Meditations

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2012-02-23T12:04:00.001-05:00

Been thinking of starting a Facebook group linked to this site, and I thought this might be a good logo

Welcome the Morning

2012-02-09T07:19:00.001-05:00

I awake, early and cold

My skin objecting as I move to the freezing air.

I walk out into the air

The sky is still dark and the moon still shines brightly

I turn to face East

And there the sky is starting to change colors

I close my eyes to venter myself

And from my lips a prayer is released to the aether

I sing you a song, lord of the rising sun

As my soul is made purer by this act of mortal devotion

I say a thank you, my naked body shivers

And as I speak your holy name I am made warm by your presence

Helios, I say, thank you and welcome

And into my life you come, your warmth, your light, your watchful eye.

I kneel in the Earth, it is still moist from rain

And rise and turn to return to the shelter of home

I shiver again and am reminded

That fragile are we who adore you and not grateful enough for your love.

Since I am pondering the parts...

2012-01-30T14:13:00.001-05:00

Since I am pondering the parts of Artemis, and I am trying to come to terms with what they all mean, I want to touch on a different aspect of my personal theology that may prove useful.

I call them detached or autonomous aspects. These are aspects of deities that take on a life of their own. Aspects of deities which, in the mythic cycle and even in popular belief, become independent entities. These aspects of deities can actually be aspects of many different deities which are seen by the people as the same mythic figure. In practice, there is a fine line between acknowledging Gods and their aspects and angeloi, which I see as small aspects or pieces of a deity which behave like independent beings.

What do I mean by this? I will use a couple of examples...

The Erotes

The Erotes are like little angelic beings that in myth act at the behest of Aphrodite to pierce the hearts of people with their arrows of emotion. In essence, they are little aspects of her, the little bits of her that inspire the varying heart felt emotions of our lives. Things like infatuation, love, jealousy, desire, lust. Are they literal beings? Probably not, but through poetry we have made them real. We recognize in ourselves a little bit of the Goddess of Love and Emotion, and so we picture each of our hearts, our emotional centers, as being manipulated by these little critters. But they are all really her.

Medusa

Medusa is a different kind of figure. A vengeful spirit, some might even say malevolent, yet also protective. The myth of Medusa is based in the larger epic cycle of the Greeks as the heroes of their legends sought to go forth and conquer the world around them, which included conquering their own fears, fears like Medusa, who represented to them the bitter outrage and fearsome vengeance of the Gods.

Unlike the Erotes, however, Medusa is not the aspect of a single deity, but rather, an aspect of many as well as an aspect of feminine rage, a rage that must have festered in the hearts of many women in ancient times when women were so ill treated by men. One imagines that in today's world, that same avenging spirit remains very much alive. The essence of what Medusa represents is still very much active in the world today, a world in which women are still often little more than slaves under the thumb of barbaric patriarchal religions like Islam, and no, I won't apologize for that characterization, as I won't apologize for the same characterization of Christian churches which still insist on calling woman the subservient sex.

But the power of what Medusa represents is also something different. The vengeance and protection of the Gods themselves, especially the Goddesses. The myth of Medusa, or rather, of the Gorgons, is rooted in very ancient times, and that of Medusa herself, a mortal woman turned into a Gorgon, is rooted in the mythology of Athena, a goddess known for her rather terrible temper when it comes to propriety. But that myth is also rooted in the idea that the rape of women calls on a deep, dark, power of vengeance, a power that can turn men to stone. That is, paralyze them.

When Medusa is raped in the temple of Athena by none other than Poseidon, Athena, in her rage, transforms her into a Gorgon. To the Classical Greeks this seemed a punishment, but perhaps to earlier people it was understood as something more. Perhaps they understood that this tale spoke of the ultimate violation of a nation, the nation of Athena, being violated by another and the nation itself rising up with power beyond anything it once had and lashing out, protecting itself in the future. See, Athena did not simply transform the poor maiden into a monster, she transformed her into a creature that could protect itself against any attack. That it is Athena herself who in the mythic tale of Perseus helps him kill her, though not her power, indicates that the Goddess has retaken her power, she has made her nation strong. That in her nation women were often little more than property is one of the great dichotomies of the ancients, but myth tells us of happenings, not necessarily of the moral values of those happenings.

Ancient people placed an effigy or mask of Medusa at their home entrances, this symbolized protection, and in this we see a transformation of Medusa, from nearly demonic creature to protective spirit, and so again it seem to represent the power of a divine being.

Both of these types of beings, the angelic, and the demonic (not demonic in the Christian sense) represent aspects of greater powers, but in the case of Gorgons, Furies, Muses, Graces, etc., these can represent more than one being. The Muses can represent inspiration, but the inspiration of Apollo, or Zeus, or Hera, or Athena. The Furies can represent the anger of Gaea, or the vengeance of Persephone. The Gorgons also represent many, and in so doing so, are as agents of greater powers.

They are such because we human beings tend to understand them as such, because in them we are able to separate the aspects of the great Gods that seem undignified or dark and place them somewhere more fierce or terrifying. It would seem unbefitting of the Holy Mother of all things to lash out at us with destruction, so her power made manifest in the world around us can seem like that of Furies, as can the power of any Goddess.

At odds with Artemis.

2012-01-28T08:56:00.001-05:00

I find myself at odds with Artemis. I think, perhaps, because it is Winter, I am not finding myself in the proper mood and state of mind to explore the aspects of this goddess that is a force of nature. There are still woods and wills and deer in Winter, of course, but it becomes harder to set out and try to put myself in their midst at this time of year.

It is not, of course, necessary to do this, this goddess has so many facets that I could explore them and leave the others to the coming Spring, but I find that I prefer to be dragged, kicking and screaming into whatever the Gods make available than to try to force it.

So far, however, I have come across an aspect of this goddess that forces us to look into our faith and come to terms with what it means to believe in something so surely that you know it to be truth, even if others do not agree. Artemis, I think, forces us to look at this because she, perhaps more than any other goddess in the Hellenic pantheon, is mired in contradiction. Artemis, the virgin, is also the huntress. Artemis, the protector of children can also be the killer of women. Artemis, the mother, can also kill niobe's children. Artemis, the healthy runner in the woods, can also be Artemis the plague.

This isn't uncommon in Pagan religious theology and iconography. Unlike the Christians (and the other Abrahamic faiths) the Greeks did not try to force their Gods to be either all good or all bad. They understood that these beings, these divine forces of nature and the universe, acted from a place far more vast than our own, and as such, some of the things they did seemed bad from our perspective.

But for some deities, this can come off as too much. It is not that I question her power or her good will or anything like that, but that I am having trouble putting them into a series of parts in my mind that make a whole. For this, I will have to take some time this Spring and try to connect to her more natural aspects, her more pervasive energies.

Say no to SOPA

2012-01-18T09:48:00.001-05:00

Bios and Zoë

2012-01-18T07:35:00.001-05:00

Thinking about the arrows of the Gods, symbolic as they are of divine interaction with the mortal world, I am brought once more to a concept which must be central to any consideration of the Gods, the concepts of life.

I remember reading, a long time ago now in another city in another state in what seems a different life in Walter Burkert's book on Dionysos that the Greeks had more than one word meaning life. These were not simply synonyms, however, but conceptually different words that when used expressed different things about life.

The first word relevant to this discussion is Bios, from which we get the word stem bio as in biology. Bios is mortal life, biological life, life based in the animal and vegetable world. We know today that this life is based on things like cells, DNA, RNA, and is organic in nature, meaning based on the organic element carbon. Biological life is strictly mortal. It begins, reproduces, and eventually ends. In doing so, it also mutates and changes, improving and evolving as it interacts with the environment around it, an environment which is often very hostile to it. Biological life adapts, and that is its greatest strength.

Biological life is linked, and is reliant on, its environment. It exists as part of the very natural rules, physical laws, that make the universe itself possible because it arises from them. Terrestrial life is linked directly to the elements and conditions that the Earth provides, and it adapts to suit it, being forced to do so as it survives. Life on Earth is of Earth. It contains within it the very elements that make up the Earth, from carbon to metals and complex molecules created by geological processes long ago. The Earth gave birth to us, and we are part and parcel of it just as we are part of our mortal parents.

The planet Earth, however, is also mortal. It came into being, it exists and continues to change and evolve, and one day it will die, the internal processes that keep it going slowing down and stopping, like the heart of an animal stops. Perhaps it will be destroyed, the sun growing and engulfing it as it progresses into a new stage in its "life", because the sun too is mortal. One day it will grow and then shrink, leaving behind a simple white dwarf, and eventually even that will dim and die away, forgotten in the broad arm of the galaxy. And the galaxy too is mortal. Mother to the sun and earth, it too will eventually be torn apart by a collision with a sister galaxy, perhaps merging into one, or being destroyed as two new galaxies form around the cores that continue to grow and swallow up matter, the enormous super massive black holes.

And yes, they too are mortal, slowly leaking information in minute particles, and one day when the stars have burned out and the former galaxies are nothing but enormous black holes drifting in the vastness of space/time, they will slowly dissipate and die, and then the universe, also mortal, will settle and die a cold lonely death.

We share in that universal nature, the one thing all things in the universe have in common, their mortality.

Biological life, then, is an organic manifestation, on a small scale, of the reality of the universe, and we, who have adapted and changed to suit the environment it throws at us have grown into thinking rational creatures that can ponder this very reality.

But Biological life, the Bios, is dependent on the universe, which while mortal seems to us eternal in the same way that the universe relies on far greater things that are not actually mortal, but are truly eternal, truly immortal. We call them Gods (or God, if you have been brainwashed into thinking there is only one) and they exist as a form of life called Zoë.

Although we get the stem Zo, as in Zoo and Zoological, from Zoë, the term in a religious sense indicates life as a constant, ever present, eternal thing. The Gods are categorized not as Bios, but as Zoë, because they do not take part in the same processes of life that Bios does. We call this form of life divine, and we call the individuals Gods, which we honor, worship, or otherwise acknowledge as having an important role not only in our lives but in the very life of the universe itself.

Unlike Bios, which is self contained and individual, divine life is more diffuse, more spread out into the very universe itself, and it is not possible to think of them, the Gods, as being even limited in terms of interaction, for they overlap, merge, cross each other, combine and separate, and are, for all intents and purposes present in all things, living or not, organic or not, in various combinations.

Zoë is part of the eternal realm. The Eleventh dimension, that dimension of space which is the container of all things. It is timeless (eternal) and spaceless (infinite) and we call this realm by many names. In our religion, Olympus, Elysium, Tartarus, and Hades are names we give to different aspects of this realm. The life of this realm is, by its nature, eternal (having no beginning and no end) and infinite (having no spatial limitation) and are, here, privy to all of existence.

Unlike Bios, Zoë is vast. An individual God is infinite in form and has no need to account for time. One would even wager that the concept of time itself is likely a difficult one for such beings. One might even ask if the universe itself, molded and guided as it is by the Gods, is not a kind of experiment on their part to understand these concepts. But I tend to think they are beyond such games and could find easier ways to understand such things.

Unlike Bios, Zoë has no need to reproduce, but they do create. They have no death, but they do change. They have no need of sustenance, yet are fed by our adulation. The universe is as a laboratory of sorts, I admit, but it is also something else. Their work of art. Their child. Their most cherished creation, for it is given by them a portion of their own being, which to us seem not like people, but powerful forces, forces that act in accordance with their natures but always in balance with the other forces of nature.

That Bios seeks to understand them by clothing in flesh like its own is not so mysterious, what remains a true mystery is if, perhaps, there is a small spark of them in each of us, what happens to them when those small sparks rejoin them, become part of the whole universe again. Does my life bless that spark with something good, something wonderful, or will my ultimate gift to the Gods be my misery, hatred, and unwillingness to change.

I think I shall endeavor to bless that spark with a little joy, a little pleasure, and a little love.

The Arrows of the Twins

2012-01-16T17:28:00.001-05:00

The question of faith brings up a question. How much of myth, legend, and poetic storytelling should be taken literally, how much as fancy, and how much of it should we assume is meant to teach us something about ourselves, about the Gods, and about the paths of life?

They are questions meant for individual consideration, of course, as each of us has to decide this for ourselves, but I do think it important that we who have walked this path longer reach out with our words so that those who come along behind us are not lead astray by overly zealous or overly literal interpretations of ancient texts.

The title of this post is The Arrows of the Twins, and I titled it that because those arrows, metaphorical arrows I should say, are part of the issue at hand. In myth, several deities are said to shoot arrows at mortals, an act of aggression at best, yet these arrows are almost always allegories for things such as disease, health, love, hate, jealousy, etc. When Eros fires his arrows into the hearts of men it is an allegory for the lust that we men are prone to. When the Apollo fires poisonous arrows, they are allegories for disease, and when Artemis fires her arrows at a birthing mother, it is an allegory for that most tragic of deaths.

The ancients understood, as we sometimes forget, that the Gods are not so much super-people as they are unimaginable forces of nature. Forces beyond our power to fully understand, yet which we must try to understand if we are to grow and evolve as sapient creatures. When we speak to newcomers to our path, our religion, we must try to be clear about this because the mythology studies in schools are useless in educating them about more than the idea that the Greeks were a silly people who believed in a man riding a chariot in the sky.

We must make it clear to them all that our myths are heavily allegorical and that the nature of the Gods is essentially unknowable, even if we can come very close to understanding some of their aspects. That with the good comes the bad, because the Gods act not to satisfy our whims but to assure the balances that keep the universe running.

The Gods are not evil, nor are they good, those are concepts brought to us by the friendly neighborhood Christians who would like nothing better than to convince you that you are an impure sinner that needs them to save you. We must reassure them that the arrows of the Gods are not meant to hurt us or save us, but to assure of us the full breadth of life, which sometimes includes suffering and sometimes joys beyond imagining. We must be willing to question them as well, because the arrows of jealousy can be balanced by the whispers of wise counsel in our ears and the recklessness of love can be balanced by the knowledge that the arrows of Apollo can sicken and weaken you.

We do not have a moral guide in our religion. Even if we did, it would be woefully outdated and old fashioned, so we must remind our young charges that the arrows of the gods can strike and that the best defense is to recognize them and act in accordance with the principals of wisdom, balance, and caring. And so, Apollo and Artemis can strike us down only that we may get back up, stronger and better than ever, but we, not they, make the decision if that happens.

Faith

2012-01-07T16:45:00.001-05:00

Since I started on the Artemis point of the star, some things have been on the periphery of my consciousness, things that seem to be pointed out by the world around me. I think most of us know what it's like to have something brought to mind in a meditation or a prayer and then have the world around you constantly reminding you of it.

As part of my work, which is actually work I am trying to do on myself, not necessarily for the gods, I find the idea of faith coming up over and over again. I am especially troubled but the confusion we Americans seem to have about what faith means and how it relates to belief.

What do I mean by that?

In all manner of discourse I now hear people saying "I believe" or "I don't believe" with regard to things they see in the real world. This is a kind of negation of reality, especially with regard to things people like to speak about but which they actually know nothing, or little, about. It is this same kind of discourse which has brought to the fore things like the debate between creationism and evolution.

On both sides, people will say that they believe their way is correct, yet know little by way of the other side of the argument. This proves a problem in any rational discourse, because people will simply dig in to what they "believe" without ever giving the other person a chance to make a logical argument. What makes it worse, however, is that as a result, even when something is proven more likely, or possibly proven true by science, those who "believe" may simply decide that to hear such proof is blasphemy and therefore refuse to hear it.

This is not faith. This is simply stubborn refusal of reality.

Faith is a form of belief, but it is not, should not be, a stubborn refusal to accept facts. To deny the earth is a globe, for example, because an ancient tome says it is flat would be to expose oneself as an idiot.

Not, that is not faith.

Faith is trust. Trust that the Gods, in whatever form you may worship them, have a hand in the workings of the universe, and that regardless of how science reveals their work to play out (how they accomplish these works) you can still hold on to the reality of their existence. And faith can stand up to the scientific disproving of ancient myth, because myth, like science, has always been a way for humanity to explain the world around them.

You don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, and you don't throw the Gods out with quantum physics.

Why it is Artemis that has set me to pondering this I don't know, but it is perhaps as a way to prepare me for when I am ready to move forward, because when I do I will have to face my definitions of faith and belief.

Heliogenna Day Nine - Sunrise - To Helios and all the Gods

2011-12-26T09:20:00.001-05:00

This is it, the final day of Heliogenna. The Sun set, and we praised him and gave thanks for what came before. The night came, and we missed him. We mourned our dead and fell silent in reverence to that ultimate mystery. Then the sun rose once more, glorious and bright, and we look forward into the future, unknowable yet often a little predictable. We pay them honor, all the Gods, and celebrate this day as a kind of New Year celebration (secular new year being just a week away now) and we make offerings to him, the holy Sun God, and to all the Gods.

But I also write my hopes and dreams onto rolling paper and then burn them as offerings to the Gods. Promises too, those I mean to keep in the coming twelve months, and as I do, I also give them my fears, my desires for better health, for mental clarity, and all that I wish to change about myself. Perhaps a bonfire is in order.

So here, I make my offering to him, to the undying Sun, watcher of mankind, who sees what we do and judges us not, but rather lights our way so we may see with clarity.

To Helios

Blessed God
You who shines bright
Set me on the right path.

Blessed God
You who travels West
Set me on the course to righteousness

Blessed God
You who see all
Set me on the road to forgiveness

Blessed God
You who burn like the fires of a star
Set me on the way to inner peace

To you, Helios, I dedicate this day

Blessed Lord
You who give life
Watch as I go forth

Blessed Lord
You who give light
Watch as I make myself new

Blessed Lord
You who burst forth from the East
Watch as I make you proud

To you, Helios, I dedicate this day

O blessed Gods above
O blessed Gods below
O blessed Gods who dwell upon the sacred Earth

To you I make this pledge
To you I promise
To be a better man in every way I know how
To learn new ones as I go forth

Blessed may you all be, now and forever.

Heliogenna Day Eight - Sunrise - To the Olympian Gods and the Chthonoi

2011-12-25T06:29:00.001-05:00

Day Eight is the second day of Sunrise, and dedicated to the Olympian Gods and the Chthonoi. The idea here is to send your hopes and dreams to the Gods above and below. Make promises for the coming year you intend to keep (remember, you are making promises to the Gods)

Bright are you

Olympians above

Who dwell in golden splendor

The light of Heaven never fails you.

Dark are you

Chthonoi below

Who dwell in earth darkness

The darkness of Hades comforts you

Grey are you

A blessing to man

Who dwell upon the Earth

The songs of worship set your soul alight

King Zeus above

King Hades below

King Poseidon who encircles

Bless us one and all with the gift of health

Bless us one and all with the gift of prosperity

Bless us one and all with the gift of wisdom

Queen Hera above

Queen Persephone below

Queen Amphitrite of the waves

Bless us one and all with the gift of companionship

Bless us one and all with the gift of long life

Bless us one and all with the gift of flexibility

Come one

Come all

All you Gods who dwell above

Come one

Come all

All you Gods who dwell below

Come one

Come all

All you Gods who dwell upon the sacred earth

Dance with us in celebration

Heliogenna Day Seven - Sunrise - To Hyperion, Eros, and Hekate

2011-12-24T06:23:00.001-05:00

Day Seven of Heliogenna begins the third segment of the festival, with dedications to Hyperion, the Titan father of Helios, Eos, and Selene. To Eros, the primordial God of attractions, love, and especially male eroiticism. And to Hekate, walker of the secret pathways between the dark and the light.

The Sunrise segment is celebratory rather than commemorative in nature, looking forward rather than back.

To Hyperion, Eros, and Hekate

Along the sacred way, I come upon a crossroads

A fork in the dirt path.

There stands a herm, and at its base offerings

Offerings of sweets

Offerings of bread

Offerings of milk and honey poured into the earth

Do I walk left?

To the darker realm of memory?

Do I walk right?

To the lighter path of the future?

To the left I see echoes of times gone by

Where Hyperion shone upon the land

And Eros held sway

It is a time long ago, before the war of heaven

And the fall of the mighty Titans

I hear songs too

Praising the shining lord who saw all things

And the tender embraces of boys in bushes

To the right I see change ever moving

Where Eros holds sway with Aphrodite

And the son of Hyperion shines bright in the heavens

It is a time not too far from now

Where Olympian Gods rule heaven and earth

To Hyperion, once lord of the sun

I leave golden mead

Tasting of honey and colored like his radiant hair

To Eros, who pulls us together

I leave rosy wine

Tasting of grapes and pink like the blush of a lover

And to Hekate, who walks the unknown paths

I leave the picture of a love lost

With the my hopes and dreams for a future

Off to the right I walk

With the memories of Hyperion behind me

The joy that is Eros ever with me

And torch bearing Hekate lighting the way ahead.

Heliogenna Day Six - Night - To Dionysos and Helios

2011-12-22T20:17:00.001-05:00

Day Six is for Helios and Dionysos, this time as the reborn Gods. Rejoice for the sun is reborn, and Lord Dionysos has come to Delphi. Drink and be merry and offer up burnt offerings to the holy sun.

This is also a day to make offerings to Persephone, the underworld queen who is also the goddess of hope in resurrection. Call her that she may be reminded that her time to be among the living is not so far away now.

Helios

Bright

Helios

Holy

Helios

The blazing sun

Helios who watches us one and all

March to your immortal horses

Helios who lights the firmament

Mount your golden chariot

Helios who sees all

Ride high into the sky

Helios

Bright

Helios

Holy

Helios

The blazing sun
______________

Dionysos

Dark

Dionysos

Mad

Dionysos

The living vine


Dionysos who intoxicates us

Free us of our inhibitions

Dionysos who maddens us

Show us glory in truth


Dionysos who sits silently enthroned

Let us love with wild abandon

Dionysos

Dark

Dionysos

Mad

Dionysos

The living vine

Heliogenna Day Five - The Day of Silence

2011-12-22T18:23:00.001-05:00

Heliogenna's essential point is to celebrate the Solstice. This is a common point of celebration among pagan religions, most religions, in fact, but I like to think of the Solstice as a dark moment, a silent moment. I like to think of nature holding its breath for a moment and releasing it.

Because this is a kind of "Sol Invictus" celebration, I like to think that that moment when the Sun is still, having reached it's lowest point, it's shortest time of brilliance, as a moment that should be commemorated with silence, but I do not like to think that nothing should happen this day. Rather, I like to think of it as a day to simply be silent toward the Gods, be they the Olympians or the Chthonoi.

If you have daily rituals toward the Gods, do not perform them, hold your breath, if you will. If you are part of a greater Pagan community, and wish to take part in Solstice parties, etc., feel free, but you should not take part in ritual or invocation of the Gods (no matter whose Gods) but celebrate their celebration, enjoy yourself, take joy in the day as a mortal, beholden to no god or goddess.

Tomorrow you will rejoice and welcome the sun god back, tomorrow you will rejoice in a new year and perform your rites and rituals.For today, though, be free of the Gods, even if that seems a bit wrong to you. Be free of your ritual obligations and just be a human being.

Heliogenna Day Four - Night - To Helios and Dionysos

2011-12-20T07:34:00.001-05:00

Day Four marks the beginning of the segment called Night, and in night the mood shifts from thanks to rememberance and commemoration of the dead. The Fourth Day is in honor of Helios and Dionysos (Apollo too if you choose to include elements of the Dionysian lordship of Delphi during the Winter) and this day includes an offering, which you can make as you see fit, to the Lord of the Underworld. A friend of mine suggested, if you live in warm climes, a luau with a pig roasted underground, that would be awesome.

I should note that the day of the Solstice itself, the fifth day of the festival, is a silent one. No offerings, no lit candles, no prayers, just a day for man to be as if dead to the Gods.

To Helios and Dionysos

Your light grows dim
The days ever shorter
And soon you will go down into the underworld

The Earth shakes
Maidens twitch nervously
And soon, o mad god, you will come

Down below
Your light is smothered
Man faces the shortest day of all

Revelry is yours
You who have come
You who rule over the Winter at Delphi

We await you
You who will rise anew
You who will be resplendent and envigoured

Come, dark Dionysos
Come and lead the procession
Toward the flowering of Springtime

Come, bright Helios
Come and light the way
The way toward the coming Springtime

Heliogenna Day Three - To the Primordial Gods (Protogonoi)

2011-12-19T13:57:00.001-05:00

In darkness, you were born, who set to work in earnest to create the universe. To you I whisper my thanks, for without you we would be nothing.

To you, O Dark Nyx, who spread her wings wide

Who made way for all that would come

Who set the empty universe into its first order

I give thanks and offer my prayers

To you, O Erebus, who remains forever unseen

Who lives in darkness eternal

And brought to all that begins an end

I give thanks and offer my prayers

To you, O Broad Bosomed Ge, who is the foundation of all things

Who made of disparate parts a whole

And made all life possible

I give thanks and offer my prayers

To you, O Dark Hearted Ouranos, who envelopes the Earth

Who shines with dull star light

And made the broad sky

I give thanks and my prayers

It is through you that all came into being

It is by you that all things were set in motion

It is to you we owe our lives.

Heliogenna Day Two - To The Olympian Gods

2011-12-18T08:31:00.001-05:00

I light this flame in your honor, blessed Hestia

In your name do I call to them

In your name do I pray

To you, blessed Zeus, I say thank you

For the torrents of rain

For the crazed power of manhood

And the restraint of a king

I thank you, o bright and highest

I thank you, o lord of the heavenes

To you, blessed Hera, I say thank you

For the tug of heart strings

For the loyalty of woman

And the nobility of a queen

I thank you, o lady divine

I thank you, o queen of heaven

To you, blessed Poseidon, I say thank you

For the beauty of the sea

For the shaking of my expectations

And the strength of an uncle

I thank you, o fluid one

I thank you, o lord of the mighty oceans

To you, blessed Athena, I say thank you

For the certitude of knowledge

For the force that is wisdom

And the safety of your shield

I thank you, o grey one

I thank you, o lady of battles

To you, blessed Apollo, I say thank you

For the sweetness of enlightenment

For guiding me when I am lost

And the skills of healers

I thank you, o celestial lord

I thank you, o lord of prophecy

To you, blessed Artemis, I say thank you

For the purity of thought

For your clarity of purpose

And the innocent heart of the virgin

I thank you, o wild one

I thank you, o lady of the mountains

To you, blessed Ares, I say thank you

For the ferocity of your will

For your blessed protection

And your heroic spirit

I thank you, o fierce one

I thank you, o god of soldiers

To you, blessed Aphrodite, I say thank you

For the body's sensual delights

For your gentle hand and firm commands

And the feelings you inspire

I thank you, o terrible one

I thank you, o lady of passions

To you, blessed Hephaestus, I say thank you

For the molding of beauty from ugliness

For your inspiration

And the hard work that makes it real

I thank you, o tired one

I thank you, o lord of the mastered fires

To you, blessed Demeter, I say thank you

For the fruits of nature's bounty

For the grain that makes our daily bread

And the knowledge that makes it possible

I thank you, o golden haired one

I thank you, lady of the plowed fields

To you, blessed Hermes, I say thank you

For the exuberance of youthful men

For the desire to see new things

And the boundaries that make us human

I thank you, o swift footed one

I thank you, o lord of the well worn paths

To you, blessed Hestia, I say thank you

For your steadfast protection

For the spirit of home

And the unending fires that warm us

I thank you, o pure one

I thank you, o lady of the home fires

Heliogenna Day One - To Helios, Eos, and Selene

2011-12-16T23:05:00.001-05:00

The sun sets

The moon rises

The sky is rosy, golden, and blue

The eternal lords and ladies of light and dark settle in

See us, O Helios

Guard us and watch over us

Welcome us, O Eos

Offer us shelter and warmth

Shine upon us, O Selene

Guide us through the dark night

The sun sets

The moon rises

The sky grows darker and cooler

The eternal lords and ladies of heaven and earth settle in

Look upon us, O Helios

Watch our toil, our love, our fear

Host us, O Eos

And bid us enter into your embrace

Light the way, O Selene

That we may not fear the night

The sun sets

The moon rises

The sky has grown black

The lords and ladies of the celestial realms settle in

Artemis and the Amazons

2011-12-02T16:27:00.001-05:00

I was looking online today, and one of the search terms I used was "The Goddess Artemis". As you can imagine, that search term resulted in innumerable pagan, neo-pagan, historical, archaeological, and even christian sites. Among these were sites that fit into the magical/neo-pagan vein that bugged me. Not because they were magical or neo-pagan, the ancient Greeks practiced forms of magic and had many superstitious beliefs (not saying all belief in magic is superstitious, by the way) that included the Gods and their many "powers". What bugged me was the way some of these site present misinformation, fantasy, and myth as fact backed by historians and archaeologists.

One such site claimed that the cities of the Eastern part of the ancient Greek world, cities like Ephesus, for example, were founded by Amazons, and that it was the Amazons who founded the cult of the Great Goddess of Ephesus. Claiming that historians agree this is the case.

Let's make this clear, while it is possible that what the Greeks called the Amazons were a real culture that was subjugated by the Greeks at some point, and that it being in the Eastern Aegean makes some sense, there is no historian, other than one wearing a tin foil hat, who would make a claim that with absolute certitude they existed and had founded Ephesus. Claiming this is at best a lie, at worst the sign of a truly stupid historian or archaeologist who is simply seeing what he or she wants to see in the evidence of that area.

I am not a believer in presenting myth as reality. I see it as a separate thing, something that is representative, sometimes of forgotten history, but never to be taken literally. Were there Amazons? I don't know, but the amazon myth is not one to be taken literal. Was there a Thesus? I don't know, he could represent a great king of ancient Athens, but one should not take his existence for granted as anything other than a myth.

So, what do I see as myth, and what value do I place in it?

Myths are stories which, told over centuries, gain and lose much detail. Some myths are about explaining the Gods and how the people of a certain area see them. Some myths are the stories of great actions, heroic deeds, and great sacrifices made by real people which gain in them fictional elements, or elements that explain the way the people see their actions as being in accord with the will of the Gods. Some myths are pure fiction, created to explain the world or even to frighten children into behaving properly. Which ones are which is not something we can know with any certainty, except as our own speculations.

I see in myth a variety of uses, and I hold them to different levels of esteem and sacredness depending on what they seem to accomplish. The myths present in larger stories, such as Iliad, Odyssey, or in philosophical works, present to us myth as fiction, or as education. These, especially, become more "sacred" to me than do simple myths, but they all are important to the way we perceive the Gods and the people of the ancient world.

To me, Myth is useful, and I value it as these:

Education about the nature of the divine
Education about the nature of a god
Education about a set of beliefs or philosophies
Explanation of the natural world
Detailing great heroic deeds
Detailing the origins of a people
Detailing the origins of a religious belief or system
Detailing ritual
Passing on culture and language
Entertainment

In so far as myths accomplish any of these, or any combination of these, I find value in myth. Where I find myth sacred, however, is in ritual that illuminates the divine in the context of prayer, ritual, or meditation.

Presenting myth as history, however, is a no no. Myth can lead us to history, by asking the question, were there Amazons, we can be lead to explore the history of the Eastern Aegean, but taking the myth itself as proof only makes me question your credibility, and in some cases, your intelligence.

Lift Us Up, a Prayer to Zeus

2011-11-27T10:15:00.001-05:00

Lift us up, blessed Zeus

To the heights of heaven

Where all things are visible

Where all things are clear

Lift us up, blessed Zeus

From our pain and sorrow

Where we so often wallow

Where we too often hide

Lift us up, blessed Zeus

To the starry firmament

Where dark mysteries live

Where eternity stretches her wings

Lift us up, blessed Zeus

From the depths of despair

Where we yearn to give up

Where we want to give in

Lift us up, blessed Zeus

To the bright blue sky

Where clouds dance and change form

Where the pretty birds fly

Lift us up, blessed Zeus

From under the heel of oppression

Where one man humbles another

Where freedom is but a dream

Lift us up, blessed Zeus

To the greatness that is joy

Where there is no pain

Where all but the purity of the soul is forgotten

Blessed Morning

2011-11-19T20:01:00.001-05:00

Far in the distance

Where the Earth meets the Sky

There is a palace of gold

And broad gates lead to the stable

There immortal steeds rest

Restless and enflamed

Awaiting their master

Whom they will guide across the bright blue sky

It is the palace of the Sun

Blessed Helios of the glowing crown

Son of Hyperion

There by the gates

Where the world of the living meets the world of the dead

There stands a beautiful girl

Dressed in rosy robes of gossamer

She opens the golden gates

And walks through

The color of her robes

And the tint of her cheeks tinging the sky itself in red.

It is the blessed morning

The time of Eos of the rosy cheeks

Daughter of Hyperion

The cock calls to him

The bull moves in the fields

Man sets upon a day of toil

Watched as always by the children of Titans

Lighting their way.

Artemis, the death dealer

2011-11-07T08:09:00.001-05:00

Among the many aspects of Artemis that are seemingly contradictory, is that of the far shooter who brings death. Like Apollo, Artemis is a dichotomy in that like him, she is a protector of life, a healer, especially when children and women in childbirth are concerned, yet she also deals death from her quiver. When a woman died at childbirth, it could be said that she was struck down by Artemis.

Of course, the dangers of childbirth are well known. Even with all our technology, all of our medical advancement today, women often die in childbirth, and as the goddess who is often invoked as part of that ordeal, it seems to make sense that she would be blamed for the deaths that occur during it as well.

Often, we who worship at the altars of the ancient gods will have trouble using negative terminology when referring to the actions of the Gods. The immense Abrahamic influence on our society means that the same kind of fear or feigned respect that they pay to their deity is often manifest in our attitudes toward the gods. The ancient people, however, had a healthier and more realistic appraisal of the gods. They understood that the gods did not simply give us all the good things in life, but that many of the bad things came from them as well. Their reasoning mysterious, for sure, but whatever made such things necessary in the greater scheme of things was accepted and they understood that the gods acted for reasons we did not always understand, and as a result, it was ok to sometimes feel anger at them for the things they seemed to throw their way.

Like the ancients, I do not have an "everything is rosy" attitude toward the gods. But I have to admit, sometimes I wonder if Artemis is not a bit of a cold hearted bitch. Oh, don't get me wrong, I have a great deal of respect for her, and part of me understands that as a nature goddess, she will sometimes seem cruel from my perspective. After all, is not the lion pride tearing apart the still living deer cruel? But part of me also has to have respect for the attitude. Nature is as nature does, and Artemis, at least in this aspect of divinity of the natural processes of life, must by her nature seem cruel to us.

Artemis' myths make no bones about it. Her demand that Agammemnon sacrifice his only daughter, the tearing apart of the hunter who sees her naked form, the destruction of the children of Niobe, all point to some of the darker aspects of the divine, some of the aspects which we don't like because they remind us of our mortality. They remind us of our place in the grand scheme of things. A place we are sometimes too arrogant to accept without a fight.

To They Who Are...

2011-10-23T17:19:00.001-04:00

Time has no meaning

It is but the flow of a stream

Subtle and slight

To they who are eternal

To they who are divine

Space has no meaning

It is but a fallow field

Flat and full of potential

To they who are undying

To they who are holy

Fear has no meaning

It is but a slight breeze

Felt but not perturbing

To they who are ephemeral

To they who are sublime

Death has no meaning

It is but an open door

Empty and small

To they who are infinite

To they who are sacred

Artemis, the nature goddess

2011-10-21T09:29:00.001-04:00

In the Eastern lands, where Greeks lived side by side with other peoples of many different cultural backgrounds, the goddess Artemis took on a different aspect and demeanor than that of the mainland Greeks. This is not, of course, odd. The Gods seem to appear to people the way they are needed, so even though most of us look at the Gods with rather a limited view of their domains of influence, I think the Gods themselves share no such idea of limitation.

At Ephesus, the goddess Artemis was worshipped as a much grander form, a much grander aspect than she was in many other places, and this leads me to ask myself a question. If the Gods can each be different things to different people, then why do we need to worship so many of them? Why can't we just pick one, say Artemis, and call to her for her aid in all things?

The answer seems to be there is no reason you cannot, but that the aspects of nature, culture, etc., that a particular deity was associated with were likely those aspects of life that that particular deity took an interest in. If a deity is a living thing, a creature not of our own making, but a truly living and eternal being capable of independent thought and will, then they must also have interests in the mortal world that we try to fathom but can only ever come partially to grips with.

This is why Aphrodite is seen as "Goddess of Love, Lust, Beauty" etc., because as the ancients experienced her, they saw that it was there that she seemed to express her power. But what if to another group of Greeks, or another culture, she expressed her power in other ways?

In Ephesus we see a clear example of this, but also an example of a potential problem in our attempting to make sense of the Pantheon of the Greeks.

For me, the problem is not in my personal faith. I do not believe in limiting the Gods, only in limiting my own interaction with them. What I mean by that is that I can ask Athena for healing, and I have no problem believing she could aid me in that, but that I turn to Apollo because that is what he is known for. I can ask Artemis to help me find love or a sexual partner, but I know that Aphrodite is best known for that, and therefore it is she I turn to.

Artemis' Ephesian aspect, however, proves a little problematic for me. The Ephesian Artemis seems much more of a "Mother" figure than the Artemis of the mainlanders, or other areas, and so I sometimes ask myself, is the Ephesian Artemis artemis in another aspect as "Great Mother" or "Earth Mother" or is it Mother Earth herself, the goddess we call Ge or Gaia, in an aspect that some chose to call Artemis?

The answer, to my personal beliefs, is always that I accept the deity as it is named, not as I think it should be, so this is Artemis as the Ephesians chose to worship her. It is as Artemis seems to have appeared to these particular people, because they called to her in this way and she responded.

Artemis, of course, has always had clear connections to the Earthly powers. As a Goddess of the wild places, of the mountains, of hunting, both the human and the animal kind, and as a Goddess often linked to the Moon, or some phases of it, she has always been a nature goddess. The virgin woman is, after all, the woman in her original, and therefore natural, state. The Goddess of the hunt is being called upon to aid in a perfectly natural act, that of hunting and killing food. The goddess of childbirth is being called to one of the most important aspects of life itself, reproduction. So, is it really so odd that to some people she would also be a Goddess if the growing fields, of the grain, of the honey, of all manner of things connected with a "Earth Goddess"?

On my central altar, I have a small statuette of the Ephesian Artemis, and there it represents something to me that is fairly central to my beliefs, that just as Artemis can be so many things, seemingly disparate things, to so many people, so can all the Gods, and that perhaps my relationship with them has changed from one in which I expect things from the Gods, like love or good aim or health, to one in which I am starting to dedicate the good things in my life, the good things I do both for others and myself, are the things I do, to commemorate how I feel about them in their glory. That maybe I am starting to see the Gods not simply as one thing or another, but as an omnipresent force in my life that can be so many things that I am humbled by them and made a better person as a result.

Artemis, the nature goddess, has reminded me that my own nature, and ours as people, is one I must also venerate and pay close attention to in order to improve myself.

Artemis the Bear Goddess

2011-10-14T08:23:00.001-04:00

I have to admit, my knowledge of the cults of Artemis is severely limited. I have never taken up a study of her the way I have often for say Athena, who has been the subject of many books I have read over the years. I am hoping to rectify this.

To that end I am looking through theoi.com for hints about where to start, and among the cults of this goddess that struck me was one I had heard of before but never given much thought to. It is the cult for Artemis of Brauron, the bear goddess. Now, as great as theoi.com is, it is not a research site, it is a site of quotes, like a large bibliography, allowing you to see quotes from ancient sources with regard to a particular deities, heroes, and other mythological characters.

Among these quotes are these:

Callimachus, Epigrams 35 (from A.P. 6. 347) (trans. Mair) (Greek poet C3rd B.C.) :
"Artemis, to thee Phileratis set up this image here. Do thou accept it, Lady, and keep her safe."

Suidas s.v. Lysizonos gune (trans. Suda On Line) (Byzantine Greek lexicon C10th A.D.) :
"Lysizonos gune (girdle-loosening woman) : She who has drawn near to a man. For virgins about to have sex dedicated their virginal lingerie to Artemis."

Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 23. 7 :
"There is also a sanctuary [at Athens] of Artemis Brauronia (of Brauron); the image is the work of Praxiteles, but the goddess derives her name from the parish of Brauron. The old wooden image is in Brauron, Artemis Tauria (of Tauros) as she is called."

Herodotus, Histories 6. 138 (trans. Godley) (Greek historian C5th B.C.) :
"The Pelasgians dwelt at that time in Lemnos [C6th B.C.] and desired vengeance on the Athenians. Since they well knew the time of the Athenian festivals, they acquired fifty-oared ships and set an ambush for the Athenian women celebrating the festival of Artemis at Brauron. They seized many of the women, then sailed away with them and brought them to Lemnos to be their concubines."

Suidas s.v. Arktos e Brauroniois (trans. Suda On Line) (Byzantine Greek lexicon C10th A.D.) :
"Arktos e Brauroniois (I was a bear at the Brauronia) : Women playing the bear used to celebrate a festival for Artemis dressed in saffron robes; not older than 10 years nor less than 5; appeasing the goddess. The reason was that a wild she-bear used to come to the deme of Phlauidoi and spend time there; and she became tamed and was brought up with the humans. Some virgin was playing with her and, when the girl began acting recklessly, the she-bear was provoked and scratched the virgin; her brothers were angered by this and speared the she-bear, and because of this a pestilential sickness fell upon the Athenians. When the Athenians consulted the oracle [the god] said that there would be a release from the evils if, as blood price for the she-bear that died, they compelled their virgins to play the bear. And the Athenians decreed that no virgin might be given in marriage to a man if she hadn't previously played the bear for the goddess."

You may wonder what these quotes mean to me, but it is not so much their meaning as their attestation that I was looking for, and that last one, a description of something I always find intriguing about religious ritual, in this case, a ritual for the Goddess Artemis, and that is the re-enactment of an even from the far past. Just as many Christian cultures re-enact the birth of Christ during Christmas, or the Passion during Easter, so too do many Pagan festivals and rituals work to re-enact something of importance to the people in the past.

For reconstructionist pagans, such as Hellenistoi, there comes a small problem, the problem of disconnection. To the people of Athens who celebrated this festival in which girls, quite young, performed this "playing the bear" for Artemis had a special connection to this bear event. To them, especially to a particular tribe or deme, this event in which a bear was killed unjustly for essentially behaving like a bear, had special significance, and while we may seek to understand what it was, apply psychological reasoning to it, or seek to empathize with it, we cannot truly know what it was those people thought or why this partiucular event was of such importance to them that they commemorated it in religious ritual forever.

There is, of course, the pestilence, and the blaming of the pestilence on the unjust actions of the girl's brothers, a common thing in ancient times, and sometimes even today in our own culture, and maybe even a hint of a time when a young girl was chosen as a sacrifice to serve as a scapegoat.

The story of the bear drawing blood from the girl here symbolizes the possible sacrifice of the scapegoat, and the anger of the brothers and the taking of the life of the bear perhaps a transference of the scapegoat status to an animal rather than a human.

I think this particular myth, as with the myth of Iphigeneia, entrusts to us a history of the shift in sacrificial methods of the Hellenic people. From a time when savage human sacrifices or human scapegoating was performed to a time when an animal was used instead, and in the case of this bear, where there was a shift again from the use of a wild bear, taken in and tamed for the sake of using it as a scapegoat, to using a kind of "passion play" instead.

I see in this myth a shift in the relationship between man and the gods.

As for Artemis of the bears, it seems not at all odd to me that Artemis of the bears would send a pestilence to the people after the misuse of this bear. Not because Artemis as a deity has a problem with the killing of animals, but because maybe she has a problem with the use of a wild beast not normally used as food, though it is certainly edible, for something like this.

The girls in the saffron robes symbolize a shift in that relationship. A shift away from superstitious sacrifices to sacrifices based on the consumption of animals, allowing us to share what we eat with the Gods. But also, a shift in the ritual forms, taking them away from the savage and making them more and more an expression of our artistic imaginations.

Artemis of the bears. The aspect of Artemis that seeks to remind us to pay respect to the world around us, especially to the life that surrounds us.

Different reactions...

2011-10-10T07:56:00.001-04:00

I am talking here about a different kind of reaction, and to something physical, not to the Gods, although I guess I could argue that everything involves the Gods in some way. Yesterday, I awoke to a nice day, a Sunday, no work, my birds chirping happily in their cages, and everything fairly normal, the way I like it. I had to do a little cleaning, a little vacuuming, a little dish washing, but that's all a normal part of life. I did some web surfing, some TV watching, listened to some music, meditated, and did a little reading.

But something happened in the afternoon that shook me. I walked into the kitchen and noticed that something was wrong with one of my bids. A female cockatiel who'd taken on the name Missy. Normally, I don't name birds. They do not respond to names, unless they are parrots, and even then I am not sure they do, but as I went on, I found that I was always referring to these two as buddy and missy, so they became Buddy and Missy.

She was not breathing normally, and as the minutes passed, it got worse and worse until finally, I reached into the cage. I knew right away it was deadly serious because she did not try to get away. Missy was much friendlier than Buddy in that respect. If she was out and flying around, she would get on my hand, and she had no problem climbing onto my shoulder, or even my head, but normally when reaching into the cage, both she and buddy would not want picked up. This time, however, she did not move or struggle, and her breathing was a horrible loud wheezing. I tried to get her to drink some water, but she would not take any. Just minutes later I watched as the life drained out of her.

Missy is gone.

My reaction was not subtle.

I am not an emotional person. I am not prone to crying or even lots of any other emotions, but I had some kind of weird semi-crying semi angry mess. I am not sure how to explain it, but this little bird had provided me with something that is now missing, and I find myself saddened.

Reactions

2011-09-23T08:04:00.001-04:00

In this journey, the journey of discovering who I am on the inside by exploring my relationships to the Gods, the reactions I have, conscious and subconscious, to the Gods and Goddesses I am attempting to connect to are what lead me into further exploration. Sometimes, as now, I find myself reacting in ways I did not expect, or which seem opposed to the particular deity I am focussing on.

Since I am currently focusing on Artemis, a "Virgin Goddess", I have to admit to being surprised that one of my reactions has been to become more sexual. To seek out sexual partners and enjoy what comes so naturally to me as a man. It is not a simple coincidence that I am reacting this way at this time. I am a very sexual person, even at my advanced age and being quite ugly, yet of late, I have not wanted partners. I think in some way, this reaction to Artemis has been a reminder to me that often we human beings are extreme in our notions. That we focus too much on a single thing and then disavow or neglect everything else.

As a goddess of hunters, of the hunt, and of the very animals who are the prey, Artemis is also a goddess of perceptions, something that just now dawns on me. She is a goddess of the senses, of the sharpness of those senses and the well honed instincts that allow them to find and put down prey. This makes her a goddess of the deep instincts, those that come to us through our very genes, that guide us as we live. One of those instincts is sex, and while the "virgin" status of the goddess and the way that aspect of her informs much of her worship can sometimes lead us to forget that, we must be careful not to apply Judaeo-Christian or Puritanical ideas of sexuality on the Gods. Those puritanical ideas about sex are a false human concept, one which has caused much pain and destruction in human lives.

No, I don't think we should include sex as part of Artemis' worship, but as an instinct in our very make up, I think I have to accept that she plays some part in what sex means to us as living, thinking beings.

The Poems section...

2011-09-20T08:12:00.001-04:00

In the Prayers and Poems section of my web site (iskios.com) I have uploaded several new pieces, as I have been looking through my directory and putting more of this stuff up. Might as well have people read it. Critiques are welcome, of course...

Leto, Mother of Artemis

2011-09-12T10:34:00.001-04:00

"And Leto was joined in love with Zeus who holds the aigis, and bare Apollon and Artemis delighting in arrows, children lovely above all the sons of Heaven." -- Hesios c.8th Century B.C.E.

Leto, Titan Goddess, daughter of Koios and Phoebe was a figure in myth associated with the celestial realm, with childhood, motherhood, and the protection of children. With her children, Apollo and Artemis, she was often invoked at times of need in child bearing and disease. Apollo, who is God of healing and healers, and Artemis, who is, among other things, goddess of childbirth who can also often be seen as the killer of women during childhood.

Leto, it is said, drew the attentions of Zeus, and with Zeus begat the children who would be worshipped in the new age by the people of Greece. Artemis, it is said, is born first, though the two deities are twins, and helped her mother birth her brother, Apollo. The two, it is said, were also born on different islands, because fearing the ire of Hera, Zeus' Queen, the islands of the Aegean refused her a place of respite, a place where she might birth her children.

Myths about the divine mother's inability to find a place to birth her child, or children, are common. From Greek and Roman myths such as this one, to Babylonian and Hittite myths about the Great Mother, to the birth of the Christ child, this journey of the goddess, or in many cases a mortal woman bearing a divine child, she is refused and eventually it is some poor spot that grants her a place to give birth and is later rewarded with eternal fame or prosperity or some such.

Whether it is Ortygia, where Artemis is said to have been born (In the Mediterranean) or Delos, the islands are later given great renown and Artemis and Apollo both bless these islands with both their presence and protection.

But there are some things of interest and relevance to me in the story of the birth of Artemis, one of which seems to be that Leto was not a goddess to be taken lightly. Whether because of the ire of Artemis and Apollo, or because of her place as a beloved of Zeus, or her own innate divine power, the figure of Leto is one that must be properly attended to as would be any aspect of a God or Goddess. Among the Titans, Leto is one of the few who continued to receive proper honors and worship well into the Roman Age and even beyond, if one considers Leto as an aspect of the Mother Goddess, but that is a discussion for another time.

As you may have figured out by reading my site and blog, I do not believe that every mythic figure we see in the myths themselves is a unique divine figure, but in the case of Leto, as in the case of Helios, another Titan God (son of the Titan Hyperion), has to be accorded a certain level of respect and even worship because of her link to two of the most powerful forces in the Olympian pantheon, the Bringers and Healers of disease.

Leto, here, represents and embodies a facet of life, both human and animal, and in connection to her, so do Apollo and Artemis, and Artemis especially, has a reputation for harshness that is important to take note of.

Is she a figure to be feared? Yes, but in that respectful fear that one gives to anyone who has power over the very reality we live in.

Artemis, the virgin.

2011-09-09T09:22:00.001-04:00

As with Hestia and Athena, so with Artemis. An aspect of this goddess that I know I have issues with is the notion of her virginity. I understand, of course, that this virginity can be metaphorical as well as literal, and that is usually the way I take such things, but there is a notion woven into the notion of virginity that has always bothered me, and that is one imposed more by our Judaeo-Christian culture than by the ancients, to whom virginity was a means to preserve the value of a female child, especially among the citizen classes.

It is the idea that sex is a pollutant, that virginity is somehow pure while sex is somehow dirty that bugs me. Because I am a man, of course, the concept of virginity has always been different for me than it is for a woman in our culture. In spite of the great strides toward equality and freedom, we still teach women that it is not OK for them to be sexually free and liberated while teaching men that is exactly what they should be. Because I am also a gay man, I have not had to deal with this from the perspective of finding a potential mate either, but I have seen the effect that our culture's sexual hypocrisy has on women. The guilt, the shame, the feeling of being dirty that is imposed upon them from our culture. It shames me to see it.

On the other hand, there is also the pressure placed on men, often by women, to be less free and to be the way they want men to be rather than what men are. I don't agree with that either. I don't think we achieve sexual equality by forcing men to chain their sexuality down, but by making it clear that all matters of sexuality are personal. That we all make choices and follow impulses based on our own mental make ups, not on social expectations, and if a man wants to be monogamous, that is his right, and if a woman wants to be polyamorous, that should be her right as well.

Now, although the haughty notion of virginity as "pure" bugs me, I think the metaphorical implications of Artemis and her virginity are very important to us as people, male or female. The virgin nature of a deity, that she is a being, whole and entire in her own right and not in need of being made whole by a mate, is a powerful message. But, psychologically, it is an almost omnipotent concept, one we should all take hold of and meditate on.

You are whole. You are entire. You are capable and well on your own. When you choose to be with someone, be it a marriage or a one night stand, it should be because you seek mutual pleasure, mutual understanding, mutual comfort and mutual companionship, not because you are lonely and need them to fill some part of you that is missing. The same can be said for anyone seeking to have children. You should have them because you want to love and raise children, not because you want to be a mother or because you have some social pressure to do so.

Understanding that her virginity is an expression of self confidence, self assuredness, self worth, is a way in which we can all learn a valuable lesson, but taking the time to truly learn that lesson, to truly take it to heart and incorporate it into your being, that can be the hard part. But totally worth it.

New Theme

2011-09-07T09:48:00.001-04:00

I've set up a new Theme on iskios.com, and would like feedback. Not even sure if anyone is reading it, but if you are, let me know what you think of the new look.

Artemis, Lady of the Mountains

2011-08-31T12:51:00.001-04:00

Artemis is, it would seem above all other things, a Goddess of natural places and natural occurrences. The forest, the wooded mountain sides, the tidy holes animals hide in, caves, etc. But also, of moon lit nights, of growth, of hunting (a natural activity), and birth, and the dangers that come with it. She is a goddess of children and young mothers, and of the young animals who, often, require much protection in order to survive.

She is a protective goddess, but also a dangerous goddess, because in her pervue is also the death of birthing mothers, or the children they birth. Often seen as a horrible thing, one can also see these as a mercy, though to the families involved it will never seem that way. As a "nature goddess" I have much to be thankful to Artemis for. The beauty of the world and the shifting changes that are its most enduring characteristic, are something we all need be grateful for, even if it also means our aging, our disease, and our deaths.

But therein lies a problem for me, because I am very much a city man, and like most of us, I am rather disconnected to nature and her many many cycles. Yes, I am affected by time, by disease, by the changing seasons, but the effects I perceive in my life seem to be the grander shifts in natures moods. The weather, the sunrise, the seasons. But Artemis is also present in many of the other, smaller shifts in our day to day reality, which we who live in the cities, often neglect or never become truly aware of.

If I am understanding what I am feeling with regard to Artemis as I write this, then I must force myself to move beyond the metaphorical city walls. To allow myself to be exposed to natures smaller miracles so that I can come to, if not an understanding, than an experience of what it means to me as a living piece of nature. The goddess Artemis, Lady of the Mountains, is not the mountain, not the leaves on the trees, not the beasts that move among them, but she is there in the threat of predation, in the changes and little shifts that decide our fate, live or die, survive or fall prey. She is part of that instinctive fear that keeps us alive, but also the fearlessness that allows us to confront our prey, metaphorical or not, and come out the victors.

Now, how do I embrace this? How do I plunge headlong into an experience of her and her power?

Artemis

2011-08-15T08:13:00.001-04:00

I move to a goddess who I actually have very little experience with. In my personal worship, she is usually linked to my morning candle lighting ritual, tied to the other two virgin goddesses of Olympus on my altar and invoked in this aspect. An aspect of protection, or purity, and of strength. Along with Athena she forms a kind of Virgin Trinity, though not in the Christian sense. She is here not so much Artemis the Great Olympian Goddess, but Artemis the spirit of youthful energy and divine movement, something I also tend to associate with Athena in this aspect of protective purity.

But anyone who has made even a cursory review of Artemis as a figure in ancient Greek religion knows that simplifying Artemis is not an easy thing to do, that she is, in fact, one of the most complex figures in the Greek pantheon of Gods. Seen by the ancients in a vast variety of ways, she was virgin huntress, moon goddess, protector of birthing mothers, sometimes killer of same, and with her brother Apollo, was associated with both healing and disease, though not to the same extent as he was. But across the Aegean, in the Eastern Greek world, she was also worshipped in ways one might find peculiar to a goddess so well known for her youthful virginity. She was a "Great Mother" type goddess, though we have to try and remember that this particular paradigm has been partially discredited. From little girl sitting at her father's knee to the goddess to whom blood was let by youths in Sparta. The breadth of her worship is one that can be daunting, and among the ancients it was not all encompassing, as it is not among those of us who believe in her existence today.

As with all the Gods, Artemis' many aspects do not actually have to be reconciled one with the other, but they must be reconciled with the worshipper if he or she is to properly give her honor and worship. As a worshipper, I must worship and accept the aspects of the Goddess that make sense to me, and I have to find which of those aspects seem to contradict my personal gnosis. When they do, I must either find a way to make them make sense, or relegate them to the cults of others. I found a long time ago that it is not necessary to worship the Gods in every aspect. It is only necessary to worship them in those aspects that touch me, to give thanks for those and if I feel I need, to call on those I need in my life.

With Artemis, it is a difficult road to take for me. I am no virgin. Boy am I not a virgin. I am no hunter, though I do not oppose hunting for food. I am not a healer, or a woman, or likely to ever give birth. I call on her for her protective power, and because part of me wants to protect what is left of my inner child so that I do not let myself get old and crotchety (some will argue it's too late for that) but I do not have many of the qualities in me for which ancient people often gave thanks to her. But these meditations I seek to make on the nature of the Gods and how they affect me are meant to help me to understand them and how they fit into my life better, and to explore and find those aspects of me that I have, perhaps, not allowed to come to the surface.

So, blessed Artemis, I am opening myself to you. Come! Show me! Teach me!

And so, I move on...

2011-08-11T19:08:00.001-04:00

With a lesson learned, but not implemented, I move on from Hephaestos and onto the next point in my meditation star.

It leads me now to Artemis, lady of the wilds, goddess of the hunt, goddess of the crescent moon, and great virgin goddess. Artemis may turn out to be a hard one for me. I am not a girl, I do not hunt, and while I have great respect for her, I have eschewed many of the human activities, like hunting and child rearing, that she is said to patronize. But there are aspects of this goddess that straddle a very important line in our myths, and it is one I hope to explore. What is that line? In due time...

But, one more thing about Hephaestus...

2011-07-11T13:53:00.001-04:00

Hephaestos' myths include a conflicting relationship with his parents. Myth tells us that Zeus and Hera were so disgusted by the imperfection of Hephaestos that they threw him from Olympus.

Crashing down upon the Earth he was saved by Thetis, and in her care and that of Eurynome, he was hidden in a cave surrounded by Ocean (An Island) where he learned to work metal and stone to create magnificent pieces of art and practical utility.

The myths vary, of course, all myths do, and in some cases he is the son of Zeus and Hera and in others the son of Hera alone, who bore him in anger against Zeus. But regardless, it left him with, if not a hatred, a disdain for the actions of his mother.

I can relate to this, though in my case, it is the actions of my father that I associate with this spirit of abandonment and rejection.

I know, I am old enough to be over this, and in most aspects of my life, I am, but in others, I know the disdain I feel for my father informs a great deal of what I feel toward my family as a whole.

My mother is not at all pure and innocent, she was abusive as well, but his abuse, his lack of concern for us, and his abandonment of us combined drove a steak in my heart that I find hard to let go of. I can't love him, even when I try to be civil, I just can't love him, and I think, perhaps, the reason I am having trouble moving on from Hephaestos is that he wants me to let go of this. I think, maybe, he wants me to reconcile with my father, even if I can't love him.

It's not something I can manage any time soon, and so I am going to have to work on my inner self, my thought processes, in order to get myself to a place where I can do that.

I Am War

2011-07-07T08:50:00.001-04:00

I go out for you

To the slaughter and the suffering of the battlefield

Where you ask me to kill or be killed

To murder and rape and pillage in your name

I am forgotten, displaced, and mistreated on my return

I have feinted in the heat of the day

Born down to the earth by the weight of this armor

The blood pouring from parts of me I can no longer feel

The fear and release of exhaustion reminding me I live

The shit on my legs no longer bothering me

I have killed children

In the torching of cities, they have died

I have watched as mothers hold strong to their children as arrows pierce their hearts

My heart aching to see my own children who have likely forgotten me

My adored wife a distant memory, her face no longer clear in my head

I have suffered for you

And at my return I see your scorn

I see in your eyes the distaste for what I have done

I see in your face the distaste for what was asked of me

I see in your posture the loathing of the reminder that it was you who asked it of me.

I am war, your companion

I am war, your protector

I am war, your enslaver

I am war, who you hate

I am war, without whom you do not thrive.

Taking stock...

2011-06-26T19:49:00.001-04:00

So, I have been at this point in the star for some time, and part of me wants to move on, but, I still am not sure I get it. Yes, Hephaestus has shown me things about me, things about how I react to stresses, ideas, and to the environment that surrounds me. Hephaestus has given me a different, though not pleasant, perspective on work, and he has given me a glimpse into the fiery depths of his being.

But in forcing me to essentially take stock of myself, I have also been forced to take stock in them, the Gods, and what it is I need from them, want from them, can expect from them, and how all of these actually manifest in my reality.

For one thing, Hephaestus has shown me, I think, more clearly than ever, that the Gods are not manifest solely in a single place and in a single form. The Gods manifest throughout the world and throughout history in a great many ways. We know this. We see it in the mythos of the Greeks as surely as we do in that of the Romans, Hindus, Chinese, Japanese, and even the Christians. The divine sphere does not make for an easy and simple translation, ever.

But to me, it means that Hephaestus has shown me that it is OK to see him in a God of the Hindus if a Hindu meditation is what I need to quiet my mind. That it is OK to see him in a Chinese form if the prayers of an ancient Chinese philosopher seem apropos to my dilemmas today.

Not that I am becoming eclectic or anything, mind you, I still believe, and I think Hephaestus has helped me to deepen this belief, that the context of a mythic and religious system is at least as important as the myths and philosophies themselves.

That I am more willing to listen to and be enlightened by Hindu or Buddhist philosophy today than I might have been five years ago is, I think, something Hephaestus has guided me to and helped me to realize in my life. That I am more willing to listen, to hear, and to digest that which another has felt and made manifest in his own life is something he has guided me too as well. But also, how to be strong within my own convictions even as I continue to evolve.

That is to say, to keep the fires of the forge burning, and the embers steady, even as I busy myself forging the iron that is my soul into a new and more pleasing form.

My New Babies

2011-06-21T08:52:00.004-04:00

My new budgerigar. Haven't named her yet. She's a bit quiet, and I think she needs a friend, but that will have to wait a few weeks. She's very bright of color, so I am thinking of calling her Venus.

My new Cocatiel. She is a bit aged, but healthy, and is a bit on the quiet side. She still has no name, but I am thinking Juno.

And here's the male, noisy little bugger, younger, and cheerful. This little bugger actually sings. I don't mean he sings like birds do, you know, calls in the morning, chirps. I mean he sings, like listening to a person hum. Sometimes I put on music, which they all seem to like as I sometimes catch them swaying to it, but he sometimes starts to sing. Not along with the actual tune of the song, mind you, but it does sounds sometimes like he's trying to mimic it. It is the cutest thing.

I think he will be Jove, but I have not really decided yet, because his singing makes me think Phoebus or something like that. Still, if he is in the cage with Juno, he should be Jove, no?

They Love Each Other

2011-06-13T09:15:00.001-04:00

True to his own heart

True to her own desires

True to their own feelings

They love each other

Aphrodite binds them

Hera sanctifies them

True to her own emotions

True to her own needs

True to their own passion

They love each other

Aphrodite draws them together

Hera hallows their union

True to his own lusts

True to his own longings

True to their own honor

They love each other

Aphrodite ensorcels them

Hera makes consecrates them

Athens

2011-06-06T20:06:00.001-04:00

Athens is, perhaps, the one city everyone thinks of when they think of ancient Greece. To a Greek, this is not necessarily so, as they are aware of the vast richness of ancient Greek architecture, art, and literature that originated in many places all over the land we call Greece. To those of us who are not Greek, however, Athens is the shining glory that was ancient Greece.

It is in ancient Athens that we see the ideals come to flowering that we hold dear in the West. It is in Athens that we see the flowering of philosophy, democracy, and the ideal of equality. Oh, we are not blind, of course, we know that women, slaves, and non-Athenian born free men did not have the same rights as the citizens, and that Athens had a strong and powerful aristocratic class that often made a mockery of the democratic process, but the truth is that we recognize in that society something very much a kin to our own.

When the United States were founded, it was with an ideal that would need centuries to come to a greater flowering. The founders of our nation saw in Athens and the systems they set up as ideal, and they sought to write into our constitution a system that would grow and change while retaining that unique characteristic we call democracy. That they needed to use the Republican system to make it workable is understandable. Like Rome, the United States would prove too large, even in colonial times, to rule with a truly democratic system, but where the Athenians had lead the way, and the Romans had tried to follow, America wanted to continue.

Like Athens, we had an imperfect system. We had women who could not bring their voices to bear on government, slaves who were counted, but only as cattle might be, and other people who, while free, were not to be given the same rights as the citizen class. A class which, at first, was very aristocratic in nature. The founding of our nation was, in almost all ways, a reflection of the Athenians who had lit the light of democracy so long ago.

For many of us who worship the Gods of Olympus, it is ideals such as democracy and liberty, the love of art and architecture, the desire to know as embodied in the Greek arts of philosophy and science, that drew us. We were drawn to the Gods who had presided over the birth of these ideals, and would seek to worship them again in an effort to once again allow their influence into the world.

The glory that was Athens, with its art, its architecture, its science and philosophy would call to us and lead us to the very Gods who once fought over her land so as to claim it. The same Gods who would inspire them to achieve, in sometimes miraculously short amounts of time, such incredible things that to this day man kind has not met their challenge.

We who wish to see the influence of the Gods once more alive in the world, however, must not allow ourselves to be stopped from bringing it to light. We must not allow our conflicts, and the influences of the Abrahamic faiths and nationalistic endeavors to stop us from embracing the truth. The truth that the Gods live, and in large portions of the world, man has become blind to their presence. That the Christian and Moslem faiths, with their hate promoting zealotry must not be allowed to kill off the power that lies in the realization that the Gods, in all their names, in all their glory, can lead us to live in peace while embracing our diversity, not by destroying it.

That as the Athenians learned to build a system that gave a greater voice to its citizens, flawed system though it was, we can learn to create a system that will give the Gods a voice in the world that will bless us all with that same spirit of freedom and liberty we have often aspired to in our nation. A system in which all men and women, no matter their race, their religion, their sexual orientations can have a voice that sings in pride to the blessed Gods who dwell in splendor.

These are Yours

2011-05-30T09:54:00.001-04:00

The clamor of battle

The clang of steel

The smell of smoke

These are your companions

The cries for help

The orders of generals

The loss of friends

These walk with you

The man before you

The woman behind you

The phalanx around you

These are your protection

The lost spirit within

The heartache and pain

The memories you will never forget

These are your trophies

The Lady of Wisdom

The Lord of the Battlefields

The Lady Liberty

These are your Gods, may they never desert you!

The Herm

2011-05-29T07:32:00.001-04:00

To the West I made a place for you.

A stone pillar, polished and neat.

With the shadows cast by the setting sun.

It marks the border.

It marks the end.

It marks the point where day says farewell.

To the North I made a place for you.

A stone pillar, old and weathered.

With the snows of Winter and the growth of Spring.

It marks the border.

It marks the end.

It marks the point where Spring gives way to Winter.

To the South I made a place for you.

A stone pillar, brightly painted and in ribbons covered.

With the heat of Summer and the sounds of the sea.

It marks the border.

It marks the end.

It marks the point where Summer is King and Winter unknown.

To the East I made a place for you.

A stone pillar, golden and clean.

With the songs of man seeking you.

It marks the border.

It marks the end.

It marks the point where the Sun greets the world and sacred land begins.

At the borders of my mind, I leave a place for you.

A stone pillar, like a phallus shaped.

With vines and ivy slowly claiming it.

It marks the border.

It marks the end.

It marks the line that none may cross.

Having cooled down

2011-05-27T08:40:00.001-04:00

Hvaving cooled down some, I have come to realize two mistakes I have made. One, I neglected how general a phrase like "Greece is full of..." comes off in English. So, people have been right to point out that I have been accusing the Greek people themselves of being racists.

This is, of course, not true. I know this for a fact, having known and interacted with many Greek people during my life. What I should have said is that there appears to be a movement in Greece of people who seem to believe that the Greek people are of pure genetic stock and are superior to all other people. There are people here in the US who think the same, and in France, and in Argentina, and in China, etc. So, it was unfair of me to use so general a phrase, even if I did it unintentionally, because I should know to reread the things I write when I am feeling angered by others.

My second mistake, technically the first but I realized it second, was in engaging these kinds of people in an argument in the first place. Like religious zealots, racists and nationalists tend to adhere to their line of thought or belief with no chance of being argued out of it by anyone, especially anyone as limited as myself.

I should have just known better than to try to argue with them.

Now, this doesn't mean that I have changed my mind about anything that I said with regard to these people. They are an insidious cancer that has to be fought. I know that a lot of us "pagans" like to be incredibly accepting. That whole "let everyone believe whatever they want" thing does not sit well with me if the belief in question includes spreading a racist agenda.

I am not talking about supporting laws that restrict speech or anything like that, as I am a strong believer in free speech, free press, free expression, but in establishing groups and online communities that support and spread a more universal system for Hellenism.

So, Universal Hellenismos, the acceptance that the Gods are not meant for any one people, but can be, and seek to be found by all people. To some appearing this way, to some that way. That the Gods do not want us at war with each other over religious dogma, but for truly just reasons. That the Gods seek to help us become wiser beings, not their slaves. That all human beings are equal in their eyes and that it is the things we do and how we treat each other that matters in the end. That among the many things humanity should strive for, hospitality toward one another, love of family, protection of the defenseless, and above all others, the wisdom to act with justice always in mind, should be the most important and the ones that our religion promotes.

These are the ideals we must strive for. Because while live and let live can be a good thing, turning a blind eye to injustice is not.

Opening my eyes...

2011-05-24T09:34:00.001-04:00

My eyes are being opened to something I have blinded myself to for a long time. A recent experience on Facebook has forced me to take a good look at what I have been doing religiously, and why I have been going about it wrong.

A simple discussion on a Facebook board which started with the question "Is Macedonia Hellenic or not?" ended up with me being yelled at about the purity of Greek blood and how my being American was why I did not understand things. Accusations that I have Arab blood, which I do, and African blood, which I do, spewed forth as if either of these were something to be ashamed of while outright denials of the clear fact that Greeks themselves have a great deal of Slavic and Turkish blood in their lineage led me to realize that Greece, today, is full of racists and nationalists who are attempting to adhere to the same "religion" I am.

I have to admit that for a second there I was ashamed of this "religion", that I thought I must leave this path in my life in order to distance myself from that kind of ridiculous stance.

I have, I think, forgotten that the Gods are not Greeks. The Gods are The Gods, and how we see them is often times more a reflection of our own issues than theirs. That the Olympian Gods don't care if I am a mutt, and perhaps, just perhaps, the Gods have chosen to touch people in many different parts of the world in an effort to force us to look back at the land we call Greece and, perhaps, force them to stop the insanity.

I am not talking about proselytizing, I am talking about being more assertive. That those of us who pray and worship at the altars of the Gods without the nationalist overtones, without the sad claims to racial purity, without all the bullshit, to be quite honest, should become the voices of reason, and rather than just sit back and be all "Let people do what they will" we should be a little more "No, racism and nationalist agendas are not Hellenismos".

We should not allow ourselves to defer to the Greeks just because they are Greek, that is in itself a form of racism, but speak out against such things in the name of the Gods, because the Gods are not racist nationalists, they are the Gods, and they have touched people throughout the world, in many ways, by many names, and have never sought to destroy a people for being different. Man has done these things.

Sorry if I sound a bit angry, but I am seldom touched by racism anymore, as I have always been fairly capable of speaking my mind on that particular issue, or not caring what others think of me, but this, this hit me harder than I thought it would, and now I have a lot of thinking to do.

My current guide along the star, Hephaestos, seems to be throwing me into something new here, new for me, and perhaps, forging me into something new, something a little more active in this "community" of ours so that we can stand up to people who, in the name of the Gods, will do wrong.

Can I get an amen? :)

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Concepts

2011-05-18T10:34:00.001-04:00

Conveying a concept is not an easy thing. Look at the number of people you meet every day who can't seem to finish a thought, much less convey the mental structures, the concepts, in their heads.

I admit to being one of those people.

I have a hard time saying what I want to say without straying back and forth. Basically, it works like this, I start to write out a particular thought and as I do so, 50 others happen and I become derailed.

Some people call it a form of ADD, I refer to it as a lack of focus, and focus is something that can be learned.

So, what is this about concepts I want to get to?

The concept is "god"

Right now, though, I have to get to work, so I will have to tackle it later.

Homeric Hymn 20 - To Hephaestos

2011-05-10T17:20:00.001-04:00

"Sing, clear-voiced Mousa, of Hephaistos famed for inventions (klytometis). With bright-eyed Athene he taught men glorious crafts throughout the world,--men who before used to dwell in caves in the mountains like wild beasts. But now that they have learned crafts through Hephaistos the famed worker (klytotekhnes), easily they live a peaceful life in their own houses the whole year round. Be gracious, Hephaistos, and grant me success and prosperity!"

Purification of my soul

2011-05-05T10:13:00.001-04:00

I believe in the soul as a manifestation of our psyche, not as an eternal and ephemeral force. I am not a luminous being, as Toss might put it, but a physical being who glows with the light of sapience.
There is nothing magical about it.

But we live a good number of years, we physical beings, and during that time, it would be a shame not to seek to grow our minds beyond the confines of our physical needs to the glorious speculation and wisdom that comes with knowledge.

But more than that, it is important to learn how to gauge our own intent. How to make our will and intention pure. For these things we turn to the Gods.

The Gods are not physical beings like we are. They are physical in the sense that they exist as part of the greater structure of the universe, just as we are part of our small part of the cosmos, but there is to divinity a purity that comes from intent and action and how the two are not about what they need or want, but about what is for the best of all things.

That is the kind of purity I am looming for. To let go of selfishness and embrace the betterment of us all.

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Dead

2011-05-02T07:50:00.001-04:00

Thank the Gods he is dead!

If there is any truth to the myth of Tartarus, may he be deep in its bowels, being torn apart by titanic beings hungry for flesh for eternity.

Purification

2011-05-01T18:46:00.001-04:00

Fire has many manifestations in human spirituality. As in the more realist paradigm, so in the spiritual one, and fire is destructive, cleansing, purifying, and even creative. As I have tried to manifest Hephaestos in my life, which I admit has not been easy, I have started sharing certain aspects of my life on Tumblr, aspects not directly related to Hellenismos, and hence why I have not cross posted them here, but it occurs to me that this decision was indeed part of my manifestation of Hephaestos.

Hephaestos not as creator, not as destroyer, but as purifier.

Deciding to share these things, even if no one is actually reading them, has always been part of how I deal with my inner turmoil, my inner pain, my inner self destructive impulses. Letting things go, verbally or as written text helps me deal with them and process them, and this blog, as well as that one, has given me a means to let go of a lot of inner conflict. Inner conflict that pollutes my soul.

Of all the Gods, I never quite thought of Hephaestos as a God of purification. Apollo? Absolutely. Hestia? Of course. But, Hephaestos?

It wasn't until I started to realize how limited my view of the Gods can be that I started to open up to ideas that allowed the various Gods to manifest in my life in unexpected ways. They may even have been manifesting that way all along, and I simply refused to see it. When you start to look at the way particular Gods are worshipped all over their respective worlds, in our case Greece, you start to see how immensely diverse the influence of the Gods can be. It is amazing to see the way Aphrodite seemed to the people of Cyprus, for example, versus the commonly viewed imagery and mythology that was so common among the people of the pan-Hellenic world. And when you look at the Hephaestos of the Athenians versus the Hephaestos who is father of the Kabeiroi, you start to feel foolish in not having allowed yourself to see him before then.

When I speak of Hephaestos as a God of Fire I do not speak of it in a magical way. I am not a follower of magical traditions, but that he is, in fact, a God who manifests through the use of fire. He is not the flames, of course, those are part of the chemical reactions that are fire, but there is to fire something that symbolizes his power to us, and part of that is how he manifests as a purifier of the soul through physical labor and our meditation on its impact on us.

But also, just as fire can allow for new forest to grow, clearing out old brush so that new seedlings can take root, so too can the fires of Hephaestos allow us to clear out our fears, doubts, and self destruction if we are willing to accept how he manifests in our psyches. That unlike Hestia, who manifests as protection and warmth, or Apollo, who manifests as the light that illuminates the darkness, Hephaestos manifests as the fire in which we must forge ourselves anew. He requires us to work and sweat to achieve the purification he has to offer, and I wonder if I have what it takes to do that kind of work.

He pushes me, but I find myself pushing back, and now I have to figure out why I would do that...

Spring rededication

2011-04-26T20:34:00.001-04:00

It occurs to me that I have never spoken about my annual rededication of my central altar (Actually, it happens more than once a year, but I always have one in the Spring) which I call, or used to call, my Altar of the Virgin Goddesses.

This altar is dedicated to Hestia, and upon it are images of Athena and Artemis as well, but this year I decided to make a change. While the altar remains dedicated to Hestia, I have added an image of the Minoan Snake Goddess (I know that the image itself is controversial as far as scholarship is concerned, but the imagery and symbolism of it do not go amiss in Hellenism) which, for me at least, are representations of the divine Mother Earth, who we call Gaea.

Many cults of goddesses, and some of Gods as well, have imagery that uses serpents as representations of the Earth and its regenerative power, but also of its chthonic and divinatory nature. The Pythia's title itself is related to the divinatory nature of her office, and the serpent, an aspect of the Earth, which once ruled Delphi.

So I bought this image of the snake goddess, which to me represents the chthonic, or Earthly, aspects of the divine Goddesses we worship, and especially of Gaea herself, the Great Mother. This morning I received the statuette and went about dismantling my altar, removing all decoration and dedications, cleaning them, and then rebuilding it with the addition of the new Snake Goddess.

Below are images of what I did in a lovely little slideshow.

After cleaning the objects and statuettes and replacing them in the fireplace, I relit the candle and lit some incense, offering a prayer to the gods, and especially to Hestia, that the altar may be accepted and pleasing to her.

Beautiful Temple of Minerva

2011-04-13T11:44:00.001-04:00

This beautiful ruin of a Roman temple to Minerva, who the Romans equated with Athena, is an example of the kind of temple I would love to build. Simple, yet dramatic, it would make me proud, this temple. I would create four chambers inside, each with a statue of Athena in a different aspect. The First, to Athena Parthenos, the second to Athena Xenia, and the third to Athena Soteira. The final chamber, accessible from the back, would be either for storage of temple goods, or a home for the attendant of the temple. Maybe my dream of building this will come true some day, the Gods willing.

Declan McCullagh has a site with pictures of this site, the picture above is not from his site.

And this, at Trek Earth, great site, by the way.

But am I learning anything?

2011-04-10T15:42:00.001-04:00

While I am learning a thing or two, I am having a hard time putting what I am learning into practice. Hephaestos is not a god whose influence I feel every day in my life, at least not in the way we Hellenistoi normally see him. But there is one aspect of him, as he is revealed to us in Myth, that strikes a chord in me.

He is described in myth as ugly.

I am rather an ugly looking man, and my own perception of this has, over the years of my life, caused me to be a bit self destructive. I over eat, I do not take care of myself as I should, etc. One thing I have never done, is drugs, though, and I think part of the reason is that I latched on to my ugliness almost like a badge of honor. Yes, part of me has always been very self destructive, but another has held himself separate from the norms, been unique, been different from the hordes of capitulating trend sucking fools that always seemed to surround me. I guess I used it as a way to prevent myself from conforming too much to the norms around me.

But there is something I have never quite gotten over. And that is the idea that my ugliness is actually all in my own head, because people chastise me for claiming I am ugly. Not that they ever say I am Brad Pitt or anything, but they don't believe I have the kinds of looks I do.

Yet, part of me cannot get over it, I do not see it. I see ugliness, and strive to make up for it in other ways, and as I embarked on a plan to lose weigh a couple of weeks ago (15 pounds now, yay!) I have to consider why I feel the way I do about myself in relation to my search for inner peace and acceptance. And in relation to the divine, who we all think of as beautiful, a prejudice that is part of our own human conceptions of the world, because divine beauty is not physical, it derives from the way we perceive their state of being, a state of being that is not decaying, not moving toward death, not subject to the same horrors we are.

Hephaestos, though, was perceived as ugly. Ugly because he wasn't perfect, yet the creator of so much beauty that the gods had no choice but to accept the divine nature of his power. How do I deal with my own perceived ugliness? How do I accept it and move on?

I walk with you...

2011-03-22T21:08:00.001-04:00

I walk with you, Lady of Love, though I do not have love in my life.
For you offer to me hope.

I walk with you, Lady of the Corn, though I do not till the land.
For you offer me sustenance.

I walk with you, Lady of Marriage, though I cannot marry.
For you offer me a dream.

I will walk with you, Aphrodite, in the passions of my nights.
For I love the feel of your touch.

I will walk with you, Demeter, in the kneading of my bread.
For I will delight in partaking of it.

I will walk with you, Hera, in the bonds I form day to day.
For I dream of a day, though it may never come, when love, domesticity, and the marital bond is mine.

The Flames of Passion

2011-03-21T23:20:00.001-04:00

It is odd to think of Hephaestos as a god of sexuality, sensuality, or eroticism, but among the most famous of myths regarding Hephaestos is the myth of his marriage to the glorious Aphrodite. But I think there is a difference in Hephaestos' role here than that of say Ares or Hermes, both of which are like paragons of male sexuality. They are represented in myth and art as beauteous, strong, lovers that likely can take you to the edge of orgasm by just looking at them, but in Hephaestos there is something else.

Hephaestos is a lame God, he is described in myth as a limping almost troll like figure. In Northern traditions, Dwarves are much like the description of Hephaestos, even down to their renowned industriousness and gift with metalwork. But Dwarves, for all their skill, are not attractive creatures to human beings.

So why would I think that the myth of Aphrodite and Hephaestos is one of sex, rather than the more commonly held notion that it is about Aphrodite's infidelity.

Aphrodite's infidelity, you see, is not a story about infidelity. Surely, that is part of it, but it is actually a story about the inability of man to imprison a woman's heart to a man she does not love. It is not that Hephaestos was not man enough for Aphrodite, by any standard of ancient times, Hephaestos would have been a hugely wealthy man, and he would have provided her with all the things she would have ever needed, except she did not love him. He was forced on her, and in this, this myth is a criticism on the ancient notion that a woman is property with no ability to choose her own husband, even if it is not a husband daddy approves of.

But from Hephaestos' side of the story, it is a cautionary tale. A tale about not being lead by your cock, because let's face it, the cock wants the prettiest, sexiest, and hottest. It has no notion of love and reciprocity in relationships, it only wants to feel really good while doing what it was designed to do. And be you gay, straight, or bi, the cock thinks the same way, it wants to fuck, and it wants the hottest person, or people, to do it with, and Hephaestos falls victim to his cock and demands the most luscious, beautiful, and sexually alluring of all creatures, and pays the price for letting his desire for that beauty outweigh his ability to think about the future.

Hephaestos, in association with sexuality, is a god who cautions you to beware. To not always be lead by your cock, but to think through the emotional price of allowing that to happen. Being horny is not a problem, Aphrodite's gifts are beautiful, but when you are needful of emotional connection, of love, and of that someone, or those someones, who can give you more than a good feeling down below. Aphrodite, goddess of love can gift you with that as well, but you must heed the warnings and think so that you not be trapped into the same horror that Hephaestos went through in his most famous myth.

I guess, as a sex god, Hephaestos is teaching you to stop, look, and listen, and when you find the right one, go for it.

First Delphic Hymn

2011-03-20T14:50:00.001-04:00

Wikipedia Article on the Delphic Hymns: http://goo.gl/7o52R

Father

2011-03-02T16:06:00.001-05:00

O pateras mou

You who stir the skies above with sound and light

Bless me this day with your divine strength

O pateras mou

You who are Father of Gods and Men

Bless me this day with your fleet thought and wisdom

O pateras mou

You who watch all mankind from the mountain top

Bless me this day with sure foresight

O pateras mou

King of high and golden Olympus

Grant me this day joy and respite from negativity.

The Sacred Fire

2011-03-02T14:55:00.001-05:00

The Gods of Fire, Hephaestos and Hestia, are sacred to us, we understand from the myths and through our ability to interpret those myths that they offer us a means by which we human beings can tap one of the most destructive of natural processes on the planet where life is concerned and turn it to our advantage. Thus have we made fire sacred, for therein lies a fundamental reality about what we are as living thinking creatures. We received the gift of fire, and in so doing became more than the beasts we were.

As I look into our great pantheon of Gods, I always seem to notice that to each element of nature, of existence, that we take note of there is a kind of male/female duality linked into our pantheon. The Sea has Poseidon and Amphitrite, the sky has Hera and Zeus, the underworld has Hades and Persephone. Further, love and attraction have Eros and Aphrodite, war has Athena and Ares, and, of course, fire has Hephaestos and Hestia. Not all of these are signified in our myths as a married couple, of course, as we see in the Athena and Ares and Hephaestos and Hestia connections, but it does bear remembering that what we see as a "marriage" is a human invention. Gods likely do not abide by such human conventions in reality, yet we interpret the intimate connections between death and rebirth, the clear sky and the tumultuous storm, the deep sea and the roiling waves , as a marriage because they are just that, intimately linked.

Fire, however, is a process that man must fear. It is a healthy fear. Fire can destroy, though we know it can also clear the way for new things, but the connections between these are not intimate in the same way. Fire requires that man learn to tame it. The true gift of fire wasn't the flame itself, it was the wisdom to overcome the fear of it and make it work for us. We tame and control it to offer us heat and cook our food, providing for us a shelter, and possibly a means by which to defend that shelter from the beasts of the wild. Therein lies Hestia's influence.

We also learned that fire has transformative powers, or rather, that when its heat is applied to many things, those things become malleable, changeable, and then we learn to forge them into new and useful forms.

Athena, goddess of wisdom, is said to guide us in matters of wise usage, but she too is tied to Hephaestos, even bearing the epithet Hephaestia in her aspect patron goddess of metal workers, and this connection is not lost on me. Hephaestos is also a god of wisdom, the wisdom to learn and pass on useful things. Not a god of grand philosophical discourses, perhaps, but a god of practical wisdom. Wisdom that allows us to advance and move forward with every new use of fire we discover, be that the fire of hot coals or the furnace in a nuclear reaction.

Child of Woman (to Dionysus)

2011-02-16T18:22:00.001-05:00

I am the child of woman, and the Sky is my father.

I walk along paths that many fear to tread.

I bring you enlightenment.

I am the child twice born, once from her, once from him.

I set the Earth to shaking with my footsteps.

I bring you fear.

I am the child who sought his mother.

I stride into the very bowels of the Earth for her.

I bring you courage.

I am the child of a mighty king, and the queen did hate me.

I set men’s hearts on fire with the warmth of the grape.

I bring you introspection.

I am the child made god, who stood fast against death.

I make your legs quiver with desire for me.

I bring you oblivion in a bottle.

Bad weeks...

2011-02-11T10:10:00.001-05:00

It has been a very bad week. It seems no matter what I do everything is going wrong for no apparent reason. This happens to me from time to time, and I have yet to understand why? I am, of course, sure it happens to everyone, so I am not really pretending that I am the only one this happens to, the level of arrogance I would have to be capable of to do that would astound even me.

However, I try to look at the world with the understanding that the only perspective I have into that world is mine. That while I can read about other perspectives, I can only ever truly experience my own, and so I have to approach this that way.

When I say everything goes wrong all at once, what do I mean?

This week:

Slow Week at work, hence no money
Bike pedal arm is breaking, I ride a bike to work, and everywhere, out of some belief that I am doing my part to minimize my impact on the environment I share with others
Bought tubes, which were mislabeled, so when I got a flat, and I did yesterday, and tried to fix it, they were useless
My Mac has finally started to die in earnest, I will have to reboot it when I finish writing this, or risk losing more data
My iPod is all buggered, but I think when I get a new mac and resync everything it should be ok, I think my dying Mac buggered the database in the iPod
Just got a bill from the hospital, you don't want to know for how much.
I can't get my Camera to turn on for some reason.
The headphones I normally wear are suddenly all buggered.

Understand, all of this has happened in the last two days. And this is not about complaining. Shit happens, I get that, but now I have to deal with all this stuff in various ways, but the way relevant to this blog is how I deal with them internally.

A few years ago, before I started this blog and this journey along the star, I would have been enraged, probably broken a few things more just to prove to the world, which doesn't care, how upset I was at it, but in these last few years I have had to learn to deal with it all a bit differently. The anger, however, is still there, and while I do not let it become destructive rage anymore, it does do me harm internally.

Dealing with others becomes harder, because my mood is affected, and dealing with the public, which is so important to my livelihood, becomes harder. But yesterday opened my eyes to the level of work I have to do on myself because I really was not at all well inside. I can cover it up, and the people I work with often make it easy, because they tend to be fun, funny, and are willing to step back if asked, but the thoughts and dark feelings I kept experiencing were a reminder of the old me. Not rage, but certainly self destructive, because my spirit cannot handle this kind of self hatred, nor should I be doing that to myself.

That Hephaestos is in my life right now seems appropriate enough, as the God's myths and legends are ones of a figure trapped in a form that gives him much grief and which he must rise above. Is Hephaestos the god of inner turmoil expressed through external excellence? Is it he, not Apollo, who is ultimately the true artist god? And is he trying to call me back to a time in my life when I was an artist?

I said in my previous post that I needed an outlet for all these feelings, and art is the only outlet I can think of, other than, perhaps, taking a boxing class. But am I willing to go back there again? To a time in my life I remember so little of because of the broken mind that is my past? Is it a fear of exploring that part of my life what made me give up on art?

Maybe what I need is a therapist.

Exploring my inner anger.

2011-02-04T10:09:00.001-05:00

Knowing that I have this inner anger, blessed be Hephaestos, and that it is directed at myself is different from understanding that anger. I have to find a means to focus my energies in such a way that I am not allowing them to become anger. Find a creative outlet that betters me, not makes it worse.

What is that? Is Hephaestos the key there?

Revelations

2011-01-22T21:39:00.001-05:00

It sometimes comes from nowhere, the realization of a deep seeded truth, and it is also sometimes surprising to realize that the God you were focussing on was not a God you expected this kind of realization from, but then you are reminded that, yes, you should have considered both, the God and the Truth from the get go.

In my current path of self discovery, I have taken it upon myself to try to focus my attentions on one deity at a time, not ignoring the others, mind you, but trying to focus, meditate, and write about that deity as a way to try to learn from it. To try and bring to mind the aspects of that God that are both relevant and revealing so as to grow and be made whole by the experience.

I cam to a realization today while at work, and it is one that was staring me in the face yet remained unrecognized all these many years. You see, I am an angry person. Tears of abuse as a child, abandonment by a father who I still believe never loved us, though he may regret that now, abuse by teachers, fellow students, and the obliteration of what was my self esteem and, worst of all, my ability to relate to others on a sympathetic level was part of what made me turn away from most people. What most of that left me with, however, was rage.

As a man, rage is a normal reaction to adversity. We men like to fight or argue our way through problems. We beat them up until they either give or defeat us. It is part of our nature. But often that rage, that anger, turns against us because we are not taught how to focus it in such a way that it becomes a useful weapon in our arsenal. We men go to war with life, you see, and in doing so we try to force life to conform to our will, but that seldom actually happens, so we are left with more rage.

While it is often the fact that as we grow we learn how to redirect it, too often the way we redirect it is at ourselves. And that is what I realized today. For all my anger at my Mother for the beatings, at my father for the same followed by abandonment, at teachers for failing me or not caring, for friends who never seemed capable of understanding me, or even current friends to whom I am simply a convenience available when nothing better is available, the person I am really most angry at is myself, and I have done everything in my power to destroy myself, and almost succeeded. Not until I found the Gods did I begin the slow healing process, and now, with this fallen into my lap, I am feeling as if the tables turn, only now I must start all over again, because I cannot continue to allow the past to rule me, but must learn to see the present with new eyes. Eyes intent on not hating myself, not for what I became at their hands, but because once it was done, I had the ability to move beyond it, but didn't. Because this, all of this, is now my own fault, not anyone else's, and so I must find a way to alleviate that anger, that rage, that self loathing and grow.

But why has Hephaestus been the one to bring this to my attention?

I thought about that earlier today, as I mentally chided myself in tones you would not use to a dog, and realized that the Myths of Hephaestus speak of a being who, by the standards of the people of those days, should have hated himself, should have felt shame, despair, and self loathing. He was ugly, lame, and rejected, yet he laid claim to his power, and once he did, he elevated himself to Olympus itself to reclaim his divine birthright.

It is a lesson I must now take to heart, and hopefully do so without torturing myself about it, because if I do that, I will only fail yet again.

Remember

2011-01-17T09:09:00.001-05:00

Remember him, who was taken from us

Before his dream was realized.

Remember his words, his deeds, his kindness

That we may live the world he dreamed.

Remember to treat your fellow man as a brother

And your sister as your equal.

Remember to live a life of justice and fairness

Not of greed and intolerance.

Remember him and be made humble

And in the names of the Gods make a promise of love and care.

Remember him as your brother, your equal, your hero

And don't be sorrowful, for his dream lives on, and so do we.

________________

Remember to learn from history, and from the heroes who gave their lives to offer us a better world, and remember Martin Luther King Junior, a man, a brother, a hero to us all.

Light The Bright Torches

2011-01-10T08:17:00.001-05:00

Light bright the torches and run

In honor of the bright god of the forge

And in her honor, who wisdom loves

An armor polished and bright bear with you

Hephaestos and Athena, Wisdom and craft, be forever linked

And in this land be welcome

For ours is a people in need of your gifts

Light bright the torches and run

In honor of the brothers three

Who dwell above, below, and between

Who set forth the mighty winds

And shake the foundations of the earth

And down below await the spirits of the dead

For ours is a people languishing in despair

Light bright the torches and run

In honor of divine love

Who sets to loosening the thighs of maidens

And in the hearts of men sets fires to burning

And in our minds lights the desire to be better

For the sake of love and lust alike

For our is a people long lost in selfishness

Light bright the torches and run

In honor of the blessed Earth

Mother and protector of all life

Whose languid soul inspires us to live

Who in our hearts lights the will to survive

And in our souls connects us one to the other

For ours is a people in need of brotherhood

Light bright the torches and run

In honor of all who have come before us

And who bled for our land and virtue

Remembering what they have left to us

And hoping, Gods willing, we leave behind us a better world

That our children live a life of peace

For ours is a people in need of hope

This is Amphitrite

2011-01-09T09:21:00.001-05:00

Lay low and look upon the surface of the sea

Watch as it moves near

The wave that seems so gentle, yet strong as an charging ox

That is her movement.

Sit in the sun and hear the sound of the sea

Listen as it seems to whisper

That sound so soft which builds to a maddening roar.

That is her voice.

Step into the tide and feel the cool waters of the sea

Feel it as it softly embraces you

That feeling that gravity is now meaningless.

Those are her hands

Close your eyes and sense the spirit of the sea

That often forgotten and ever present being

That spirit which man once knew, yet whose name now seldom speaks.

That is Amphitrite.

Not sure about this one, but...

2011-01-02T08:47:00.001-05:00

...as I sat and thought about the Gods this weekend, I was drawn to some music, specifically, to a song from the 90s called "Love & Happiness" done by a musical/DJ group called River Ocean, which was essenatially just India and Louie Vega. The song, sung by Latina songstress India, who sings parts of the song in the Yoruba used in Santeria, calls to the Yoruba goddesses Yemaya and Ochun, who are also known by other names in different parts of the African diaspora.

I was curious to gain more insight into the meaning of the song, though the invocations there seem very straight forward. What I found was details about two sea goddesses that, in many ways, are very similar to several of our own goddesses, especially Hera and Aphrodite. Now, Aphrodite is, of course, a sea goddess of sorts, as she was born of the foam of the sea itself, but the associations of these two goddesses as seen by the Yoruba, Brazilian, and Carribean people with marriage, love, wealth, children, connect them to many of our own.

Now, you know me, I hope, and you know I am not about to start praying to Yemaya and Ochun, as I am not the syncretic type when it comes to the Gods. Practices I may adopt, but not Gods, as I prefer to maintain a proper context in that realm because I do believe that context is actually very important to how we grow as spiritual beings. Without that context, I feel people are just grasping at straws or following the flavor of the month.

But it did get me thinking about something, and that is the sacred marriages of our religion. The Hieros Gamoi we associate with Hera and Zeus, or Hades and Persephone. Why is it we don't seem to have a similar view of this kind of sacredness when it comes to the third great Hieros Gamos, that of Amphitrite and Poseidon?

Amphitrite is an old goddess. She was said to have been among the greatest of goddesses, attending the birth of Apollo, yet she seems to be so rarely associated, in cult, with her husband. Is it that the marriage was seen as a forced thing, even by ancients, who saw their great sea goddess being subjugated under the heal of the patriarchal Poseidon? Or, perhaps, the cults of Amphitrite were already in such decline at the time that the myths were written about the marriage of these two that there was little to offer by way of worship and ritual about it?

The marriages of Gods are not always sacred affairs, at least not on a pan-Hellenic level, of course. The marriage of Aphrodite and Hephaestos is hardly one that yells "sacred" in the overall context of the Hellenic system, yet there must have been places where that marriage was celebrated with great reverence. Were it not so, the myths about its doom would not have been so popular.

I feel that we underestimate the role of Amphitrite, perhaps because she is, like Gaia, a vast figure who is sometimes hard to contemplate. Or simply because Hellenic and Roman writers were so quick to diminish her role to that of a simple personification of the sea, but I think perhaps we need to start paying more attention. Perhaps it is time that we established a Hieros Gamos celebration for Amphitrite and Poseidon.

When would such a thing have been celebrated, and what would have been the nature of it? Those are the questions now that I have to think about, because I could, of course, come up with a random date, but I would like to take into account a few things first, like, would such a celebration have been connected to the beginning of the sailing season?

Of course, any advice would be welcome, as I am serious about this. Establishing a celebration to honor the hieros gamos between Amphitrite and Poseidon.

Back to the Meditations

2010-12-27T14:31:00.001-05:00

Now that Heliogenna has passed, and I'm sorry that I have not shared a lot about it, but this year saw me covering a lot of shifts at work that made it difficult for me to do anything special, but I did my 8 prayers/poems in 9 days thing, and I also did Heliogenna specific tweets over at my @HellenicPrayer feed and have been getting some nice feedback. I want to get back to working my way through what Hephaestos is in my life as I attempt to meditate on his divinity.

According to some of the ancients, he was a laboring god. Tirelessly working at the forge, he was the creator of such works of wonder as the spider web thin threads that trapped his wife, the throne that trapped his mother, and the magnificent palaces of the Olympian Gods themselves. Shields made by Hephaestus were said to be inlaid by such magnificent scenes that they were almost said to move. He took pride in his work, and that, my friends is a thing I have much trouble with.

I am a menial worker, not something I find shameful or anything, but I do get that "Why is someone as smart as you still a waiter at your age." If I am to be honest, I am not that smart, but beyond that, I am not sure I even enjoy my job, yet it has helped me become more sociable. It has helped me gain a better understanding of people, not exactly a good thing, to be honest, and it allows me a certain flexibility with time that other jobs would not.

But pride? What does it mean to take pride in one's work when that work is not appreciated in the least by those for whom you are doing it?

Hephaestus is placing that challenge in front of me, and I have to try and figure it out.

Heliogenna Day 9 - To Helios

2010-12-26T20:35:00.001-05:00

(This was supposed to post on December 25th, but a problem with my software prevented it from doing so.)

Rise, O Helios, into the vault of heaven

Rise and bring us your light

Rise that we may see, and in turn be seen by you

Rise and be made welcome

Fly, O Helios, toward the awaiting West

Fly with the wind in your glorious hair

Fly to the sounds of our praise

Fly, triumphant and proud

Make way darkness of night, the Lord of the golden chariot is here

Rise, O Helios, into the vault of heaven

Rise and clear the way for the coming year

Rise and nourish plant and animal with your warmth

Rise and be loved, by all that lives upon the sacred Earth

Fly, O Helios, and we fly with you

Fly that we may pin our hopes to you

Fly that all may see your countenance

Fly and be adored

Heliogenna Day 8 - To Olympians and Chthonoi

2010-12-24T21:08:00.001-05:00

Bright above you dwell in splendor

And in your golden palaces you hear song

And as you move about you smell from below the scent of offering

Dark below you dwell in Hades

And in the blessed Earth you hide

And as you move about the dripping offerings make their way to you

And from man you hear the sweet song of praise

And the desire to know you

That they may be enriched by your presence.

Bright above and dark below

The eternal balance maintained

Life and Death assured for all

Dark below and bright above

The promise of new life is made

And forever kept by your divine grace

And from man you hear the prayers of hope

And the will to make this a time of renewal

That all may be well and love be in their hearts forever more.

Heliogenna day 7, to Hyperion, Eros, and Heated

2010-12-23T10:35:00.001-05:00

In times gone by
When man strode uncivilized upon the plains
You watched the world from above
As Titan, strong and proud
Radiant Hyperion

In times long gone
When the world was young
You drew Heaven and Earth together
And even now do you draw me to him, beauteous and arousing
You, Eros, beautiful and primal

In times gone by
Among us today
You walk the paths we fear to tread and lead us
Lady who walks between the worlds
Hekate of the brightly burning torches

And as we walk this path of life
Let us remember the light
Let us remember the passion
And with them light the future with our desire to reach higher
While remaining strong and grounded.

Heliogenna Day 6: To Helios, Dionysos, and Persephone

2010-12-22T07:33:00.001-05:00

Rise into the bright cold sky.

Lord Helios, who shines so bright.

And leave behind the cold dark lands below.

Come forth and watch over us, and grant us the hope of a warmer day.

And from the ashes of Titans, blessed Dionysos, you were reborn.

The heart once of a babes in your heart was placed.

Your divinity, wild and undeniable, revealed at last.

Welcomed at last into the realms of eternity.

And to you, blessed Queen of Hades, a prayer of thanks.

You who give us hope for a Spring Time to come.

And who rest in the land below.

Grant us your presence today, as a reminder, blessed Persephone of the dark gowns.

I am not afraid.

No longer in mourning.

I celebrate today a new beginning.

A Sunrise soon to come.

Καλά Ηλιούγεννα!

Heliogenna, Day 5, the Day of Silence

2010-12-21T06:18:00.001-05:00

On the 5th Day of Heliogenna, I write no poems, make no offerings. I usually do not light any candles or any kind of ritual activity, but this morning I did make the mistake of lighting my Virgin Altar, it has become such a part of my daily routine that I just forgot, and out of respect, I did not extinguish it.

This is the Day of the Solstice, the Day the Sun God is is in the underworld the longest, and then he will rise.

See you all tomorrow.

Heliogenna, Day 4: To Helios, Dionysos, and Hades

2010-12-20T01:24:00.001-05:00

Heliogenna, Day Four, To Helios, Dionysos, and Hades

In the light of day, I walk

In the darkness of night, I dance

The eternal ballet between the light of reason and the turmoil of madness.

To Helios I offer

From Helios I ask

For favors of warmth and light.

In the sunlight, I pray

In the moonlight, I cry

The eternal passions of my fractured soul.

To Dionysos I pray

From Dionysos I ask

For favors of enlightenment and sanity.

In the day time, I wonder

In the nigh time, I fear

The eternal darkness that awaits us all.

To Hades I offer

From Hades I ask

For favors of silver and gold.

In Day’s brightness, I see

In Night’s darkness, I sense

The eternal truths of worldly divinity.

To these Gods, I offer

To these Gods, I pray

For favors not meant for me.

Heliogenna, Day 3: To The Protognoi

2010-12-19T08:10:00.001-05:00

Heliogenna, Day Three, To the Protogonoi

And in the beginning

On the boundless sea of nothingness

You spread your mighty wings

Dark and mighty Nyx

And into this boundless sea also came Erebus

The impenetrable darkness

Your eternal mate

Father of Death and dreams

And resplendent in beauty came he

Who draws men nearer

And loosens the knees with passion

Most glorious Eros, of the beautiful face

And broad bossomed mother

Who brings forth the mountains and the caves

And serves as the fount of all mortal life

Ever giving Gaea

And to surround them came he

Who was formless yet powerful

The first ocean

Mighty Pontus, of the foaming waves.

And to Ge was born he

Who would betray she who loved him

Self proclaimed King of the Heavens

Father of Titans, Ouranos, the castrated.

And on this, third day of Heliogenna, we call on you who were the first.

On this day we do you honor

Blessed Protogonoi, fathers and mothers of the universe.

Heliogenna, Day 2: The Mighty Twelve

2010-12-18T08:46:00.001-05:00

Heliogenna, Day Two, to the Olympians

Shining bright you reign in heaven.

Shining bright you give us hope.

Shining bright you bring us close to nature.

You, O blessed Olympians, eternal and divine.

In darkness you guide us.

In darkness you ground us.

In darkness you light the way.

You, O mighty Olympians, brilliant yet obscure.

In our hearts you make us feel.

In our hearts you inspire us.

In our hearts you reward us.

You, O mighty Olympians, omnipresent and serene.

Heliogenna, Day 1: The Moon Hides

2010-12-17T07:28:00.001-05:00

Heliogenna, Day One, to the Hyperionides.

The sky is rosy

The clouds are pink

The Sun awaits his day

The Moon heads for the Western shore

The sky grows lighter

The gates of heaven open

The immortal steeds are eager

The Moon arrives at her gates

The blinding light

The hues of blue

The rays of his crown

The Moon shines bright upon the dead

The all-seeing Lord

The eternal gate keeper

The watcher of the night

The Moon hides her face from man

The Reason for the Season

2010-12-09T07:38:00.001-05:00

It's about this time of year that Fox News riles up the Christofascists into a frenzy over the "War on Christmas". Maybe when someone demands that you say Merry Christmas you can hand them a copy of this article over on Patheos. It is quite a nice piece.

Christ Is Not The Reason For The Season.

The lame duck

2010-12-08T08:33:00.001-05:00

In myth, Hephaestos is lame. His feet are damaged and he is seen as being ugly or deformed. This would have been, in the mythic cycle, a set of very distinct features because all of the Gods of Olympus, save he, are said to be of the most perfect form of beauty. They are tall, bright, powerful, and their appearance is such that it brings tears to the eye, so beautiful.

That Hephaestos is ugly and lame makes him the only God of so exalted a position, an Olympian God, who is not simply perfect in his beauty. I find this aspect of the God a hard one, not because I find it hard to accept the idea of an ugly God, but because I find a lot in that to relate to, yet, to be honest, I don't want to relate to it. I don't want to see myself that way, yet I do, and it is not simply me being self loathing, though I suppose there is some of that there, but an honest appraisal.

I am an ugly man, and at one time that was an ugliness that went deep. I was nearly insane in my mind, and it was getting away from my family, though I love them dearly, that has allowed me to heal, or be in the process of healing, my inner self. The outer self now requires some assistance, some care, some beautifying.

When I read the stories of Hephaestos and the way his parents threw him from Olympus and the horrible deformity that caused, I am reminded of my own childhood, the abuse, the loneliness, the fear, and it brings back memories that I find difficult to deal with on an emotional level, though on an intellectual level I acknowledge and accept them.

This whole blog is about me trying to discover things about myself while attempting to understand the divine, and in so doing allowing those two things to sink in and help me heal myself.

As the stories go, and in myth there is never just one version of a story, Hera and Zeus were in a most contentious marriage. Zeus was a philanderer and Hera a jealous being. Either Zeus and Hera had the child or Hera, in anger and out of revenge, decided to bear a child without a father as Zeus had borne the goddess Athena. (He did so from his forehead, and one myth tells of Hephaestos already being there and assisting in that birth)

The anger and fights were legendary in this marriage, and either the child was born with some defect which Hera could not bear, or her anger at the child caused her to throw the child from the heavens and his landing on the earth caused his deformities. Whatever the case, the child ended up on earth and was taken care of by Eurynome and Thetis.

I am reminded here of my early childhood, the abuse of my mother by my father, and the way her own anger was often thrown our way. The beatings and the harsh words would break me, of this I am sure, and among all this the burgeoning knowledge in myself that I was different from other people. I was not only very precocious, something neither of my parents were equipped to recognize (I made rather logical assumptions about my parents fairly early on, at ages 7 or 8 I was aware already that they would eventually go their separate ways, and I was happy about it) but I was also already recognizing that I was not like other boys. I did not like girls the same way they do. (I am sorta 85% gay, but identify as gay) And in the mid 70's in Puerto Rico, that was not a good thing, socially.

Zeus and Hera, of course, never divorce. They are an eternal couple, but in my head, they had a marriage based on status and necessity. Not that there is no love, I cannot claim to know what Gods feel, but the mythic characters based on their divine reality seem this way to me. Their interactions with their children are rarely if ever shown to be loving, at least in a way our modern culture attributes as loving, and in many ways, this is exactly how my own childhood was.

Of course, my early childhood and my later childhood were different in many ways, but that period of my life left me with great scars. I feel, in my mind, that I am grateful that in the end my mother did leave my father and that although the abusive behavior from her did not stop with that, it diminished over the years and through her experiences with us, as well as my eventually growing too big for my mother to abuse and confronting her with the fact, she changed. If the abuse I suffered as a child led to her changing as a person, and my two youngest sisters (from her second marriage, another abusive man, though his abuse was only toward her, never the kids) getting to grow up with a much nicer, kinder, gentler person, I have to say it was worth it.

But Hephaestos gets his revenge on his mother, not in a vicious way, though he does bind her, he does so by claiming his place on Olympus, and by becoming the greatest of all craftsmen, the beauty of his work reflecting the beauty of his interior where his exterior did not.

So, I should look at myself and see the outer ugliness, and seek to do something about it, but to also look at how I express the beauty that may lie within me so that people see that beauty and learn to appreciate it, regardless of what I may look like on the outside.

To Hephaestos, Lord of the flames.

2010-11-29T10:23:00.001-05:00

The fires are lit.

The boys are set to run.

The light of the torches they bear warm the night.

The sacrifices are waiting.

The wine will be poured.

The songs in your honor will bring joy to our hearts.

The barley will be sprinkled.

The altar will be consecrated.

The power of your spirit will infuse it as we pray.

The boys run.

The torches smoke.

The worshippers anxiously await them.

They arrive, smiling and proud.

The altar fire is set to burning.

The priests sing forth to you in the chill breeze.

The song reaches it zenith.

The sacrifices are made.

The glorious scents of the altar rise to his perception.

The God is called.

The God arrives.

The divine spirit of the forge is brought to the hearts of man.

The pious rejoice.

The people feast.

The night rolls forth into day.

To Hephaestos

2010-11-28T17:04:00.001-05:00

It burns, the heat

It gives you pain, the hammer

It folds like a serpent, the metal

And in your hands it is made art

It is a burden, this talent

It is a joy, this gift

It is a curse, this body

And in your chest your heart is heavy

They rejected you, who should have loved you

They belittled you, who should have cared

They threw you down from heaven, who should have protected you

And by the kindness of another you were saved

They did not love you, your parents

They did not appreciate you, your brethren

They did not know they needed you, all who lived

And with your skill you convinced them

It is our pleasure, to receive you

It is our gift, to know you

It is our shame, should we reject you

And by your divine presence are we forever humbled

The benefits of work...

2010-11-21T11:32:00.001-05:00

Hephaestos is the god of work. In his manifestation to the Greeks as a Smith, he places himself in a position to be a God of hard, harsh, and often painful work. He works at a trade that is capable of producing much beauty, utility, and protection. He can make a sword for the heroic soldier, or a shield for the heavenly lady of battles, or inlay into metal the most astonishingly beautiful of designs, but in doing so he may also hurt himself. His pained hands, his burned forearms, his bent back as he works tirelessly to create as if from the very fires of creation, that which he must.

We all experience this kind of thing. We all go to work and bring to our minds and bodies stresses that, unfortunately, can also harm us tremendously even as we seek to create or serve. In Hephaestos we have the spirit that allows us this, to dedicate ourselves to a task and be happy, or do one grudgingly and be miserable. We get to choose.

As I was working yesterday, a job with which I have a love/hate relationship for sure, I noticed something important, and which now prompts me to ponder this further, and that is that the same job, doing the same thing, with the same obnoxious clientele, can be both pleasant or miserable all at the same time, and that it isn't the job that decides that, it's me. By bringing to bear a certain mindset, by running that internal program that slows me down and makes me think most clearly, I make the job enjoyable. I do it.

And so it is that today I am hoping to dedicate myself to training my mind to do that, to bring the spirit of Hephaestos into my heart as I toil away and give myself over not to the misery of it, but to the surprising pleasure that having something to do everyday can bring, and while I would still rather be home writing a blog entry or playing Angry Birds, I can take solace in knowing that what I am doing is allowing me to work my way through life rather than depending on others.

In sickness...

2010-11-13T19:06:00.001-05:00

I have been sick this week. Well, actually, I have been sick since I moved to Ohio 12 years ago. Moving here has brought on a plethora of allergies and health issues that I never knew I had. I don't know what it is about this area that causes this, but I am assured by the people here that it is not uncommon for people to move here to suffer from a variety of issues, especially sinus and respiratory ones.

I suppose it would be a bit fallacious of me to pin the cause on the level of pollution here, or the way this area, known as the Miami River Valley, sits at some kind of weird crossroads of weather that brings so much stuff from both the North and the South to bear, but I think maybe the way the people in this area seem to care so little about things like the ecology might have something to do with it.

Sticking with my current mentor on this path along the star, Hephaestus, I remember a story told of our God of Smiths, a story in which the God makes himself part of the land, and by doing so, brings industry to it.

As the story goes, Hephaestus is an ugly God. This is, of course, a rare thing. The Gods of Olympus are of the most utterly beautiful of forms, but the God was hurled to the Earth in anger in a battle between his parents, and his landing upon the Earth rendered him broken and ugly to most eyes.

Thusly, Hephaestus was also a lonely God, and in his desire to love and be loved, he sought to make Athena, the great virgin goddess of Athens, his wife. To you and me this would, perhaps, entail a courtship and a very special question, but in a time long ago, when women were often simply taken, this meant something a kin to rape.

He spied Athena, lovely virgin goddess, and attempted to take her. But this is not just any goddess, this is Athena, goddess of war, favored daughter of Zeus, she who protects and defends with both strategy and action, and so it was she fought him off, and in his attempt, this frottage, Hephaestus spills his seed upon her leg. In disgust, she wipes away the offending seed with a piece of woven wool cloth, perhaps woven by her own hand, and tosses it to the ground.

There the divine seed takes root upon the eternally fertile Earth, and from it is born the snake footed Erichthonios. Athena takes the child as her own, and raises him. It is said she places him in a box, and in the land of Athens he is raised and protected and eventually becomes the first King of Athens.

Now, why this came to my mind this week as I pondered my own illness is, perhaps, a clue to how I think. Hephaestus is a god of Smiths, of industry, and Athena is, in many ways, a personification of the spirit of the people of Attika. She is Athens, he is industry, and through the connection they share to Erichthonios I see Hephaestos, and industry, as coming to Athens.

But along with industry comes the byproduct of industry, pollution, and from pollution comes much illness, and in this area, the not so clean air has lead me to be far sicker than I ever was in my previous home in Connecticut. So the idea of industry came to mind and how, as a nation, we have allowed it to ruin so much of our birthright. The very land that maintains us, nourishes us, keeps us safe and alive.

At which point do we wake up and say enough, and how do we do so while allowing the manifestation of the force that is Hephaestus in our lives, the desire to build, create, and profit from our labor?

I won't claim to have the answers to this, but I do need to take a better look at my own spending habits, and by doing so put my money where my mouth is. Buying things I know are good for me and my environment, not buying those things I know are harmful, and trying my best to avoid buying from businesses that are abusive or destructive.

Now, where do I find that information?

Suggestions?

Hephaestos

2010-11-02T10:30:00.001-04:00

I must admit that Hephaestus is going to be a hard one for me. I long ago seem to have left my artistic sensibilities behind, and I do tend to see Hephaestus as an artist. A god who inspires us to achieve great beauty with even the most seemingly ugly of materials.

I was once an artistic type. I even did a stint in art school, but that was before the darkness took me and I struggled for years with almost debilitating depression and even suicidal tendencies. I still struggle, you see, with the pains in my head. Most are real, and some are imagined or postulated by my mind and held onto so that today I find myself wondering which were real and which were figments.

That my mind was thus tortured is not something I am proud of. I feel very often that if I had just been stronger I could have become something great, but that too is speculative imagination. There is no way to know such a thing, and besides, I wouldn't be me had my life gone different, and I have grown to rather like me, even if I still have tremendous issues with my ugly exterior.

But those artistic sensibilities make their way to the surface from time to time, thanks to Apollo, and in so much as I often make my living space a thing of beauty even with thrift store materials, I feel that Hephaestus is active in my life. Seeing what might come of a thing lacking in value or intrinsic beauty. Working beyond my own handicaps even as the god himself is said to do to bring something of beauty into being, even if it is only beautiful to me.

So there it is, the first lesson Hephaestos has taught me.

Halloween Prayer

2010-11-01T08:01:00.001-04:00

Standing at the precipice

where light meets darkness

and the moon weaves her spell over the night.

They stand, torches in hand

waiting to guide you across

To the land where shadows dwell.

You who this year made your way there

You who will be always remembered

You who will pass from the world.

Down into the depths of our Mother

where the waters of forgetfulness await you

and the Ferryman lights your lonely voyage.

Across the mighty Styx

and into the darkness of dissolution

into Oblivion's welcoming hands.

You who will hold a place in our hearts

You who inspired us

You who brought joy to us.

To this place you will be guided

by lovely Hekate who protects

and heavenly Hermes who guards the boundaries.

You of the pleasing smile

You of the comforting tears

You who have passed this year.

Saying good bye to Hermes.

2010-10-13T10:49:00.001-04:00

I am lost. I will be honest. Hermes has been difficult for me. I have been lost since I started focussing on him in my life, partly because unlike my other focusses to date, I have had trouble pinning him down.

The Historical aspects of Hermes are easy enough to figure out, information is available all over the internet, but they seem to me to be very different from what the God brings to bear in my life as I try to contemplate him. Even just checking theoi.com, you come up with many important aspects of the God.

Hermes is God of

Animal Husbandry
Heralds
Birds of Omen
Trickery
Trade
Merchants
Thieves (not theft)
Language
Craftiness
Roads
Travel
Hospitality
Feasts and Banquets
Protector of the Home
Guide of the Dead
Dreams of Omen
Rustic Divination
Contests
Gymnasiums
"The Games"
Astronomy
Calendars
Rustic Music, Poetry, and Animal Fables

By just looking at that list, I can see the problem. There is so much Hermes represents, historically, that seems so far from my daily experience of life tat I have a hard time exploring him in a way that would give me the kind of meditative benefits I need.

But, it seems, Hermes is also a God who is part of your life on a daily basis. You travel every day, you look up at the stars all the time, you feast to celebrate your family and friends, no? So maybe I need to look back and seek to understand how Hermes affects the way I look at my entire relationship with the Gods. After all, as a God of communication, does he not also serve as the God who facilitates prayer?

So rather than trying to see him by himself, perhaps I need to move on and acknowledge him in my daily interactions with the world, with my loved ones, with the Gods themselves. And so I must bid my time with Hermes adieu and move to the next point in the star to another God I will no doubt have great problems with, Hephaestos. Wish me luck!

A few Recommendations...

2010-09-30T08:26:00.001-04:00

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

2010-09-28T20:01:00.002-04:00

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.

2010-09-18T08:48:00.001-04:00

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

2010-09-13T09:16:00.001-04:00

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

2010-09-07T22:28:00.001-04:00

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.

On my merry way

2010-08-27T08:37:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow morning I am taking off to visit my friend Steve in Maryland. I have never actually been to Maryland, that I am aware of, except maybe through it on an AmTrak train. And I am very much looking forward to it. Baltimore, Annapolis, and then a trip south to Isle de Smith in the Chesapeake Bay where he lives.

This, of course, brings my mind back to Hermes, who I am currently trying my best to meditate on, but, as one might expect, he is a slippery one. Always in motion, kinda like Athena, but unlike her always in a kind of motion that doesn't always make sense.

As someone who did a fair amount of traveling for pleasure when I was younger, and crazier, I have to wonder if maybe I might be coming back around to that part of me that was much more adventurous, much more willing to explore. Is this what Hermes has been trying to teach me all along? Is he trying to push me to step out of myself now and into myself then in more than just a thoughtful or philosophical way?

Of course, the real question is, is this something I really need to do right now because I have become far too ensconced in my ways? I think the answer to that is yes. I am at a point in my life now where I am starting to notice myself act old, and I don't like it. So, maybe what I do indeed need is to reconnect with the me that took off to Europe all alone. Of course, I had more money then, and less of a burden, but if I can't do something as grand as walking the Ramblas to clear my head, maybe I just need to look a little closer to home.

Rage and Injustice?

2010-08-09T14:22:00.001-04:00

In my attempts to understand the influences of Hermes in my life as I make my way through his time in my life, I am having a tough time. Hermes is hard to pin down, always in motion, always changing, and, it seems, always pushing me in ways that I don't like. Ways that make me crazy and force me to recall the times in my own life when I was rather unstable, crazy, and unable to really handle even the smallest amounts of stress.

See, I am not usually superstitious. I don't really believe the Gods throw things at me, over cook my pot roast, make my bicycle tires flat, or anything like that. I just don't believe myself so important that the Gods are busy playing tricks on me. I do, however, have to admit that when it comes to Hermes, I do wonder if it isn't him behind some of it.

Last weekend, last Sunday, to be exact, I had a day that will seem rather a bit unbelievable to you. I woke to no internet and a leaking coffee maker. As I write this, my internet is down again, but the coffee maker seems to have healed itself. My iPod had somehow managed to corrupt its database, something easy enough to fix, but time consuming. And when I decided to take a bike ride to ease my building tensions, I discovered the front tire was flat.

Well, OK, I decided to play a game, I am not much of a gamer, but I do like Sim City, a game I have played on and off for years, and so I put the CD in the DVD on my Windows machine. Well, it spins up and then I hear a very loud bang and the DVD drive stops. I try to open it, fail. I then open the computer up and remove the DVD drive. The CD had disintegrated in the drive, and spinning at such speeds, it had literally destroyed a great many parts of the drive. The drive was dead, and I had replaced that drive only about three weeks before.

All this, and it was yet morning. I am speaking of these things rather calmly here, but I assure you, my inner self was in a rage. I was torn to pieces wondering just WTF was going on. And, to be honest, it occurs to me that this is exactly what Hermes wanted. He wanted me to fall to pieces. He wanted me enraged. He wants me to learn something from this, and perhaps it is to help me learn to better deal with these things, to avoid the whole tantrum experience that comes with rage, but I can't be sure of that.

Why? Because it occurs to me that I am also a bit stuck in my ways. A bit complacent to the world around me. Maybe Hermes is trying to enrage me to remind me of the way I used to be so that I can learn to use these chaotic emotions to make a difference in the world. Maybe I need to take a more active role in the pushing of the charities I support and the things I find important. Maybe Hermes is pushing me to be more angry toward injustice.

Of course, trying to divine the will of a god is not exactly a science, and I do not buy into the divinatory arts (is divinatory even a word?) and I have spoken at length in previous postings about my reactions to things like tarot, auguries, psychics, etc. I simply do not believe in them because, quite honestly, they seem like hokum.

But one does have to sometimes wonder, even when one is so incredulous, if perhaps those things do not simply give one a focus so as to be able to search one's own soul in search for the meanings of things. If so, I can certainly see nothing wrong with that. So do I flip a coin and abide by the answer? The god is simply reminding me of what I was so I can be aware that it still lies inside me, or the god is forcing me to experience all this in order to push me to be more aggressive and proactive with the full backing of my emotional states behind me?

So Far...

2010-08-04T12:24:00.001-04:00

Blah blah blah. I turn the TV on on a Sunday morning and I am greeted, as always, by advertisements for great new films on the On Demand service of my cable system. Truth? I barely even notice what the movies are, but I can almost guarantee that very few of them are any good. By now I can already smell the incense burning in the iron urn that holds dirt. It’s a sweet scent. Sometimes Nag Champa, sometime Ganesha Incense, sometimes other stuff not so readily recognizable as a brand name. But it always smells sweet.

It burns, as always, as an offering to the Virgins, and on an altar that is a non-functional fireplace. The decorations are simple, I am not a wealthy man, but they are reminders of the powers I am hoping to evoke in my life. Powers of wisdom, strength, security, and that essence of wildness that we often call our animal nature. Above all, however, I want to evoke in myself a sense of purity. Purity of intent and purity of action.

This is not a purity based in the puritanical ideals of Christianity or Islam, but one based in the idea that any action that does not harm another, and which is taken with a pure heart and desire in mind, is pure. That a man can engage in a vast sexual orgy, hunt, drink, or even commit an act of violence in defense of another, and if his motivations are pure, his intent to be of service as much as serving his own needs, he is acting with a pure heart. It is this purity, it is this sense of “virginity” that I seek out when I call these powers into my life.

When we think of such powers, of course, we think of Virgin Goddesses, and in Hellenismos this means Hestia, Athena, and Artemis, the Olympian Virgins. And it is these three goddesses that I invoke as I say my morning prayer each day, and particularly today, when I sat in front of that altar, it’s statues, flowers, small gong, and candles all reminding me of what it is I seek, that I was also reminded that I was ignoring a very important part of who I am in these moments.

What am I? I am a man, and in manhood I have to also find what it means to be a pure man. If I were a Christian or a Moslem, these things would be proscribed for me. I would have things like chastity and honesty and sexual abstinence rammed down my throat by preachers of all types, but I am not a Christian. I am a Hellenistos, and in so being I have to explore what it means to be a vital, sexually active, single gay man in the context of this religion, but more importantly how I should live my life with purity of purpose, intent, and action as my guides.

I am currently in my Hermes phase in my meditations, and as I work my way through what Hermes means to me, I am reminded of an aspect of Hermes that is very prevalent in art, but not often discussed among us Hellenistoi, that of a youth. Youths are young men full of energy, vital spirit, and let’s face it, lots of cum. Young men tend to make big mistakes, and hopefully learn from them, and so this Hermes, who is making himself felt in my life is one that I now have to get in touch with, but also has made me aware of something. I am still very much a child inside, a youth.

This may well mean that I never grew up. That the traumas and viciousness of my youth caused me to delay this “growing up” until I could better deal with it, but at 43, I feel like I am way too old for this to be the case now. Why am I to be forced to face this sense of youthful ferocity now, when I should be enjoying my experience in life.

I can actually answer that, strangely, yet the fact that I can answer it does not seem to matter. Common thought about what psychology is would lead us to think that realizing the problem is the way to cure it, but if we really look at it, realizing it can also be a problem in and of itself, because the problems, once articulated, can become self fulfilling prophecies.

And so it is that I find myself seeking out purity in the Olympian Virgins, yet finding that I may be looking at it the wrong way, because the virginity of the Olympian Virgins is very much tied to their power as feminine divinities, while the purity I seek is one based in masculine divinity. Hermes, to me, speaks most loudly to this, and he does so most loudly in this youthful aspect. (Apollo does too, but I can try and get back to that later)

Men, in general, do not value “virginity” in themselves in the sexual sense. Men want to fuck, it is in our natures, and we want to fuck a lot, but as I already said, the “virginity” I am seeking is not that kind. It is way too late, and I enjoy sex too much, and am much too good at it to give it up now. Aphrodite and Eros have been good friends to me, and I am not about to turn my back on them. But the idea of this “virginity” being more linked to a purity of heart than sexual virginity is an important one, because men do value this very much. Living an honest life. Living with some measure of honor. Living with the idea that dealing with others with pure intent, honesty, and a knowledge that they are worthy of your respect is part and parcel of being a true man, and something most men want to be thought of as, but many fail to live up to.

Do I fail?

Mostly, I like to think that I am an honorable man. I keep my promises, and thinking I might not, I do not make them. I try to always be honest, though I know honesty sometimes hurts, and I am sure that there are times when I lie or keep the truth to myself because of circumstances I feel require it, but I do try to be honest in my life. So much so that in my circles, in chat rooms, even on this site, I often share too much. TMI is not my friend.

So, getting back to the whole purity thing, I need to find a way to define this purity for myself in ways that are not vague. It’s one thing to say I want to be pure of heart, but another to really grasp it as a concept and define what it is it means to be pure of heart.

My definition will always come down to honesty, but not just being honest, but being honest with yourself, with your feelings, and being able to accept what it is you feel and incorporate it into your life, and here is where I am running into trouble. While I am an honest person, I am sometimes unwilling to speak up for myself. Sure, it is easier here, online, in a blog or on an email list, but in person I often simply let things happen and pass me by whereas I should be more willing to express my feelings on things so as to assure I am not caught up in things I am not sure I want to be involved in.

Thus I ask Hermes to guide me, and he does so in the strangest ways, by giving me weird days where absolutely everything stops working, or breaks, or explodes (not kidding) and by doing so I am forced to deal with my own anger, rage, and the impurity of my own thought processes as I turn inward, hurting myself from the inside out and then being forced to calm myself down and ask myself some very important questions. So I have to meditate further on this and hope that as I explore my inner child I also learn from him enough to give myself a break and stop taking so much of what happens to me at random in this universe as a direct attack, or a curse.

Erinyes/Eumenides

2010-07-20T21:54:00.001-04:00

When your heart has been broken
And the hurt is too deep

You call
WE ANSWER

We are this spirit of vengeance

When you are dearly betrayed
And the words are hard to muster

You call
WE ANSWER

We are the spirit of justice

When you feel heartily defenseless
And fear to reach out

You call
WE ANSWER

We are the daughters of the Earth

When vengeance is what you need
And peace of mind is what you want

You call
WE ANSWER

We are the vicious avengers of woman's pain

When at last you are willing
And your time has come

You call
WE ANSWER

We are the kindly bringers of wisdom

the daemonic

2010-07-19T14:59:00.000-04:00

Something recently came up in one of the Hellenic lists that made me aware of something these little meditations of mine were meant to point out all along. That we each have to seek to “channel” the Gods into our lives in various ways.

In the myths, the Gods are said to act as “daemons.” That is to say that they whisper in our ears, they can become almost a part of us if we allow them to. To the early Christian Church, and to many modern evangelicals, the word daemon becomes demon, the malevolent spirits that cause so much mischief in the world according to their own religious philosophy, but it also means something else, the demonizing of any religious ideas and philosophies that do not agree with their own.

The word daemon is one we pagans of all stripes need to reclaim from the warping philosophy that seeks to make itself the only true faith. And it is one we Hellenistoi need to claim for our own and make clear. The daemones are the gods, they are that aspect of a god or goddess that you can bring into your heart to give you strength, courage, and desire for justice. In psychiatric terms, these aspects of the Gods are called archetypes, and often people are said to hold within them all of these archetypes, and that we can make use of them by training our minds to behave in accordance with these archetypical characteristics when necessary.

It is, I think, important especially in light of where I am right now along my star path to recognize the daemonic, because Hermes, especially, has very real and long remembered angelic/daemonic aspects, and he seems to currently be tugging at my heart so as to push me to further accept the daemonic aspects of the Gods into my life.

This past week was one that almost drove me over the edge, and it occurs to me that if I could better channel the daemonic, those voices in my head that are from them, that I could have better dealt with my world. That instead of a nervous breakdown, I could have gotten into a place of peace and steely reserve to deal with all the stress and incompetence that dealt me such a harsh blow.

Hermes is asking that I open myself up more to these things, and now I am asking myself if I will listen...

Lady Athena

2010-07-19T11:04:00.001-04:00

English:

Lady Athena!
Lady of Wisdom.
Lady of Battle.
Always in motion.
Come into this home, you are always welcome here!

Greek:

Κυρία Αθηνά!
Παναγία της Σοφίας.
Κυρίας της μάχης.
Πάντα εν κινήσει.
Ελάτε σε αυτό το σπίτι, είστε πάντα ευπρόσδεκτοι εδώ!

Spanish:

¡Señora Atenea!
Señora de la Sabiduría.
Señora de la Batalla.
Siempre en movimiento.
Entre en esta casa, que siempre es bienvenida aquí!

Portuguese:

Senhora Athena!
Senhora da Sabedoria.
Senhora da Batalha.
Sempre em movimento.
Venha para esta casa, você é sempre bem-vinda aqui!

2010-07-19T11:02:00.001-04:00

Daughters of the Evening

2010-07-11T11:04:00.000-04:00

Daughters of evening. Watchers of the tree. Of the golden apples that Mother Ge gave to the Queen.
Maidens of the West. Where the gates of the Sun’s Western palace lay. And the dances of golden skinned maidens make his last sight a pleasure.
Guard them well, those golden treasures. And make your father proud who holds the sky on his back.
Daughters of Atlas. Named like an eagle, the evening, or the blinding light of sunset. Sing songs to the Goddess, your matron.
Virgin Guardians of the Evening. Defenders of the fruits of emotion. Witnesses to the Hero’s Labor.
Dance and be merry, sing and be honored. Greet and welcome great Nyx, and father Erebus.

The dark aspects

2010-07-07T09:56:00.003-04:00

So, Hermes, as a guide, has proven both elusive and instructive. It is part of his charm. But he is also now pointing me into a new direction, one which most are fearful to think too hard on, after all, who likes to ponder their own deaths too much, except maybe some goof ball emo with too much time on their hands and a mommy who pampered him too much.

But this isn’t about wallowing in self pity or indulging in thoughts of death to be cool, this is about coming to a true realization of one’s own mortality and then facing the possibility that it may be coming rather a bit sooner than one might hope. It is about finding yourself feeling sick, or feeling your body do things that you can’t explain and which remind you that there comes an age when things just start to go downhill.

I am taking this part of it as a warning rather than a simple reminder, but I am also taking it as a chance to ponder the concept of non-existence.

That is not as easy a thing to ponder as you might think. We exist, so we have no clue what it means not to. Truly conceptualizing such a thing is really rather impossible unless you can catch small little glimpses of it as you try, but then, as you grasp it, it disappears because once you do you are no longer pondering actual a lack of existence, but a a non-existence based on the thought of non-existence, which in itself is not non-existence.

I say this because I do not actually believe in an afterlife. My meditations on the nature of the universe and the Gods have convinced me of this, and so, once I sit and ponder my ultimate death, I must try to conceptualize, to truly bring to mind, an idea that dying means a total and ultimate lack of awareness. That once you die all things you were simply cease and are gone. That I will have no sense of being, no sense of perception, nothing.

It is difficult.

Yet to ponder Hermes is also to ponder all the potential that is in us as living creatures.

Hermes seems to be saying that we can transcend, not to become Gods, but that as we live, we can transcend and in this life leave behind a legacy that makes others feel and understand things that they might not otherwise have understood. That while we, the people who live, may die our impact on the universe remains and reverberates through it in small and large ways that only the Gods can predict into the future, and even then, that future is unwritten and therefore unpredictable.

Every choice I make affects the future, even if it only alters the flow a little, it does so, and me today affects tomorrow, and even after I am gone, my presence will have affected the flow of time and, along with all of us, will have set up the tapestry of the past on which the future always depends, and the present, well, the present is that beautiful place where all the potential and probability collide and the hands of the Fates set the threads into place.

Hermes, and his darker aspect as Psychopompos, is one that may seem to lead some to believe in an afterlife, but to me, it is a reminder that our time is limited, and maybe sitting on my ass and watching life go by is not a good idea. So, I should go, make love, dance, sing, explore new music, new people, new places and by doing so make my little section of the great tapestry more beautiful.

The Soldier

2010-07-03T07:38:00.000-04:00

You fight in lands that are not your own.
You sweat and bleed for your brothers in arms.
You miss your family.
You miss your son.
The one you've yet to meet.

You fight for reasons not your own.
You fight for honor.
You fight to save your fellow man.
You fight for freedom's hopeful return.
The freedom so many seek to deny you, even at home.

You are the warrior who defends his state.
You are the soldier who cries in silence.
You are the one who sees them fall.
You mourn them all and continue to fight.
As politicians dine like kings.

You are remembered upon your death.
You are made hero to your own.
Your son will visit you and flowers leave.
You are celebrated by Gods and Men.
As Ares weeps for your loss to the world.

Meditations

Logo

Welcome the Morning

Since I am pondering the parts...

At odds with Artemis.

Say no to SOPA

Bios and Zoë

The Arrows of the Twins

Faith

Heliogenna Day Nine - Sunrise - To Helios and all the Gods

Heliogenna Day Eight - Sunrise - To the Olympian Gods and the Chthonoi

Heliogenna Day Seven - Sunrise - To Hyperion, Eros, and Hekate

Heliogenna Day Six - Night - To Dionysos and Helios

Heliogenna Day Five - The Day of Silence

Heliogenna Day Four - Night - To Helios and Dionysos

Heliogenna Day Three - To the Primordial Gods (Protogonoi)

Heliogenna Day Two - To The Olympian Gods

Heliogenna Day One - To Helios, Eos, and Selene

Artemis and the Amazons

Lift Us Up, a Prayer to Zeus

Blessed Morning

Artemis, the death dealer

To They Who Are...

Artemis, the nature goddess

Artemis the Bear Goddess

Different reactions...

Reactions

The Poems section...

Leto, Mother of Artemis

Artemis, the virgin.

New Theme

Artemis, Lady of the Mountains

Artemis

And so, I move on...

But, one more thing about Hephaestus...

I Am War

Taking stock...

My New Babies

They Love Each Other

Athens

These are Yours

Recommended Reading

The Herm

Having cooled down

Opening my eyes...

Concepts

Homeric Hymn 20 - To Hephaestos

Purification of my soul

Dead

Purification

Spring rededication

Beautiful Temple of Minerva

But am I learning anything?

Recommended Reading

I walk with you...

The Flames of Passion

First Delphic Hymn

Father

The Sacred Fire

Child of Woman (to Dionysus)

Bad weeks...

Exploring my inner anger.

Revelations

Remember

Light The Bright Torches

This is Amphitrite

Not sure about this one, but...

Back to the Meditations

Heliogenna Day 9 - To Helios

Heliogenna Day 8 - To Olympians and Chthonoi

Heliogenna day 7, to Hyperion, Eros, and Heated

Heliogenna Day 6: To Helios, Dionysos, and Persephone

Heliogenna, Day 5, the Day of Silence

Heliogenna, Day 4: To Helios, Dionysos, and Hades

Heliogenna, Day 3: To The Protognoi

Heliogenna, Day 2: The Mighty Twelve

Heliogenna, Day 1: The Moon Hides

The Reason for the Season

The lame duck

To Hephaestos, Lord of the flames.