Lampontas

This year, the celebration I do of Lampontas will be among my fellow Fags, Queers, and Homos in the city of Columbus Ohio, because Lampontas falls on the same weekend as the Gay Pride Festival in Columbus.

What is Lampontas?

A few years ago I decided to start up something called Heliogenna, which is celebrated along with the Winter Solstice, to counter that, out of a sense of balance, I also decided to put Lampontas (Festival of the Sun) in the Summer, along with the Summer Solstice. The idea for Heliogenna came from hearing that during Christmas season in Greece, many arcaeo-Hellenists say Kala Iliouyenna, referring to the birth of the Sun rather than the birth of the Christ.

So in Summer the festival to Helios Lampontas (Helios the Shining One) and rather than some of the more sombre and thanksgiving type observances I do for Heliogenna, I choose to celebrate the shining sun with fun, with praise, song, and this year, with gay laughter and debauchery.

Unlike something like the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco, or some of the Pride Parades in NY of old (The parade and festival in NY have become rather gentrified of late, more about commercialism than about any real political message or celebration of our gayness) the Festival in Columbus is a rather family oriented thing. Lots of gay and lesbian parents and their kids, lots of Christian protestors (spreading their message of hate that Jesus apparently taught) and really more of an eagerness to just be out and about and show the city, and the state as this is the Capital, that we are not hiding and won’t be pushed back into our closets.

So, there will be music, food, alcohol, and after, when the festival breaks down for the evening and people wander off into clubs, bars, and private parties, there will be all manner of playful celebration of our gay masculinity and lesbian femininity, and among these all, I will take some time in the day and night to light incense and say thanks to the Lord of the Light of Day.