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A priestess friend of mine once took a class in Writing Your Personal Theology at the local UCC* seminary. Back in those days, if you wanted to expand your pagan academic horizons, that's pretty much what you had to do.

(Today, not so much: thank Goddess for Cherry Hill Seminary.)

As one would expect, some of what she learned was applicable, some wasn't.

“'What's my Christology?'” she laughed, looking over the list of seed-questions that they'd given her. “I don't have one!”

(In Christian thought, Christology is the study of Christ's person and role in spiritual ecology.)**

Me, I'm with her. Still, taking a step back—translating into Pagan, so to speak—I ask myself: Well, who—as I see it—is god of humanity? Who, among all the gods, is most like to us? Who stands between—in the sense of connecting us to—ourselves and the other gods?

For me, a witch of the Tribe of Witches, the answer is clear: this role is filled by Him that we call the Horned.

The other gods are who they are, but he's the animal god. (I would see Him as the collective body of fauna/animal life here on planet Earth.) As animals—as human animals—he's likest to us of all the other gods. Like us, he knows what it is to love, to suffer, to die. The other gods may (or may not) know these things too, but he knows them as an animal—and, in particular, as a human animal—can know them.

That's what makes him ours, ours to us.

That's what makes us his, his to him.

That's what makes him our god, our Horned, of all gods likest us: “like us in animality, like them in divinity.”

In Which Our Intrepid Blogger Delivers a Warning

The old election sign by the side of the road once read

BERNIE

2020

but, bent by the weight of the wet, heavy February snow, it now reads instead

      RNIE

2020  

Naturally, as I drive by, my witch's eye automatically reads

HORNIE

2020

Old Hornie for President? I find myself thinking. F*ck, I'd vote for Him any day of the Moon.

He the Horned, God of Witches, is known as the Merry Piper: who among us has not danced to his piping?

His the Primal Sound, the song of creation.

(To the silent Breath of Life, the Pipes give Voice.)

Come, let me speak a Mystery in your ear.

His pipes are female.

Think of Pan and Syrinx, the nymph who became the pipes. Think of Krishna's flute, herself a goddess incarnate.

The Voice of those Pipes brings What Is into Being.

In company with sheep-herds and cow-herds, His piping arouses and, thrusting, drives the Dance of Life.

The lure of those Pipes recalls to life the Dead.

“Never trust a man with horns on his hat.”

(Granny Weatherwax)

Yes, it's true: I did meet Old Hornie in the woods at the age of 16.

And no, I'm not going to tell you about it.

I'm not going to tell you about my most intimate sexual experiences, either.

No: those stories, and that story, is, and are, mine to me, not for other ears. This much I will tell you, though: what happened then changed me forever.

You can always tell a newbie by her eagerness to recount—usually at length—her Expeeeeriences. After you've been around for a while, you learn that everybody has had their own. You also learn that you can distinguish the real ones because they're the ones that people don't talk about.

Now there's a fine paradox for you.

Here's the irony: you don't talk because you don't have to. You've been there, you know it was real, and those In the Know can see the changes that it wrought. The eyes will tell you the truth of it. The changes are the story.

Among all the hoodied and red-capped yahoos and yobbos who invaded the US Capitol on Wednesday, one stood out. You know which one I mean.

The one in the horns.

“Guy in horns Capitol” I image-searched. It was more than enough to find what I was looking for.

Horns, fur, paint, and skin. The eye automatically, as if by instinct, draws toward them. How could it not?

In long accordance with ancestral practice, I will not dignify said yob by naming him. Though he sports heathen tattoos and the regalia of the Horned God of Witches, he is (apparently) neither witch nor heathen.

No matter. He's not important. Soon the FBI will be hauling his saggy white ass off to jail, where it probably belongs anyway.

Horns, fur, paint, skin: in combination, instantly iconic. What is it about these primal elements that so draws the eye, that so draws the heart?

Who is it here that draws the heart and eye?

Long ago, the Horned looked down from Heaven, and saw that we were cold, and hungry, and in darkness.

Then, in his mighty ruth, he stole the Fire of the Gods, came down, and gave us Fire.

Ever since when, we sing his song at Yule.

He Came Down

Hwæt, we seax-Hwiccum   in síð-dagum...
"Lo, we knife-Witches   in these latter days..."

Many peoples worship the Horned God—as god of all Red Life, why wouldn't they?—but to the Latter-Day Tribe of Witches, he is ours, our god in particular.

Why so? Easily answered.

The Horned is especial god of witches, ours to us, because we are his offspring.

As we see it, we are literally the Children of our God.

This is why the Swedish witches called him Antecessor: goer-before, ancestor.

Many tribes trace descent from a common ancestor. Scots Gaelic clann (pronounced klawn), the source of the English word clan, literally means “children (of).” In this, the Tribe (in Witch, that would be Thede) of Witches is no different from any other.

Why are some people witches and some not? Easily answered.

The Horned overshadows our fathers at the moment of our conception.