Midsummer and the Horned God

The Horned God is one of the primary Gods in Paganism, and is considered to be the God of Wicca. While many believe Wicca began with Gardner (he started Gardnerian Wicca, and he stated over and over that he was just continuing a Witchcraft tradition), this ancient God predates Gardner by centuries. He is the consort to the Mother Goddess, as well as her protector and protector of her children. He is associated with nature, hunting, fertility, sexuality, and the wilderness; he is the union of the divine and the human. He is known by many names; Cernunnos, Pan, Herne, Dionysus to name a few. The hunter and the hunted, light and dark, he is the Lord of Death and Resurrection. 

The first known representation of the Horned God was found in Caverne de Trois Freres in Ariege that was created during the Paleolithic period. It shows a man wearing animal skin, with antlers on his head, performing a magical sacred dance to increase animals for the tribe to hunt. 

Today, as much as we have been separated from nature, it’s hard to understand how our ancient ancestors regarded the deities as they were all connected to nature. To say that our ancestors were animists is only covering the surface of how they truly lived. We see him in many forms all associating him with the element earth. He is pictured as half man and half beast, the beast part being that of a bull, deer, or goat. 

He is called the Keeper of the Animals and Forrest, and Keeper of the Gateways. His half human and half animal shows us the harmony between the unconsciousness and the consciousness; the lower frequency and the higher frequency, walking in the in-between. The Bull represents the fertile land, the Goat represents virility, and the stag represents nimbleness and the raw, natural desire of procreation - life. 

He is the hunter and the keeper, he represents the raw, unhinged energy of the wild. 

He is the raw, primal energy of nature that strives to live; energy that is crucial for survival. It is from this important deity that Christianity concocted its devil, deo falsus, or shaitan, Hebrew for adversary. I guess he would be the adversary to a war god that pulls one way from the natural world. The Guardian of Animals and the energy of the fertile earth was dismissed to childish imagery and poisoned by the Church and used as a psychological weapon to defeat the old, and to convert and rule the masses. 

Many would like to revert this into romanticism, creating illusions which further pervert who this strong, important figure is. 

Nature works very differently than the civilized world. Just observing nature teaches one many things about our earth. In nature there is no good or bad; the first law of nature is self preservation. I’m not sure if you have ever seen a deer in rut, it is the most primal thing you will see. The stag protects the does with their life because he knows with them he can spread his lineage. This of course is a human explanation to try and simplify things, but it is that primal instinct that is unexplainable until you experience it. We hear the myths of the Wild Hunt yet with our domesticated ways we can not fully comprehend the depth of that mystery. 

I guess I can see how this deity can be misunderstood especially from all of the program conditioning that was set forth by the Church, but the times are different now and the veil is cracked. I am not implying that meanness and evil does not exist in our world because I have seen it and experienced it, but it’s not this ancient Horned God. 

The twisting and turning of information has us not only psychologically harmed the masses, but have spiritually severed the masses from their roots…their culture. 

I am seeing a resurgence of Paganism in the last decade or so, and now many are having to work through all of the psychological mind games and downright lies that have been played out within our society. Some say that the Christian “hell” is a childish deception, only hiding the true nature of the Underworld and the great mysteries it holds; I for one agree. I was raised in the church and I know the deception that is there. Even today as we look at our world we can see how the terms that are most polluted are the very ones that lead us to the truth. 

Accepting the Old God was a challenge to me as I still had those distorted thoughts of what God, father, was a challenge for me. All I understood was a jealous god, one that would kill their children by placing them in an ever burning furnace of fire…hell. While studying true, and accurate knowledge of who God is, I began to understand him in a different way. 

The Old God is very different because he doesn't have human emotions, he is a part of our world. In Nature, there is no good or bad, it is what it is what it is. The first rule of life is preservation of life. What does that mean? Well it is about doing what is needed in order for you to survive the next day. So hunting, fishing, the act of going after what is needed showed me a different side of God. There is also the protection side. As the Goddess is giving life, he is the barrier that protects her and the life she is producing. Unfortunately you can not see these concepts being practiced within the Pagan community either. The God has a role, as well as the Goddess. These roles are as old as time, and it is a remembrance of who we are. This human experience is a true gift and if the teachings of the true essence of masculinity are lost, as well as the true essence of femininity, then we will continue to separate ourselves from our reality, falling further from who we truly are. 

We have to think with a higher mind. We will never understand nature the same way that our ancestors did because we are in a different time, and we have, and still going through, separation from our roots. They saw things a lot deeper than we do, but of course that is our programming to always look at the surface of things. So on this Midsummer/Litha/Summer Solstice Day I honor the Great Horned God. The Great Sun King God stands at his zenith, his height of rule shining his wisdom on us all. Reminding us the necessity to take the dark into the light and learn to grow and evolve, transcending the illusions to find the light once more. 

Shine on,

Sirona Rose