101 Pagans Vignette for Deities section by Ferdiad.

The sky is shading gently from dusk to night as I walk my circle, say my prayer,
light my candles. Amber flickering light plays across the face of the familiar figure
seated before me, cross legged and straight backed, gazing implacably ahead. His
entire appearance is both meditation and lesson: large wide eyes stare through me,
beyond the physical and into the deep forest paths of The Otherworld; proud
antlers reach skyward from his brow, symbols of power, divinity, sovereignty; the
torc at his neck confirms his authority. Wrought by the alchemy of smithcraft it
shows he is master of his realm. I know him as Cernunnos, Lord of the Wild and of
Beasts, guardian of the gateways that lead to the Sidhe, into the wildwood beyond
the village, to that tangled briar of the unconscious, unknown spaces of dreams
and fears and deep soul learning.
I offer resins and herbs to the censer before him and watch the sacred smoke rise.
He holds aloft a torc in one hand and a giant, ram-horned snake in the other:
further symbols of his divine status and also of the challenge he poses to those who
would learn from him. The snake is powerful, potentially deadly, with curling
horns displaying its Otherworldly nature. Horns and antlers, magic and majesty,
Cernunnos is a true master of beasts to hold such a creature. The torc he holds, a
power matched to the torc worn at his neck, is the symbol of the secrets he guards,
the paths through the wild, the dark gateways into the unknown.
It is not a choice of instinct over will, or of knowledge over death. We do not choose
what the gods will give to us, for who would not choose the torc and be spared the
serpent? Instead he offers us challenge, and these are the symbols both of his
godhood and of the secrets he guards. Knowledge of the Otherworld is not granted,
as simply as one might be handed a torc; it is rather a goal, earned through
exploration, walking the pathways and being open to guidance. Nor is death
something to be avoided or defeated. The challenge of the snake is not that of a
monster to overcome in primal combat, it offers rather a challenge to the fears we
hold in our life. If we can embrace and master a creature that can defy death and
shed its skin to be reborn, and hold it in a way that causes harm neither to snake
nor handler, then we can accept our mortality and walk through life, unafraid, in
the clear knowledge that we will die.
Those scant shards of knowledge of the Old Gods handed down from antiquity can
only be breathed into life by seeking a personal relationship with those gods as
unique deities. The simple act of sitting with my gods, contemplating their nature,
offering sacrifice and prayer, are my ways of developing a gentle but profound
connection and opening to what I can learn from them.
Further Reading:
Green, Miranda The Gods of the Celts Bramley Books, Godalming, Surrey 1986
Restall-Orr, Emma Spirits of the Sacred Grove Thorsons, London 1996