in question.  

So then why do we pray to them?  We do so in an attempt to understand them better.  Sometimes it is out of fear, other times it is out of hope.  When we truly begin to give our energies to them, to understand them, they take on their own personality; their own life and we make the connections that make them real to us.  They become entities that we can look to, to reach for, and to try and live our lives attempting to build relationships with. They become are our friends, mentors, and partners.  We enter into a symbiotic relationship with them. We offer our love, respect, and worship, they grant us their love, blessings, and care in return.  Without us they would have no purpose, and without them we cannot know ours or reach our full potential.  They give us their stories, which inspire us to live moral, and balanced lives and inspire us to reach for greatness in our own lives.  The characteristics they empower are tools that we call upon or ask for in our times of struggle, or when we falter.  They are the partners we embrace when we seek to do the impossible, or better yet… when we seek to become truly connected to the world, and universe around us.  But the gap between us, and the deities can be a large one, so our partners, the deities left us some help along the way.  They filled our world with others to help us… the spirits.

The Spirits

So how do the spirits come into play?  While I am open to the thought of sprites, brownies, trolls and dragons, and quite willing to believe that perhaps they once or may still exist, I think I am more inclined to believe these are embodiments of things we feel more than see.  To me every tree, rock, and bit of moss is a living thing.  They have personal energy.  Energy that holds them together in a pattern that science can examine and explore, as well as an energy all its own, that makes it truly unique from every other thing around it. If I chose to pick up the rock, and to hold it, even for a moment it changes slightly.  Why, because we are sharing our energy.  If I take it home and I place it somewhere, perhaps next to a favourite plant, or even upon my altar, then its energy changes again and the area around it will also change.  So as we walk in the world we are interacting with these energies even without knowing it and more so if we are open to them.  More sensitive people may find them stronger and be able to identify with them on real tangible ways.  So if we can do this with the items we feel are less animate, then following the lives and habits of the walking, eating creatures that dwell in our world can only be more profound.  The creatures we call beasts, birds, or fish, live in a state of grace because they have symbiosis.  They live without ego, pride, or glory.  They don’t worry about tomorrow and are entirely interactive with the world around them.  When they hunt, they take only what they need and can use, and that in of itself helps the cycle of life by removing the old, or weaker members of the herd.  So even in death, they give back.  There is always a give and take relationship.  Unlike we humans however they don’t look to build empires or exterminate the other creatures around them.  In that way they are our teachers as well.  They represent the ideal that we should be practicing.  So again, why do we include them in our rituals, and pray to them?   

For one… to tap into the energy they represent.  A stone or a boulder may have been around for eons.  Its energy, its life if you will, has history.  If we include it in our rituals, reach out for it and connect to it, it can only serve to help us out.  The same can be said for each and every entity that we share this world with.  We reach out to them, we share our energy with them, and we join together.  Many just do it for ritual use, but it is something that we should strive for in every day of our lives.  Secondly and perhaps on a more practical side, I think we invite them and include them because it would be like having a party and not asking the rest of the family if it was ok.  It would just be rude not to, and to bring rudeness to the ritual, or event, just defeats the purpose.

Ancestors

This brings us to the ancestors.  Everything they did, they did to survive.  Everything they learned they used to progress and find better ways to do things.  They experimented, they adapted to different climates, changes in hunting and growing seasons, and all along the way they developed relationships with the world around them.  They began to watch the changes in the seasons and understood the timetable that it worked on.  They studied the crops and learned what helped them grow, and what did not, when was it too early to harvest, when was too late, and that they needed to learn to preserve portions of it in order to overcome the deadly cold time of the year.  They watched the herds and wild animals, and learned how they fit into their society and their limited worldview.  Along with this they also sought to understand and build relationships with the deities.  They did so to not only help them find ways to deal with things they did not understand, but also to help them live their lives.  So why are they important? Quite simply they are our most direct teachers.  They were here, experienced similar things, paved the road for our culture, practices, habits, and allowed for our survival.  Everything we are, when we first start out in this form, we owe to them, down the very material it took to create us.  

So why are they important to include in our worship.  Firstly… It is important because we owe them pretty much everything.  Secondly, it is important because they are another energy source and source of wisdom to tap into.  They built bridges and relationships that we are attempting to do now; so including them helps us to take that step closer to the spirits and the deities, and can be a guide in our attempt to learn.