The Long Road to Identifying My Patron

For a lot of reasons, I decided that 2012 was going to be the year I got serious about my spiritual journey. As a part of that, I joined ADF and started to work my way through the dedicant path. And I found something very interesting happen.

I’ve had Danu in my life for almost a decade. While there are many gods and goddesses I have had nodding acquaintance with, She has been a constant. But this year there was an additional presence that started to make itself known. And, I have to say, it was a very welcome presence. There has been a lot of turbulence in parts of my life and my extended family’s life. Danu is a nurturer but I just felt the need for aid from someone with a different set of skills. I had the sense that what I needed was someone with the skills of a trickster almost, but I didn’t want the level of trickiness that someone like Loki would bring.

And the presence that appeared was one who radiated confidence, helpfulness and a certain sly, trickery that seemed to be very helpful. Many of the things I needed help with or clarity for seemed to become much easier. All the while I was left wondering who my patron was. And my patron seemed to resonate with me in ways that were truly startling.

I have always loved confidence game themes. The Sting, Switch, the Mission Impossible series, etc. All of those have a common theme of being confidence games with the goal of some type of justice. This felt as though it was a key attribute of my patron.

I have always loved thunderstorms. I remember, from a very young age, sitting on my aunt’s porch in Binghamton, NY and enjoying the flash of lightning and the roar of thunder; sometimes a low, dull roar off in the distance and sometimes the sharp crack of a nearby strike. And, since my patron entered my life, I found that thunderstorms reverberated even more deeply with me.

My patron seemed to align with these attributes within me. For a time I thought that he was Odin, who fit on some levels but it never seemed to be an exact fit. The storms, yes. The confidence games, yes. But overall it just was off.

So I asked my patron to reveal himself to me in a dream one night. It was an interesting dream in which my patron did exactly what I asked but… Well, in my dream, I was at an automobile dealership. There were several salesmen there, all young men in dapper suits but there was this other man to whom I gravitated. He was old, no, ancient. His body was gnarled and his hair was mostly gone except for tufts here and there. When he approached me, the younger salesmen formed a ring around us and started to gather closer. It seemed they were intent on separating us and/or removing him from the scene.

He didn’t seem scared, though perhaps a touch indignant. He asked if they knew who he was and removed a card from his wallet and handed it to me. In the dream, I could clearly see letters written on the card in pencil. Of course, when I woke up I didn’t have anything to take notes on and the letters faded from my memory almost as quickly as a drop of water used to see if a wok is at the right temperature. Those letters teased at me for several weeks.

Then, on July 2, there was another big issue looming large in my life. My wife was coming home from spending some time with our grandchildren and my daughter had a court case against a man who had been harassing her.  I got up early in the morning to do a rite, asking my patron for help in my daughter’s case and asking the Shining Ones for protection for my wife’s journey. My wife made it home safely (though she did have a bit of a harrowing journey that showed that she was protected and guided coming home). The court case resolved itself in a very good way, and another, related case, resolved itself in an even better way.

The next day, I finally had some breathing room to catch up on reading emails in the ADF discuss list and Amanda Thomas had posted a link to the essay “Lugus: The Many-Gifted Lord.” I printed it off to read after work. When I got a chance to sit down and read it, it was as though scales fell from my eyes.

All my life I have labeled myself as a jack of all trades, master of some and here it turns out that my patron is jack of all trades and master of all, yet another parallel that made Lugh my obvious patron in the 20/20 glare of hindsight.

The compelling arguments that Lugh’s domain is storms and his association with Lightning and Thunder.

The way that Lugh uses trickery to right wrongs.

So now I know that my patron is Lugh and my patroness is Danu and my life is a little more complete now.

Still have no idea what the symbols on that card from the dream really meant, since they were longer than the English Lugh and seemed to contain D’s but Lugh has assured me that it was him in the dream and I’ll understand some day.

Blessings, readers