Deities Wiccans believe in one supreme life force, or intelligence - sometimes called the Initiator or The One. This force then manifests as Goddess and God in perfect balance. This is polarity and all life is polarity. Neither Goddess nor God are stronger or more important than the other, they complement each other and together form the perfect All. However, pagans, and of course Wicca, believe that the Goddess and God are in all their creations in the Universe. The Earth is seen as the living body of the Goddess and is to be revered, honoured, loved and protected. Hence Wiccans are environmentalists. Wiccans see Deity as the birth and the death - full cycle. They also believe in reincarnation, death being but the end of the cycle which leads again to life. Wiccans accept responsibility for all their actions and their life. They do not believe in a devil, namely Satan, to blame their faults or mistakes on (such as the devil made me do it!). They seek to know themselves, overcoming weaknesses and building strengths. Wicca also does not seek to convert others to their belief. They believe that when a person is ready or seeking the path of Wicca they will be led to it. In fact until recently Wicca has been kept secret. This has been also to avoid persecution. In the past all training and initiation has been through an existing coven. However in present times, as a coven contains no more than thirteen members, and more and more people are seeking the path, it has become obvious that coven training is not always possible. However even though there are covens, many witches choose to be solitary. This also can be very advantageous. Due to the rapid increase in people wanting to know about the craft many books have been written and witches make their information available to anyone who is genuinely interested in understanding. Also if the religion is widely known for what it really is then eventually the time will come when people who have been misled for so long, will cease to be afraid of witchcraft and see it as an asset. The Goddess The Goddess, the universal mother, is the source of fertility, endless wisdom and loving caresses. Wicca know Her as of three aspects: the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone. These three aspects are symbolised by the waxing, full and waning moon cycle. The Maiden signifies youth, the excitement of the chase, and the newness of life and magick. She is the unploughed field. In human age between puberty and her twenties. She does not have a mate. Her colours are soft and light, white, soft pink, or light yellow. The Mother stands for nurturing, caring, fertility. She represents the full harvest. She is in the prime of life and at the peak of her power. She protects her own and ensures that justice is done and done well. She is usually mated. In human age she would be a woman in her thirties and forties. Her colours are warmer than those of the maiden, being green, copper, red, light purple or royal blue. The Crone is a being of age-old wisdom. She is shrewd and counsels well. She looks after the Maiden and Mother and their off-spring. She is logical and can be terrible in her vengeance. She stands at the door to the dimension of death. In human years she is very late forties and over. Her traditional colours are black, grey, purple, brown or midnight blue. Life is the Gift of the Goddess but 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. Since the Goddess is nature, all nature, She is both the Temptress and the Crone, the tornado and the fresh spring rain, the cradle and the grave. She is possessed of both natures, but the Wiccan 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. Many symbols are used in Wicca to honour Her, such as the cauldron, cup, five-petalled flowers, the mirror, necklace, seashell, pearl, silver, emerald...... to name a few. As She has dominion over the Earth, sea and Moon Her "sacred" creatures are many and varied. A few are the rabbit, bear, owl, cat, dog, bat, goose, cow, dolphin, lion, horse, wren, scorpion, spider and bee. The Goddess is depicted in many forms: a huntress running with Her hounds; a celestial deity striding across the sky with stardust falling from Her heels. the eternal Mother heavy with child; the weaver of our lives and deaths; a Crone walking by waning moonlight seeking out the weak and forlorn, to name a few. But no matter how we envision Her, She is omnipresent, changeless, eternal.
The God The God has been revered for eons, but not as the stern, all-powerful deity of Christian and Judaism. We see the God in the Sun. Without the Sun we would not exist; therefore it has been revered as the source of all life. With the warmth of the Sun the dormant seeds burst into life and there begins the greening of the Earth after the cold winter. The God is also the tender of wild animals. He is sometimes seen wearing horns on His head, symbolising His connection with these beasts. In earlier times hunting was one of the activities thought to be ruled by the God, while domestication of animals was seen to be Goddess oriented. The God's domains are forests untouched by human hands, towering mountains and burning deserts. Some consider the stars as under His domain because they are distant suns. The annual cycle of greening, maturation and harvest has long been associated with the Sun, from whence come the Solar festivals of Europe, which are still observed in Wicca. The God is the fully ripened harvest, intoxicating wine pressed from grapes, golden grain waving in the field, luscious apples hanging from verdant boughs. With the Goddess He also celebrates and rules sex. Wiccans do not speak of sex in hushed words, nor consider a celibate life as better than a sexually active one. Sex is part of nature, brings pleasure, shifts our awareness away from the every day world and perpetuates our species. It is seen as sacred. Although the God lustily imbues us with the urge that ensures our species' biological future, we are not tied to a genetically set pattern of fertility and sexual activity as are other species. We are privileged to be granted the use of sexual activity as an expression of deep love and tenderness as well as the necessity of reproduction. The gift of the freedom of choice with sex is accepted with great joy and pleasure and treated with great respect. Symbols often used to depict, or in worship of the God include the sword, horns, spear, candle, gold, brass, diamond, the sickle, arrow, magical wand, trident, knife and others. Sacred creatures include the bull, dog, snake, fish, stag, dragon, wolf, boar, eagle, falcon, shark, lizard and many others.
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