How My Polytheistic Relating to Deities Has Evolved Overtime
"Hey, uh, sorry I was acting like such a freak when we first met. I was kind of going through it, as you know," I said the other day toward the planetary god Mars.
"(It is fine,)" Mars emanated back. He refers to images of a whole hamburger I once prepared for him, blood he'd kind of forced me into offering, and the several times I intensely danced to devotional music for him while burning incense at his shrine. "(You have since given very good offerings.)"
This was the first time we ever had a conversation outside of ritual and it happened so subtly I almost could believe I'd made it up. Except later that night, I slipped into hypnagogia and ended up bumping into Satan/Lucifer*. I know I did because the next morning I mentioned it to my friend who previously had a years-long working relationship with him and she said, "That's exactly my experience."
When I started on my polytheist path for the second and more permanent time in 2019, I was first scared and then very serious about it. Scared because I didn't know any other polytheists and there is something very vulnerable about setting up a shrine to an ancient Greek god in your bedroom. Serious because I very much wanted to do worship correctly, even as Apollo assured me in his first visit to said shrine that I could give him anything and he would be happy with it.
I grew up in Reform Judaism in a synagogue that was very secular and therefore materialist despite its religious existence. I loved the services' organ music and my rabbi's sermons, which always connected that week's Torah portion to modern day ethics. So the solemnness of religious practice and reminders of its values were and continue to be extremely important to me in my polytheism.
As a result, I am not particularly fond of spiritual expressions that I perceive as shallow, egocentric, or poorly thought out. So coming across common attitudes in polytheist spaces in 2020 frequently surprised me. I never bought into the psychological model because I simply have enough self-awareness to know I'm not the center of the universe. I also bumped into a lot of "Reconstructionists," invariably former Christians with unresolved trauma, who just seemed like they were practicing armchair religion instead of truly believing in anything. And then there was WitchTok... A few of the popular influencers there clearly had very close connections with their spirits, but many more put on a cheap show for audience engagement with no true understanding of the depth of meaning that comes with having a relationship with a deity.
Between that last example, and first associating with several people who called themselves Skeptical, Agnostic, Atheist, Science-Seeking Witches (*massive eyeroll*), I limited my imagination as to what polytheistic relating could look like. I didn't believe you could reach a deity as easily as I just described earlier in this blogpost. I didn't believe you could simply have a casual chat; I thought you had to have a plan, a goal, and a petition. I didn't believe even the ones whose domain was humor really had it until Mercury once laughed at me for freaking out about money to them ("Who do you think you're talking to?!" said the planetary god of both humor and money). Even now after years of working with my gods and having them achieve even small favors for me, I often sit and wrack my brain like oh damn should I call them for this idk seems dumb what if they get offended.
I don't even believe they can get offended at this point in my practice. Annoyed, yes. But while as a human many house flies have annoyed me, none have offended me.
("You have not been the first one in love to reach out for my help out of desperation,") Mars told me in our recent conversation.
("Happy birthday,") Venus said this past one right before the woman at the cafe I entered gave me my entire meal for free.
Months before that, the Mercury glyph I'd visualized in prayer to them during a panic attack swelled and flitted. I was suddenly aided into taking deep breaths and my attention was brought to the song playing in the music system overhead. It was my first favorite song from when I was a kid.
I'm writing this as a form of possible encouragement to those who are in earlier phases of exploring their polytheism. I'm also trying to remind myself as I am seemingly entering a new level of closeness with my deities that there is little reason to restrict myself. I mean in terms of how I can interact with them, what I can ask from them, and what I can share (because, as Mercury has advised before, it is good to share especially if it's a beneficial thing for other people. I kind of need to get the Austin Osman Spare model of sigil secrecy out of my head when it comes to other efforts).
So as for Satan/Lucifer, I had a whole ritual planned. I had horns to wear and another to put into my lap and a Jason Miller prayer from Consorting with Spirits to help. I may still do it... But after how easy that was, why would I? Maybe I'll still wear my horns for fun, but more likely I'll get a nice bottle of whiskey or wine like my friend suggested and pour us both a glass.
*Reform Judaism has probably never believed in Satan except as the prosecutor of heaven, who first appears in the Book of Job. In previous eras of Judaism, Jews had many superstitions about the devil. I tend to see the entity I am hoping to establish a relationship with as something like an immune system response from an inherently spiritual universe whose spiritually oppressed members paradoxically cannot become less spiritual. Of course, by taking the form of the Devil, there's a particularly Christian—and maybe Islamic—angle to this being and the oppression it is responding to.
