Anonymous Deities

[nightstream]

I've been struggling for the past few months in my relationships with two deities that I felt really drawn to and connected with in the past, but lately I've been feeling like I'm at a point in my life where we're both moving on. It seemed like no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't recover the loving connection we'd had, and in frustration I did a ritual last Friday night on the full moon, and decided to try a whole new approach. It was probably one of the most moving rituals I've ever had. I asked "the gods of my heart" to speak to me, for me to be able to hear the gods that were trying to be a part of my life, because I felt like I had been unable to hear them and hadn't been listening to them. What happened felt amazing - after my prayer and lighting a candle of devotion, I decided to do a freewrite and just write down everything that came to me, no matter how silly it felt. At first everything started slowly, but eventually I got a pretty good sense for the time of a Lady and a Lord, both of whom I felt were so close to me, yet I felt like I hadn't been able to hear them until I took the time to listen to them and myself.
However, a funny thing happened - when I started wondering to myself about what gods they might be, I felt that they both responded with laughter, and the sense that they thought it was silly that I was trying to pin them down. In the past, I've thought of myself pretty much as a hard polytheist, not so much out of complete personal experience of my gods as the fact that polytheism makes the most sense to me - Apollo is not Manannan is not Jehovah, etc. But it seems like every time I've ever tried to pin my gods down to a specific god or goddess from a culture, my deities don't fit.
Does anyone else have experience with this "anonymous" attitude that my gods seem to embody? Does anyone else have anonymous gods while still looking at the world with a hard polytheistic bent? I guess I'm just curious to know how other people worship and identify with gods that don't have historical myths and symbols (and all that other good stuff to study... I feel all lost without research...).
Thanks! :)

[Khaelo]

"quick reply"

IMHO, the hard polytheistic bent isn't incompatible with "anonymous" gods. Quite the contrary -- gods are specific entities with particular characteristics. It would be disrespectful both to the gods with whom you're currently communicating and the historical deities to force incorrect names and symbology. It would be kind of like insisting that this redheaded person is Jane even though Jane is a brunette just because the redhead hasn't told you her own name. :) If they don't match, they don't match.

How to worship and identify without research? Ask. They're gods. They should know. Either that, or they have reason not to let you revert to the easy look-it-up solution. :P The non-historic deities I know are not anonymous per se. They gave me names to call them by, as well as webs of symbology and myth. All of this had to come directly from them, however, and what they haven't given / won't give (ritual procedure!), I either have to improvise or go without. It's not simple or straightforward, but there's not much of a solution.

[nightstream]

Thanks :) That makes a lot of sense - sometimes it seems so much harder to trust my own instincts and the intangible communications that I -do- have with my gods than it is to trust to research, books, other peoples' experiences - but it comes down to what you said, it's not right to try and force my gods to be what they're not - it's disrespectful, and it's no way to build a relationship. Thank you for the response, and it's really reassuring to hear from someone else who's had these same questions :)

[Windsmith]

Several years ago, my group was involved in aspecting a "new" deity we believed had been trying to communicate with us. We encountered a Being, neither male nor female, who was very old and yet very new to working with humans. We were given no name for this Mysterious One; we were given to understand that ze wasn't ready to state something as concrete as a name, and we weren't ready to hear it. Almost 3 years later, we still don't know hir name. So, yeah, it happens a lot. If you're meant to know a name, you will. But it doesn't matter all that much, in the end - if you're talking to a specific Mysterious One, they'll know it, no matter what you call them.