The Deities

BEFORE TIME WAS

Before time was, there was The One; The One was all, and all was The One.
And the vast expanse known as the universe was The One, all-wise, all-pervading, all-powerful, eternally changing.
And space moved. The One molded energy into twin forms, equal but opposite, fashioning the Goddess and God from The One and of The One.
The Goddess and God stretched and gave thanks to The One, but darkness surrounded Them. They were alone, solitary save for The One.
So They formed energy into gasses and gasses into suns and planets and moons; They sprinkled the universe with whirling globes and so all was given shape by the hands of the Goddess and God.
Light arose and the sky was illuminated by a billion suns. And the Goddess and God, satisfied by Their works, rejoiced and loved, and were One.
From Their union sprang the seeds of all life, and of the human race, so that we might achieve incarnation upon the Earth.
The Goddess chose the Moon as Her symbol, and the God the Sun as His symbol, to remind the inhabitants of Earth of their fashioners.
All are born, live, die and are reborn beneath the Sun and Moon; all things come to pass thereunder, and all occurs with the blessings of The One, as has been the way of existence before time was.

Scott Cunningham

All religions are structures build upon reverence of Deity. Witchcraft is no exception. Witches acknowledge a supreme divine power, unknowable, ultimate, from which the entire universe sprang.
I believe that the Divine is both within us and outside of us - It resides within everything and surrounds us all.

Every deity that has received worship upon this planet exists with the archetypal God and Goddess. The complex pantheons of deities which arose in many parts of the world are simple aspects of the two. Every Goddess is resident within the concept of the Goddess; every God in the God.

Witchcraft reveres these twin deities because of its links with nature. Since most (but certainly not all) nature is divided into gender, the deities embodying it are similarly conceived.
In the past, when the Goddess and God were as real as the Moon and Sun, rites of worship and adoration were unstructured- spontaneous, joyous union with the divine. Later, rituals followed the course of the Sun through its astronomical year (and thusly the seasons) as well as the monthly waxing and waning of the Moon.
Today similar rites are observed by the Wicca, and their regular performance creates a truly magickal closeness with these deities and the powers behind them.
Fortunately, we needn't wait for ritual occasions to be reminded of the Gods' presence. The sight of a perfect blossom in a field of bare earth can instill feelings rivaling those of the most powerful formal rite. Living in nature makes every moment a ritual. Witches are comfortable in communication with animals, plants and trees. They feel energies within stones and sand, and cause fossils to speak of their primeval beginnings. For some Witches, watching the Sun or Moon rise and set each day is a ritual unto itself, for these are the heavenly symbols of the God and Goddess.
Because Witches see Deity inherent in nature, many of us are involved in ecology- saving the Earth from utter destruction by our own hands. The Goddess and God still exist, as they have always existed, and to honor them we honor and preserve our percious planet.

When envisioning the Goddess and God, many Witches see Them as well-known deities from ancient religions. Diana, Pan, Isis, Hermes, Hina, Tammuz, Hecate, Ishtar, Cerridwen, Thoth, Tara, Aradia, Artemis, Pele, Apollo, Kanaloa, Bridget, Helios, Bran, Lugh, Hera, Cybele, Inanna, Maui, Ea, Athena, Lono, Marduk- the list is virtually endless. Many of these deities, with their corresponding histories, rites and mythic information, furnish the concept of deity for Witches.
Some feel confortable association such names and forms with the Goddess and God, feeling that they can't possible revere nameless divine beings. Others find a lack of names and costumes a comforting lack of limitations.
Some, including myself, simply call upon the God and the Goddess, without invoking a particular aspect or name.
I do invision them... I have my own picture in my mind of what the Goddess and God look like to me. This I will keep to myself for I feel it is private and personal.

They have been given so many names they have been called the Nameless Ones. In appearance they look exactly as we wish them to, for they're all the Deities that ever were. The Goddess and God are all-powerful because they are the creators of all manifest and unmanifest existence. We can contact and communicate with them because a part of us is in them and they are within us.

Some of this information taken from "Wicca- A Guide For The Solitary Practitioner",
by Scott Cunningham

In the beginning there was the Goddess, the primal Great Mother who gave birth to all the universe. For centuries the Goddess was the only deity of ancient Ireland. Her name was Dana (pronounced Dawn-na) or Brigid (pronounced Breed) and she was maiden, mother, and crone, the giver of life and bringer of death. The early Celts were herding people, not agriculturalists, and anthropological studies have shown that a male-god concept was of less importance to herders. As Ireland became agricultural and multiethnic a god evolved into the myths. This was the powerful sword-wielding god Lugh, for whom the sabbat of Lughnasadh (August 1st) is named.

As in all Pagan religions the idea of the deities being part of a polarity, not a duality, is an accepted part of the belief system. Polarity means that all aspects of good, evil, and indifference are manifest in one central power. It is up to us to determine which of these energies we draw from and work with. Therefore the Goddess and God are truly one being who manifest as two different beings depending on which aspect we call upon. Paganism is also pantheistic, meaning that there are many manifestations of the one creative life force called by many names and worshiped in many ways.

In Irish Paganism the Goddess and God have some attributes which are theirs alone and are not shared with the opposite gender deity. The Goddess is daughter, mother, and grandmother. She is the cosmic womb where all life begins, and she is the passive principle in all creation. She is comforting, protection is given in her enfolding arms, she is loving and gentle, she is harsh only to teach her children a needed lesson, and she is powerful to the point of holding the key to life and death. The Goddess is eternal, never being born and never dying. Her colors are silver, white, red, and black.

The God is both playful and stern. As a protector he is like a strong shield which guards his people. He is the active principle in all creation, that which plants the seed of life in the fertile cosmic womb of the Goddess. The God is not eternal. He lives and dies and is reborn throughout the Irish year. His colors are gold, yellow, orange, and brown.

The primary deity of Paganism is the eternal Triple Goddess. Throughout the wheel of the year she goes from being maiden to mother to crone, but she never dies. She gives birth to the God at Yule, grows up with him, takes him as a lover, watches him die at Samhain, and then gives birth to her son-lover again at the following Yule. Her planet is the moon which also never dies, but merely shows a different face as she passes through her three phases of waxing, fullness, and waning. These three faces are symbolized by the colors white, red, and black. White for the youthful maiden goddess, red for the fullness of motherhood as in her menstrual blood, and black for the mysterious realm of the crone which presages death and rebirth.

Information from the book "Witta" by Edain McCoy