Sounds to me like the Wiccan Lord of the Forest, but I may be wrong. Can some others weigh in?

-Tema

I’m not very familiar, but it does sound like the wiccan Forest deity, or maybe Lucifer. Lucifer can sometimes be linked to “the wilds”. But again, not things I’m inherently familiar with. Followers?

Tiny Sigil Book by THE MUDANG on Storenvy

So, this isn’t something we necessarily get a lot of questions about but I do believe that it’s worth bringing up.

I’d like to preface with how I’ll be approaching my section of this roundtable, which will help for contextual reference. I am Hellenic, and will be referencing my relationship with the Theoi specifically. While the overarching topic is going to cross cultural lines, my examples will be Hellenic because that’s what I know.

A huge part of most religions that fall under the “pagan” umbrella is offerings and things given by the mortal to the deity as gifts, sacrifices (not just the literal animal sacrifice sense, but giving up things in general), and libation or votive offerings. In Hellenic polytheism, these offerings are used in a variety of ways: to honor, for no other reason, to win favor, to ask that prayers be answered, and to petition the Theoi.

But when choosing an offering, a lot of times the practitioner asks themselves (or others) the question of - how much is enough? How much do I have to give?

From a Hellenic standpoint, you give what you can. You give your best. How do you determine this, though? Well. I like to think of it in terms of myself; if I drop $20 for a nice scented candle for myself with no problem, then I should be able to drop $20 for a scented candle for one of the Theoi. Whether or not I get both for myself and the Theoi depends on my finances, and if I can’t, the Theoi come first. Always. (As an aside, I realize that not everyone can afford a $20 scented candle. This is just an example.) If what you can afford is a $2 candle from the dollar store, because $2 is the only money you have leftover after all necessities are met, then that’s your best.

Working from your best is constantly changing for most people. For myself, I don’t always have the energy to sit and do my devotional spreads or work on devotional poetry or writing because I work, have to take care of the house, cook, etc. When I do have the energy, I do sit and do them. It’s a day to day determination. If your best one day is to scrape yourself out of bed and get through the day with one prayer and maybe a libation poured or offering given if you’re lucky, that’s okay. But - when you can do better, do better. My best is constantly changing, and some days I can’t find it in me to offer at all, just pray and think of them. Talk to them. And this is okay, because the days where I have excess energy go into my devotional crafts: knitting, journal spreads, offerings, etc.

Learning to find your best is going to be a lifelong, constantly evolving practice. It’s okay if you have to wean yourself out of bad habits (my bad habit that I’m still controlling was not cutting into my recreational spending for my gods. This has turned out to be a win-win after controlling it) and figure things out. It takes a lot to really look inside yourself and at what you do daily to figure out where your best lies!

As another aside, some deities are much more action-oriented. Some don’t want you go buy them fancy things, and would rather you live your life a certain way. YMMV. Above everything, ASK THEM if you’re confused. We here at the PSG cannot interpret dreams, signs, or tell you what your deity wants of you.

Does anyone have anything to add? Personal experiences or advice?

~terebinth

It depends on one’s tradition one is a part of and how rigorous piousness is within said path. For myself, Kemetic Orthodoxy is fairly lenient while taking care to be as revivalist as possible without causing a member of the House to fall into debt due to their faith AND remaining as close as possible to antiquity rites and offerings (again, lenient, so some things are adopted to modernity due to QOL).

For Mugyo (Korean Shamanism), it’s a lot more arduous and rigorous. Due to our gods holding us mudang to higher degree of responsibility due to our position, we can’t let ourselves slide a lot. Sometimes they’ll be understanding if, due to low spoons (an example is my spirit sister being 5 months pregnant), we can’t do the 108 bows every day or missed refreshing an offering.

Some things we cannot miss, ever. They take priority over everything in our life. It is our life’s purpose to serve them and our community. If we have a lot of 굿 that month but we wanted to go on a two week vacation for an anniversary, we’d need to go to the 굿. If we have client appointments throughout the month but we had fun activities planned for our best friend’s wedding, we need to attend to the client. To “sin” (which I really don’t like using that word, but that’s the one my spirit sister uses as translation) is to cause our gods direct pain, which makes them very angry and can punish us and our loved ones pretty severely.

If you’re in a tradition that has priests or a similar role, go to them and ask. That’s what they’re there for.

- trueriptide

I personally see my devotional activities as my duty, I am a priest and as Trueriptide said i have duties to perform. I must “Tend the Temple Flame” if nothing else. I am also the head of my household and am responsible for the worship of our household gods, as well as the “greater” gods that i am a priest for. As such I can not rightfully rob my household unjustly to honor the high gods, my family must come first or I will not be able to worship ANY gods very long. I do what I can, my gods deserve and demand my best and sometimes that is the bare minimum but usually it is much more. Giving to the gods requires you have something to give and if you have no extra to give then clearly you have not yet received the blessings required for reciprocity. So, try your hardest and your gods will see your effort as a gift within itself. If nothing else, you can always offer a little prayer.

~>Wyrd

Vampirism comes in two forms: psy (for psychic vampirism) and sanguine (for blood vampirism). Vampirism is the energy anomaly that causes a person to “need to feed” on others’ energy, either psychically or through blood. This is the reason that if you’re around a psy vampire (whether they know it or not), you’ll likely experience ferocious headaches only around them, consistently as it is due to their leeching your energy/aura.

Blood vampirism is a bit different in that they need to obtain the energy through a physical matter. Our blood inherently carries our energy within, and from what I’ve heard, the experience is a stronger “feeding” due to the direct intake. There are some vampire clubs that have feeders there, should you need a donor.

Please see our Chakras tag here. We’ve had lengthy responses about how to deal with chakras respectfully (and yes, people shouldn’t really use the term).

From what I understand Astral Travel is having your spirit actually traveling to the Astral Plane while in Astral Projection you project your astral body but keep it on the Prime Material as an OOBE.

Sparrow

As Sparrow mentioned, astral travel is the method that can happen anytime, anywhere. It can happen while you’re conscious OR unconscious. It can begin with meditation, trance, daydreaming even. Astral projection is an Out of Body Experience, and is a bit harder to achieve.

Hedgecrossing is typically done while one is conscious - so typically I would describe it as astral travel. However, some people will use flying ointments to help them achieve an OBE during sleep, and at that point it would be astral projection.

The easy version of the answer is, yes, Kemetism IS polytheistic :) The ‘monotheistic’ bit probably comes from the Kemetic Orthodox, which teaches a particular form of polytheism called monism, in which there are distinct Gods/ Godesses, which are all eminations from one complete creation power (this is also based on the fact that our Gods and Goddesses have a habit of merging and synchronising and taking on each others attributes). This is not, however, the same thing as monotheism. 

(Note - to further complicate things, the Kemetic Orthodoxy officially states that it is a monolatry, which is defined as “the worship of one god without denial of the existence of other gods.” This is a little misleading, as it suggests that only a single deity is worshiped.)

> Smudge

Kemeticism throughout the times has been hard polytheistic, soft polytheistic, monolatristic etc. One specific Pharaoh (Akhenaten) tried to have his kingdom primarily worship Aten, with all the other Netjeru being seen as nonexistent or only a facet of Aten. The worship he attempted to force his kingdom into was seen as monolatristic, henotheistic, and some even view it as quasi-monotheistic.

But for the general modern Kemetic, the religion is either hard or soft polytheistic. Kemetic Orthodoxy is a revivalist temple (under USA protection as a legit religious group) that uses monolatry in its ideology, however. But KO certainly isn’t the end all be all of things Kemetic.