Breaking Waves
For years, my practice with regards to the spirits has focused almost exclusively on spirits of place (genius loci). I called myself a bioregional animist or a city animist — or just an animist, honestly — because I chiefly seemed to surround myself with non-anthropomorphized spirits.
Genius literally means “spirit” and is a Roman name for a type of spirit being, particularly a type of guardian spirit. Genius loci guard specific locations and places. If the spirits had names, they were kept secret, as inscriptions were simply made to the genius loci.
There are also some other personal reasons I felt like I did not want to dive too deeply into creating relationships with the gods. I will touch upon them briefly here:
When I was younger, I was told a story about a fellow hedge-witch’s oathing to Carnonos (Cernunnos) that went terribly, terribly, terribly wrong. I already had a general fear of making promises because the idea of breaking a promise filled me with so much anxiety. None of this helped with my more general apprehension towards adopting any kind of overtly gods-based religious structure due to my upbringing, mostly out of a fear of failure and stagnation.
There is, however, another aspect that bears mentioning, which relates back to my own experiences with the numinous. I seem to have an affinity for feeling genius loci or anything spiritual having to do with place — the mountain I was born on, the great river I live by, the criss-crossing network of alleyways, building, and roads in my part of the city. For a long time, every time I would attend (chiefly Wiccan) rituals run by friends for their gods, I couldn’t feel anything. It was especially tepid compared to the feelings I’d felt as a child lighting candles in Cathedrals for loved ones at the statues for saints. Something wasn’t quite right there.
In retrospect, there was a LARPy quality to those early Wiccan rituals that I was having a difficult time reconciling, especially considering how real my experiences with the numinous in the alleyways could be. I figured worshipping what people called the divine was not for me. I would just stick to what was working.
For two months now, this has changed.
A goddess has joined my household.
Here is how it happened.
Hearth
As I wrote in late August/early September, after a roughly two year fallow period, I pulled out my spiritual objects and rebuilt my hearth shrine in my kitchen.
I made the decision in late August that I would finally explore the divine aspects of old polytheistic religions that I’ve long felt affinities for but never seemed to have time, energy, or motivation to properly research. I started by taking out ten books from the library (and downloading several dozens more from the internet), and dove into reading about the Ancient Celts and Gauls in the era of the Roman conquests.
Quite a few things started clicking, and one of the first things that did was the way gods and goddesses frequently moved across cultural, tribal, and ethnic lines. As a person whose grandparents were all born on different continents, I’ve never felt harmony or even comfortable within a single national or ethnic identity. Confirming for myself that two thousand years ago, the mythological/divine pantheons as well as the ethnic and national identities as they are taught to us as children did not exist was very liberating.
And the first goddess who really resonated with me, exemplifying this fact the most, was Epona.
I think what I love about most about the Gaulish Horse Goddess is how widespread and polyvalent her cult was: from her possibly Celtic roots to her Gaulish cult that was thereafter integrated into Gallo-Roman society and was afterwards even brought to Rome and given their own feast-day (possibly December 18 by our calendar), Epona was absolutely beloved[1], as Deo Mercurio writes:
In other regions, however, there is plentiful evidence that people continued to hold this goddess of the Celtic nobility in high esteem. Several inscriptions, notably those from the Balkans and the Danube, hail her as Epona Regina (‘Queen Epona’) or, more frequently still, as Epona Augusta. Often in Gaul an evocation of Epona or dea Epona is preceded by a formula referring to the imperial cult, either In·H·D·D ‘in honour of the divine house’ or Aug·Sac ‘sacred to the Augustus’ depending on the region and era. The consecration of an altar to Epona and the genius of the Leuci at Nasium (Naix-au-Forge in modern Lorraine) might also emphasize the link between Epona and the local nation. Thus, the association between the sovereignty of the land and the sacred horse does not seem to have been forgotten in these provinces of the Empire—nor among the Emperor’s Own Horse-Guard, who were among the chief worshippers of Epona in Rome.
Deo Mercurio, on Epona
I asked Epona if she would accept to become the protector of my household, to be included in all my daily morning offerings at my household shrine. Her answer through divination was positive. It’s been about a month since then, and everything seems to be going well during my brief daily offerings. I often get a gently wry but warm feeling from Epona, and cannot wait to create a ritual for her Feast-Day. I’m feeling very optimistic, and very grateful, about this change in my life.
My morning hearth shrine offering ritual, which I keep very short and sweet so that I’ll actually do it:
- Wash my hands and face;
- Remove and thank any previous offerings that are still on the shrine, dust the niche (since my shrine is a niche sunken into the wall);
- Add a fresh, clean cup of water, saying aloud that this offering is for the spirits of my household, my ancestors, and the goddess Epona, followed by my heartfelt thanks for their presence.
Why a daily ritual? It’s easier for me to integrate a tiny little hearth shrine ritual into my morning habits (usually while I wait for my tea water to boil, which I do every morning) than risk forgetting to do a slightly more involved weekly or biweekly ritual because life gets in the way. I think especially for disabled or neurodivergent people, creating consistent habits can be challenging. Sincerity and consistency, even with something so brief, goes a long way for me.
I do have plans for designing a more involved hearth cult ritual, based on this example ritual I found on the Longship as well as a handful of others which I really like, which I would perform on a monthly (or almost) basis.
Further Reading
On Epona:
- Epona.net, a scholarly resource for all things Epona
- Patrice Lajoye, Epona, dans Histoire Antique 9, 2003 (français)
On hearth rituals:
- Details about hearth cult practices as described on Lāhrūs Fyrnsida
- A Practical Solution for Gaulish Devotional Practice
- On the Roman Lalarium (Goldentrail Blog)
- Dedmâton Certon (Rite/Ceremony of the Hearth)
Though, in a fascinating way, there are definitely traces of Roman scorn for the “Celtic stable goddess,” such as in the writings of satirist Juvenal. With the benefit of two thousands years of removal from these religious conflicts, they are fascinating to examine from afar, as in my opinion they betray cultural and possibly ethnic tensions that transcended religion in the Roman Empire long after Gaul became a province of Rome. ↩︎