Praise the Gods

I was recently reading posts on a Celtic pagan site when someone mentioned how the gods have evolved. Some agreed, others disagreed saying that if a person doesn’t know the lore and the stories it can become fantasy, e.i. the person is honoring something different than how the deities are depicted in the stories. To be fair, I am paraphrasing and using gross oversimplification.

But this idea of honoring the deities as they are depicted in the lore and stories misses many important details. For example, the “lore” did not become fixed until the monks made it so. Heavily influenced by Christianity, might I add. We do not know the oral lore. We do not know how the stories changed and evolved over time before they were written down.

Another important element that most people miss is the influence of culture. Where I live, in the southern United States, Christianity heavily influences the culture to this day. It is embedded in our customs, social structure, politics, and daily life. There is a strong adherence to Christmas and Easter and roadside signs with religious messages are common everywhere. It makes no difference if an individual is atheist or pagan here, they are still heavily influence by the Christian culture.

My mother once told me a story about when she was younger. Every year during the season of Beltane, students would dance around a May pole at school on or close to May Day. Then she said, “but the teachers would also ask you what the preacher talked about at church on Sunday.” I was so excited to hear that my mother celebrated May Day that I inquired further. All I received was a scoff and “it was just about a bunch of old women sitting around trying to find you a husband.”

I say this so I may ask some questions for you to ponder. What was the cultural influence in which the “Celtic lore” was written? How has that changed over the years? How does it change when an individual is not from the land in which those stories were written? How does the view of those deities from a distant past and distant land change which it is influenced by a different religious culture? What are the needs of the individual who is seeking help from a particular deity?

Did the ancient pagans in Ireland has a liturgical prayerbook? I doubt it, but it is how I make sense of the world. It is how I feel a sense of order in times of chaos. So, I created and use my own liturgical prayerbook to Celtic deities. It doesn’t just contain words, but my own personal artwork that resinates with me. It is in essence, an illuminated pagan prayerbook with art borrowed from the Lindisfarne gospel, a Christian work.

So, do the gods evolve? I think they can. They are not stagnate or fixed. It was Christianity that fixed them for us and what we are left with in the “lore” is one tiny view of that deity.

-Raysdottir