Author: A Solitary Pagan

These deities can be invoked in rituals concerning the family and the home. Frigg Frigg was the Viking Mother Goddess whose jewelled spinning wheel formed Orion’s belt; aspatroness of marriage, women, mothers and families, she can be invoked for all rituals concerned withfamilies and domestic happiness. She invited devoted husbands and wives to her hall after death sothat they might never be parte...

The deity is one with everything, nothing exists without their spirit in it. The deity exists within you just as they exist within every human and animal, plant, insect, and object that can be touched or held or observed. When you suffer it just so happens that so does the deity. They experience everything you experience because they are inside of you, and because of this, you are never alone. All...

ORIGIN Greek. Goddess of the moon and of pathways. KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP circa 800 BC until Christianization (circa AD 400). SYNONYMS Hekate. CENTER(S) OF CULT Lagina. ART REFERENCES sculptures and reliefs. LITERARY SOURCES Theogony (Hesiod) etc. Hekate is the daughter of Perses and Asteria and is subsequently honored by ZEUS as a goddess. She is the mother of Scylla and is specifically a goddes...

Odin (pronounced “OH-din”; Old Norse Óðinn, Old English and Old Saxon Woden, Old High German Wuotan, Wotan, or Wodan, Proto-Germanic *Woðanaz, “Master of Ecstasy”) is one of the most complex and enigmatic characters in Norse mythology, and perhaps in all of world literature. He’s the ruler of the Aesir tribe of deities, yet he often ventures far from their kingdom, Asgard, on long, solitary wander...

Aesculapius Aesculapius was a healer, son of Apollo and the mortal Corona, who lived during the eleventh centuryBC, and became a god after Zeus killed him with a thunderbolt for raising the dead.The first shrine dedicated to Aesculapius was built in Athens in the fifth century BC by Sophocles.Other shrines followed in rapid succession, the most famous at Epidaurus, which became a majorhealing cent...

Green Man A pagan deity of the woodlands, usually represented as a horned man peering out from a mask of foliage, usually the sacred oak. The Green Man, also called “Green Jack,” “Jack-in-the-Green” and “Green George,” represents the spirits of the trees, plants and foliage. He is attributed with the powers of making rain and fostering the livestock with lush meadows. He appears often in medieval ...

ORIGIN Greek. Goddess of war and patron defender of many Greek cities. KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP circa 800 BC and earlier until Christianization (circa AD 400) and later. SYNONYMS Athene; PALLAS ATHENAE (maiden goddess of Athens); MINERVA (Roman). CENTER(S) OF CULT Athens but also Argos,Sparta, Gortyn, Larisa (Thessaly); Lindos and Ilion (Homer’s Troy). ART REFERENCES the Parthenon frieze and o...

Agni Agni, the Hindu god of fire, is said to be manifest as the vital spark in mankind, birds, animals, plantsand life itself. He appeared in lightning, in celestial sun flares, in the sacred blaze rising from the altarand in household fires.Agni was the divine priest and acted as messenger to the gods, interceding with them on behalf ofmankind. The priest would chant:‘Agni, the divine ministrant ...

These goddesses are for transformation rituals, for endings that become beginnings and for acceptingwhat cannot be changed. Cailleach Cailleach, meaning’ the Veiled One’, is the Celtic name for a number of hag goddesses. These are powerful crone goddesses, who have retained their early associations with the winter. For example, the Scottish Cailleac Bhuer, the Blue Hag, manifested herself as an ol...

Seeking and attaining a spiritual relationship with the Triple Goddess or Cernunnos or Diana or any other number of deities from around the ancient world can be a very effective way into the Craft, and many people find their experience to be deepened and sharpened through the practice of more traditional, structured forms of Wicca. But some newcomers to Wicca and Witchcraft are unsure about the no...

In Witchcraft, the gods are often seen as a part of nature, as are we, flowing through time and space. That quality, that energy that we term as the deity is within everything. As it is within everything, nothing is better than anything else. There is inherent animism within Witchcraft, insomuch as we know that one thing is not better than another, that everything has its own inherent value. It is...

Life is the force that moves the dead Earth and all things that exist. Death is the force that stops all things that move the living Earth and all things that do not yet exist. All things live and all things die and nothing can live without dying and nothing can overcome anything else in lasting as the deity lasts. As you treat the dead, so too the deity will force you to live through what they ha...