The Deities
Wicca reveres two deities, a Goddess and a God both are equal, neither is higher or more deserving of respect.
Since Wicca is a polytheistic religion, some Wiccans worship more than one Goddess and more than one God. Some believe in the gods from ancient mythology such as Greek and Egyptian, so call the deities by names such as Athena and Apollo, Isis and Osiris etc. Other Wiccans refer to the deities as the Lord and Lady, or simply the Goddess and God.
Wiccans don't need to gather in a common place or erect statues to revere their deities, the Wicca see the divine in all things, within nature and within ourselves. We see and sense their presence everywhere, in the blooming flowers of Spring and the falling snow in Winter. Many Wiccans are involved in ecology. To honour the deities we honour and preserve our precious planet.
The Goddess and God are of nature, both the delightful and the dark. We don't worship nature as such; some Wiccans wouldn't even say they worship the Goddess and God. We don't bow down to the deities, we work with Them to create a better world.
Click here to read my personal views on the deities.
The Goddess
Goddess symbol
The Goddess is the universal Mother. She is the source of fertility and endless wisdom. As the Wicca know Her, She is often of three aspects: the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone, symbolized by the waxing, full and waning of the Moon. She is the unploughed feild, the full harvest and the dormant, frost covered Earth. She gives birth to abundance. But as life is Her gift, She lends it with the promise of death. This is not darkness and oblivion, but rest from the toils of physical existence. It is human existence between incarnations.
The Wicca revere Her as the giver of fertility, love and abundance, though they acknowledge Her darker side as well. We see Her in the Moon, the soundless, ever-moving sea, and in the green growth of the first Spring. She is the embodiment of fertility and love.
The Goddess is omnipresent, changeless, eternal.
The God
God symbol
We see the God in the Sun, brilliantly shining overhead during the day, rising and setting in the endless cycle which governs our lives. The God is the tender of wild animals. As the Horned God He is sometimes seen wearing horns on His head symbolizing His connection with these beasts.
The God's domains include forests untouched by human hands, burning deserts and towering mountains. The stars, since they are but distant suns, are sometimes thought to be under His domain.
The God is the fully ripened harvest, intoxicating wine pressed from grapes, golden grain waving in a lone feild, and the shimmering apples hanging from verdant boughs on October afternoons.
Today the deities of Wicca are still firmly associated with fertility, but every aspect of human existence can be linked with the Goddess and God. They can be called upon to help us sort through the vicissitudes of our existence and bring joy into our often spiritually-bereft lives.
