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Deity Questionnaire

This is something that was posted on Beliefnet a while back, and I thought I'd share it to give a better understandingof how I see the Divine.

**Note: These are MY beliefs and I DO NOT claim to represent any other Wiccans or Pagans. That said, enjoy!

1. Does your god, goddess, or deity have a gender?

I worship both God and Goddess, but also believe they are part of a greater all-encompassing *DIVINE* that has no gender.

2. Does it have a consciousness? A personality?

Yes and no. The Divine is both physical and energy. The Gods are both anthropomorphic and just the pure essence of Nature. They take on the forms of human, animal, plant, wind, rock, water, fire, energy, whatever form is suitable to the situation at hand.

3. Does it communicate to humans? Or just you? If so, is it a voice you can physically hear? Or does it come to you some other way?

The Divine communicates with me in guided meditations in rituals, and through me in the Drawing Down the Moon ritual (channeling/invoking). The only time I get close to actually hearing a voice is in the meditations, but at the same time those take place in my mind, so is that physically hearing? Also, when the wind blows or the rain falls, or any other event of Nature occurs, it is the Voice of the Lord and Lady. They come to me in dreams, in my imagination, and express themselves and speak to all through inspiration, art, poetry, prose, Tarot, and countless other creative mediums.

4. Is your god, goddess, or deity the creator of the universe?

This is a difficult question. While I believe in the theories of the Big Bang and Evolution, I know not what caused these processes to begin. I believe the beginning of life and existence anywhere is a mystery that both religion/spirituality and science are continually trying to solve.

5. Is your deity omni-present? All-good? Or is your deity evil as well? Other related thoughts?

The Divine represents all possible paradoxes and oxy-morons. It is made up of duality, and at the same time IS duality. Good/evil, wrong/right, light/dark, everything, is encompassed in the Divine.

6. Does your god, goddess, or deity interact in the affairs of humans? Or is it distant and unreachable, simply watching?

The Divine intervenes when it is appropriate and necessary, and sometimes that means refusing requests of help if it is not needed or inappropriate. Since it is within all things, it is reachable and attainable for anyone, anywhere.

7. What is the evidence for you that your deity exists? Is this evidence baldly apparent to all other humans? If other humans cannot see this evidence, why not? Why can you see this evidence? Other related thoughts?

Did you ever have the problem that things make sense in your mind, but when you try to let it out in coherent thought it just doesn't work? The best I can do in spite of this dilemma is give an anecdote. Once on the night of a Full Moon ritual, there had been thunder rumbling in the distance all night, but never close enough for rain to fall in our area. Even as we began the ritual, the storm stayed distant. The ritual progressed with no problems, and we came to the Drawing Down the Moon ritual. As the Goddess left the Priestess, a bolt of lightening hit the road intersection not more than 30-50 feet from our ritual site. The crash of thunder was almost deafening. After that, the sound returned to the simple low rumbling we had heard all night, and if memory serves, the storm never came to our area. As to whether others can observe this evidence, there were five people total participating in the ritual, plus three or four more in the house not participating.

8. Is your god, goddess, or deity visible or invisible? What form do you imagine (or know) your deity has? Or do you imagine (or know) your deity has no form? Other related thoughts?

I recently had a conversation online with a friend in which we shared our image of Divine, and here are my responses, with some editing for clarity:

I have four images of the male aspect of Divine, or God if you wish. One God form is a man entirely in black, even with a black mask, and stag horns growing from His head. He has the same physical build as my father; average height, semi-slender build. He's very secretive and mysterious, and often talks in riddles. Another is a Sun-Child/King/God that comes running to me, with golden sunlight following Him everywhere. He looks like my Priest back home (fairly short, longish dark hair, goatee, and looks a bit like Val Kilmer) and is very playful and festive. The third is Aslan. Sometimes He's a huge golden lion, and sometimes He's a man with an ornate lion mask wearing a colorful African-looking cloth around his waist that goes to just above His knees. He's very affectionate and sexual. The last God form looks like my Beloved (tall, broad shoulders, long dark curly hair, green eyes, goatee), and is a green knight. His armor is made of leaves from a sacred forest, and He is very wise and loving. I guess you could say He is sexual in a different way, much more emotion in it. Not that Aslan is unemotional but well, the knight is less... active I guess is the word, very gentle. My Goddess is less involved. I guess She's a silvery-bluish-white, with green ivy wrapped around Her. I can't really expand on my Goddess. Her form is human, but at the same time very fluid, so it's hard to pin it down.

9. Does your god, goddess, or deity want others to believe in it? Or maybe it doesn't care if others believe in it or not...

I have never gotten the impression that the Divine demands believers or anything like that. I do believe however that any form of the Divine needs believers to exist; if no one believes in it, it fades away and ceases to be.

10. Do you believe there are genuine differences between people's notions of deities, or do you believe all are "one"? (Different perspectives, one entity...)

I believe we all worship the same thing, we just attribute different faces, bodies, features, personalities, forms, etc. to it.

To elaborate, here's a graham cracker analogy I came up with (stay with me on this one folks). I believe in an all-encompassing Divine, from which all life and deities come. That is the whole, unbroken cracker. Many cultures and people (myself included) worship both male and female aspects of deity. That is like breaking the graham cracker in half; yes, it is now two separate pieces, but those pieces come from the same whole. After that, one can break down the cracker as many times as is necessary to express one's beliefs and to reflect the other deities of other people and cultures. Even though this graham cracker is now in many different pieces and in many different forms, all those parts still came from the whole. Any crumbs that fall away while the graham cracker is being broken, are people, animals, rocks, plants, elementals, faeries, energy, natural forces, everything else that exists. Another good way I have heardthis explained is like cells in a body. Each cell has its own unique and individual characteristics, but still is part of one thing, the whole body.

If any of you would like to fill this out and send it to me, that would be great! I'd love to heart how other people view the Divine, whether its similar to my view or completely different.

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