Ancient Deities for the Modern Witch - Deborah Blake

A Deity can feel like a doorway, but most people get stuck on the threshold. How do you know who to approach, what to offer, and whether you’re crossing a line culturally or spiritually? We sit down with prolific modern witchcraft author Deborah Blake to talk about The Everyday Witch Book of Deities and what it looks like to build a real relationship with ancient Deities in a modern life that’s busy, noisy, and not designed for quiet spiritual practice. 

We get honest about research, too. A lot of witches grew up reading the same small stack of classic books, and research wasn’t what it is now with the internet. Deborah shares what changed when she dug deeper, and what still matters even when the history is messy. 

Then we go into the questions people are often afraid to ask out loud: cultural appropriation in witchcraft, how to stay respectful when a deity isn’t “from your culture,” and why there’s no neat rulebook that covers every spiritual call. We also make room for gender-expansive and LGBTQ+ seekers, including deities that don’t fit a strict god or goddess box, and why Hecate and other darker, protective powers can feel especially relevant right now. 

If you’ve been waiting for permission to practice in a way that’s sincere, grounded, and actually sustainable, hit play. Then subscribe, share this with a witchy friend, and leave a review with the deity or theme you want us to explore next.

Bio: 

Deborah Blake is the author of nineteen books on modern Witchcraft, including The Eclectic Witch’s Book of Shadows, A Year and a Day of Everyday Magic, and the Everyday Witch’s Book of Deities, as well as the acclaimed Everyday Witch Tarot and Oracle and Everyday Witch’s Familiars Oracle decks. She has also written three paranormal romance and urban fantasy series, and as well as a cozy mystery series about a run-down pet rescue. Deborah lives in a 130 year old farmhouse in upstate New York with numerous cats who supervise all her activities, both magical and mundane.

http://deborahblakeauthor.com

IG: @deborahblakeauthor & @the_crankycrone

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

GDC 0:01

Welcome to Belief Being and Beyond with your host, Granddaughter Crow. Hi everybody, Granddaughter Crow here with yet another episode of Belief Being and Beyond. And today we have a guest that needs no introduction. You know why? You know why? Because if you've walked into Barnes and Noble and walked into that witchy section, you've seen her books. Let me go ahead and tell you who we have before we bring her on. Guys, we have Deborah Blake in the house today. She is the author of 19 books on modern witchcraft. And yet she draws from the ancient wisdoms. This is going to be brilliant. Um, some of the books are The Eclectic Witch's Book of Shadows, A Year and a Day of Everyday Magic. I mean, seriously, walking the walk, talking the talk. That's what we love. And the Everyday Witch Book of Deities, which just released in April 2026, as well as the acclaimed every Everyday Witch, Tarot and Oracle. Oh my goodness. The all the decks that she has are brilliant because everything that I've seen that Deborah Blake does is very thought out, very, very esoteric, very, very respectful, and very, very accessible to all of us. And so without further ado, further ado, Deborah Blake is in the house. Say hi.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

I'm in somebody's house. I'm pretty sure it's my house. Uh yeah, that's my house. What is it?

GDC 1:51

Like a 130-year-old.

A Life Of Writing Witchcraft

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Yeah, I 130, 140. I don't know. I just had a workman here today and he was looking at things, going, whoa, really? Yeah, no, my I've been here 24 years, and all I do is like fix stuff. It's an ancient farmhouse in upstate New York, and it's you know, none of the walls are straight, all the floors slant, so that like if the cats chase a ball, it goes into a corner. But it's got great energy. People people come here and the energy is so good. So, yeah, so so it's a little crooked. It's kind of like me.

GDC 2:31

It's it's kind of a really good match to the cranky crone. If you guys don't know what I'm talking about, go to Instagram, follow the cranky crone. Very, very real. But we've got one big question before we get into the book for you. 19 books, fiction and nonfiction, Ginny? Oh, yeah.

Why Write A Deities Guide

SPEAKER_00 2:55

So there's 19 nonfiction books. There's about the same amount of novels and novellas. I couldn't, I I actually have to sit down and count them periodically. But I've been doing it for a while. I mean, I'm I'm 66, I just turned 66, and I published the first Llewellyn book when I was, well, I sold it to them when I was 45, published it when I was 47, because that's about it takes about two years for things, you know. So I was actually a late bloomer, but I just keep sort of plugging along. I normally do two books a year, you know, one fiction, one nonfiction, although now I have long COVID and I have slowed down like a lot, of serious a lot. It's it's no joke. But um yeah, I I keep thinking, I don't have anything else to say. That's all the books I can write. And my my editor at Llewellyn, Alicia Gallo, who's wonderful, um every time I say that, she laughs because then you know, six months later, I'm like, oh, I thought of something. What do you think about this? And they do turn down some of my ideas. But yeah, the the Everyday Wish Book of Deities in part came about because I was sitting around one day thinking, what haven't I written about yet? You know, and a lot of the books that I write are sort of basic, you know, there's the year-in-a-day books, and there's the goddess in the details, which is very much about, you know, integrating your spiritual beliefs with your everyday life kind of thing. Um, I mean, you you know my work. It's it's very pragmatic. It's it's designed for the everyday witch who is somebody who doesn't necessarily have two hours every day to you know put into their spiritual work, but they still want to walk their talk. And so I try and make it easier for people to do that. And I thought, you know, deities are such an important part of my practice, and so much of what drew me to witchcraft in the first place. Um, you know, I mean, I grew up Jewish, uh, which, you know, I'm very proud of my Jewish heritage. The religion, you know, it's so male-centric. You know, they're it's they're working on it, but really, right, there was a goddess so long ago they don't know her name. You know, yeah, they lost her name. That's how long ago it was. And so when I came to Witchcraft through Wicca, through a high priestess whose group I joined, you know, the fact that there was a goddess really, you know, that was that was like, oh, okay, I get this. This is this makes sense to me. And so when I started thinking about what I wanted to write next, I thought, okay, how do I make deity accessible the way I make everything else accessible? And I wanted to be as inclusive as possible without um stepping on the toes of people. You know, I mean, I well, it was it was a really tricky thing because I talked to Alicia and I said, What sh what should I include and what shouldn't I include? Because, you know, it's a it's a difficult time, I think, because you want to be inclusive, but you also want to let people talk about the deities that are their culture. So what we agreed on, and this was not something I you know, it wasn't what I originally was planning, but it wasn't something I argued with, was that we would stick with the deities that uh witches had been using for many, many years. Right. Cultures of the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, the Celts, um, the Norse, and not do say Yamaya, who uh you know I love and adore, but that is not my culture. You know, there are people who are more uh authentic to talk about those deities. I did actually, one of the fun things about this book is I found some folks, I mean, I knew going in that I had some friends that worshipped like you know, somebody who was did all the Celtic gods and somebody who did the Norse deities, and you know, so I I also added that into the book. I called on people to give me their personal take on what it was like to follow that path today.

Jenny 8:30

And what you gave us is like beautiful. I um I work with a lot of new witches, and this answers a question I get all the time, which is like, how do I find a deity? How do I know if I can work with them? How do I know if they're calling me? Am I allowed? These are all the questions that new witches are asking.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

And I get those questions all the time, which is where the book came from, is the the questions that I was like, um, I uh wait, let me think about that. Um I tried to put that into the book to again make it easier, make it more accessible, because it is tricky when you're first starting out, you don't necessarily know where to start. And so I talk about that a little bit. I talk about you know what some of your first steps can be, and then I talk about you know a bunch of DDs individually and how to connect to them. I basically did all the research, so nobody else has to do all the research. And still I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you a secret. Okay, I hate research. If you look at most of those books I wrote, they are not research heavy. They're mostly my experience, my take on things. With this, I actually had to do some really serious research. And then I did it, sent it to Alicia, and she went, that's wrong, that's wrong, that's wrong. Oh my goodness. Well, here's here's an interesting thing that I found a little bit in previous books, but I've really learned when writing this book, which is that many of the witches who are like me who came up in the last, say, 30 years, we all read the same books. Right. We all read the same 10 basic authors. Yes. And some of those people got things wrong. And I I based much of the research of my original books on those authors, and sometimes, not always, by any means, not always. I mean, and there's a lot of worthwhile stuff out there, but like you'd get 10 authors who all read the same source book, right? And and would say, Oh, this is where this came from. And if that source book was wrong, 10 other people, including me, sorry, maybe perpetuated some things that were put out, not I I don't believe they were intentional mistakes. I think they were either a point of view or people not doing research. I mean, a lot of the people who started out in the 40s and the 50s and the 60s, they couldn't Google things, you know. Exactly right. They went by what they had been told, and maybe what they had been told was wrong. And so a lot of us are like, oh, well, you know, Ostara, that's based on the goddess Oestra. There's actually not really any proof that that's true. There's one source that that came from, and I do include that because it has become a part of our practice, and the thing about deities to me is if you believe in them, they exist, you know, yes, uh a practice and a belief system changes and adapts, yeah. And what we are looking at deities-wise, yeah, now is not necessarily the same as what anybody looked at 50 years ago or 100 years ago, 200 years ago. That does not make it any less legitimate, right?

Research Mistakes And Evolving Lore

GDC 12:50

You know, Deborah, I love that brings me to another point that I really loved about your book, love about your book, is that you take these ancient gods and goddesses and you help us to understand how to work with them daily, because a lot of times they're like, oh, well, you know, who is this? Who is Moni? Who is Isis? And some people don't do the research before they invoke the deity. And this is like the safest way to go through. But what I'm saying is that you take ancient deities from ways, but you know, bygone ways and lores and myths. And I'm with you, girl. We didn't have internet back then, and the fact that you did so much research is really cool. But ancient deities for a modern life.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

That's that's one of the things about modern witchcraft is that we are sort of trying to find a balance between our past, which, you know, whether you believe witchcraft has been handed down family to family or not. And in some cases, I know people where that's true. In a lot of cases, you know, obviously in my family there were no witches. No, uh you know, we're trying to find our own paths, but there's so much past behind us we can call on, but we have to figure out how to make it work in a modern world. We do not live in ancient Egypt, you know. We do not, you know, make for the most part, we don't make blood sacrifices. There are occasions when I'm tempted. We don't?

GDC 14:41

Wait, what?

SPEAKER_00 14:42

What I'm sorry, you're not supposed to be doing blood sacrifices. I didn't put that in the book. I thought I put that in the book. Dang it. Well, all right, we'll make a few exceptions if you can come up with a good reason, and I can think of a couple. Um, but in general, we are not living in the worlds where these deities originated. Our reality in some ways is the same. We have homes that we want to protect, we have people that we love, we want to connect with the earth, we want to connect with the moon, but we also have technology and we have unfortunately lives that do not lend themselves to connecting with the spiritual. Um, you know, if anything, you have to fight to connect with the spiritual. And so I try and find a balance between connecting people with the past. And that's one of the things if you look at an individual deity, when I, you know, name somebody like Thor, um, I say this is the way he was worshipped in the past. These are the ways you can call on him now. These are some of the offerings. Offerings, that was the most research of all. But that's one of the things that people are always saying to me, well, what what offering should I give to this deity? And that, you know, that's one of those things. It's tricky. First of all, I always like to tell people, if it comes from the heart, there is no wrong offering. If your offering is a bowl of water and a flower, I assure you, if it comes from your heart, the deity you are giving it to will say, Thank you very much. That's great. Um, but there are certain deities like Bast, obviously, everybody knows is connected with cats a lot. She has she has some other things, but you know, cats are her big thing. So yeah, if your cat drops a whisker, don't ever pull it out. But if they happen to drop a whisker, you can put it on your altar. Or you can put, you know, catnip, or you can put um a little bowl of milk, as long as you don't have a cat that's gonna then jump up on the altar and drink the bowl of milk. We're gonna say bass did that. So yeah, it's this balancing act because we are modern witches living in a modern world, trying to connect to ancient deities because that's what we've got.

GDC 17:33

I love, love, love that. And I think that needs to be a bumper sticker.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Modern witch plus ancient deity equals woo-hoo! Something. Yeah, you uh copyright. Uh yeah.

GDC 17:51

You know, right? Authors. You know, that's another thing is that I love that you spell out, like in the book, you do talk a lot about different deities, and you talk about being um, you know, to be appropriate, you know, and appreciate and respectful. And I think that that's one of the biggest things for me because I get a lot of questions being Navajo about appropriation. And and I'm just like, well, and then one time I made this joke about scalping.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Oh, well, you made a joke, now everybody hates you.

GDC 18:32

Well, I'm I made a joke about scalping somebody, and the person, I was just being silly, right? And the person said, Oh no, you know, well, do how do they do that? Like, I've never, you know, and I was just like, honey, I learned it on Legends of the Fall.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

I mean, you know, but it's but at the end of the day, no instruction booklet in your family handed down from like you know, it was like, here is how to scalp your enemies. Right. First, take a razor, sharpen it, sharpen it.

GDC 19:06

Well, see, the thing is is that this appropriation thing, I get a lot of questions and I sit with it and I came up with be respectful, self-govern. Like there is no governing body, there is cultural sensitivity.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

We're the least organized, organized religion on the planet.

GDC 19:27

Thank you. We are, and I love that you have the ability to you know talk to us about all of that, and then all of a sudden you go into the back of the book, which is a treasure in and of itself, because it's all about hey, did you want protection? Hey, did you here's some deities for you? And then they read about it. I know a lot of times people will walk into a a witchy shop and go, I need protection. And they're like, here, use this deity. They're like, okay, and I'm like, read about the deity first.

Respect And Cultural Appropriation Questions

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Well, yeah, the the cultural appropriation thing is a really difficult thing for me because on the one hand, I do want to be absolutely respectful of cultures that are not my own, means which is like all the freaking cultures, basically. Um, you know, I want to be respected respectful of the African, they're not even deities, they're orishas. Um, and I, you know, I really wanted to include a couple of Native American deities, and they're you know, they're not they're not a deity I connect with personally, and I didn't feel it was appropriate. What I said in the book was go find people who have more authority to talk about this and listen to them. But the other thing is, as you said, it's about respect, it's how you approach it. You know, I I hesitate to tell anyone you cannot worship a deity because, first of all, witches believe in reincarnation. So, how do you know that deity was not your deity in a previous incarnation? Also, if you say somebody is limited to their own culture, well, that's great. So I'm Jewish. There are no goddesses in the Jewish culture. Does that mean I get no goddesses? Does that mean I am limited to the god, big G? You know, no, no, thank you, no, thank you very much. I tried that, didn't work for me. I mean, you know, I love my heritage as a Jew. You can see it in the nose, but you know, and also locks on a bagel, oi. Um, but that is not my spiritual path. So you can't be sure in any given situation what drew you to somebody. I have a friend who is very white. Yamaya came to her in a dream very strongly and tapped her on the shoulder and said, You are mine. Are you going to argue with a goddess? I am not going to argue with the goddess. But she is very hesitant to be public about this because she's afraid of offending people. And I understand it from both directions. I understand that if it's your culture and some white woman says, Yamaya tapped me on the shoulder, that could be triggering in a culture where people are like, oh, you don't get to vote anymore. So I try to approach it this book in as respectful a way as I could. And I do, you know, I address that issue the best way that I could. And as you know, having read others of my books, I always say there is no one right way. If it doesn't feel right to you, don't do it. If it does feel right to you, then you know, do the best you can.

GDC 23:22

I love that about you. Oh my goodness. Jenny, so what other questions? Because I know she's a lit witch. She is a literary.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

The mother is a librarian. I'm just saying. I grew up in libraries.

Jenny 23:39

I think the library is like a holy place.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Oh, they are. I have I have two places that give me goosebumps, libraries and theaters. I was a theater brat, and I grew up not only like with my mom as a librarian and then a library director, and I worked in libraries like three different times. My first job was in a library. Libraries are holy places. Any place where there are books, libraries, bookstores, my house, uh any place with a lot of books is a holy place because that's where the knowledge is.

Jenny 24:23

I love that. I was gonna ask you, because you talked about, you know, we all read the same 10 authors, me included. I became a witch in the 90s. And so I'm curious, as as you were doing this research, which I have to admit I haven't done, and I'm curious, like if anything was like, oh, like you talked about um the Ostara goddess, but if there was anything that you've actually changed in your own practice based off of your research?

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Well, uh yes and no. Um there are like, you know, we have our holidays, our our eight Sabbaths, and uh while I was doing my research, and also because I'm on the internet a lot, um I learned things like the fact that when we talk about midsummer or you know, the summer solstice, litha that was invented by Tolkien. JRR Tolkien came up with the word Litha. We use that so much. It's not ancient, it's a fucking Tolkien. Now, mind you, when enough people use it, it becomes a legitimate word, right? You know, it's like um llamas, which of course is lunasa. Llamas is actually uh from a Christian holiday loaf mass. Um, so uh some people say, well, you shouldn't call it that. And there were a few things like that. Uh mostly it was just a matter of realizing that there were some things like Hearn, who is you know one of the horned gods, and he's from England. This was the most fascinating thing I learned when I did my research. And there's a proviso to this. So Hearn was apparently located only in one tiny little place in England, and he came from a local myth, very local. He was not worshipped widely. The they think he was sort of like a story almost like Robin Hood of a hanged man who had, you know, with but, and here's the but, and this is why this is a changing, growing religion. I met Hearn. He came to me when I was doing a hypnotherapy session with I have a regular hypnotherapist that I work with for many, many years, who is a witch and also a shaman. And he came through when I was doing some work, and he basically said to me, and it was really that was again part of why I wrote this book. He said, You've been focusing a lot on goddesses in your practice. Stop ignoring the gods, and I went, oops, sorry, whoops, and I you know we came out of it and I built an altar for her and you know, he's he's now my guy, and I read this information that said, Well, you know, uh he was very localized, we're not really sure. And I'm like, but he came in, talk to me, he was right there, he is real. I can tell you he's real because he talked to me. So there is you know theoretical knowledge, you know, there is this official, you know, this is all we could find on this god or this goddess, but there is also personal lived experience, and I think that the deities who show up often enough are showing up whether there is a long trail like Isis or whether it's something like Hern, which apparently supposedly came from this tiny little thing, they're talking to people. And if they're talking to people, they're real.

GDC 28:37

Yeah, that that's what I love too, is that there are also these personalities within the gods and goddesses in different pantheons. You know, they the pantheon, if you kind of go back, you can kind of extract, well, they came from a wet land or they came from a cold land or they came from a dry land and see how we look at them. But that personality, and I find that some you call upon and you call upon and you read about, and you're like, please come to me. And then all of a sudden another one will tap you on the shoulder and you're like, what, Thor? You know, what Isis? You know, and it's just like okay, and I and I love that, but back to your point about the divine revealing itself, um, goddess and god, I love that this type of a conversation because it is the balance and the exchange. And as somebody like you said, that was raised, you know, you're Jewish, and if you stuck to your own cultural spirituality, then you wouldn't have a goddess.

Deities Beyond The Gender Binary

SPEAKER_00 29:42

And so of course it's a very small box. I mean, Judaism goes back a long way, right? And it's a huge cultural thing, but as a religion, very small box. Yeah and you know, uh it is one of those things where if you are born into one of you know, a lot of pagans came from a Judeo-Christian background of some sort or another that did not resonate with them. And one of the things that I've talked about in all my books is that you need to find the thing that seems true to you, that resonates with you, that speaks to you. And one of the things that for me, being a witch is learning to listen, learning to pay attention when the universe says, uh, okay, uh, I know you've been following this deity for a while. Maybe it's time for this deity, or maybe you've been focusing on this aspect of your life, and now it's time to focus on this aspect. I think a huge amount of a witchcraft practice is trying to get enough silence to listen to whatever's trying to come in. And that's really difficult in our world. We have so much noise, so much, you know, there's there's the cell phone, you know, there's the computer, there's the TV, there's our jobs, there's the people that depend on us, whoever they are, or in my case, five cats. Um but one of the things that I say is if you can only have five minutes a day to set aside to be quiet, to listen, to connect with deity, then take the five minutes. You know, it's I I have a practice where first thing in the morning, literally before I get out of bed, before I even open my eyes, usually while cats are walking on my head, going, You're awake, come feed us. Um, you know, I greet the deities and you know, ask them to help me through my day. And then at the end of the day, I have a gratitude practice where, again, I'm in bed. I just go, thank you for this, this, this, and for giving me the strength to make it through the day and not kill anybody. Um, you know, and you know, I think when you've got deities that you can connect with, it helps you make the most of that five minutes or ten minutes or whatever it is you've got.

GDC 32:36

I love that. I love that. And the masculine and the feminine.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Well, and and this is something I talked about in the book, yeah. The not masculine or feminine. There are, I specifically looked for deities that were appropriate for non-binary, for you know, gay, for people who did not necessarily fit into the neat god and goddess box. That's why we called it the Everyday Witches Book of Deities. I was originally going to call it gods and goddesses. And when I told old Alicia, my editor, that I really wanted to have some focus on the non-binary, she was like, that's that's great. Let's call it deities instead, because there are deities who can be perceived as either or or both or neither. And there are people who really have a need to find themselves in deity, and the way it has been presented over the years often doesn't lend itself to that. I mean, I I have a niece who is um asexual, you know, she is, you know, she she is either she they, but for her, if she were going to be looking for a deity, she might not be looking for the same deity I'm looking for. I have friends who have children who are trans. You know, I there are deities that are super appropriate for trans people. So I didn't go into huge depth with it because again, it is not my area of expertise, but I wanted to make sure to include that so that anybody who was looking for a deity to connect with that reflected them could find it.

GDC 34:41

I absolutely love that because in a lot of witchcraft, or even with baby witches, um, or even older witches that kind of forgot or put it on the back burner and they just kind of you know don't do it every day, even if it's just that five-minute thing. A lot of people are like, oh, deities will just do this. And I'm like, no, it needs to be a relationship. And in that relationship that you can build with the deity, you do get inspired. They are they're drawn to show you something, and then there is a little bit of a I want to emulate, I want to emulate this energy, I want to emulate that energy, and this energy is called X, Y, and Z, you know, hail all of the days.

Hecate And The Power Of Dark

SPEAKER_00 35:27

And sometimes you need a deity who is like you, sometimes you do need a deity who has the traits you don't have. Yeah. You know, but either way, I wanted to make sure I included as much range as possible within the limits of this book so that hopefully everybody would find at least one or two deities that they would connect with, maybe 10, maybe 20. I mean, I'm an eclectic witch. I I connect with a lot of deities. Now, my primary deity is Hecate. Um yeah, well, she's sort of mean and kick-ass, kind of like me. Um, she is the ultimate cranky crone. Long before I was a cranky crone. Uh, she was, but she's also protective, and she is a goddess of the crossroads, so she's all about choices and trying to find the right direction and um finding the power in darkness, which darkness is not the same thing as evil, darkness is a whole thing, and we all have darkness inside of us, and there is so much darkness in the world right now, but you can find ways to turn that into power. If you you know, this may be a time for people to connect with the slightly darker gods and goddesses, especially women. You know, women, maybe this is not time for the like nice spring goddesses. Maybe this is time for the kick-ass bitch goddesses, you should excuse the word, who will help empower you to go out there and kick ass.

GDC 37:23

Great. You know, it's funny, Jenny and I talked about Hecate just briefly today.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

So I was channeling it already.

GDC 37:32

You we were already connected. Ginny, do you have any questions about it?

Jenny 37:37

Well, I was gonna say what we were talking about is um so again, Came of Age as a witch is in the 90s, and it was all like love and light goddesses, and the dark goddesses were really left out. And like I even have like these books on goddesses, and like Hecate is not in them. And what I've seen is this really cool trend is so many witches are being drawn to her right now in our coven. It's like someone will be in our coven for like a couple weeks, and they're like, I feel drawn to Hecate. And I'm like, Yeah, because she sent you here. Like, I know she did, like that's how she works right now. Um, but what we were talking about is I started working here with her when we moved to this house. And when we bought this house, I wasn't even like thinking, but we are sitting on a three-way crossroads.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

There you go. And also, how cool is that? I wish my house is on a three-way crossroads. I'm a little envious. My house is on an old country road, it's fine. Um, but that's very cool. And yes, it's you know, Hecate is the goddess of the crossroads. Absolutely. Um so did you read this section in the book about her? Did you get anything from that that we you found helpful?

Jenny 38:53

Yeah, and I I so what I like about this book is the permission to be a whole person, evolve and change. Because I see what happens sometimes with newer witches is they're like, I'm gonna devote all fiber of my being, every waking moment to this one deity. And then that one deity is sometimes like, I'm done now. And they are devastated. But you talk about that, you normalize that, you normalize like creating your own, like you can pick from different the different pantheons. You don't have to become like completely an ancient Egypt expert just because you work with and if you do that's great.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

I mean, I you know, I have examples in the book about people who specifically work with the Pantheon. I do not. Um, I I basically work with you know, I even mix them like on one, like on a particular holiday, you know, it's Beltane, and I may call on one Celtic deity and you know one you know something else deity. I I love them all. Um I mean I I I am more drawn in general, I think, to the Celtic and the Greek. I don't work with the Egyptian ones as much, um, except Bast, of course, because Cive Cats. Um, you know, uh that that's sort of required. Um but there's also Sekhmet, who is Bast's sister, who is the lion to the pussy cat. They are they have a lot of the same energy, except Sekmet gets really pissed off. And right now, if I were gonna channel anybody, it would not be Bast. Oh I would probably go for the angry bloodletting lioness goddess because that's how I feel.

GDC 40:54

So my cat just jumps up now. She was like, Did you see that call me? Did you call it exactly somebody say segment?

Letting Practice Grow And Change

SPEAKER_00 41:03

Somebody say segment. But I I do think that one of the things that's important in witchcraft in general, and you know, being a a crone now, you know, you need to allow yourself to grow and change. Because you know, in your witchcraft practice, just as in your life, nothing stays the same. If you stay exactly the same, you're not growing. Right. And for me, the the thing about witchcraft is it is the essential core truth, if there is one, of witchcraft is that you attempt to become your best self as a person and your best self as a witch. And in order to do that, you have to grow and change. You know, I am not the same person I was when I was 50 or when I was 40 or when I was 30, or God forbid when I was 20. No, thank you. People are like, oh, I wish I were young again. And I'm like, no, no, I spent years learning this crap. I don't want to go back to being stupid again. Thank you very much. I maybe had more brain cells then, but I didn't do with them. So yeah, I think when you're working with deities, you need to be open to change and flow, just like with the rest of witchcraft. And maybe you will have the same deity forever, and there's nothing wrong with that. If that is your person, that's fine. But you also need to be open to saying, okay, my life is not the same as it was. Do I need to try and connect with a different deity that is more appropriate for where I'm at right now? I absolutely gorgeous cat.

GDC 43:04

Oh, she thinks you. She thinks you. So here on Belief Being and Beyond, we always talk about what you believe in constitutes how you behave. And we look for people who actually live it. They live what they write about, they live what they talk about, they live all of that. But now we pose another question, and we're gonna pose this question to you, Mr. Deborah Blake. You can find Deborah at www.debrablakeautho.com. Follow her on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, wherever you get things, check out her Patreon. She's got stuff going on, all the books. So here's your question What lies beyond?

What Lies Beyond Hope

SPEAKER_00 43:51

I don't know. And that is part of the journey. The uh exciting part of the journey is that you don't know. Know and you get to explore it, and it's scary. I mean, the unknown is scary. I am I am not good with the unknown. I am absolutely uh like because I'm a tourist, I like everything in neat little boxes, and I like to know where I'm going tomorrow at 10 a.m. And but you don't know, and that is part of the joy of witchcraft and of life in general, is you get to open the door to tomorrow and find out. Now, mind you, in the last year, we've been opening that door, and there's a lot of horrible things on the other side, yeah, and it is you know, it is very difficult, I think, to keep faith in a time like this, but this is the time when we most need faith, and I do. I mean, every day I get up and I watch the news and I think this isn't even impossible. This is like the Star Trek where Mr. Spock had a beard. It's just not right. I don't understand it, I don't comprehend the world we're living in at all. But I still get solace from my gods. I get faith from the people that I know who are open-hearted, open-minded human beings who don't think this is right. And for me, the witchcraft community is a huge source of strength right now, a huge source of solace, even if mostly we're just all like clutching onto each other while we feel like we're drowning. And the reason why I keep writing books is because I want to put a little piece of hope and a little piece of knowledge and a little piece of something to a raft to cling to in the storm. And I think we don't know what's beyond, you know. We have guesses. I mean, I I know what I don't believe is beyond. You know, I have I have, you know, I don't believe in like the Christian hell, you know, kind of thing. I absolutely do believe in reincarnation because I've had enough experiences that sort of have proved to me that, you know, doing doing hypnotherapy and accidentally stumbling into past life regression things when we weren't working on that. I was like, oh wait, what is that? Oh crap, really? Um, so you know, I have some idea. Mostly I think what lies beyond is hope.

GDC 47:01

Oh, you guys, thank you so much for joining Deborah Blake here on Belief Being and Beyond. Hope, you guys. Also, pick up the book. Pick up the book. It really is somewhat of an encyclopedia, and it will hold your hand through getting to know deities and how to do it properly. Again, we love you guys. Hope, hope, hope. Like, subscribe, and share and hope. Anyway, we'll see you next time, you guys. Love ya. See you on the flippity flip.