The Pagan Experience - March Deity and the Divine

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Wk 3 - Mar. 16 - Deity and the Divine - "This will be the third week’s topic every month and an opportunity for you to share with everyone those who guide, inspire and inform you."

Muse, tell me about Pan, the dear son of Hermes, 

with his goat's feet and two horns -- a lover of merry noise.

I was a bit stumped for this topic.  I’ve written about Gods and Goddesses before, but for some reason when I sat down for this post I had a bad case of writer’s block.  I went over to twitter and a friend happily chimed in with her suggestion.  “Pan!”

“Really?” I thought, “him?”  But the more the day went on, the more confident I got.  Yes, him.  I realized this was a good opportunity for me to do a little research, and to think outside of my box, too.  So, even though in many ways he's foreign to me, I decided to write about Pan.

Through wooded glades he wanders with dancing nymphs who foot it on some sheer cliff's edge, calling upon Pan, the shepherd-god, long-haired, unkempt.

I have never worked directly with Pan, though I know many who do.  My good friend and Sister-Witch has written about him extensively over the years, so you should go over and check her stuff out.  He is one of her patrons, and the joy in her eyes when she speaks of him is infectious.  She loves him so much, and from the joy she has in her life because of Pan, one can easily understand his appeal.

He has every snowy crest and the mountain peaks and rocky crests for his domain; hither and thither he goes through the close thickets, now lured by soft streams, and now he presses on amongst towering crags and climbs up to the highest peak that overlooks the flocks.

Pan is the son of Hermes.  He was abandoned by his nursemaid who was so frightened by his appearance.  Have you ever felt so ugly that even your nurse didn’t want you?  Pan may be conventionally ugly, but he gets enough attention from the lads and ladies that it’s almost like his horns and hair don’t matter.  (Or maybe it’s because of his horns and hair... tee hee!)

Often he courses through the glistening high mountains, 

and often on the shouldered hills he speeds along slaying wild beasts, this keen-eyed god.

http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/S22.2.html

Hermes found his baby boy, though, and was such a proud Papa that he brought him up to Olympus for the other gods to admire.  They all loved him so much, especially Dionysus.  Dionysus and Pan seem to be extra special friends, and I like to imagine that they are drinking and party buddies.  Like Dionysus, Pan delights in wild, sexy, musical, scary things (though their realms are a bit different.) 

Then all the immortals were glad in heart and Bacchic Dionysus in especial; 

and they called the boy Pan because he delighted all their hearts.

My friend was talking about Pan the last time we had rune study group, and she talked about him as a luminal god.  I’d never thought of Pan in this way before, and her words really stuck with me. 

Only at evening, as he returns from the chase, he sounds his note, playing sweet and low on his pipes of reed: not even she could excel him in melody -- that bird who in flower-laden spring pouring forth her lament utters honey-voiced song amid the leaves.

Pan is a poet, a philosopher, and a musician.  All of these things require extra skills and higher brain functioning.  They entail a certain sense of civilization.  But Pan is also a god of wild spaces, of the untamed, of the hidden nooks and crannies of nature.  He is half man and half animal, half civilized and half wild.  He can’t fit in either place completely, so he completely fits in neither. 

 

At that hour the clear-voiced nymphs are with him and move with nimble feet, singing by some spring of dark water, while Echo wails about the mountain-top, and the god on this side or on that of the choirs, or at times sidling into the midst, plies it nimbly with his feet.

My friend explained that sometimes Pan gets sad and lonely.  It’s hard to not fit in, to be abandoned, to be the butt of jokes, to be ugly and hairy (things none of us can relate to, right?).  So sometimes it gets him down.  He writes a sad tune, pens a melancholy poem… but then perks right back up again when a lovely nymph happens to wander by.  He is able to distract himself a bit, but the blues always returns… (nothing any of us can relate to… right?)

Villa of the Papyri, Herculaneum.

On his back he wears a spotted lynx-pelt, and he delights in high-pitched songs in a soft meadow where crocuses and sweet-smelling hyacinths bloom at random in the grass.

The Victorian romantics were obsessed with Pan.  Being post-transcendentalists, they had rejected the age of reason and enlightenment, returned to nature, and idealized a classical, more civilized age.  They had been separate from the natural world for so long, that Pan, a figure who can walk both worlds (with varying success) became an ideal.  He represented nature in all of its wild, lusty, (intellectual?) perfection.  They composed poems and love songs to Pan, as if composing love songs to a forgotten age of their ancestors.

Ronald Hutton talks about Pan and the romantics to a great extent in his book The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft.  In his chapter “finding a God” he quotes a 1910 poem:

The odour of thy hair

They feet, thy hands shall bring

Again the Pagan spring,

And from our bodies’ union men shall know

To cast the veil from the sad face of woe…

But Pan!  Pan!  Pan!  And all the world shall be

Mingled in one wild burning ecstasy.

 

So while Pan may not be my primary deity (I’m pretty comfortable in my life as an urban Pagan and while tromping around the mountains sounds like fun it’s not the life for me), I have a deep appreciation for him.  I enjoy his stories and his imagery, and I especially love the Victorian poetry written about him.  Most of all, I love what Pan has done for so many, what he does for so many, throughout the ages.  He’s a sad, happy, lusty, hideously beautiful god, and I love him for that.

And so hail to you, lord! I seek your favour with a song. 

And now I will remember you and another song also.

Here are some previous articles I've written about Deity and the Divine:

Athena

Crom Dubh

Cybele

Hestia

Ishtar

Lilith

Lugh

Rhiannon

Zagreus

Pagan Blog Project – week 35 – R#1 – Rhiannon

Pagan Blog Project – week 35 – R#1 – Rhiannon

 Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night and wouldn't you love to love her?
Takes to the sky like a bird in flight and who will be her lover?

  

Out of the many names my Mom had for me before I was born, Rhiannon is one I’ll always love.  I don’t know why she didn’t chose to name me Rhiannon, and sometimes I wonder who I’d be today if that had been the name she had finally decided on.  

All your life you've never seen woman, taken by the wind
Would you stay if she promised you heaven? Will you ever win?

Of course, my Mom hadn’t been thinking about the Welsh goddess Rhiannon, she had been thinking about the Stevie Nicks song.  Stevie Nicks has often said that she wasn’t thinking of the Goddess when writing her timeless and beloved song.  It seems that despite the circumstances, the Goddess shines through whenever her name is invoked. 

She is like a cat in the dark and then she is the darkness.
She rules her life like a fine skylark and when the sky is starless.

According to the Wikipedia entry, Stevie was inspired to write her song after reading a novel called Triad: A Novel of the Supernatural by Mary Leader.  The novel is about “an old Welsh witch”, but Stevie and others have been amazed over the years over how accurately the song can be described to the Goddess, too.

Taken by the sky

Dreams unwind

Rhiannon is one of the Goddesses featured in the The Goddess Tarot Deck by Kris Waldherr.  In her deck, Rhiannon is VII: Movement.  This corresponds to the Chariot and to the astrological sign of Cancer.  The booklet describes Rhiannon as a British horse goddess who appears to her follows while riding “an unearthly white horse.”  White horses and other creatures appear often in the mythology of the British Isles, usually connected to a Goddess, Fairy, Queen, or mythical hero.  White animals definitely have an otherworldly association, and in this deck, Rhiannon symbolizes the endless and magical motion of the Cosmos.  Time turns without ceasing, turns and turns again. 

Dreams unwind

 Love's a state of mind 

Whether Queen, witch or Goddess, Rhiannon features heavily in the Mabinogi, a collection of works collected from medieval Welsh manuscripts that tell pre-Christian stories of the British Isles.  Among other stories in the collection the Mabinogi tells the story of a woman who flirts with a handsome hero, despite the fact that she is already betrothed to another.  Her story takes a tragic turn when her child goes missing and she is framed for his murder.  Her love stands by her side, but she must undergo a harsh penance for the crime of her missing child.  After many heroic adventures and quests, the family is happily reunited.

Dreams unwind

 Love's a state of mind

I have never actively worked with Rhiannon, but over the years I’ve come to appreciate her and her story.  It demonstrates to us the steadfastness of love, of hope and trust, and the power of family.  Rhiannon is a beautiful woman who is in authority of her own sexuality and her own destiny, and even when her life falls apart all around her, she does what she needs to do to defend herself and to honor truth. 

All your life you've never seen woman taken by the wind. 

Would you stay if she promised you heaven?  Will you ever win?

Do you work with Rhiannon?  Have your read the Mabinogi or Triad: A Novel of the Supernatural?  What is your favorite Stevie Nicks song?  What do you think… is she really a witch?  Please feel free to leave your comments below!