Publish date: 2023-12-06
This is completely my opinion and experience and I in no way claim to be an expert or the authority of how one is to take a Patron Deity.
I have always loved Ancient cultures and especially keen on their many myths and legends. I collected series of books about it and borrowed the Penguin dictionary of Classical Mythology from the library more times that I can count in grade 8 at high school. (I now own a copy of that book and still read and reference it)
One Goddess always took my interest. It was Greek Goddess Athena. Right from the very start I was drawn to her. The fact that her own Father was frightened of her power, that she was a warrior Goddess but a Goddess of wisdom as well. That she won the city of Athens from Poseidon to have as her patron city. Yes some of the myths were not so nice and that is life I guess but her strength and wisdom were very appealing to me. I even remember this episode of Hercules (yep when Kevin Sorbo was all the rage in his pleather pants, I loved that show and Xena) where Athena was featured with her owl giving advise to the man with the mighty chest hair.
It was absolutely no surprise that she claimed me as her own. I didn’t even have to do anything or ask. She was always there. She has been and will always be for me what I seek to be. Wise and strong. Isn’t that what we should want from our Patrons, something that we can see in ourselves? The things that we strive for? The lessons that we are trying to learn? I know that she will always be the first and only Patron Goddess that will stay with me for life. I am truly a Priestess of Athena and I know from working with her for nearly 13 years now that this was always going to be something that I was going to find. So finding my Patron Goddess was not hard, she found me and claimed me. I know that not everyone is so lucky.
When it came to find a Patron God, it was a little harder. There is a saying in Wicca, you met and know the Goddess first and then the God and this was true for me. Maybe it was because I had such a powerful masculine type Goddess that I didn’t feel the need to take a Patron God. But alas the call was also always there, just a little subtler. Which is funny when I clicked at what the God was.
I have always loved the ocean, always. I went into a Marine Science scholarship at High School and have surfed, spear fished, snorkeled, wreak dived and everything but scuba dived. (my lungs making that dream impossible which I was gutted about and still am a little) I have been passionate about saving the Whales ever since watching Dot and the Whale when I was really little like 6 years old and I still am. Every time I entered the water I would ask for protection and vow that I would leave it as I found it, never littering and being thankful for the cleansing water. I feel like I hum when I get out of the ocean and it has been my one place for cleansing for many years. So of course Poseidon was and again always will be my Patron God.
While most people see a older man looking more like Zeus, I have always seen him more like the picture. He is also another strong Patron, but I like that. The working relationship in a spiritual sense with Poseidon is something that I want to work on more. Practically it has been easy to work with him because of the amount of connection I have with the ocean but I know that there is much work to do on that connection with the masculine divine. And after Thor’s entry to circle a little while back, man can they be powerful or what!
It is funny to think that both of my Patron’s battled for Athens. While I have and will always work with other Goddesses and Gods these two are really very much a part of me and that is what the Divine is, they are now separate from us completely, it is all connected after all.
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