A problem with polytheism

Last night I cast a full circle. This doesn’t happen as often as I’d like because I’m a mum of three, running a small business and a home. I’m tired, yo. But I pulled out all the stops for Eostre and man! It felt like coming home all over again, and I woke up this morning feeling amazing and recharged and even my children whinging couldn’t stop that rainbows-shooting-out-my-arse feeling.

There was just one problem. When you cast a circle, you draw the boundary, then you welcome in the lesser spirits/ lower tier invisible friends you want to work with. Usually in Wicca, these are going to be elementals. Some people will call the four winds or archangels, or the guardians of the watchtowers if you want to pack a real punch. 

Then, you invite in some top-shelf spirits. Your gods, usually. 

So I got there and I’m like… shit. Who am I inviting to this party?

I’m still in the middle of my mid-witch crisis (for want of a better term) where I’m reforming every aspect of my spirituality, and I honour the Wheel of the Year, but I’ve moved away from the binary gods Wicca usually associates with that. Because Wicca is a salad bar religion (AKA a culturally appropriative mess) it has its over-arching plot of the Lady and Lord, and then each individual Sabbat has myths from the cultures plundered alongside.

For Eostre, the Lady and Lord are teens; I think they start dating around this time. In other myths, Persephone is returning from the underworld (AFAIK, anyway. I don’t follow this pantheon.) There’s the story of the goddess Eostre / Ostara, who saves a dying bird by turning it into a rabbit, too. I love that myth. It’s modern but it’s cute and goes with my animal-loving values. 

With that said, I don’t know the goddess Ostara, and it didn’t occur to me to invite her to the party.

Because I’ve been Wiccan so long, and I went through a gendered school system, instinct says “invite a boy and a girl” but that rankles me too because I don’t jive with either of those polarities. So I want to invite a third god. A genderfluid friend, or intersex friend. Hey, why do we think the gods even have gender? Is that necessary?

For my daily devotionals, I usually pray or leave offerings to modern Goddesses Caffeina and Wilder. Or I talk to the moon, without attaching a name. When I talk to the kids about magick, I just say “the Goddess” without specifying which one. But when you’re in a circle, being vague isn’t the safest idea.  It’s like leaving the door open and letting anyone come in – sometimes you’re going to get the friendly postie, other times it’s an unwashed man thinking you’re a gentleman’s massage parlour (this has happened to me twice now.)

Anyway, so I just fumbled through, as I did with my prayers as a kid.

Side story: I grew up Church of England. I was pretty into it, my best mate was a Pastor’s daughter, I read my bible before bed. And I prayed a lot, especially after Nan died.

It used to go like this “Hey God, how are you? Thank you for the food today and the sunshine and stuff can I please speak to Nan? Okay. Hi Nan…”

And I would do that for all my dead rellies and pets, and then I would ask for protection and blessings on each of my family members and friends which, honestly, I still do. I’m still like “… and so Swan just had another baby, please keep the baby safe and bless Swan with an extra hour of sleep tonight and send Santa Mel comfort… blah blah.”

Anyway, so Mum asked me about my prayers one time, years later. I don’t know how we got onto the topic, but she was like “It’s not a phone service, you’re communicating with God.” Basically, dead people are dead, don’t leave messages. And that was the beginning of “perhaps this religion isn’t for me.”

End side quest.

So, I bumbled my way through that part of the ritual. And it was fine. But it definitely highlighted that I need to spend some creative time working on some prayers and invocations. 

I’ve thought a lot about “So Mote it Be” and “Blessed be” too. Mostly because I’m in an anti-Wicca group (they are very educational, but would burn me to the ground if I mentioned that I am, in fact, Wiccan, so I just don’t talk there at all) and they are always taking the piss out of “Blessed be.”

These ritual words, best anyone can tell, came out of the ritual for the fivefold kiss, which Meddy demonstrates in Namesakes Three Fold Return. Haters simplify it and say it’s weird because it’s a blessing for reproductive body parts, which is valid despite other parts of the body being blessed in the process. Some versions of the five-fold kiss obviously refer to oral sex. The sex cult vibes are strong with this one. But that’s not the only way to take it, and the same blessing has been modified for solitary use and a bunch of other things. I have no issues with consenting adults doing ritual sex or for sex being part of religious observances. So, I’ve come to terms with “Blessed be” and put it in my “keep” pile.

But “so mote it be” (to the best of my knowledge) was taken from Freemasonry, and “mote” means “may” or “might” which is a bit wishy-washy for the end of a spell that you’re supposed to have utmost confidence in. It’s also used in Wicca in place of “Amen” which, frankly, makes zero sense like, “Thank you, Caffeina, for the coffee and the productive day I had today. So might it be.”
Um, what?
Logic, where art thou?

I might share some of my prayers down the track if anyone is interested, but this is where I’m at right now. I’m enjoying the growth that criticism and shadow work are giving me and I’m loving that no matter what I call the gods, they show up for me, continue saving my ass, and bringing me home.

When I work out how, I’ll be disabling comments on my blogs, not because I don’t want to hear from you but because most of the comments are spam. No, I’m not interested in your porn site, your penis pills, or marrying a “real Prince” and I don’t believe Timmy will come out from under the bed and stab me tonight if I don’t share your link forward, but I am awful sick of having to clear out the spam. With that said, if you want to leave a comment, I share my blogs to Facebook, you can comment there, or you can just email me.

Miriam Cumming has been practising witchcraft for 18 years. When she’s not drinking coffee and trying her hand at sigils, she likes to play video games with her husbandor fold a mountain of laundry with a child riding on her back. For more witchy content, check out @TheWicceWrites on Instagram.