BEFORE TIME WASBEFORE 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
DEITIES IN WICCA
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
DEITIES OF ANCIENT
IRELAND
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