The Goddess and the God

  Paganism as a religion, spiritual path, or lifestyle is not heavily structured.  We have no hierarchy or all-knowing executive officer to consult for answers to life.  There are no authoritative agents to mediate between us and Deity.  We have no singular holy book with all the answers spelled out for us.  It is up to us, as individuals, to open our minds, our eyes, our hearts, all our physical senses, including our intuition, and try to find the answers and the truths for ourselves.
   There are many different Traditions (denominations) within Paganism.  In other words, there are many paths leading through the forest on the way home.  Because of this unstructured framework, most Pagans will agree on the basics, but a few will differ on the finer points.  This is no great burden for us.  The open-minded will simply find this an opportunity for learning from each other and expanding our horizons.

Ancient civilizations worshipped a Mother Goddess, for the fertile, gestating, reproducing Mother figure gave life to everything.  Pregnant bellies kept the tribal family strong in numbers, so the Goddess was seen as manifesting life and creation.  The cycle of seasons among hunter-gatherer tribes became associated with the cycle of menstruation, the cycling of the waxing and waning moon, the cycles of animals in their feeding, rutting, traveling, and breeding.  A female reaching puberty received the gift of menstrual blood, visible proof of her entering womanhood, just as the spring rains brought grasses and grains up from the earth.  When birth came, it could have been easily compared to the ripening of berries and other fruits, the seeds splitting out of hulls, the giving up of the secret gift within.  As the female recovered from the birthing, her natural cycles went into a period of rest, just as the Earth rested during the cold months when nothing would grow; the fields and forests laid fallow and the males of the tribe would have to go out and hunt for meat.  When the time of cold and withdrawal broke free in spring, the cycle started over again.  The nourishing, producing, creative aspect of all life became the Mother Goddess.

Hunters prayed to the spirits, to the animals, to the winds, and to the Goddess for successful and safe hunting.  But they began to associate virile, physical prowess and sexual activity with the reproductive process, and the formerly vague male energies coalesced into the Horned God.  Animals with horns, animals that were wily and challenging to hunt, extremely physical and energetic in mating habits, all became associated with a God who was half-human and half-animal, combining the best of both.  The Horned God (so commonly and mistakenly asssociated with the Christian devil or satan) is actually far, far older than Christianity.  The Horned God, Lord of the Hunt, became the equal and opposite of the Mother Goddess.  As humans became more rational, more enlightened, the Two were seen as the source of all life, the Power behind the magic and glory of life.

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