He has passed and I'm changing

I'm not entirely sure where to begin this, I haven't updated for a little while and my last entry spoke of my great grandpa being in the hospital. As you may have suspected by now, he has passed away. He passed away a few days before Memorial day, ironically enough. Ironic in the sense that he was a World War II soldier and Memorial day was to remember those we've lost.
I haven't been in contact with too many people since his death and I have somewhat been avoiding the internet. I haven't been on livejournal for some time and I feel awful for shutting everything away, however, it's what kind of feels right to me. I've been paying more attention to family rather than friends at the moment.

I will  expand on this later, however, I want to talk about my current Pagan path. It has changed, not drastically as I was heading in that direction all along but I've finally stepped onto it. As you might jokingly say "I've joined the dark side."
My path has lead me to the darker side of Paganism. I don't mean this in an evil malicious way of course. Part of this occured when Morrigan came into my life and part of it was already there with Cernunnos. Both of those particular deities are darker deities, they are both connected with death and the underworld, etc. Some may not be aware of this, Morrigan is the more obvious of the two (in my opinion.)
So, anyway, my path is becoming darker but it's very comfortable to me and I'm enjoying it fully.

Signs pointing towards Morrigan

Before I went to bed the other night I asked if there could be a sign that Morrigan is in my life. I woke up the next morning at my usual time, 5am. I woke up, not to my alarm that failed to go off for some strange reason, but to the sound of crows. They were hanging out in one of the many trees outside of my house.
After getting ready to leave the house for the day, I stood at the door and asked for Morrigan to send me yet one more sign. I started walking to the bus stop and once I got there, I faced the yard opposite the stop and realized I was staring right into the eyes of two crows who were staring back at me.
Yes, crows are common in my area but I did take these as signs from Morrigan as they appeared on cue and it seemed directed towards me. Sure, some people may think me silly for taking these as signs but I'm going off of the feelings and thoughts I had surrounding the crows. Plus ravens and crows go hand in hand with Morrigan, it was just too perfect.

I fully believe that Morrigan is here and I fully intend on worshiping her. I have received no negative signs or omens regarding this and from the reading I did yesterday, Cernunnos doesn't even have an issue with this. That was my main concern surrounding a goddess coming into my life. However, I figured if it was meant to be then Cernunnos would have no issue with this.

I have been interested in many things linked with various Gods/Goddesses and pantheons, one thing I've come to learn is that somehow Cernunnos lets me know if I'm not on the right path or if I shouldn't attempt to make a connection with a deity.
I once began to look into Asatru. I even got as far as reading the Poetic Edda, a copy which I still have and won't be getting rid of, and I began wearing a Mjolnir. Every time I put that small Mjolnir pendant on I would have horrendous things happen to me. At first I thought, perhaps, Loki was messing around with me. Depending on what exactly you believe of Asatru, there are a few out there who worship Loki as a God. It's not unheard of at all but it involves a lot of chaos. As time went on I began to figure out that just maybe, Cernunnos was not happy with me. I was by no means ignoring him or pushing him away, but I don't think he was happy that I was trying to get into something else. He let me know it right away.
Once I stopped wearing the Mjolnir (which yes, I had cleanse in case anyone is wondering about negative energy attached to it) things returned to normal and even relationships that had been really messed up, were brought back to harmony.
I remember having a dream after I fully realized what was going on. It involved Cernunnos coming to me and just showing himself to me. He didn't talk, but I could feel as though things were at ease again. I haven't told anyone this story, not fully anyway. I usually stop at "I had bad things happen to me when I wore the Mjolnir." Why? I think it's because I find it embarrassing that I did something that went against my patron deity. Either way, Cernunnos isn't all light and love. He never was. He is just as dark and he will teach you a lesson in harsh ways when you really need to learn it.

At one point I thought, just maybe, Spider Woman (goddess) was trying to speak to me. I was having reoccurring dreams of a large spider who was a female, she would speak to me. I looked and searched for female deities that were related to spiders. Someone finally pointed me towards Spider Woman. I can't exactly explain what happened here but it really didn't feel right. Whenever I did research it just didn't do anything for me. I would lose interest fast.
I think this was another way I was shown that this was not the goddess for me and that she wasn't calling to me to begin with. Whether this was just a personal realization or if Cernunnos had been behind it, I'm unsure. It was, however, very obvious. I think what these dreams were telling me is that I really need to get over my irrational intense fear of spiders. When I say intense, I mean I freeze up if I see a spider and the funny thing is...I'm absolutely not sure why! The only thing in the insect world, or in the entire animal kingdom for that matter, that bothers me are spiders.
Snakes? No problem, they're cute and sweet!
Rats? I owned eight males as pets when I was in high school/early college and loved them to death!
Creepy crawlies? Hey! Look how cool they are!
Spiders? *freezes* ...OMG I'M GOING TO DIE!
Please don't ask me why, I honestly don't know. I can't stand them in my house more than anything else. Even those little yellowish/clear spiders that probably couldn't hurt you if they wanted to.
Despite all of this craziness, I actually have a favorite spider. How does one have a favorite spider when they're terrified to death of spiders? Because they're just insane.
I love wolf spiders. Yes, you read right, one of the only spiders that's aggressive enough to chase after a person when provoked is my favorite spider.

Back to my original point, wow I really got off track here, Morrigan is supposed to be in my life and I'm sure of that now. I still want to do as much reading about her as I can. There are two books that I really absolutely must get my hands on. One has been out for some time, I believe, and the other comes out in October. I will list these at the bottom of this page so you can just see the covers and look for yourself.

Thanks, once again, for reading and I hoped you enjoyed my attempt at humor in this entry :) If nothing else this entry shows just how crazy I truly am.

A goddess perhaps?

Recently I have felt a huge pull towards the goddess Morrigan, as well as an odd interest in her. I've had various dreams off and on that include ravens. There are always two of them and they're sitting on bloody ground, they're talking but I can't hear what they're saying. When I wake up from these dreams, I think of Morrigan. I'm not sure why I would think of her immediately, even though I know she is associated with ravens she wouldn't normally be the first deity I would think of when ravens are concerned.
Finally feeling as though I should ask if she is indeed after me, I wanted to ask straight up. First I grabbed for my runes knowing that it's very easy to get "yes" or "no" answers from them. I don't have all the runes memorized so I went to grab for my book about runes and rune magic. It was no where to be found. I took this as I shouldn't use my runes for this or maybe even at all right now.
I turned to my Druidcraft Tarot deck. I knew I could use the same concept with a tarot deck as I was going to use with the runes. You pick three cards (or runes) after shuffling (face down obviously) and lay them out similar to a 3 card "past, present, and future" reading. I turned them over one at a time. Two positive cards and one negative card means yes but there may be underlying negatives. Two negatives and one positive means no but there may be something positive out of it. Obviously three positives mean yes and three negatives mean no.

The first reading gave me all positive cards. The question was "Is Morrigan calling to me?" The cards were: the Ten of Cups (positive), the King of Pentacles (positive), and the Moon (positive).

The fact that the moon came up in this reading really floored me. The moon is usually a goddess in most beliefs so I took this as a sign of a goddess in general and since I was asking about a goddess I took it as a very positive sign.

The second reading gave me all positive cards as well. The question was "Cernunnos, would you be ok with me worshiping Morrigan?" The cards were: The Sun (positive), Queen of Wands (positive), and The Lovers (positive).
The sun is usually a god usually and I took this as meaning Cernunnos, the fact that I had the moon and the sun is a really great sign, especially given the context of the reading. Then the Lovers card. I took this as being able to worship both without fear of upsetting one or the other, working together so to speak. Obviously they are not consorts at all but I think this card is representing peace in a sense with this reading.

So where do I go now? Research and trying to actually connect with Morrigan herself to see if this is truly what she wants. I'm not used to such a subtle sign that a deity should be in my life. If you've read my previous entries about Cernunnos, you'd understand why! I want to make sure she truly is calling to me and that I actually am supposed to worship her before I dive in. I would really rather not offend any gods or goddesses.

Tarot

First off, let me just state that I'm now officially a member of ADF and am extremely excited about this. I'm currently awaiting the "package" that they send out to new members so I can read up and get started with the Dedicant Path study program. I am very determined to eventually become ADF clergy after I go through all of the proper training. This is my ultimate goal, send some good luck energy my way!

Now on to what I wanted to talk to about today after some serious thought. I want to talk about Tarot.
I love tarot cards, I love doing readings, and I love receiving readings. I honestly believe that tarot cards work and can be accurate. I believe how accurate the cards are depends on the person they're attached to and the person receiving the reading. Not only does the person receiving the reading have to be very open minded, but, the person doing the reading has to fully believe in their ability to use the cards.
I fully believe myself to be extremely accurate at using tarot cards, whether for myself or my friends, anyone whom I've read for has claimed that I'm very accurate. Why is this? Because not only do I believe in my abilities with using my tarot cards but I fill my cards with my energy. While doing a reading I also pull in the energy from the person receiving the reading so the cards will be specifically for the person the reading is being done for. I'm not going to explain my technique any further because I believe everyone should have their own technique. I'm sure many tarot books would advise against or be completely opposite of the way I read cards but it feels right to me and it's what gives me the best results.
I will explain how I become so connected to my tarot cards though so maybe you, my readers, can become just as connected with your own cards.
When I get a new deck, the first thing I do is cleanse them in either sage smoke or incense smoke, the incense being what I normally leave as an offering for Cernunnos. I say something along the lines of "cleanse this deck of any previous energy" as I hold the deck in the smoke, I'll turn the deck over and make sure every part of the deck is touched by the smoke. I'll even fan out the deck and make sure every card is touched by the smoke.
After this I asked Cernunnos for help in making this deck purely my own. This is part is up to your own interpretation, if you feel comfortable asking your deity for help with this, then do so. Only do it if your deity won't become offended, etc. I knew Cernunnos wouldn't be offended by me asking him to do this for me so I asked for his help.
For reference, I did these steps with my newest deck the Druidcraft Tarot by Philip Carr-Gomm, I did similar steps with my other two tarot decks and my one oracle deck. However I feel this time, because I had added some new steps, the end result is much stronger and the cards are even more attuned to me than previous decks.
After asking for help from Cernunnos I could "hear" this male voice in my head giving me commands, so to speak, and telling me what to do. At one point it said "leave cards outside in the sun." Of course I did this and waited for another cue to take the cards back inside. Sure enough, after about an hour, I "heard" the same male voice tell me to take the cards inside now. I then had an image pop into my head that I should simply hold the deck for a while. After another extended period of time, I received an image of putting the cards under my pillow and leaving them there until I had slept on them for at least a full night.
After all of this, I finally did my first reading, for myself. I chose the Awen spread that's listed in the book and received incredible results. I wrote down the spread and the cards that were in each position so I plan on setting it back up and taking pictures of it, which I really should have done in the first place, so I can share with you via my blog.
This was the reading I spoke of in my previous entry, I asked for guidance about Druidry and found that it is the right path for me. I also found that Cernunnos is in my future, he will always be with me and having the "Cernunnos" card show up in one of my future spots made me incredibly happy. This is how I know I'm right in what I'm doing, it was a really beautiful sign from him.

As you can see, tarot cards can be a very beautiful thing and they can be incredibly accurate. There are many people out there who do great readings but do keep in mind that while they are and can be accurate, keep a sound mind with the results. As many tarot card readers state, they are not a substitution for a doctor, a lawyer, or any other legal or medical practitioner. Both parties need to be protected and I just want to make sure people realize this.

I want to take this moment to spotlight a friend of mine who does readings and has extremely reasonable rates. She's a great person and I fully believe in her skills and abilities as an intuitive reader. She has a great site set up (which I will of course link to) and it gives information on how she does readings, how you can receive the best reading, etc. Please heed her disclaimers of course, they're there so she is protected and so the person receiving the reading is protected.
Her name is Jessica and you can find her site here.

Druidry; ADF Dedicant Path

I have today off so I was going to try and at least do a short blog today but I can't seem to pick out any particular topic so I have a feeling this post will end up being a little random but we'll see where it goes.

First I wanted to talk about Druidry. I have been interested in Druidry for quite some time but was turned off by getting into after an encounter at work a few years back.
I was working the cash register at a grocery store, it was a pretty slow day at this point and I hadn't been able to talk to too many customers at this point. This guy came through my line, I'll skip the description of him, wearing a green shirt that had stonehenge on it and had some witty comment next to the picture. It basically implied that he was a Druid. So I said (in a nice way, promise) "Are you wearing that shirt because you like it or does it mean something to you?" and the guy, very snobby and stuck up expression, said "No! I'm wearing it because I'm a DRUID." This flipped my bitch switch on immediately and I responded with "Yeah? Well I'm a PAGAN so calm down! I was just asking." His facial expression changed instantly and he said "Oh! Well...blah blah blah." I honestly don't remember what he tried talking to me about at this point because I was irritated like you would not believe. I looked him in the eye and said "No, don't try to have a conversation with me now." He left with a pouty look on his face.
Let this be a reminder to people, don't flip out on someone for asking you about such things. I have met a lot of people who wear typically Pagan things (such as jewelry, etc.) who really only wear it because they thought it looked neat, out of those people I have met a few who are actually Pagans. Asking about such things is only a way of testing the waters. Unless you live in a community with a large Pagan community (which I don't) you can't just come out and say "I'm a Pagan! Are you one too!?"
That incident really turned me off to Druidry. I know it's extremely horrible of me to let one experience bring me down, I did the same thing with Cernunnos and Celtic Paganism. One person doesn't speak for the rest of the group and it only takes one person to make an entire group look bad. Please don't follow in my footsteps. If I hadn't let that incident affect me, I'd be much further along on my path now.

That being said I'd like to state that within the next few days I'm going to become a member of the ADF (Ár nDraíocht Féin or A Druid Fellowship.) I'm extremely excited about this. I was debating between a few Druid Orders and finally chose ADF. I'm going to go through their dedicant path (DP) and then make my way through a few of their guilds. I have my eye on four different ones and have requested help in choosing which one would best fit me. Although, I would love to move through and receive training from all four of them. But if I'm advised against that then I may just select two of them. I will talk more about that when I actually do become a member and I have to make that decision.

I'm very interested in becoming clergy in this group but I know that will take a lot of study and time, which I'm perfectly fine with and I know I can do it. I think it's something I really, really want to be able to do. Even if I don't end up actually using the information, I would love to have that knowledge and the ability to use it if the time comes. My ultimate goal was to become clergy and start my own grove, but I don't know if I would ever get to that point. I think it would be the first ADF grove in Iowa. I wanted someone to do that with me though and I just don't have anyone that I could ask to do that with me. I asked a friend of mine who is also on the Druid path but solitary. She respectfully declined and I respect her decision fully. But it doesn't stop me from wanting someone to go through this with me. So it seems I will be doing this alone.

Cernunnos guide me on this path, I will need it. I've already asked him to guide me on this and he has already given me guidance. When I first thought about this path I did a tarot card reading with my Druidcraft Tarot deck by Philip Carr-Gomm. I asked Cernunnos to guide my hand in this reading so I could get his input on the subject. Funnily enough he showed up in my reading, he was my future. The simplicity of that statement and imagery made me want to cry. It was beautiful. Cernunnos is part of my future.
While Cernunnos does take the place of the Devil in this tarot deck, the meaning of that is not the same at all. I just wanted to point this out in case anyone was trying to figure out why this excited me so much.
I know this is the path that I'm supposed to be on. It feels right to me and I'm not scared at all, I just want help from Cernunnos, I wanted to know if this is what he wants me to do. I wanted to know if this would make him happy and I think the main thought is "it makes me happy, do it."

Well this entry wasn't random at all! I'm surprised! I also hope everyone enjoyed it :) Thank you so much for reading!

Images of Cernunnos

This isn't going to be a very wordy post at all. I decided that I'm going to post my favorite images of Cernunnos so the people who read this blog can get an idea of how I see him and the form he is in when I see him.

The artworks I'm about to show are absolutely NOT mine. They are from other artists and I'm going to give credit and provide links to their pages and their work. I just happen to love the stuff that they've done. I want to show everyone how I see Cernunnos and I would like people to take a look at these artists.

This first piece, I'm absolutely in love with. It's beautiful. I want to buy a copy of this piece and place it above my altar. This piece is done by Ionus on deviantart.com, click here to view more by Ionus

The next two pieces are done by Neil Sims and I'm desperate to own one of his pieces. I don't think I've ever wanted something material more than this. I must own one of his Cernunnos statues.

The first two photos are obviously of the same statue. There you see a full body statue of Cernunnos. The second piece (also by the same artist) is a bust of Cernunnos. I love both of these pieces and honestly would like to own both of them at some point. They're beautiful. Here's a link to Neil Sims eBay page.

Between the two artists you can put an image together of Cernunnos as I see him. The build is similar between the two images, however the elk like antlers in the first image are replaced with stag antlers similar to the second piece but larger. I don't see him with the second set of horns, however, I love this touch, it's really nice. I do see him with hooves and a furred lower half. Both of these images cover him up, however, when I see him he is not covered up at all. He does occasionally wear a cloak, similar to the one on the statue, but never anything to cover up his penis.

Hopefully this gives everyone a good idea of how I see Cernunnos. I personally think the gods and goddesses show themselves to each person differently, hence the different artworks of Cernunnos, but they keep important similarities (the antlers/horns, etc.)

I also hope everyone takes a moment to look at the other pieces of work that each of these artists has done. I think you'll enjoy them quite a bit.

The crossing of the paths

I've told you about the two different paths that I found and now I'm going to tell you how they came together. They aren't really all that different really and they came together really well. It just happened that I found them at different times, I think that made it easier for me in the end. I had a decent amount of time dedicated to nothing but my totem, Hawk, and the idea of Shamanism before I welcomed Paganism and a god in my life.

Today, I'm a Pagan on a Shamanic path. So, what exactly does this mean? Pretty much what I just stated, it's really self explanatory. I can't say I'm a Pagan Shaman because not only would I feel wrong saying that but it's also completely untrue. I'm not a Shaman, nor would I ever consider myself to be one. I don't have any classical training, I don't even have training from another person that's related to Shamanism. My training has come from books, has come from self-teaching, and has come from my teacher, Hawk. Hawk has taught me most of the things that I know how to do, the biggest one being how to journey. I knew about the topic of Shamanic journeying and it was always a goal of mine, I wanted to be able to do it very, very badly. I completely understood the concept and Hawk was the one who helped me understand actually doing it and the process. Unfortunately I don't have a drum, nor do I think I would have the ability to drum for myself and journey at the same time (not the best multi-tasker), so I had to purchase tracks of steady drumming. Lucky for me they actually make CDs of drumming specifically for journeying! 
After meditating and talking to Hawk about how I was supposed to start journeying, and after having a number of dreams about the subject, I was finally going to attempt this for myself. I'm not going to go into details yet, that will be another post at some point. To make a long story short, mission accomplished :D
I've noticed when I journey I'm much more comfortable in the Lower World, I do journey in the Middle World on occasion but I have only made the journey to the Upper World once. I don't what to say it makes me uncomfortable because that's not true, but, I feel extremely comfortable in the Lower World. Now, I don't always feel this comfortable in the Lower World, I don't always experience positive things. Sometimes something doesn't want me to be there at all and sometimes I'm greeted with neutral feelings until I explain myself and why I'm there.
I have talked to Cernunnos while in the Lower World as well as in the Middle World, it's an "easy" way to communicate and I feel as though the connection is different than if I were to meditate and speak with him. Better is not the correct term at all, it's just the type of connection is different. I use both meditation and journeying to contact both Cernunnos and Hawk when I want to talk with them. Sometimes when I talk with them, I'm just talking, not about anything in particular. It may seem strange but I'd rather not just talk to either of them when I want something, I want to talk to them regardless of what is going on in my life. I think it's just a nice way to build a lasting relationship. I also leave offerings of incense every day (I'm getting better at remembering every day now) rather than when I ask for something or when I need something.
I'm trying to work on meditating daily, so far this doesn't seem to be working out well for me just because I forget or get really busy, but I'm making an effort. Meditation has helped me with a lot of things, I still have issues with ADD and meditation has helped me gain the ability of focus. Meditation has also helped me greatly with my severe anxiety.
I have really bad anxiety. I get panic attacks and I think I'm dying, point is, they're bad. I would get panic attacks several times a day, every day, every week, etc. It never failed, it was always like that and I'm not exaggerating that at all. This was when I was in high school. I started going to a therapist as well as a psychiatrist because I was prescribed Prozac for it. I was on a low dose, but I didn't want to be on the medication forever. My therapist taught me different relaxation techniques that helped out a lot. Those on top of making myself meditation often and work on my breathing really really helped. This wasn't an overnight change by any means. Now, 5 years after graduating high school, I still have the occasional panic attack but it's maybe once a week. That's a huge progress! I went from several times a day, every day to just once a week! I'm so proud of myself and I feel like I'm not afraid to live or to go out in the world. When invited out my first thought isn't "oh well...if I go to this place then I'm going to have a panic attack...can I really deal with that right now?" That feeling is absolutely fantastic. I owe that to my therapist and my hard work. Oh and I'm no longer on Prozac, I stopped that over a year ago.
I realize I didn't go into too much detail on how the paths crossed but as you can see they did. I use my ability to journey as a way to communicate with Cernunnos rather than just using meditation methods. I also leave incense for Hawk and I thank both Hawk and Cernunnos quite often. I have even though about making a secondary altar for Hawk. I want to have images of him on there and a dedicated places where I can meditate and communicate with him as well as a place to leave thanks for him.
My main altar (if I had one set up) would be for Cernunnos and I plan to make it very earthy. I do have a general altar right now, it's nothing to gloat about or show off but it is a nice altar and I enjoy it. My only complaint is that I just can't kneel in front of it, which I would love to be able to do. I'm also patiently waiting for the day when I can own a Neil Sims statue of Cernunnos. His image of Cernunnos is by far the closest image to how I see Cernunnos. I recommend that you go to eBay and do a search on Neil Sims and see his artwork. It will blow you away, absolutely gorgeous. I wish I had talents like that. If I could make statues I'd be making tons of them based off of my favorite gods and goddesses.

Yet again this is quite a long post so I'm going to stop myself there. If anyone has any further questions about how my two different paths came together, then I will happily answer them but for now I'd like to be able to stop here...I'm getting a little on the wordy side :)

The second path - Cernunnos

I realized I was a Pagan around the age of 13 or so, I was a freshman in high school and while I had been using a computer and the internet since a very young age, I had never thought to start looking around for others who believed in similar things.
I grew up in a Christian household, my family wasn't super religious or anything and my dad says he's not a religious person, which is very true, but he does believe in God and was raised Christian himself. Neither of my parents really pushed religion in the way I think most people would assume religion is pushed on a child. I was just told that I needed to believe in God and that was that. When I was in elementary school my parents would let me go to church with my other friends, Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant, and the list goes on. My family, however, never went to church, which I'm actually grateful for. I'm glad I was never forced to go to church and when I wanted to, I could go to experience it.
After a while I started believing in the balance of things and sort of disagreed with the idea of one god. I have respect for all religions, I'm not saying anyone is wrong and anyone is right, but Christianity just wasn't right for me. I also disagreed that there was just one masculine force, since I believed in the idea of balance, I wondered why there was no feminine to balance the masculine. I dismissed these thoughts for a while for fear that I was doing something bad, I feared doing anything against my dad's wishes as he means a lot to me.
After making the decision to find out just what I believe in and finding a religion that suited me, I started researching online. I started a journal at uJournal when it was still around and had that for some time. I then found livejournal and started a journal there after realizing there were so many more people on that site. I've been a member over there ever since, my current journal I have had since 2005 and it's a permanent journal. Journaling sites have helped me a lot on my path because I could actually talk to people who believed in similar things that I did. I could ask questions, sometimes stupid questions, but I would always get more than a few answers.
As quite a few Pagans are, I was first exposed to Wicca as it seems to have a pretty large following and it's quite easy to find people online who are Wiccans. I realized very quickly that this was not the religion for me, while I respect it, it absolutely wasn't what I was looking for. Once I started figuring out that specific paths just didn't seem to do it for me, I became discouraged. I thought I wasn't going to find anything just for me, that fit what I believed. Then I started realizing that a lot of people are Pagans but either aren't path specific, or they are but have made it all their own. That inspired me. I was able to call myself a Pagan, yet not get into specific paths. My beliefs are very, very Pagan so that's what I labeled myself as (and still do to this day.)
I started making things my own, I read a lot of books and a lot of articles or blogs when I could and I made ideas and rituals and spells into my own. The best part? It worked for me. I didn't have to be part of a group or do things exactly the way someone else said to do them, I found what worked best for me and it made me happy.
I wasn't open about my beliefs at all until I left high school. I didn't tell anyone that I'm a Pagan, I didn't tell anyone that I did rituals or did spells or believed that there are multiple gods and even goddesses. I just didn't talk about it. I was afraid of being laughed at or that someone would shun me.

After high school I started to become more active within the Pagan community and along the way I've made a lot of friends and I've talked to a lot of very interesting people. At this point though, I felt like something was really missing. At this point I didn't have a particular deity in my life, I was open to the idea of having one and I was open to the idea of gods and goddesses, yet I didn't have a particular deity in my life. It became frustrating, I thought about it a lot and dwelled on it. I wrote about it quite often also but I firmly believed that when I was ready to have a deity in my life, one would speak to me and I would absolutely know it. A few years had passed at this point, I tried to suppress my frustration but I knew that I really wanted something in my life. Finally, I made myself stop thinking about it. I knew if I calmed down and stopped thinking about it so much, that I would be ready and something would let me know.

One night, I think I was alone as my boyfriend was on the road for work, I had a very vivid and strange dream. I was standing in the woods, it was early in the morning but just getting light, I started walking straight ahead and had no idea where I was going. A stag jumped out in front of me and just stared at me. After a while he started walking and I followed him, this didn't seem to bother him at all so I kept following him. We reached a clearing and he just completely vanished. As I was standing there, I noticed I could hear something walking and it seemed to be getting closer. I could hear something scraping on tree branches but I had no idea what was coming my way.
I saw movement in my peripheral vision and I turned to see a man coming out of the woods. He appeared to be in his late twenties to early thirties and powerfully built. His face was cleanly shaved, or so it appeared. He looked young but very wise. Then I quickly started realizing a few things about this man. He had hooves and his lower body was more stag like than human....except for his very human penis which at this point was erect. His torso, shoulders, and face were all human. He had human hair but then I noticed he had a huge rack of antlers. Needless to say I woke up shortly after this, I was startled. The man who had appeared seemed welcoming enough but one doesn't see too many men who look like what I just described, even in dreams. I woke up confused as hell.
I went about my day, thinking about the dream off and on and wondering where I even got the image of the man I'd seen in the dream. I wasn't sure if I'd read something that would have sparked it or if I had watched something but I really couldn't think of anything. Finally I decided to do some research and see if there were any images that matched what I had seen. I started out with searching "stag man" and other similar silly names. And slowly enough, an idea crept into my head, "horned god." The name Cernunnos popped up in a few places but so many images came up with that search, images that were close to what I had seen. While most images of Cernunnos are of an older man with a beard, I was absolutely certain that this was who appeared in my dream.
I sat at my computer all day and read about Cernunnos. Everything I had seen matched up with this particular god. I was beyond excited. I got onto livejournal and posted in a Pagan community explaining what had happened and if anyone could give me in depth information about Cernunnos. I was happy and excited, I thought "this is the god that wants me to follow him!"
Then someone broke my heart. "This doesn't mean Cernunnos wants you to worship him, he can only be worshiped by true Celtic Pagans who have Celtic decent only. He wouldn't show himself to you." That wasn't the exact quote, the exact quote was far more mean than that. I should have known better than to listen to just one person, gods can do whatever they damn well want to do and they can pick whoever they want. It hit me really hard though, regardless of the thoughts that were going on in the back of my head, I gave up. I didn't think about Cernunnos, I didn't do research on him, nothing. I just gave up.
Months had passed and I forgot about it, not about Cernunnos, he just wasn't my first thought, he was an after thought occasionally. I went to bed one night and fell asleep instantly and had a very restful night of sleep. I began having another very vivid dream. I was in a clearing in the woods, it was closer to night this time and was getting dark in a hurry. Once again Cernunnos appeared, this time just out of thin air it seemed and right in front of me. He actually talked to me this time! His voice was deep yet soothing. He asked me why I stopped learning about him and why I stopped thinking about him. I remember replying but I don't recall what I said. I'm assuming it had something to do with the incident. His voice became a little more harsh and he said "You are mine, I chose you, you worship me" and I woke up suddenly. I was startled and shocked, I didn't know what to think. I made the quick decision that Cernunnos was to be my patron god and if someone had a problem with it, then they could fuck off.
This whole thing took place a few years ago. To this day I still worship Cernunnos and he is my patron god, he is also the only god that I worship. If another deity wants to approach me, then I will listen completely but until then, Cernunnos is the only deity that I worship. I love the relationship that we have. I leave him offerings of incense and he protects me and gives me his strength. I talk to him in meditation and in dreams. I'm very happy to have him in my life.

Thanks for reading once again everyone. I urge you to leave comments and ask questions or let me know what you want to hear more about.