Xpost:Â In memo: Hey guys, you canât domesticate gods
[Did the headline get your attention? Awesome, I hope so!]
So Iâm trying to keep this blog on point; meaning concerned with my practice, and Michael, and information about, things I attribute to him, ect. One of the issues Iâm faced with in that is whether or not to discuss issues that I feel are relevant to devotion; not just of my god; but of all gods. The question becomes, is it or isnât it appropriate to put them on a blog specifically dedicated to Michael.
I donât have an answer for that yet. I might kick myself for it later, for that matter. But as a polytheist and devotee, I feel I ought to weigh in on these issues, regardless. They merit discussion-civil, honest, thoughtful discussion. And I have the means to do that. However much credence my  words get, at least Iâll have gotten them out.
âI have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.â -so in the spirit of Marcus Aurelius, Iâll blow this whistle.
One of the things I see arising constantly in the ranks of the larger polytheism-and thatâs troubling to me-is this endlessly perpetuated notion of âyou arenât doing enoughâ. Itâs aimed predominantly at younger devotees, practitioners, spirit workers, ect, although it finds itâs home just about everywhere. The criticism goes something along the lines of, âthese are gods of blood/mirth/death/wrath/fire/ect and they demand true worship, not heart stickers on shitty painted boxes!â [Citing just one example of this. There are plenty more out there, Iâm sure a focused search will show you].
I met up with this about two years or so ago, and then again come about September; one person criticized the âcheap wineâ on my altar as inappropriate, and then before I was able to purchase new items exclusively for Michael when I did my re-dedication, I had to reuse some materials for my altar due to budget constraints, and I took heavy criticism for that, too. Those two things are just tertiary examples of materialism being used to judge a personâs devotion to their practice and to their god-which isnât only insulting to that person, frankly Iâm of the opinion itâs insulting to the god, too.
Regardless of what kind of god weâre talking about; lets say even if it was a death god/dess; lets take The Morrigan for example-and the practitioner is offering her a black painted shoe box with âheart and hello kitty stickersâ on it. For the sake of argument, letâs say that practitioner is a 27 year old stay at home mother on a very limited income, and sheâs using the tools in her home made available to her to devote a portion of her already strained time to dedicate to her goddess by creating something exclusively for her worship, or sacred space. The offering isnât just the box; itâs an offering of her time. Which is her life; every second is her heart beating, her blood circulating. Each moment is a moment of her existence which she has now taken from herself and offered to that goddess in a focused act of creation and meditation.
To you it might look like just a shitty box with a shitty paint job and shitty stickers. Except for over time sheâll put other things in it, too, besides her life and love and heartbeat. Sheâll put love letters that she writes (thereby offering more of her time), things she finds that inspire her to think of her goddess (sacred mindset, active practice/attentiveness), spells and prayers and poems and anything else that she finds meaningful to her goddess and her relationship to it. And she does it all between managing her household, raising a child, running errands, whatever else she has to do.
Price had very little to do with any of it from the get go.
Nor does a price or what you may deem to be a crappy aesthetic whatever show you what their entire inner situation with their god is; a college student with very little space might worship Herne the Hunter and ride with him on the hunt (or as one of the hounds, or as the rabbit, might I add; each role is sacred) and you would never know because maybe the only record of it is his dream journal on his bedside under a cheap dollar store poorly pine-scented candle. Youâre not seeing that devotion; maybe heâs the rabbit. Maybe he did shed his blood for his god that night; and the only remnant of it that existed and carried over to the âreal worldâ was the ink that soaked into the pages of those journal pages.
Itâs a terrible, dishonorable, disrespectful thing to do to judge a personâs level of engagement, love, and dutiful attendance a person is giving their gods solely by what you deem the âqualityâ of their art work, the amount of time you think they should be giving verses what they may or may not be actually doing (for that matter, most devotees of gods that I happen to know are in a constant state of mindful awareness of their gods and their godsâ presence; itâs not just something they put on their Sunday best for one day a week; and even if it was? Maybe only one day a week is what that god cares about!), or how pretty/expensive/pleasing to the eye (or no) their altar goods are. Leaving aside for the moment how it places a person in the position of thinking they know better than the gods what their worshipers should be offering them, it puts people on an income restriction in a far worse of situation because youâre essentially saying there that only well-funded practitioners and âqualityâ artisans are âdoing it rightâ. That only the people who can manage all the cool stuff are the ones that are deserving of praise for their efforts. Iâm sorry, but I donât care if for Aphrodite you bought her a Prada handbag filled with seashells and Dior perfume. If thatâs all you ever do for her, thatâs not worship at all. Thatâs setting up a space to make it look like your devoted to impress only god knows who (And maybe Iâm taking a leap here, but if thatâs all you ever do for Aphrodite Iâd worry you were risking offending her more than just never having bothered at all. My two cents).
Worship, and especially piety, isnât something that you can fake. It is something that you have to put work into every day. And so often, those practitioners do. They blog, they write poetry, they mingle with others to talk about their love and admiration for their gods. This is a crucial, important part of their life, Â and by saying theyâre not âdoing enoughâ for their gods because theyâre not demonstrating to you, another mortal human being, whatever your standard of good enough is, supposes you know better than the gods what they want, or what theyâre looking for. Donât you think if someone was âdoing it rongâ the gods themselves would be well and truly capable of handling the situation? I heard a story once about a Lokean friend of mine who forgot part of her usual routine for giving him his offerings, and Loki was particularly piqued that day by it, and slapped one of his candles off his altar, which caught the altar cloth and then the altar itself on fire. She nearly lost everything and had to start all over again. Either you think they can take care of it, or you donât.
And to you I pose this question; which is more disrespectful to the gods: a shoebox with stickers painted with due reverence, time, and love, or presuming theyâre not as powerful as their mythological precedent and trying to police their followers for them?
(Although maybe some gods would get a kick over the drama that stirs up over it. Lookinâ at you Loki).
I encourage all of you to think about this; and think about how you judge and treat other practitioners next time you speak with them. Ask yourself if youâre giving those devotees the respect that they deserve. They might not seem âgood enoughâ or âdevout enoughâ to you. But talk to them. Talk to them; and what you learn may surprise you.
Yes; these are gods that blink and lighting flashes in the sky; they move to touch the face of the world and do so with a record beating E-F6 tornado thatâs two miles wide. Theyâre frightening and great and oh so many other things. But where youâll really find them and hear them speak is in those painted shoebox altars with the hello kitty and heart stickers.
