How Does One Pick a Deity?

So, you’re new to this whole polytheistic thing, and you want to get started building a practice and worshiping, but you don’t know where to start and who to worship. There are a few steps you can go through to help you figure out where to start. Keep in mind that it’s okay for your practice to evolve and change over time, and you may not be worshiping the same deity(ies) in a year that you are looking at now.

Disclosure: Make sure any deities you’re interested in honoring are from open traditions before you start honoring them, and if you find that they’re from a closed religion, then respectfully back away.

Step One: 

Pick something broad that interests you. This can be a pantheon you’re drawn to, or a specific ‘domain’ that catches you’re interest. Say you’re interested in Welsh polytheism. Then start looking there. Say you’re interested in deities connected to the Sea. Then you can start looking there.

Step Two:

Step two is to actually pick a second thing that interests you, and see where there’s overlap from the first thing. So, for example, you decided to look at Sun deities for step one. So say that for the second thing, you’re looking for a Goddess specifically. That narrows it down from “Solar deity” to Aine, and Irish goddess associated with the sun; Eos, Greek goddess of dawn; and probably a few more if you keep looking. Don’t worry about getting too specific and trying to narrow it down by four or more things though, because then you may not be able to find anyone that meets your criteria. 

Step Three:

Take a look into the stories for your now significantly shorter list of deities to choose from. Does something strike your fancy? Do you feel like you can learn something from one of these entities? There’s SOOOOOOOooooooooOO much more to a deity than the initial things that they’re boiled down to for ease of communication, so this part is super important.

Step Four:

Start looking into how to properly honor the deity you’ve chosen. Their initial context is important, as well as any additional religious contexts such as Wicca. There is no need to make commitments, and you are perfectly OK to say, “I’m new to this, and I’m trying this out, but I’m interested in worshiping you, no guarantees that it’s gonna end up being my thing though.”

Step Five:

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. As many times as you want.