Rose Ariadne's Chitchcraft Blog

Dear Friends,

Today’s thoughts are a product of a very interesting conversation I recently had with a friend of mine that is in a same-sex relationship. She is just beginning to dive into Wicca and was rather confused by the importance many of us place on the concepts of the God and Goddess and the associated gender roles. I can certainly understand how these concepts may appear confusing or unsettling to those of us with different sexual preferences and lifestyles, but I encouraged her to try to see beyond the basic gender roles and fertility symbols.

First of all, I personally view the masculine and feminine traits within the God and Goddess as a symbol of the combined aspects that make each of us as an individual whole. It takes many parts to make a whole, and I have yet to meet a person who embodied ONLY masculine and feminine traits as they are culturally defined. I find the dual deity in Wicca to be much more relatable than the Gods of monotheistic religions, such as Christianity. The God and Goddess are not so much symbols of physical gender as they are representations of the various emotions and strengths that reside in each of us. We assign a physical gender to the deities to make them more relatable to us as humans, but in reality they have no outward physical gender—at least, not in the way we define gender as mortal beings.

While physical gender is a matter of birth, gender identification and roles are things that are assigned as a result of our personal beliefs and those of society. We associate the God with the Sun because the God is a representation of intensity, aggressiveness, and power. The Moon is the Goddess’s symbol because it is softer, more mysterious and waxes and wanes in much the same manner as a woman’s menstruation cycle. This does not always mean that certain traits MUST be associated with a particular gender, however. For instance, the Sun God Apollo and his affinity for music and poetry may be seen as feminine, while a War Goddess, such as the Celtic Andraste, may take on traits normally viewed as masculine.

The Wheel of the Year is largely based on concepts of fertility and reproduction, but these are loose concepts that are up to the individual’s interpretation. Again, we assign the roles of male and female to the God and Goddess in terms of fertility and the cycle of life because it generally makes sense biologically to do so. There are many things in nature that reproduce without strict concepts of male and female roles, such as plants, amoebas and some animals. The Wheel of the Year begins at Yule when the God is born of the Goddess. He matures and impregnates Her at Beltane. An abundant harvest for the difficult times ahead is ensured by His sacrifice at Lughnasadh, and He is deeply mourned by the Goddess. He is then reborn at the next Yule, and the cycle repeats itself.

The Wheel of the Year is not simply a representation of fertility and reproduction, however. The concepts go beyond their basic initial appearance to symbolize the greater cycle of life in all living things; birth, coming of age, death, and eventually rebirth. This cycle can be viewed as an overall metaphor for all of our goals and accomplishments, as well as the “big picture.”

No matter what our personal beliefs and lifestyles entail, it is important to remember that the God and Goddess are loving and benevolent above all else. We will all be wiser and more at peace if we can learn to see beyond biological representations and take away a personal meaning from the cycles of our deities apart from the surface-level gender ideals.

Brightest Blessings,

Rose Ariadne
Your Warm And Caring “Resident Witch In Charge”