The Search for Peace in Times of Chaos—Volume God or Gods Britain’s ancient Pagan traditions contain many hundreds of gods and goddesses They are closely bound up with the cycle of nature, with different gods and goddesses being celebrated at different times of year That belief in gods connected with life, nature, and natural occurrences continues today There are literally thousands of different deities out there in the universe, and which ones they choose to honor will often depend significantly upon what pantheon their spiritual path follows However, many modern Pagans and Wiccans describe themselves as eclectic, which means they may honor a god of one tradition beside a goddess of another Most Pagans see god as more of a job title than a proper name Various Wiccan and Pagan traditions honor different gods Some see all deities as one and may refer to God or Goddess Others may worship specific gods or goddesses from their own tradition Because there are so many different forms of Pagan belief, there are nearly as many gods and goddesses to believe in They don’t worship the Christian God, but that doesn’t mean they don’t accept the existence of a deity Many Pagans are willing to accept the presence of in all things Because Paganism places a good deal of emphasis on the idea that experiencing the divine is something for everyone, not just select members of the clergy, it’s possible for a Pagan to find something sacred within the mundane For example, the whisper of wind through the trees or the roar of the ocean can both be considered divine Many feel that the divine lives within each of us It’s rare to find a Pagan who sees the gods as judgmental or punishing Instead, most view the gods as beings that are meant hand in hand and honored Paganism is generally a Ǧ religion worshiping both a god and a goddess, who are seen as complementary polarities (akin to the Taoist philosophy of yin and yang), and “embodiments of a life-force manifest in nature.” The duo-theism of the god and the goddess is often extended into a kind of dual pantheism through the belief, in the words of Dion Fortune, that “ ǡ ”—that is, the gods and goddesses of all cultures are, heavenly god and goddess… respectively, 05 aspects of one