The Goddess & Her Consort.

It is often wrote at the heart of the Craft there are two main deities, the Goddess and her consort the Horned God. These Gods have been enterpreted in many different ways. This being so may initially appear problematical, we though believe this is not so. She & her Consort have been filtering through Pagan/Occult culture & literature for many years & continue to do so. They, like us ever change and yet are constant in themselves. The Goddess is at once the Great Goddess, like Isis the giver of magick, as Demeter or Abundia the giver of providence, as Selene the moon shinning in nights shroud. She like the Goddess revealed at the end of Apuleius's book 'The Golden Ass', is the Deity of many names, encompassing all Goddesses as one over arching Great Goddess.

Her Consort is the Horned God. Often he is called the Horned Lord & he like the Goddess has had many cultural accretions over the years. His horns reflect his aspect in nature, from a (proposed) Neolythic hunting deity, to the bucolic Faunus, to the Great God Pan, the horned Amun to Cernunnos, his hooves have clattered through time & his horns have battered through convention.

So there we have it, is Wicca then a Duotheist religion....? Well, to some yes especially as we honour these Gods in our Rites. And yet many of the Wica describe themselves as Polytheistic, Pantheistic, Monotheistic & some (so we hear) as Atheistic. Pagan religious Witchcraft does honour the Gods, how they are seen, felt and perceived is though up to each of us as individuals. We like many religions have texts, our Book of Shadows & other works. We encourage delving into works of philosophy & magick. Our perception of the world, of nature, of art & poetry, of our lives all feed our minds as our filter to the divine. Our labels, as humans like to give do not really matter. The Gods live in nature, in the imagination of our minds, they are within and beyond us. Each person has their own relationship with them, for really there is no other way. Some feel their presence, some talk directly to them. Our worship can be as prayer, as art, Ritual, as good deeds, as walks in nature, as love.

All the above can be summed up as that we in no way impose a Theology. Our understanding of ourselves in nature changes as we learn. Human expression is not tramelled or curtailed by imposition in the Craft. Our Goddess is big enough to let us encounter deity on our own terms. We enjoy and adopt,work & honour the Gods of the Pagan past. She with her Horned God are our Culture, they bring us communally together, they have their own distinct character that we honour communally in our Rites. We see them as almost Mother & Father to the Gods and yet they too are paradoxically their children.

The wheel of the year ever turns, our Lammas Rites now a part of Craft history.....the colder months and Autumn Equinox beckon us in the future. We look forward to our Rites under the auspices of the Gods.

All the best to all this Autumn...