terrasunshine:

something i wish that was asserted more in general pagan spaces: it’s okay to choose your gods.

what i mean by this is, a lot of people will boast about how ~their gods came knocking, not the other way around~ and how finding The Sign that a god is expecting your worship is tantamount to proper pagan religious practice. and while these things can absolutely be a part of any practice, the flip side is rarely, if ever, discussed at all.

it’s okay to look at a religion and decide you want to be that religion (barring closed religions, of course). it’s okay to say, “these are the gods i want to worship” and then just go about your business worshiping them. while many of us will sort of backtrack and look at things that happened in our lives and say, “yep, i was oblivious, but that was ____”, the decision to worship is ultimately ours.

the Theoi didn’t grab me by the hair and demand my worship. Apollo didn’t kick me in a dream and tell me to worship him. being a hellenic polytheist, and everything that entails, was and IS a conscious choice. it is my choice to abide by hellenic ethics, to indulge in hellenic traditions, and to worship the Theoi.

it’s okay to choose your gods. just because you’re not getting some Ultimate All-Encompassing Sign from the gods you want to worship, it doesn’t mean your worship is in vain or means nothing. it’s okay to choose to be religious. it’s not shameful to choose to be religious.