On the last session of my recent 5 week course, I challenged people to think about what they mean and understand by the word “deity”. I thought it might be a good idea to formulate my ideas around this topic for myself as well. This is one of those things that’s not a bad idea to do in general on a regular basis – now, I don’t mean once a week or so, but even annually is no bad idea. Our thoughts and understanding change over time. Our relationship with deity changes over time. It’s important to reconsider and reflect, given our new learnings and personal development. And so, here we go…
To me, there is a single divine force in this world, but we as humans can’t comprehend or cope with the whole of that force. So we filter down this force to what we can comprehend and cope with. And this changes over time. If you think about it, the deity or divine a young child can deal with and comprehend is very very different to an elderly person.
And so, my current appreciation of deity is Brigid, fairly obviously from this blog, I’d say. But there’s so many depictions of Brigid out there, I’d best explain a bit more.
There is an element of supporting the community. What point is there of deity if they don’t work with the community and have communities working with them? What are these communities made of? What type of people are attracted to what aspects of deity?
For Brigid, the healing aspect is all-important. Not just healing of illness, but energetic healing, environmental healing, relationships healing, community healing. There is so so much there in terms of healing to look at and what we can all do to support that.
There is also the aspect of creation and destruction. What do we need to destroy to create more? What needs to be cut away as deadwood to allow new growth? This can apply on a personal level as well as a community level. What anchors to the past are still useful, relevant and valuable and what anchors are now irrelevant, hurtful, and needing to be discarded. Learned from, but discarded.
Finally, there is the element of social justice. Who else but the gods will support us in our pursuit for social justice, looking to help those who don’t have the resources to help themselves. Of course, not all the gods look at this level of society, but Brigid does. Just read up on Brig Ambue to see how much…
Brigid also uses us as her tools to get what she needs done, done. With consent, with acknowledgement, preferably as part of a bargain rather than just her dictating orders, but still… as her tools. She will forge her tools sometimes. She will break and re-forge when needed. She is not an easy deity to follow at times. However…
She’s worth it. There is value, there is joy, there is worth in working with her (she may use the term working for her, but y’know, whatever term suits you!) And while your idea or appreciation of deity may be very different to mine, that’s ok. We all need to do our own work, our own understanding, our own energy to develop our own ideas.
So, what’s your idea of deity? What does deity mean to you?
