Gods

[Wings Akimbo]

This has been bothering me for a while.

People talk about working with gods, and patron gods, and worshipping, gods, gods this and gods that. It's just- I don't understand how one forges a relationship with certain deities. Why? How? What's the point? What is meant by 'working with gods'? If one wanted to get to know a certain deity better, how would one go about doing it? How does one choose which deities to get to know? And patron deities- what are they? What do they do? How do you get one?

Even after studying for a long time, I still don't get it. redface  

[Starlock]

I don't always get it either and I think that what a person means by 'working with the Gods/Goddesses' varies depending on who is talking. When I speak of working with deities or spirits, I could be meaning a whole range of things myself.

I could mean doing the nuts and bolts academic research about that particular deity and the domain they rule over; studying both science and folklore.

It could mean doing an evocation or invocation of a particular spirit/deity; inviting them in to participate in something.

I could mean making that particular spirit the focus of a ritual or spell. For instance on the full moons you could say I work with the Spirit of the Moon during that ritual.

It could just be working with a spirit for the sake of getting to know it, not for any particular spell. For instance, communicating with the plants I collect to understand their essence, their personality so to speak.

I bet to others 'working with the Gods/spirits/etc' might mean something totally different than what I've said here, but maybe not? This is an interesting question. At any rate, the point of doing it varies, but ultimately I'd say the point goes back to the entire point of religion in the first place. Religion means 'to reconnect' so the point is to connect with something greater than yourself. A spirit, a deity, whatever. Learning is a form of connetion, a ritual is a connection, invocations are connections too. I'm not sure if this helps, but hopefully it will get you thinking. whee