O Muse, grant me the eloquence to explain what I feel, think, and decide in my journey. And grant others the ability to make sense of the rambling.

Saturday 11 August 2012

PBP: P - Pantheon

There's a discussion on the eCauldron about this Here.

Did I choose my pantheon? To be totally honest, yes. Why? That needs more than a one word answer.

Why? Because the Ancient Greek myths pulled me in at an early age. Because the Theoi, while divine, share a lot of traits with us lowly humans in the fact that they hate, squabble, fall in love with people they're not supposed to, and do the oddest things when 'rewarding' mortals.

Do I think they're cool? Yeah, and seeing as I'm not Greek, then why else would I offer them my attention over any other pantheon? Just because I'm born and raised in the British Isles, does that mean that I'm stuck with the Celtic or Anglo Saxon practises? No. Why? Because religion is transitory, practises moved with the people in the ancient world, adapting and changing.

I see a lot of people talking about certain deities that have come to THEM and formed a connection, causing these people to take them on as patrons or what have you but that hasn't happened to me. I've not had a dream or a sign about if any particular god wants to hang out with me, and why should they? They're gods and if I want to have a chance at forming any sort of connection then I have to put the effort in first and start with the broad spectrum of the pantheon. It always feels a little wrong to pick one or a select group out of the pantheon anyway, it would be like purposefully ignoring some members of the family while heaping praise on certain others. Would Zeus get pissed if I ignored him while praising one of his siblings or children? Very possibly and that's not my intention.

I think the more I've researched under the Paganism umbrella, the more I've moved away from ritual practises including willpower and 'witchcraft' and Hellenismos isn't about that. The ancient greeks were even pretty leery about that sort of thing, who were they to try and change the will of the gods?

Hubris has always been something that has stuck in my mind (seeing as the punishment for it was pretty severe) and perhaps that is the reason that I have never felt comfortable approaching any of the pantheon directly, especially not to ask them for something in particular.

May my choice of pantheon change in the future? I can't say for sure but possibly.

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