It's really not that far away from the point in time currently we currently occupy (well, for those of who have a linear frame of mind, but enough of that wibbly wobbley stuff here) . When I close my eyes I can still remember those first few months when I was learning about the craft and paganism in general. All of those memories of blundering attempts at invoking the god and the goddess based on half baked descriptions of them in water down mass market paper back distillations of Wicca hit me like a truck filled with lead barreling down the highway with brakes that were null.
More than likely, if you come to know of the craft through mainstream sources, you probably know exactly what I am talking about. Opening up Scott Cunninham and Marion Zimmer Bradley to read about the big booby goddess of the womb and the earth opening her doughty self to some rutting stag of a hairy hunter - all of which tittilates the sense when you are twelve, but when you look between your legs and find something more jarring than the allegedly divine pussy all "females" are suppose to own, it's hard to take such images seriously.
"The goddess is within you," mainstream feminine centered paganism whispers in you ear like a sweet spell, but wearing your own skin is like wearing that of a many layered beast, and not a single one of them is motherhood incarnate. When you put on lipstick, you look in the mirror and see boy god winking back at you hand in hand with his dike sister the moon.
In the end, as I've grown into my body, the so called temple which houses the soul, I've realized that if we are in the likeness of the gods, then fertility goddess Fertile Myrtle and phallus sword wielding sky daddy are definitely not the end of Deity, but rather, a single granule of the many gods' presence.
So fuck that hetero, nuclear nonsense. Give me the Gaea whose fertility brings monsters instead of spring, giants with hundreds of heads who each speak of their own crystalline being summoned from the grave of the earth. Show us the Inanna who bears the sword just as well as the thong and bends over for joy but also knocks the green god on his ass just for looking at her throne the wrong way. Give me the Artemis who aides the birth of babies and enbies like myself without hesitation. Even the monsters of her great granny are helpless in the beginning. Call on the Horned God whose vagina is perfect for bearing the cum of the summer's yearning, but whose real phallus exists as the index finger and middle finger pointing heaven word's up the lady's heavenly cunt.
The truth is, if you take a real long and hard look, you see the fae are not really interested in missionary either. And shape shifter is not just a term applied to phasing into beast alone.
Even the gods are in drag (see my boy Dionysus and all the rest) and I'm sorry, I'm not believing for a second that the goddess is at all concerned with just being one of the girls for forever and a day just because some human adult kids need a mother to remain gentle in their mind's eye.
Yeah, that's right. I'm calling your image of the gentle mother goddess simplistic and sexist. Women are not your receptacle of dreams. And neither are the gods in respect to their gender.
Enter that Tetrad, a group of gods who were first honored by P. Sufenas Virius Lupus and eir's comrades in paganism. Meeting them through Sufenas' blog and book was like a orgiastic homecoming party in which you walk in a wreck and leave with a new, bad ass crew.
The Tetrad: these are my UPG's mixed with descriptions from All-Soul, All-Body, All-Love, All-Power: A TransMythology
Panpsyche -
Trans, lunar goddess of the word, Her name means "all soul" and she is a fierce defender of transkids and will turn the night sky black over those who step on and defile her children.
Panhyle - trans, earth god of the body. His presence is in the emphasis of touch, of the material reality of the body, it's needs, and it's wants. He is the hunter, the lover who has little to say, but so much to give with just his embrace. His name means "all body" His godhood is concerned with the comfort of the transbody with theirself..
Paneros
- metagender god who does fit within the binary and oversees the love of the transperson for themselves as themselves and not as other people percieve and read them. Eir's name means "all love"
Pancrates
- Pangender god, savior of the cosmos from the destruction of Aphopis so in my view they are the keepers of the sacred ways of the universe and help maintain the wheels of creation. They are often seen bearing a sword and wearing armor. Their name means "all power." The y are concerned with the empowerment of transpeople over the architecture of their own lives.
Panprosdexia
- agender god whose name means all acceptance. They are not in the original book in which the Tetrad made their debut to the pagan literary world so often when talk of the Tetrad includes them it is listed as the Tetrad +. Sufenas has taken down their blog within the past year and I cannot recall everything I read about Panprosdexia, but if I recall correctly they are a psychopomp figure concerned with the self- acceptance of a trans person's identity.
Please, if you are interested, think about buying Sufenas' book here. If you are trans/gender queer pagan looking for some divine love that honors your sphere of existence I promise it is well worth the twenty bucks you'll pay for it.
All of this exposition on the Tetrad + has this goal in mind: us queers need our own gods. And I promise they are out there, by a million unspoken names, just waiting for us to meet them. I got a Summer Fae Queen just around the bend who had a green leafy pinecone the size of a car and when she runs her fingers along the tips her children fall out as spores on the wind. Gone are the images of the singular big belly Ge with only her own progenation in mind - creation is identity itself in motion. And what is gender but the expression of creation trying on the infinite ways of the finite and mortal.
It wasn't until Pancrates started barreling down my astral door, with their joint in hand, running their fingers through their buzz cut hair wondering if I was ready to start opening myself up to the idea that probably none of the gods are as they seem, that I realized what I had been missing. Without any hesitation, after I called their name, Pancrates was there, their sword sheathed at their hip and their shark tee billowing in the wind, asking me if I was ready to win the battle for my own soul. The only other gods outside of the Tetrad + who have touched me so deeply have been Inanna, Artemis, and Dionysus, all three of whom I consider protectors and agents of the queer.
Queer is the natural state of the universe. Flux is the holy denominator of both mortal and immortal.
And who are we to ague with god?
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