I first encountered Nemetona when I started practicing with ADF ritual forms in late 2012. I needed a gatekeeper who could work in a Gaulish hearth, and my attempts to connect with Cernunnos were failing. I wondered why gatekeepers are usually male, and started running female deities through my head. Why not Nemetona? The goddess of the sacred grove as grove keeper, as gatekeeper. The idea pleased me. Why not?
I think many polytheists will recognize the sensation you feel when something is right, when something is working. I felt that when I discovered druidry. When I started exploring the gods of Gaul. And the first time I called on Nemetona in ritual. Click. I'm home.
The problem with worshiping a deity like Nemetona is that we know almost nothing about her. Her function as a goddess of sacred space is present in her name - Nemeton, temple, sacred grove. There is an altar to her at Aquae Sulis that pairs her with Loucetios Mars, and a few more along the Rhine. There's a Germanic/Celtic tribe that probably bears her name: the Nemetes. There's one image that may be her or may be Rosmerta... and that's about it.
There's more study that can be done. What were the sacred spaces of the pre-Roman and Romanized Gauls like? There's much that can be learned from looking at the sacred groves themselves. What about the Nemetes? Who were the people that worshiped Nemetona and took her name as their own? That is the study of a lifetime (and one I look forward to.) But there's so much more that's lost.
And so I asked to know more, I offered to her the ripe purple blackberries from my garden and the white Queen Anne's lace with it's rich purple hearts and I asked her to show me something about her. She answered through my Wildwood deck that I should watch (Knight of Arrows, the Hawk) and she would show me herself (XII The Mirror).
And foxes started appearing. Everywhere.
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| Photo by US Fish and Wildlife Service, Public Domain Image |
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