The God as Superhero

Back in the 70’s, when I was a baby witch and just figuring out the difference between a pentagram and a pentacle, pagans generally ignored the God. After all, we had become pagans to get out from under the stern, patriarchal thumb of the Judeo-Christian God and weren’t about to make the same mistake again. We were drunk on the amazing “new” concept that, as Merlin Stone* assured us, God was a woman. The God, when we deigned to mention him, was described as Her consort.
Even as late as 2000, when I was going over my Wicca 101 syllabus with my students, one very young woman commented, “I see we have a class on The Goddess; why don’t we have one on The God?”
I was speechless.
This was a glaring omission. I was ignoring half the pagan pantheon and hadn’t even realized it.
Bad Witch.
Needless to say, from that time on, my course included a class on The God.

The God and The Goddess energies and concepts are quite different. The Goddess is associated with the Moon, which, in modern western paganism is regarded as the archetypal feminine. She waxes and wanes from maiden to mother to crone archetypes every 29 days. She forms the undulating backdrop to our lives, always there in the appropriate form, offering comfort, solace, inspiration, or a swift kick on the backside. She is constantly changing, but she never dies.**

But there are some Gods who actually die:
• Osiris, the Egyptian lord of the underworld, was killed by his brother Set and cut into pieces, and scattered up and down the Nile. Isis found them all (except for his penis), reassembled them, and brought him back to life.
• Dionysus was torn apart and eaten by the Titans. Only the heart remained, which Zeus, his father, inserted into his thigh and rebirthed him.
• Adonis, beloved of Aphrodite, was killed by a wild boar sent by either Artemis or Ares, depending on who you talk to. He died in Aphrodite’s arms and she sprinkled his blood with nectar, rebirthing him as the short-lived anemone flower.
• Quetzalcoatl, Aztec god of death and resurrection, was tricked by Tezcatlipoca into becoming drunk and sleeping with a celibate priestess (in some accounts, his sister Quetzalpetlatl) and then burned himself to death out of remorse. His heart became the morning star.
• Jesus died on the cross to save his believers from their sins and was resurrected three days later. He has heavy solar connections , so The Catholic Church scheduled his birthday on December 25, just a few days after Winter Solstice.
• Ra, the Egyptian sun god, travels each day in two boats. At sunset he dies and travels in his night boat through Duat, the underworld. At dawn, he is rebirthed by Nut, the sky goddess, and continues on in his day boat to sunset.
• Attis, the son and lover of the goddess Cybele, went mad and castrated himself. He was reborn as the pine tree.

The God, the archetypal masculine principle in modern paganism, is associated with the Sun; and it comes as no surprise that several of the above Gods are solar deities. The Sun is born at Winter Solstice, reaches his peak of power at Summer Solstice, dies at Samhain, and is reborn at Winter Solstice. And so the God archetypes feel the vigor of childhood at Spring Equinox, the power of maturity at Summer Solstice, The wisdom and weakness of age at Fall Equinox, the fear and ecstasy of Death at Samhain, and the traumatic victory of rebirth at Winter Solstice.

Because the God archetypes suffer and rejoice right along with humanity, I would like to think that this links them to us heart to heart. And they’re guys, right? And if they’re like the guys I know, when they see trouble they are quick to leap in and fix it.

And in my experience I find that this is indeed so. Over the years, when the shit has hit the fan, various Gods, have stepped in and literally saved my life. They are my superheroes, and I am eternally grateful to them. Those stories will follow in my next few posts.

I firmly believe that the God has saved all of us at one time or another. Anytime someone “sees the light” and changes her life, the God in one or another of his archetypes may have been responsible. And many of us have had times when we nearly died. Perhaps we can’t say exactly which God saved us, but we know, deep in our hearts, that it was a divine intervention. The ancient Greeks believed that it was not at all unusual for a god/dess to temporarily possess a human and cause him to act as their agent. I would suggest that the person who inspired us to change our lives or saved our butts in those times of near death may have been The God in human disguise.

Think about it.

I’m sure everyone can remember at least one instance in their lives when this may have happened. And if you can think of one, I would suggest that there are other not-so-obvious instances.

I believe that these miracles are constantly happening to us and all around us. Unfortunately, we are too distracted by our mundane lives to even notice.

Every Winter Solstice The God, Our Superhero, is reborn. Take this time to offer him your heartfelt praise and gratitude.

For unto us a Sun is born…***

A Warm and Blessed Winter Solstice to All

To be continued…
*Merlin Stone wrote When God Was a Woman in 1976. It had been published earlier in the UK under the title of The Paradise Papers: The Suppression of Women’s Rites, and was one of the books that inspired the resurgence of paganism in the Western World.

**Yes, I know there are solar goddesses and lunar gods. The one who comes most readily to mind is Isis. But she is such an ancient and venerable Goddess that she’s the goddess of everything, so of course she’s a sun goddess and is the exception that proves the rule. But she is also seen as a lunar goddess. And yes, I know that the Sumerian goddess, Inanna, died and was reborn. But again, she is another ancient, venerable goddess of everything.

***Misquote of Isaiah 9:6