Gods in a Modern Day Context
December 26, 2011 
I’ve been wanting to update on here for awhile, but I still don’t have Internet at my apartment, even a month later. I decided to come to an Internet cafe to do so this time.
Since arriving in Japan, things have changed slightly in that I’m focusing more on gods than ancestors, which was the opposite before. I think that since I have no ancestors from here, it’s easier to connect with gods instead. One dilemma I’m having is trying to figure out which god to honor in what occasion. I know of the gods as being tied to various elements, and how people have honored them in the past, but not much in helping modern day humans with their problems. So I’m trying to get a little creative of who to ask in what situation. These are all my speculations, so feel free to add your own. Väinämöinen could be good when needing guidance in an academic field, or when needing inspiration in creative endeavours. Mielikki could be good when needing prosperity to come your way, since she was prayed to by hunters to bring game to them, which was their livelihood. Perhaps the same could be applied to Pellonpekko. Tellervo I always saw as a deity that was good for helping lost women, which could be applied to any area in life that you are lost in. When I travel, one of my friends always tells me ‘May Ilmarinen guide your journey’, so I suppose he was often prayed to when traveling. As for love, I’m not sure who I would want to ask, because all of the gods associated with love in Finnish mythology seem a little dangerous to contact with. Not that I ever have any luck with that anyway!
I haven’t really heard many people talk about having close relationships with particular gods. I have one friend completely devoted to Ukko, but that’s about all I know. I guess it may be the normal way of Finns being private. Or maybe these gods are less personable than, say, the Norse gods.
I’ve had the same sort of feeling with the gods as you do. The Finnish gods just don’t seem to be as personable as other people’s. I know lots of people in the Pagan world who have close personal connections to Odin or Dionysus etc, but I just couldn’t see myself having that with Ilmarinen or Väinämöinen. There does feel like there is a bit of remoteness to the Finnish gods. They’re more, I want to say, ‘elemental’. They feel like the natural world they’re associated with. I can feel Ukko’s presence in a storm, but just like I don’t feel a personal relationship with the storm, I don’t feel that with Ukko.
Out of curiousity, which gods would you say were associated with love? I’m trying to think of any, but I’m drawing a blank.
Whenever I’ve honored any of the gods, normally I feel a presence, but as you said, I don’t think I would ever see myself having a close bond. It seems like a lot of people just honor them at major points of the year. There are still a couple of Norse gods that I honor regularly, because I had such a close relationship with them before. I don’t think I will stop honoring those particular gods.
As for love, there is Lempo, Lemminkainen (sorry this computer doesn’t have Nordic characters), and Liekko (once again, lacking the Nordic characters there).
I actually thought of Lemminkäinen, but then I thought to myself there’s more of a ‘lust’ feeling I get there (whether that’s because that’s the way Lemminkäinen is or he’s been shaped by the way Lönnrot made him in the Kalevala, I’m not sure). But there does seem to be an ‘unstable’ aspect to the kind of love all those deities you mention represent.