This requires me to pack up my altars, do something else with all my candles because I’m no longer allowed to burn them where I’m going, and then I will reestablish my altars in my new place of residence by the end of the week.
Until then, here is a hare:
It struck me this past full moon that I could also feel Andred in this phase, but She was different. Usually I associate her with the energy and new beginnings of the waxing moon, and feel that as a protective force. Several days ago I also felt her, when the moon hangs in the sky with the sunset and it’s like both my gods are in the sky with me. I’m not sure what this force was, but as I think on it I would class it as “supportive”, perhaps, or “reassuring.”
It also reminds me that once I pondered what different phases of the moon actually meant if Andred was their Lady. Did they represent different aspects of Her? Or perhaps she is only Goddess of one phase of the moon (which is totally alright). Now I think it might be a little more complex than that, but I have yet to work out exactly how.
A ritual is supposed to be about connection.
Every month, when I notice the first hints of the crescent moon in the sky lagging behind the sun, I feel it. I feel Her. She is there, watching me and smiling. I like to think that the crescent itself is her smile.
She protected me once, in the cold winter as I tried to make it home from a test. I thanked Her. She has probably always protected me. She has guided me toward Her, at least, and has probably done a bunch of other things to look out for me.
She is the Goddess of Victory, after all.
Run before me into battle, Andraste, protect me in this fight.
Mantra to Andraste, A Book of Pagan Prayer, Ceisir Serith
I happened upon this word by chance, and I’ve been thinking about it since. I don’t know exactly how I would describe my relationship with the Gods and what They seem to want from me, but it has something to do with ideas, with thinking about Them and what They mean, and translating that somehow into the world around me. The things I feel called to do are connected with ideas, and with spreading these ideas. Understanding them, and helping others understand them, as well.
I’ve never been satisfied with just reading something in a book and doing it that exact way for all of time. I’m always reading, trying to learn. Maybe I’m reading a book steeped in bullshit, but I’ve reached a point where I can tell that right off. But a lot of times the books I read are valuable in their own right. I can almost always find something useful to my own practice in a book (yes, even a Llewellyn one). I can’t always knit these things together into something cohesive, but I at least have something to fall back on. (It’s the analogy of having access to many tools, and having some idea of how to use them all.)
So I read. I’ve also been doing my best to learn from the source. I have been praying and writing and trying to connect. Which is some days easy and some days hard. Routines are fragile, especially for me, but I have adapted. I am finding a way.
And, as always, I’m thinking. This brings me back to the word ‘theology,’ which is defined as “the study of the nature of God and religious belief”. For my purposes, it is the study of THE GODS, rather than just God, but the idea still applies. I think a lot about my gods. I thought a lot about Andred, I tried researching her. I’ve thought a lot about Ra and the other Egyptian gods. I think about magic and practice and what it means to be “devoted”. I have ideas of how I think “devotion” looks, and I try to apply them in my own life, little as they may be. I’m always searching.
And I think that may be part of the nature of theology: the search.
It is Easter, a holiday often compared to Ostara, and I’m aware of about a dozen and a half different pagans at any one time claiming that the Christians stole it. I’m not here for that debate. I’m here to offer a reflection (one of many I had today).
I celebrated Ostara weeks ago, when the first rain fell where I live (and, I should add, unusually early, see Some Thoughts…). So I have no worries about Easter vs Ostara. The energy of spring had bloomed weeks ago and been growing ever since, as far as I’ve been able to tell.
But that isn’t the reflection. The reflection is this: I have felt Andred’s influence most strongly in new and growing things: the first early days of spring, the newest of new crescent moons, and so forth. And then it wanes and yields to other influences. Spring will soon give way to summer, a reflection of the power of other gods. And this is completely OK. Each god has his or her time. No god can be powerful all the time (unless you believe in such a being, but that’s for another day). Energies change on all kinds of scales. And so it is here. Andred’s influence has waned, but that’s OK. Spring is blooming and Summer is coming.
The thing about Andred is, She is a goddess of war, but not all wars happen on battlefields foreign and domestic. Some wars are waged at home, between parents with children in the middle. Others are waged directly on the children themselves. Some are protests. Those can turn into actual wars, the way we traditionally picture them. Or they can not. Our government prefers the former, obviously.
And She supports all that. Like…I am fighting to keep myself in an abusive household, and She supports me. I, of course, am responsible for all my victories, because very few things can be placed directly at the feet of the gods, but She’s got my back and She gives me strength, and lets me know shit is gonna be OK and to keep going. She gives me the fire I need to keep moving forward to getting myself out (and I am pleased to report that that is going to happen sometime this year).
And this doesn’t just go for Andred. Consider all gods and goddesses of war, every single one that you can think of. Do you think they just consider war an act of the battlefield, between opposing armies? I don’t think so. When you live a do what you’ve gotta do life, it’s a fight, even if it doesn’t feel that way sometimes. It’s a fucking fight that you are fighting and losing is not an option.
Today I read a series of articles (many listed here) that discusses a series of events the author describes as “the Otherworld bleeding through”. I haven’t noticed anything obviously weird, like glowing green birds, but I have noticed something else: the past two years have really been my years for connecting to deities. I’m now on a path to bringing a previously unknown goddess back into at least some light (She is no Morrigan, but that doesn’t mean She isn’t also important to Her people). I come to understand Her, and I post accordingly on social media, sometimes. Actually most times.
It’s a bit weird going through a process of revealed knowledge, but I’m not about to start a cult about it. I wish only to share knowledge, hoping that something I post will be the lightbulb moment for someone else.
But it’s also strange sitting back and going, “Hey, I’m not really all that sensitive but isn’t this the period where I started knowing Andred for who She is?” And that’s the kind of thing that makes me think more deeply about the merits of the changing relationship between the physical and the metaphysical or spiritual. Pagan religions becoming more popular within the past few decades is a sign of this (and of questions that a more traditional approach to deity cannot answer). Then there are people seeing portals and glowing green birds and so on. There’s me, who the past few years has been clawing for some sort of connection to the divine, something that I can feel and know is real.
Or consider natural disasters, if that is what you wish.
The point is, people have noticed that things are changing. I won’t say that it’s the end of the world, because I don’t believe that’s correct. It’s more accurate to say this is “the end of the world as we know it,” which is to say, the end of the world of our parents and grandparents. Things change, as they always must.
I suppose the question you would ask me next is “what do we do about that?” That’s been covered in the articles stated at the top, but I would go for: Go with your gut. If you feel a drive, and more than just a one-time passing fancy, then follow it. Figure out how to work it into your life (for other gods I feel the drive toward daily ritual and the crafting of a tube dress for ritual wear, for example). That drive speaks toward your purpose, at least for the present, and it’s worth listening to.
Chràbhaidh a Andred 