my personal search for the god and the goddess

I came to a realization over this weekend. Part of has to do with how I conceive the Divine. Imagine the a triangle, equal on all sides. At the top peak is the Divine Spirit. One side of the triangle is the God or the Lord, the other side is the Goddess or the Lady. They are both equals who complement each other, and each are a half of the Divine Spirit. Male/Female, Sun/Moon, Day/Night, Power/Mercy, Wild Lands/Farmed Earth, The Seed which is spread on the Earth/The fertile Earth where the Seed grows, Fire/Water, etc. Neither is whole without the other, neither is more powerful than the other.

To make a etheral concept of the Lord and the Lady easier for the human mind to visualize, They each come to each Witch in the form of an avatar, a form that we can more easily grasp. I have known for years that my avatar of the Goddess was cat-related, given that there has never been a cat that I could never coax into trusting me, given enough time. So, I kinda assumed Bastet was my avatar, but that never quite seemed right. I didn't even take the hint when I presented Noah, my familiar, with 2 similiar sized statuettes of a cat - one of Bastet in cat form, and the a hand carved figure of a very regal cat, sitting upright, somewhat stylized. Noah chose the hand carved figure, after sniffing both, and started rubbing it.

Over the weekend, I suddenly had a realization, Bastet was not the avatar of the Goddess for me, but Freya, Norse Goddess of love, war, prophecies, and Witches. One of her symbols was a chariot drawn by 2 giant domestic cats. She would also sweep over battlefields, deciding which fallen warriors would go to Odin (Valhalla), and which ones would go to her own hall, along with women who died. It it said that she may even be the leader of the Valkyries. It made sense, I'm a descendant of the Celts and Norse, and having an Egyptian Goddess avatar didn't seem right.

I've been a practioner of Wicca for about 7 years now, and a Witch my entire life (that distinction is another post). Since cats are drawn to me, and vice verca, I automatically assumed that the most well known Cat-Goddess was the avatar for me. I really should have known better than that.

I've known for several years that Cerrunos, the Celtic Horned-God of the forrests, Leader of the Wild Hunt, was the avatar of the God who chose me. One afternoon, I was in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, sitting in an open field where several years before the National Park Service had released some eastern elk into the Park. There is a rule that humans do not approach any closer than 100 feet to the elk, for the safety of all. When I chose my seat, there were no elk around, so I just sat, enjoying the silence around me, watching other people walking through the fields, making daisy chains with clover blossoms.

Eventually I heard the elk calling to each other, and looking the length of the field I was in, I could see at the other end of the valley meadow, about 1/2 mile long, a herd that had emerged from the trees. I watched with my binoculars, then heard the trumpeting of elk nearby, so I put up my binoculars, and watched the woodline nearby. A great bull elk emerged, walking through the meadow, checking for dangers. He glanced at me at first, then looked at the other people watching from the side of the road. Slowly, confidently, he continued to walk into the clearing, then he trumpeted to the rest of the herd to join him, to graze. The bull elk continued to scout the clearing, and continued to approach me. Then he broke the 100 foot boundary to look at me. I simply sat there, head slightly bowed, but never taking my eyes off of the majestic animal. He stopped, watched me for a little while, and I watched him. He almost seemed to nod, and walked away, to rejoin his herd. I knew that I had been visited by a representative of the God, and the elk seemed to only leave once I accepted in my mind that that majestic creature was a representative of the God. Thus Cerrunos was the avatar of the God, which I had been searching for, and I had found.

So that is the story of how I came to find my personal primary avatars of the God and Goddess, a journey which has taken years to complete. Even being a Wiccan for 7 years, it goes to show that we all make mistakes, let our own pre-conceived ideas cloud our inner vision, and need to be reminded to relax, and to see what we see, not what we think we see.

Blessed Be!

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