The Green Man

I believe the Gods (masc), or if you prefer: "archetypes", of our pagan past, most of which still are very pertinent today, are to a witch what the nine muses are to men of various inspired arts - they are our inspiration.

Lately I feel the the presence of a power, a God, both lofty and profoundly erotic.
It is The Green Man. He has many names, some hotly contested. He is Osiris, Dumuzi, Tammuz, Adonis, Dionysus, Jesus, Viridios, the Green Knight, John Barleycorn, Sylvanus, Green George, Jack in the green, Al-Khiḍr, Llew, Robin Goodfellow, Robin Hood...

A couple of interesting bits -
"In one of his roles the ancient Egyptian God Osiris is regarded as a corn-deity and is commonly depicted with a green face representing vegetation, rebirth and resurrection. Containers of soil in the shape of Osiris planted with seed ("Osiris Beds") are found in some New Kingdom tombs . The sprouting corn implied the resurrection of the deceased."
- Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, George Hart, p119, Routledge, 2005

"There are legends of him (Al-Khiḍr) in which, like Osiris, he is dismembered and reborn; and prophecies connecting him, like the Green Man, with the end of time. His name means the Green One or Verdant One, he is the voice of inspiration to the aspirant and committed artist. He can come as a white light or the gleam on a blade of grass, but more often as an inner mood. The sign of his presence is the ability to work or experience with tireless enthusiasm beyond one's normal capacities. In this there may be a link across cultures, …one reason for the enthusiasm of the medieval sculptors for the Green Man may be that he was the source of inspiration."
- Anderson, William (1990). Green Man: The Archetype of Our Oneness with the Earth. San Francisco: Harper Collins.

The Green Man isn't just the Goddesses yearly child. Together with his sister-lover, the flower maiden, he is life, life never-ending. He may transform in Autumn, when he is sacrificed for the sake of life, to feed the people, but he is never absent, as, in all places, he is immortal in that which is evergreen.

In him we see our own immortality mirrored. We, are born in the spring of our youth, only to ripen and be harvested, and then , one fine day we come again, like the grasses and the flowers we are reborn, again and again... me, I want to be the evergreen.

I yearn for him to come
and bless my garden with his presence,
as if it were a holy place
where he might abide softly
enchanting me with his green song.
In my soul the flower maiden awakens,
and my hair takes on a golden hue,
and my finger tips are rosy.

When I tread the pathways,
of my garden;
so carefully laid out in early spring,
tendrils and dewy leaves grasp at me.
I smell the perfume of herbs,
and green life growing.
He is so close then I wonder
blushing, and glancing about,
if other's will see my desire.