A few Recommendations...

Just a few books some might find interesting.

 

Pindar The Complete Odes

 

Ancient Greek Athletics

 

Kharis: Hellenic Polytheism Explored

 

Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources

 

Greek Mysteries: The Archaeology of Ancient Greek Secret Cults

 

 

Eleusinia

In celebration of the Eleusinia this year, I made it my project to post daily, almost, tweets at my HellenicPrayer twitter feed . Ten tweets in total, and here they are collected.

For Eleusinia ta Megala 2010

Gone! Gone, she is! The bright light of Springtime. The joy of her mother's heart. Deep in which the horror builds, and Winter now stirs.

Bereft of light. Bereft of love. Bereft, her heart, of the laughter of youth that once made her smile. Blessed Demeter, we share your pain.

She will travel the land, she will search on the beaches, she will long for her darling daughter, and be made sad. The world will suffer.

Above, the mother searches. Below, the daughter weeps in darkness. She who will be called destroyer of light yet hungers for its presence.

The world will wither and die, and men will pray for aid, and deep beneath the child turned bride will hunger and not take nourishment.

And when the world was dying, the Great Father called her to his court, and before her rage did tremble. Her child she would have returned.

With man's woeful prayers, and the Mother's anger before him, dispatch the holy messenger did he, Father of Gods and Men, to Hades below.

But the young daughter was even then hungering, and the Lord of the Manor did offer her the seeds of a pomegranate to eat, sealing her fate.

With him, dread Hades, would she spend her Winter, and with her mother, great Demeter, the Summer heat, and the beauty of Spring all hers.

And so when the Autumn chill does your heart make to shiver, remember the daughter of the Tempest and the fertile Earth, Persephone below.

Gone.

Gone, she is.

The sweet light of Springtime.

The bright joy of Demeter's divine heart.

 

Gone she is.

Who men fear to name.

And the shades of death serve down below.

 

Gone, is she.

To the world of her husband, who rules over death.

And brandished the wealth of the Earth.

 

Gone, is she.

And soon we will all know it.

As a mother's lonely heart turns cold, and with it the world itself.

To reiterate

It occurs to me that I have not explained the point of this particular blog in a while, so...

 

Several years ago, I was attempting to meditate. I made the mistake many Westerners probably make, thinking there is some kind of magical mind emptying required to achieve meditation, and as I came to realize that that is not the case, I saw something in the chaos of my mind and allowed it to simply develop and show itself to me.

 

What I mean by this is that by not trying to force my mind to go blank, which is not the point of meditation, I allowed whatever was percolating in my brain to show itself along with the all the other chaos that would normally, maybe, only show itself in dreams. What I saw was a star.

 

Not an astronomical star, but a twelve pointed contiguous star and at each point a deity. It was three fold, one above, one below, and one at the plane as I looked at it, at the center was a flame, and the flame connected all the stars.

 

What I realized as I looked at it was that the star was made of one contiguous line, or twelve lines connected at the points, but in the end, the same thing, because if it was large enough to walk along I could start at 12 o'clock and walk to all of the other points before ending up back at 12.

 

So, I assigned a deity to each point based on what I could remember of the star and it looks like this.

 

 

 

I now use this in a program that forces me to focus my attentions, in meditation, in thought, on a particular deity at a time in my life. It doesn't mean I ignore the others, or only pray to that deity, but rather that as I go, I try to focus my thoughts and reactions in life on what it means in relation to that deity, so I started with Hestia, which then took me to Apollo then Hera then Poseidon then Aphrodite, and now, currently, Hermes.

 

It has been a couple of years now since I started on this path, and must say that it has made of me a new person. Not completely, and I am barely half through, and who knows how long till I finish, if I ever actually do, but it has definitely changed the way I look at the world.

 

In this blog I try to express some of the things I may be learning, or at least which come to mind as I meditate and focus on the Gods, so that you might, perhaps, get an idea how you may also benefit from this system.

 

You will learn your own lessons, not mine, and I hope you will give it a shot.

Smith Island, Maryland

Like I said in my last post, and I'm sorry I am not doing more of these these days, I went on a short vacation to Maryland. I'd been through Maryland before, but never to Maryland, and I found myself rather a bit enchanted by the place.

 

I admit, I half expected Baltimore to look like a bomb hit it, and I am sure there are parts that do, just as there are right here in Dayton, in NY, in LA. But what I did see of Baltimore, I was more than a little pleased with. Sitting, almost majestically, on the water, it was wonderful, made more so by the lively people who were making very very good use of the waterfront.

 

The next day, we went to Annapolis in the morning, a town that reminded me of some of the older places in New England. Those of you who, like me, came of age in Connecticut, Rhode Island, or Massachusetts know the look and feel I mean. It's that combination of new and old mixed with the sights and sounds of the sea being almost everywhere. It is a feeling that immediately embraces you, as the immensity of the power of the sea also sits there, quietly reminding you that one of the great forces of divinity lies right there at your feet, nurturing life yet dangerous to it.

 

We eventually head out toward the Eastern Shore, and South toward my friend's home on Smith Island. Understand something, the difference between Smith Island and Baltimore is like the difference between an anti hill and Dubai. The shift is almost immediate. Once you cross over to the Eastern Shore you are in a different world. A world that seem familiar to me, having lived in Ohio now for over a decade. It is a quieter place separated from the bustle of the Western Shore by the Bay's waters. The Scenery is almost breathtaking in parts, and then it becomes less like the sea side and more like the farmlands of Ohio that i have become accustomed to, that is, until you get to Salisbury, and are therefore near the point at which you will eventually head over to the Island from Crisfield.

 

Obviously, the waters here are calmer than they are on the actual Ocean shore. They are almost tempting, but I am assured that this time of year, the Jellyfish would make that an uncomfortable situation. Of course, I am not a swimmer, but the waters were inviting, almost as if Poseidon himself were calling to me.

 

And then, after a forty minute ride on a clunky, yet utterly charming boat captained by a man who, well, looked like he should be captaining that boat, we arrived at a world I had hoped I would see when I got there.

 

You see, there is NOTHING to do on Smith Island except breath and run from the mosquitos. Sure, if you live there there are the necessities of life to take care of, but if you're visiting, there really is nothing to do, nothing to see that can't be seen in 20 minutes, and then you just do nothing.

 

Nothing.

 

And you know what? That is exactly why you go there. That is exactly why you make your way there and leave the world behind you, and the great god Hermes lead me there for a reason, to remind me of a simpler life, and the magnificence of silence. But, I was with my friend, Steve, who for several years now has lived there, sometimes part time, but for a few years now, has made it his home. I was inspired to see him go about life. He does,  he creates, he fixes, and he makes himself useful to the people of the island, and in so doing he is able to  pay for those things he must, and by recycling the things others no longer want, or which are no longer needed, he lives and is made happy.

 

This was the lesson Hermes meant for me, I know it is, that I have been looking for a nebulous happiness that means nothing in the end, that it is possible to find happiness in simple things, in the beauty of a small boat plying the water, in the smile of a lonely woman seeking friendship, or in the strangely musical accent of a local woman as she speaks, happily, quickly, and with passion about her air conditioning unit.

 

That I, like so many of us, have been seeking happiness in things, and have forgotten that there are smaller things, simpler things, and things that we take for granted on a daily basis that can bring me that happiness I have been longing for, and all I have to do is figure out how to reach for it without fear and leave the complexity of this life behind me once and for all.