A starting point
Wicca is often described as worshipping a Goddess and a God, and much twentieth-century Wiccan writing does exactly that. But Wiccans hold a genuinely wide range of positions on what deity is, and there is no central authority to settle it. You can practise Wicca for years without settling on a name for anything.
Some approaches
Duotheism: a Goddess and a God, often as a pair with a seasonal relationship — the framing in much classic Wiccan material. Soft polytheism: many named deities understood as faces of a smaller number of underlying divinities. Hard polytheism: distinct, individual deities, an approach more common in reconstructionist Paganism than in Wicca. Archetypal or psychological: deities as real and useful images of human experience rather than independent beings. Nature-focused or non-theist: reverence directed at the living world, seasons and cycles, without personal deities.
If you'd rather not
A practice without deity works just as well. The Wheel, ritual, seasonal attention, ethics, magical practice and a Book of Shadows all work without invoking anyone. Nobody needs to 'find their patron', and there is no deadline.
If you'd like to explore
Read about a deity in their own cultural context before bringing them into practice: mythology, the culture that told it, and how modern devotees describe them. Start with acknowledgement rather than requests. Notice how the practice feels over time rather than deciding after one evening. And be willing to conclude that a particular deity isn't for you; that isn't a rejection.
Respecting boundaries
Some deities belong to living traditions with their own rules about who may approach them and how, and some practices are closed to outsiders altogether. Where a tradition is living and has clear guidance, that guidance is the authority — not a beginner book, and not this app.
Prayer is allowed
Plenty of Wiccans pray: speaking to a deity, or to the world, without asking for a result and without casting anything. Not everything has to be a spell. Prayer sits perfectly comfortably in Wicca, and beginner books underplay it because spells sell better.
Invocation and calling upon
Writers distinguish between invoking, usually described as calling a deity into a person or space, and evoking, calling something to appear before you. Wiccan ritual commonly 'calls upon' deity: an address and an invitation rather than a summons. Deeper forms of invocation, including Drawing Down the Moon, belong to traditional practice and are covered separately.
Offerings
Food, drink, flowers, incense, a poured libation, a song, a piece of work done well. Two practical rules: don't leave anything outdoors that harms wildlife or lingers, and dispose of indoor offerings respectfully, which usually means the compost or the bin rather than a shrine slowly going mouldy.
Devotional practice over time
Devotion is usually small and repeated: a candle on the same evening, a phrase said at a threshold, a monthly offering. It is measured in months, not in intensity. If it becomes a duty you dread, shrink it.
Learn the context first
Before bringing a deity's imagery or practices into your own, read about them in their own cultural and religious setting, and read what living devotees say where the tradition is still practised. Where a tradition is living and has clear guidance about who may approach a deity and how, that guidance is the authority, not a beginner book and not this app.