Mythical information

Deity Work

Hello!
As you all can see from the title I will be talking about deities. Now I will be linking some videos with info in them at the end of the chapter if that's better for you all but for the most part I'll be leaving screenshots of information as well as credit to the people who gave it of course.
Side note: I will not being going into detail about specific deities in this chapter, I'll just be giving information on the basics.
(I got the following info from medium.com and the article was made by BoomerTheWitch.)

Next I will be putting in information that is from Quora and it was written by Sarah McLean.

I would use your intuition here.

You can absolutely choose the deities that you work with, but if you ask a deity to work with you, it may very well say no. Or, it may teach you one thing and then move on. It's best to treat deities like people, and approach them like you would human teachers or colleagues. It's also possible that a deity might choose you.

So, how do you know if one has chosen you? On one hand, if you're looking for signs, it's really easy to interpret anything as a sign no matter how mundane, because of confirmation bias. If you're looking for signs, you're inevitably going to find them. On the other hand, it's possible to be receiving really obvious signals and keep second-guessing yourself: Why would the gods bother to talk to me? What makes me so special? They can't actually be giving me signs, right? I frequently feel insecure about my own "worthiness." I have felt undeserving of divine attention, but hey, it's rude to ignore them!

How do you know for sure? Well, the only way to know for sure is to talk to the god in meditation. You can talk to any god you want regardless of whether it has given you "signs" or not. Most of them are open to listening if you reach out to them. Here are some indications that the deity is reaching out to you:

You feel inexplicably drawn to this deity in particular. If you feel compelled to study a particular deity for no apparent logical reason, that can mean that the deity is trying to nudge you towards it. My patron deity turned out to be Dionysus, which I would never have guessed; I became inexplicably obsessed with him, and the more research I did, the more and more he resonated for me. If for some reason you feel like you need to research a deity, especially if that deity seemed to come out of nowhere, I recommend you heed the call.
"Signs": What most people mean when they speak of getting "signs" of a deity's interest is encountering things related to it as you go about your daily life. Usually this means running into the deity's iconography — continuing to use Dionysus as an example, this would mean seeing a lot of grapevines, leopard print, masks, or bull's horns. There's more than just iconography, though. Maybe you hear music with lyrics that remind you of the deity, or overhear a conversation that reminds you of it. Smells, tastes, and sensations related to the deity might crop up as well. Now, to be clear, seeing a raven and interpreting it as a symbol of the Morrigan does not change the fact that the bird is just a bird. What makes it a sign is that you noticed it. And, because this one is the easiest to be influenced by confirmation bias, you have to receive different kinds of "signs" with enough frequency, so that you know it wasn't just a one-off or wishful thinking. You have to be able to distinguish between your confirmation bias and genuine intuition.
Synchronicities: The most obvious signs are synchronicities — signs that occur in succession or in accordance with each other to draw attention to themselves. Seeing a raven is one thing; reading a book about the Morrigan in a park and looking up to find a raven staring directly at you is another. One time I was cleaning up one of my card decks shortly after speaking with Dionysus, thinking to myself, "lol wouldn't it be funny if I drew the Satyr card?" I promptly drew it straight from the deck. Kind of hard to ignore or second-guess that! Pay close attention to any creepy coincidences.
The deity approaches you directly. If the deity actually shows up in a dream or a meditation, that's a pretty blatant sign that it wants to work with you, or at least wants your attention. If this doesn't happen to you, don't sweat it. Not everyone has dreaming ability. I certainly don't!
For now, I would do as much research on the deities you're interested in as possible. See if any of the concepts related to it resonate for you. Pay really close attention to the deity's iconography, and also your own intuition. Try your damnedest to distinguish intuition from wishful thinking, nervousness, and doubt. If you remove all other factors (fear, desire, uncertainty, insecurity, skepticism, etc.) and are still left with a feeling that calmly says yes, then there you have it.

As for your last question about whether the deity should be alike to you in some way, in my opinion, yes, it should. It is said that we are made in the image of God, and that's true (although not in the way most people think it's true). But it is equally true that God is made in the image of man — that we give names and faces to God in the forms of our gods and goddesses, to better understand it. I think that the most personal connections to the divine that we can possibly have are ones in which we can see ourselves in our gods. I ended up seeing myself in Dionysus, a lot more than I expected. Once I recognized all the similarities between myself and him, everything clicked. So yes, if you can, find a god that's like you. And if a god chooses you, then there is certainly something about it that is like you, even if you don't see it at first.
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Now if you don't really feel like reading through the whole thing I'll give you a shorter version of it. When it comes to deity work you really want to follow your intuition and how you feel. Look for sign or little things you may see as small but could really mean something. Really pay attention to your surroundings and even who you are as a person because a deity may or may not already be trying to reach out to you. You can also do research on certain deities they have specific qualities you may be interested in. For instance let's say you want to work with Eirene who is closely associated with peace, maybe because in your life it's been hard for you to find peace within yourself.

Then of course there's many ways to actually contact deities, like cartomancy, dice divination and tarot. Whatever works best for you. Also a very important thing you need to know it that deity work takes time a patience. It's not just a quick and easy thing to rush through you are building relationships and that takes time. Now it is common that a person and a deity just aren't compatible so their personality or methods may not be right for you and that's completely ok it happens.

Now before I put the video links down I want to touch on one more thing, protection. You want to have some way to protect yourself so having basic knowledge of shields and banishing/cleansing is extremely important to keep you safe. So I suggest looking into that before you decide to work with deities or spirits of any kind.

(I'm having some trouble pasting the links here so I'll put them in the comments for you to look at!)
So I think that's all for now!
Goodbye for now!
~Jasmine

P.S.- As usual if you have other questions please feel free to ask.