Toothless Lions: A Dangerous View of Gods of War

 

   This is somewhat of a follow up to both my blog about dangerous gods and about the nature of offerings when a war goddess is concerned.  Something that Morgan Daimler said has stuck with me and inspired a lot of good conversations with other Morrigan devotees.

"You know when my dad came back from Vietnam, when he got off the plane, people in the airport spit on him. This makes me think of that. We are spitting on our war gods because we are mistaking them for the gory collateral damage of war that we abhor. But they are not that. They are the spirit to fight and win and defend the things that matter. They are the spirit of battle that makes anything in life worth fighting for. And I think its dangerous to forget that, and very dangerous to disrespect  them. They protect us, and we need them, just as we need soldiers whether we want to admit it or not.”

 – Morgan Daimler

   When I first started working with the Morrigan she only showed me her harshest aspects. And really I needed them at the time.  It was a long time before I understood that she was more than a goddess of war.  She is a shapeshifter after all, she has many aspects and guises and often takes the exact form needed to achieve her goals or those of the Irish gods.  For a long time her connection with war made many Pagans uneasy about working with her.  Saying that you were a devotee to the Morrigan in a circle was like saying your patron goddess was Voldemort.  Over the last couple of years that has changed.  But what I wonder is whether or not we have gone to the other extreme? Have we forgotten she is a goddess of war?  Have we reshaped our idea of the “war” she rules over to better fit our morals and comfort zones?  Have we declawed our war gods? Not just the Morrigan, but all of them.  Have we made them toothless lions? Connected to the war of bygone days and movies, and not actual war, right here, right now, in modern times?

Honestly I think we have. 

   In my opinion the nature of the gods remains the same despite what we would like them to be, but ignoring a vital part of a deity’s nature is never a good idea.  Realistically most of us will never be a part of actual physical warfare unless you are in the military.  And I am grateful for that, and I am also grateful for all the men and women in uniform who risk their lives to protect myself and everyone in this country.  But I can not forget that in other countries war is very real thing to everyday people.  It still doesn’t make modern warfare extinct simply because I am not a part of it.  And I can not see the Morrigan hanging up her “war goddess hat” and saying “Well it was a good run with the spear and sword, this modern warfare I’ll just leave for someone else to carry on with!”  While they are in the minority I do know, and have come across in my travels, several Morrigan devotees in the military who do pray to her in the context of going to face actual warfare and ask for protection when they go on tour.  

   We don’t really like the idea of violence, and so we try to divorce our gods from any connections to it.  As so called nature worshipers you’d think we would pay a little more attention to how inherently violence nature is.  Volcanos erupting, lions eating zebras.  All of this creates balance, but a lot of it is through fire and blood.

   Part of the issue is that most of us work with the Morrigan in the context of conquering personal battles.  The majority of my own work with her has been just that, and she is quite good at it.  But that does not negate her connection to other types of battles.

  Perhaps we need to look at "war" a little differently.  Really think about why we connect that word to Her.  Because with gods we are talking about vast and powerful beings and it really is hard to describe all that they are, and all that they encompass into tiny mortal words.  In the end I think if we really distill the essence of what the Morrigan rules over (and I cringe to nail her down to just one thing) it is conflict.  She rules over conflict of all kinds.  And I think this makes her fluid nature easier to understand than quibbling over what the term “war goddess” really means.  If we think of her ruling over conflict of all kinds it makes sense that she can both rule over a physical battlefield and internal conflict at the same time.  I don’t think she really cares whether or not the battle is a literal one or one where you face your own demons.  Both have costs and casualties, and real or metaphorical blood will probably be spilt in either case.  And in either case she goads us onward, she reminds us what is worth fighting for, and that peace has a price to it. 

   We need our war gods, whether we like all of the things they represent or not.  I would rather see all of their harsh beauty, in all its cold hard reality, then turning them into something more pleasing to my modern eyes.