Lady Athena

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!

Daughters of the Evening

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

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

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.

To Helios

Rising in glory you bring light to the land
And the warmth of your countenance brings joy
As the breezes of morning make way for the hot day to come
Fighting hard to cool to air in the Summer

Racing toward midday your chariot gleams
And your immortal steeds strain to pull you
As the minds of man are turned to the fruits of the Earth
Feeding the soul and body

Heading toward the horizon you see the gates
And you smile and look down upon us all
As the toils of man approach their end, and the evening's revelry awaits
Searching for meaning in the dance

Setting in hues of red and orange and violet you rest
And your day's work is ending
As your bright white fire is hidden from the view of man
Sleeping and traveling in the eternal land of dreams

Lampontas and Adonaia

Every Year, at the turn of the season from Spring to Summer, I celebrate Lampontas, a holiday of my making celebrating the Sun God Helios at the height of his arc on his annual journey across our skies. His mighty travel across the day time skies will be shorter from now on, and his visit in the land below longer.

This celebration has, of late, taken on an additional component to me that is of special relevance to me, because in Ohio, the Columbus Gay Pride March and Festival is held every year on the same weekend as the Solstice (Generally, that is, as the Solstice moves along the week as all other dates do) and as a result, it is a time of celebration and festivity that, for me, is very appropriate to a celebration of the warmth of Summer and the joy of life, and, you know, if there is one thing we gays know how to do, it’s throw a party.

But this Summer I was also met with a special reminder, a blessing from the Gods, and that is a reminder of the power of friendship and the love people so willingly share with one another in the name of that friendship.

The Gay Pride Festival, and my personal reminders to myself with regard to Helios, brought me into a focus about certain things which I too often ignore in my life, friendship and family, and how friendship is often the family we want, while the family we were given is distant. That the love we feel for our parents and siblings, a love so deep it knows no measuring, can be opened up to include people who share no blood, except that which we all share, the blood of humanity.

___

I have been doing some reading on Adonis lately, and today I received a Facebook invitation to join a group dedicated to the celebration of a Festival in his honor. I found myself longing to know more, and I am going to look for more info, not on the myth, which I have read many many times, but on his cult and the deep felt sorrow and the expression of that sorrow that made his cult so popular.

An antecedent to the cult of Jesus, another dying Hero/God figure probably manifesting the same core deity, Adonis’ death was mourned by women, big pots with small gardens in them were grown on roof tops and at the time of his mourning were thrown from the rooftop, a symbol of his dying and the dying of nature (we would likely celebrate such an event in Winter, but in the Middle East and in many parts of Greece, this would likely have been in the horrid heat of Summer, when the growing of things was made so difficult by the lack of rain and the oppressive heat. The women wore clothing that were either dirty or reminiscent of the dead, they shore or yanked out their hair, and beat their breasts in mourning, and the wailing of their mourning could be heard throughout.

I am certain that the cathartic nature of this ritual of mourning could do many of us good, releasing all that inner anger, hurt, pain, and sadness to the dying god, and in so doing becoming better able to deal with the world around us.

The Culture of Shame

As I was pondering Hermes a bit today, and thinking about our religion in general, is struck me, and not for the first time, that one thing our religion has that the monotheistic religions do not, is a lack of enforced shame.

What do I mean by that?

I mean that while our religion does give us some strictures, so moral and ethical guidelines by which to live through myth, philosophy, and the often fragmentary maxims and fables that enforce an idea of place and propriety to mankind, these do not seek to ever make us feel shame for being ourselves. Your race, gender, sexual identity, sexual orientation, even your personal religious beliefs are almost irrelevant to the religion/philosophy as a whole, and I say religion/philosophy, because I am beginning to think of Hellenismos as more of a philosophy than a religion, and Hermes, in many ways, is central to this subtle but monumental shift in how I see both this path and myself.

I suppose one has to think of Hellenismos as a religion because the term has come to mean a system of beliefs that orbiting a central set of theological ideals or centered on the writings or philosophy of a particular “holy man”. Because Hellenismos is focussed on the Gods, it must be a religion, yet the Greeks themselves never had a word, until Christianity forced it on them, for what we call religion. To the Greeks, life, religion, philosophy, and ritual, which is part of both religion and culture, were all just part of being Greek. They didn’t distinguish between religion and daily life, because the two were inseparable.

The cultural rituals of life, the rites of passage, the rituals for birth and death, they were all mixed together both with the Gods and how they were seen by the people, and with the culture in general. And Hermes, that God that links all things together, that travels the paths between all things, is there at the heart of this, something which our current culture struggles with as it attempts to separate religion and state craft.

I am not suggesting that state and religion should, in our times, be once again united, I think we are all seeing how disastrous that can be as the religious right tries to merge their fundamentalist, often times radical and even tyrannical, ideals into politics and government, but certainly we need to acknowledge as a people that religion was never meant to be separated from our daily lives, only from how government behaves, what laws are passed, and whether or not our government should have a right to enforce a particular set of religious beliefs on the population.

To this end, I think acknowledging too that religion and philosophy are not really separate things is very important.

A philosophy is a set of beliefs, but one that is not really dictated to the adherent that he may never question, but taught that he may explore and conclude from as he is capable and willing to do. All religions, from the most polytheistic and free form to the most dogmatic and monotheistically stringent, are also philosophies, but the difference, I think, lies in whether a man can come to his own conclusions about it without fear of reprisal from other adherents, and in this respect, “Pagan” religious philosophies, including Hindu and Buddhist systems of philosophical exploration, have the Judaeo-Islamist-Christian world beat, because none of these try to dictate a single path that can only be followed one way. Some of these, like Buddhism and Daoism, have even become almost exclusively philosophical, allowing their adherents to apply what they learn from their explorations to whatever theological system they may have been acculturated into.

Hermes can cross those paths. Hermes can teach us that it is OK to learn from other people, other philosophies, other systems without losing ourselves in the process, and he can teach us that it is OK to explore, to be a man, a woman, a fag, a dyke, a queen, a lumberjack, a liberal commie, or a conservative capitalist pig, and still explore beyond that into the world around you so that you might be at ease with yourself and therefore at peace with the world around you. You don’t have to become a zealot to be loved by the Gods, and perhaps, in zealotry you may lose yourself so much that the Gods no longer find you interesting.

The culture of shame that is so promulgated by the strict religious systems, like Christianity and Islam, is a detriment. It is not ok to be so ashamed of something as natural as sex, sexual attraction, etc. Nor is it ok to shame your children into living lies their whole lives in order to fit into the slave mentality of a people bowing down before their god like dogs before a master.

Hermes, as a force of nature, is free, constantly in motion, and does not allow boundaries to stand in his way while at the same time setting those boundaries so that we may challenge ourselves and learn what we are and are not capable of. How much happier might we be if we allowed ourselves to love anyone, without fear that loving the wrong person would shame us in front of others. How much happier might we be if we set aside all the detritus of the culture of shame brought to us by the God of the desert, and instead embraced the freedom to be fully alive and mortal.

Let Hermes guide you in this, and you may be surprised.

On the mystery that is Hermes.

I am not a scholar, that should be obvious from my writings, but I like to think that I am sharing an experience of something here that helps others, not be like me, but maybe establish their own connection to a greater reality, a greater experience of life and the divine, which I do not insist must be one way or the other, except I am fully convinced it is not monotheistic in nature, but essentially polytheistic.

When I speak of the mystery of Hermes, I am taking about the mystery of his being in relation to his mythos.

Why would a god, a being of such utter pervasiveness and sublime beauty, be a messenger? Why would a God, Zeus, need a messenger? Why do the Gods of Myth always seem to fall into a very familiar pattern derived from human social norms?

The answer to that last question is easy enough, we human beings interpret the world around us by relating it to our own nature, so we envision the Gods as human-like, and we imagine their behavior to be like our own. We also envision the Gods to fit into a hierarchy that fits into our conception of a hierarchy, in the case of Hellenismos, a patriarchal monarchy. A kingdom ruled by Zeus, who is father or sibling to most of his court.

Hermes, often represented as youthful, young even, is then at the bottom of that hierarchy, still a prince of the realm, but a bit far in line for the throne of heaven. Surely this is human interpretation, at least in its details, but what about in its more subtle implications? What mystery lies beneath the truth of this hierarchy, and should it really matter?

In these many years I have come to my own conclusions, they are likely worthless to most of you, as they are simply my own personal gnosis, my own personal interpretation of what I perceive around me, but they are as follows.

The Gods are eternal, I have said this before, and the Gods exist as both part of and transcendent to the universe as we know it. But each god is, essentially, sovereign. The God we call Zeus does not really rule the other Gods, not in reality, but in relation to interaction with mortal life, and in our current age, he does rule in a sense, because his power, his influence on the cosmos, gives him the responsibility to mediate what the other Gods are doing in order to maintain a balance that keeps the universe going.

In this we then see something of a need, a need for a figure to take on a responsibility of fully transcending all that is and, at the same time, immersing himself, consciously, into an full on interaction with all the various realms of reality and with mortal life as well. This being, who we call Hermes, is not so much a messenger as he is a conduit. A conduit between mortal life, physical reality, and the eternal realm that is the ultimate dimension, that which encompasses everything.

The mystery to me is why? Why must such a being provide such a conduit if Gods can accomplish anything?

The answer becomes this. The Gods are not capable of doing everything at all times. Within the reality of their eternal existence, within that eternal realm of infinite possibilities, they can do anything, but our universe is limited, and like a painter with a very limited pallet of colors to paint with, they have to make due with what they have available to them in our realm of existence and work on this canvas with only the colors available to them here.

I imagine that some Gods have such an intense effect on our plane of existence that something, or someone, has to mediate it in order to prevent damaging it, and as such, Zeus and Hermes form that mediating force in the cosmos, Zeus by being the “Lord” that allows such interaction, and is thus the “King” and Hermes, who establishes the routes to be taken, the means by which they can interact with the cosmos, is the messenger that allows that which the King allows to be disseminated into this limited dimension of space and time.

But, in the end, does this really matter to us as people?

In some ways, it does not, but in others it does, because that which happens above, in the eternal realms, is always somehow reflected in our world as well. As above so below, as I have heard said somewhere, and just as the mighty cosmic forces of nature, like gravity, chaos, and repulsion, find manifestation in the behaviors of life forms, so too the divine forces of the universe find manifestation in us as well, and as such, we can learn from what myth and the exploration of it through philosophical exploration of its themes has to teach us so that we can better understand each other and the ways we behave in the world. Just as an exploration of the cosmos and its forces helps us to advance as technological beings, so too does an exploration of the divine cosmos, the divine reality, whatever way we may be capable of understanding it, provide us with a way to improve as spiritual beings.

From my perspective

From my perspective, Hermes is a tremendous God, one who is too often taken for granted or seen as small because of the way myth describes him. This can, of course, be said of all the Gods, because myth, as beautiful as it can be, is also but a tiny fraction of what the ancient religion was. In many ways, Myth even helped destroy the religion of the ancients, as it allowed the Christian oppressors to point to them and ask “How can you worship gods that do this and that?”

But anyone who opens themselves up to the Gods, be they in a Hellenic Context, or any of the myriad others, knows that a god is always so much more than a simple, and often simplistic, story about his birth, life, deeds, and death. In fact, Gods do not die, so therein lies a clue to one of the realities of myth, that they are not strictly true things, but rather the shadows of things that are true in some abstract way, but which can only be conveyed in our reality as these imperfect stories.

In my mind, Hermes is the God that best corresponds with one of the fundamental realities of my personal faith, that the universe of Einstein and Newton is not in conflict with the universe of Nyx, Eros, and Ge. That the universe is indeed composed of several “worlds”, be they called Olympus, Hades, and Tartarus, or Asgard, Midgard, and Hel, or the dimensions of space time. And Hermes, for me, exemplifies the reality of a universe which is whole and entire, yet perceptually divided. That the three dimensions of space, time, and the myriad other dimensions curled up inside of, around, and sideways of our own are all tied together by these beings who are part and parcel of all of them and who inspire in this great totality, life and its aspiration to become something more.

Hermes transcends, and transcendence in the divine sense is different from what you or I might consider transcendence, or what we might be capable of transcending to, but it doesn’t matter, because this inspiration to become something more than we are today is all that life is about. It is evolution, it is civilization, it is philosophy and religion and all the aspirations of every human being alive.

Keep moving ahead, he seems to whisper to us all, and we would be stupid not to take him up on the invitation.
 Greek Death Gods: Hades, Hermes, Tartarus, Charon, Thanatos

Three Greek gods in Egypt: The cults of Aphrodite, Artemis, and Hermes in Greco-Roman Egypt according to the documents and literary notices ([Theses for ... of Master of Arts - University of Hawaii)

Seeing

I recently posted a short prayer on Twitter and Facebook which read like this:

Hear me as I pray, Hermes of the winged feet, and allow me a respite
to feel and enjoy that which might otherwise pass me by.

This wasn’t an idle prayer, I really mean it. It occurs to me, and not for the first time, that I am letting way too much of my own life pass me by. I work, I come home, I watch TV, I chat online, and then go to bed and do it all over again the next day. This ain’t good. I am asking Hermes, of course, because life is a kind of journey, and, because I am hoping to get back to doing something soon that I once loved, and that’s travel and see new places.

I don’t need to travel and spend thousands of dollars, I am fairly content sitting in a cafe with a cup of coffee or tea and observing the different ways people live, or going to a museum and staring at a painting, but, I want to do it in new places. I want to go back to Spain and France and Portugal and see how things have changed since I was there all those many years ago, but, foremost, to find new and economical spots to visit that will nourish my soul.

I also ask the Gods, because I need to get myself out of the economic mess that illnesses have put me in, and again, Hermes seems to be my guide in this.

To Hermes, the Traveller

In a place I once knew

Among people I knew once

I am bereft of feeling

Guide me to find those feelings again, O Hermes

In a place that seems familiar

Among familiar people who seem strange

I am confused

Guide me to understand, O Hermes

On this journey I have come to show my affection

On this journey to feel their affection in return

On this journey to meet the newest member of my clan

I seek your aid and guidance, O Hermes, and thank you for your gifts.

Facing Reality

So, since I have been pondering my sexuality and all those wonderful things that often make us who we are on these defining levels, I may as well touch on a couple of other things, things that most of us don't really communicate to each other out of fear or shame.

I am a an angry person.

I try not to communicate that too much, but I know it comes off, and others misinterpret it as bitterness or general negativity, which to be honest are manifestations of that anger, but they are the anger that resides in me. It is an anger built up over decades of tamping it down and sublimating it. N anger born of abuse and, as a child, an inability to understand that abuse. It is something that I have worked hard on these past ten years or so, and it is something which I now have a quandary about, because while I now recognize this anger in me, I also have to now figure out what to do with it.

I suppose a psychologist would tell me I need to confront the source, to get answers and face the people responsible, but I wonder if doing that, if bringing that kind of shame and pain into their life now will actually do anything to help me in mine.

Forgiveness isn't an issue, I am not sure I am strong enough a man to actually forgive where forgiveness is needed. Forgiving my mother is easy, I love her dearly, but forgiving my father? How do I do that when I barely feel anything for hm, except this odd dull anger that is really more general than acutely directed at him. I also have to ask myself if my anger toward him is not disproportional, misdirected, as a way to allow the anger to express itself but without placing more of a burden for it on my mother.

Hermes may be pushing me not only to face my sexuality, but all of these things as well, because they are all part of communicating. All of these things that are part of who we are on the inside, that form the mental paradigms that make us who we are, require expression, and that is my problem. That I can write this and know what I sort of need to do but not be able to fully express it in a verbal emotional way is something that must vex the God of Communication, and which is now vexing me as I try to proceed on this path of self discovery.

So I sit here and do what I always do, I self medicate with food, being a dick, perhaps keeping myself from ever having to experience real love by making it hard for others to want to be near me. It is hard to think about these things, because it does seem like it is all so obvious, and I should be able to just get over myself and let go, but saying you need to let go and actually doing it are two very different things, and they are not at all even comparable, because this logical and written confession of my failings in this matter is very unemotional and detached from m reality, and the actual doing will require something from me I am not even sure I possess. True inner strength and confidence.

But...

But it would be disingenuous of me to claim that I can simply change what I am, what I have been acculturated into being, and what I have made myself into simply because it seems as if hermes is telling me it’s ok. My gender and sexual identity are far too complex and profound a p[art of me for me to say that I could do that. Yes, both men and women have their charms, but I know in my heart that it is men that draw me, excite me, arouse me, and all together make me feel as if I am truly alive.

Women are a part of my life that is different from what mainstream thought says they should be, they are friends, intellectual equals, sisters, and above all, my fellow human beings, and while I do find many women beautiful and maybe even attractive on a visceral sexual level, that never seems to translate to arousal or true desire in my heart and mind.

So, maybe the labels aren’t really so much bullshit as they are not to be applied too strictly and forever.

The Label

So, what exactly is this label I have identified with? What does it mean?

It is fairly common for many in the gay community to say that the ancient Greeks were gay friendly, or perhaps even a gay culture, but that is a fallacy. Ancient Culture was, for the most part, free of the labels we use to identify sexual preferences. There was no gay, bi, or lesbian community. Who you were attracted to, who you fucked, what sex parties you went to were a function of your life, not your politics, and were often strictly regulated by the cultural attitudes not toward who you were having sex with, but how.

So modern concepts of “Gay” did not really exist, although they surely understood that there were sexual preferences and that some people liked the boys, some liked the girls, some liked both, but these were not really categorized by a political or social label. But with the advent of the more “conservative”, dare I say “superstitious” forms of moral religion, like Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, the common sexual freedom of places like Greece were forced to move underground, and to this day there is clear evidence that homo and bisexuality were never reduced, just hidden from view by a moral authority that sought to control people through concepts of Hell and eternal punishment and the immorality and filth of sex.

But modern concepts of sexuality arose out of the need to come together and fight against the prejudices engendered by the intolerant religious and moral concepts of Christianity and Judaism in the Western world, with small movements in the Islamic world now beginning to show their faces. These labels are as much political as they are emotional, as much a function of political action as sexual activity. So, what does being gay mean?

Gay, in general, is a label used by men and women who are homosexual, meaning men and women who are attracted to, and who engage willingly in sexual and emotional relations with members of their own sex. The modern Gay Movement, of course, is one that attempts, sometimes a little too hard, to be inclusive, so the term has become somewhat watered down, but in general, when the word “Gay” is used, it is usually as a reference to men who are emotionally and sexually attracted to other men.

As a label, however, gay has limitations. Because it has taken on political and communal implications, many gay men are, like their straight brothers, unable to move beyond the label itself. It confines them and forces them to restrain their natural and healthy sexual urges. Many gay men find that they have an overwhelming attraction to other men, but that they are sometimes drawn to a woman, but they stop themselves from experiencing or exploring this because it goes contrary to their self imposed label.

I sometimes wonder if this is me, and I think that is a boundary that Hermes is forcing me to look at and explore. Not that I should run out and have sex with a woman, something I have never done, but to explore whether I am forcing myself not to do so in order to fit in to Gay Culture, a culture which can often be just as intolerant as any other.

The myths tell us that Hermes and Aphrodite produced a child who was beautiful, charming, and of both genders. An allegory for us to maybe study with more profound philosophical mindsets and perhaps come to terms with what it means not to be gay, or straight, or bi, or transgender, or male, or female, but, quite simply, human. To explore what it means to love a person not because they are male or female, beautiful or artistic, sexually pleasing or comforting, but simply for being human and having within them a spark of that thing we call life, a gift from the Gods.

So, gender and sexuality...

So, it seems my focus on Hermes at this point in my life means taking a journey into my own sexuality, and this is not the first time this has happened in my journey so far, perhaps because my sexuality, in varying senses of the word, is very important in my life.

Because I identify as Gay, that aspect of my life influences my politics, my religious beliefs (If Hellenismos was anti-gay, I would likely never have been drawn to it) and even the friends I make and the people I choose to love. It is all influenced on some level by my sexuality. Yet clearly, I have never really gone for the whole “sacred sexuality” thing either. Yes, I believe that sex and emotion can be important aspects of spirituality, in fact, they have to be, but I have yet to really delve into that, mostly because I am a solitary practitioner, but also because my main patron or tutelary deities are not ones particularly linked to sex or sexuality. Athena? Hardly. Hestia? No way. Hades? Um, not really.

But in my daily reflections, meditations, and rites I do try to include Dionysos and Aphrodite, both of whom one can clearly assign aspects of sexuality, wildness, lust, and the indulgence of passion. But as of yet, I have not found them to be true patrons to me. Aphrodite, perhaps, comes close to being a deity I can claim as a patron, but the aspects of her that are important to me tend to be about her as a celestial deity, Ourania, a deity of higher emotional aspect. One who is manifest in love and beauty rather than fucking. Sure, I understand that she is definitely a goddess who relishes our bliss in desire and passion and fucking, but for me, I find that when she has made her presence strongly felt in my life, it is when my heart is breaking at the loss of something special, a love or someone special to me.

But then comes Hermes, ever moving, ever tempting, ever challenging and it seems that all the questions that come to mind are questions of sex and sexuality and lust and the boundaries that must be placed in such things so that they don’t drive us to obsession.

So, as I said, I am a man, a gay man, a man who identifies as homosexual, although I do have some small bit of the bisexual in me. Is Hermes trying to force me to confront that and answer the question to myself once and for all? Is there a part of me that needs to see what I am missing in order to be satisfied that I am not making mistakes in my life? And how?

As a man, I was taught to think of women as beautiful, and so they are, but I learned on my own, from my own inner desires, that men were beautiful and sexually attractive. But is it possible that I ignored part of myself when I identified so clearly as gay?

I don’t think so, but there are possibilities there. I mean, can I really ever know that a woman is not what might make me happy one day if I am unwilling to try it because of the boundaries placed on me by my own label?

On Hermes and Gender Issues

I find it interesting that recently the issue of sexuality, sexual identity, and gender identity has come up at the Hellenic Pagan forum at Yahoo. Why? Because, as I said, Hermes seems to be taking me on a journey into my own sexuality, my own motivations for sex, my own identity as both man and homosexual. He is, I think, begging me to ask myself questions with regard to my own prejudices in this area, and yes, I have them.

I try to be a fair person, Zeus demands that we be just, but I also try to think things through on a level that some would consider logical, and others might consider antithetical to religiosity. As a result, I tend to come to conclusions that often put me at odds with the reality of our political and religious systems. Systems that often, at least on my side of the political spectrum, tend to want us all to be rather relativistic ( Not Einstein ) rather than dogmatic or steadfast.

One issue which, I have to admit, causes me vexation is the Transgendered.

What issues?

Before I go further, allow me to say this. I believe that each of us has the right, a right not handed us by a constitution but by higher authority, to make our own destinies as we feel best suits us. So when I say what I am about to say, do not think I mean that transgendered people should not follow their dreams or needs to become what they feel is the more authentic them. Indeed, I feel they should do that, I only question the wisdom of it in many cases.

Gender. What is it? Is it really attached to a particular way of dressing, of playing with dolls, of being “masculine” or “feminine” in the traditional sense? I think we all know it is not, that gender itself is simply a matter of biology. That if you have a penis and testicles and are not truly inter-sexed, you are male. If you have a vagina, ovaries, breasts, and are capable of birthing a child, you are a female. To many, this seems like too simple a definition of gender, but I disagree.

Gender Identity, however, is a much more complicated matter. A woman who looks like a man, dresses like a man, makes love to other women can be quite happy with being a woman. In fact, I know many women who are quite like this, They seem to, on the outside, identify with a more masculine paradigm, yet ask them and they will tell you, they like being women and would not change that for anything. I know drag queens and femme men who one could swear would rather just lop it off and become women, but ask them and they are happy to be men and love their penises.

So it is possible for a man to be feminine and still be happy with his cock. It is possible for a woman to be very masculine and still love her pussy. (Sorry to be vulgar, but I assure you, the connotation of these more vulgar words, their impact, is very much in keeping with the conceptual context here) Psychologically, these people accept in themselves their difference from the “norm” of their gender, and in accepting it, they become happy with what they have rather than obsessing over what they do not.

But this is also rather superficial, after all, gender identity is deeply rooted. It forms part of every single aspect of our lives, behavior, etc.

What is it that is different about people who seek to actually alter their gender at that superficial level in order to match that inner sense of masculinity or femininity?

I think what is different about them is that they also suffer from, and this is where I get people hating me a little, from a form of Body Dysmorphic Disorder, a psychological condition linked with anxiety that causes the person to obsess over a perceived flaw or defect in their appearance, or sometimes, an obsession with aspects or parts of their bodies, often causing them to damage themselves or seek out medical procedures that alter their appearance. People with obsessive “addictions” to plastic surgery, for example, or who have eating disorders because of their faulty perception of themselves are examples.

Transgendered people seem to fall into this category. They feel that they have qualities that fall into the other gender’s purview, and as a result, they perceive their bodies as flawed, and obsess over that flaw, meaning their genitals, until they have to remove them. (Yes, I know they are altered rather than actually removed)

Now, I think that sex change operations are a mistake. I don’t think that a person who has a perfectly healthy male body is actually trapped in it but is actually female. I think he is simply a girly man, and I think that such men should deal with the underlying issue of shame involved in being girly for a man, or manly for a woman, and accept themselves. But I know that is simply not realistic. I know that often people will want that fix, they want to make the change because they are convinced that is what will fix them.

Where I am concerned is in whether or not everything was tried before the surgery was booked. Did he or she go through all the therapy necessary? Has every possible complication been discussed? Has the potential for disillusionment been truly introduced and dealt with before hand?

If a man or woman has gone through it all, dealt with all the issues, been through all the therapy and such, and still feels that his or her life would be best served by having the surgical procedures necessary to change their outward physical appearance to make them into the other gender, then I would have to say go for it. And I will be respectful of your choice and be happy to know you are a happier person as a result.

But I am always going to seek to understand it on some logical level that, to me, does not exist yet. I do not understand it, and so sometimes come off as a bit coarse about the subject.

But the issue coming up now does remind me that we are all forced to deal with sexuality and gender issues in our culture. The Abrahamic attitudes toward gender force men to behave one way, eschewing anything that might threaten that status quo, and women another. As a gay man, I am always aware of this because straight men seem to have such a deliberately exaggerated reaction to anything gay. Two men kissing elicits a reaction that often makes one wonder what they are really trying to hide, or, perhaps, if they are really trying convince themselves that it is gross while at the same time noting that it is really no more odd than watching a man kiss a woman.

What does my gender have to do with how I love the Gods?

Certainly my sexuality has something to do with it. Being gay in the most gay of all pantheons seems perfectly fitting, but what about my actual gender and gender identity. How does being a man who identifies strongly as a man yet loves other men relate to my worship of Athena?

It Is Not These

It is not the Moon
Not the Stars
Not the Sun that call to me.

It is not the Earth
Not the trees
Not the river that enlighten me.

It is not the ocean
Not the constellations
Not the mountains that save me.

It is the Gods, mighty and resplendent.

It is not the breeze
Not the storm
Not the not the chill of night that reassure me.

It is not fire
Not water
Not air that sustain me.

It is not war
Not peace
Not even truth that excite me.

It is the Gods, blessed and eternal, in whom all things are manifest.

Charity:Water

 

Unshaken - charity: water's campaign for Haiti from charity: water on Vimeo.

What makes a man happy?

It’s an interesting question, that. What makes a man happy? Not what makes us all happy, but what makes a man happy? The stereotypical answer, and one that a lot of women would probably jump to, since they have just as many sexist ideas about men as men have about women, is that what makes a man happy is sex. Lots and lots of sex.

Well, let’s be honest, lots and lots of sex is awesome, and it can give one a momentary bliss that few other things can, it is not what, in the end, makes us happy. A career seldom makes us happy. Things we buy or play with seldom makes us truly happy. We can buy gadgets, which I admit are loads of fun, or computers, or porn, or comics, or whatever, and in the end only end up wanting more of it, because they do not accomplish what we seek, to feel happy.

But what exactly is it we mean by happy? I have to admit, that we rarely ever really know. Our culture has spent so much time pushing happiness as something we can buy, drink, or smoke, that we are seldom taught what happiness really is. In Eastern religious philosophies people are taught that happiness, or better put, contentment comes from understanding what desire is, and learning that what we desire is not always what is good for us, and too often, not what will makes us feel that deep sense of peace and contentment that is true happiness.

It is a profound reality in Hindu and Buddhist belief that desire is something to be set aside so that one can look deeper at a truer need, a truer wish to be not elated with momentary “happiness” but content. One can be dirt poor and yet be “happy” is the lesson there. But there is a reality of poverty in overwhelming numbers there that such philosophies always had to take into account. Here, in the land where we have so much, it is too easy to simply look at such philosophies as bullshit that people tell themselves in order to live their impoverished lives, while at the same time being utterly miserable with the wealth of the world at our fingertips.

Men, or perhaps i should say this particular man, has a lot of things that he thinks make him happy. A good book, a fun movie, music, porn, a few friends here or there, sex, liquor, computers, ipods, TV shows of all types, and yet deep down, what I think we all really want is to soothe the savage heart within us and feel content.

It isn’t about the pussy, or in my case the cock, it is about the search for a kindred soul. It isn’t about the story, but the letting go of the hear and now and living in imaginative splendor. It isn’t about the hot men or the wickedly good sex in the porn flicks, it is about living vicariously through them what I cannot live in reality, or perhaps, what I fear to live in reality because I could too easily fall into patterns of self destruction.

Now, I don’t personally believe in the relinquishing of desire as a whole, or that feeling and want are part of some evil that keeps us trapped in this world, but i do believe that those philosophies do have a point, that I need to start learning from what I desire rather than simply giving in to it. That all of our most primal emotions are there to teach us something. Perhaps not about the gods or the secrets of the universe, but about ourselves.

And if life is a journey, then isn’t what every man wants is to walk the walk and reach his journey’s end with a sense of contentment, perhaps even accomplishment, but certainly with the feeling that it has all been worth it. That all the sex and the drinking and reading and playing have all taught us something profound. The sad thing is that in the end, that lesson is not one we can pass on to others, so we try to pass on our journey to others in hopes they see in it the same things we did, and in so doing, maybe help them find contentment in the end.

What every man wants, is to be remembered as a man who left behind a legacy, not of money or accomplishment, but of lessons worth learning and an example well set.

In hope

Make bright the day, o Helios
Make dark the night, o Nyx
Make visible the pathways to and fro
And protect us as we walk your way, o Hekate

Make strong my heart, o Athena
Make willing my body, o Ares
Make forceful my will and memorable my speech
And protect me from the dangers of arrogance, o Zeus

Make subtle my touch, o Aphrodite
Make powerful my thrust, o Eros
Make lustful my feelings and loving my approach
And grant me willingness to share my home, o Hestia

Make tasty my food, o Demeter
Make colorful my view, o Persephone
Make appreciative my eyes and soothing my voice
And grant me passion in artistry, o Apollo

Make skillful my hands, o Hephaestos
Make fluid my judgment, o Poseidon
Make the dark in me light, and the light in me grey
And grant me the heart to face you with pride in the end, o Hades

Make swift my decisions, o Hermes
Make wild my soul, o Artemis
Make desire in me bloom to something ever greater
And grant that i may not end up forever alone, o Hera

Make strong my foundations, o Ge
Make sharp my sight, o Selene
Make nimble my knowledge and strong my resistance
And grant me transcedence and hope, o blessed Dionysos of the wine dark eyes.

To Zeus

Δία, κραταιέ (dhEE-ah krah-teh-EH)
Κύριε των υψηλότερων βουνών (KEE-ree-eh tohn eep-see-LOH-teh-rohn voo-NOHN)
Δωρητή της βροχής (dhoh-ree-TEE tees vroh-HHEES)
Παραμέρησε τα σύννεφα με το ισχυρό σου χέρι (pah-rah-MEH-ree-seh tah SEEN-neh-fah meh toh ees-hhee-ROH soo HHEH-ree)
Και χαμογέλασε μας σήμερα (keh hhah-moh-GEH-lah-seh mahs SEE-meh-rah)

Zeus, powerful
Lord of the High Mountains
Giver of Rain
Part the clouds with your mighty hand
And smile on us today


My thanks to Evritos and his anonymous friend from Greece for his help in correcting the grammar. Software translation leaves much to be desired, but it can be a good place to start.

Tomorrow we greet her...

Today
Blessed Lady of the Corn
We say good bye to the Winter
That time of grief and despair
Today we bid it farewell.

For tomorrow we greet her who comes
She who steps forth with flowers at her feet
She whose laughter brings joy to your eternal face.

Today
Blessed Lady of the Tilled Fields
We say good bye to the death of the Green
When the land lies cold and barren
Today we bid it farewell.

For tomorrow we greet her who dwelt in darkness
She who ate of the pomegranate below
She who sat upon the throne of Hades with her eternal mate.

Today
Blessed Lady of the Wheat Grain
We say good bye to the shivering fear of tomorrow
When the future seems so far away
When the warmth of Summer seems a long lost memory.

For tomorrow we will rejoice at her return
She who walks in splendor, daughter of Zeus
She whom you lost now returns, Persephone of the Sprint Time reborn.

(This is written with the North American perspective of the Demetrian myth as symbol of our Winter, not as the ancient view of the Summer as the time when the grain was stored under ground to protect it from the immense heat. Taken in this way, Demeter and Persephone are here aspected toward the local growing seasons.)

Back to my thread of consciousness

So...

It seems that the great Goddess of Sex herself chose to focus me in ways different than I had expected, and then Hermes has chosen to lead me there instead. As I have stated, I hope clearly but knowing me, not that clearly, I have hopes that part of what I am teaching myself as I seek to understand my self, my motivations, and my spiritual needs is how to understand my sensual desires. How to accept yet contain that part of me that is decadent in ways that can be harmful to me.

Because I am culturally American, being decadent comes with the territory. We are an empire on decline, a people gone to decadence and, now, seeing the ramifications of that decadence as we move further into the age of discovery, of technology, and as those who are being left behind now fight their way to prominence and, possibly, destroy us from within as has happened in almost every civilization before ours.

But as individuals, there is still much to be said for decadence and what it means to us as people. See, decadence can mean different things to different people, but I boil it down to this, the enjoyment of pleasure at the expense of others. It is selfish decadence. The decadence that can be of use to us as people, however, is that which allows us to explore what it is to be alive, human, and physical beings.

The suppression of our instinctive selves is common in the monotheistic religions, and in some of what are called the philosophical religions of the East, like Buddhism and Hinduism. The idea being that we are physical beings and that to move forward, to go beyond this physicality means relinquishing desire, relinquishing emotions that guide us to excess and debauchery. In essence, living in a way that completely ignores one’s own humanity and what it means to be human.

Breathing, drinking of water, and eating just enough to survive and contemplation are the basics of life, and any action taken should be taken with a view toward the afterlife. I find this to be a most odd way to think. I am not some crazy decadent loon, mind you, I live a rather sedate, calm life, even if I do indulge in some things often enough, but here’s the rub, I don’t believe in an afterlife. I believe that we live, we experience, and we die. Truly die. But this doesn’t mean that life itself is something to be taken to extremes, or that it has no meaning. I have become convinced over the years that what we experience, what we feel, what we desire and how we go about getting it form part of a greater “program”. That when we let our feelings flow and we share them with the Gods and seek their guidance, we share with them something they do not, cannot have in their eternal realm. Things like fear, hunger, true desire the like one feels at the sight of a most beautiful woman, or a truly erotic man. The longings and desires for peace we all feel, and the simple pleasure of physical contact.

Now, I am not saying that the Gods know nothing of these things, rather that their experience of them cannot be like ours. That in their eternal existence that requires nothing, they do not have the needs we do, the desires we do, the sense of urgency we do, and there is the spontaneity of our emotions to contend with. We do not feel or even think things because we want to, we do so because there is a spontaneous event that occurs in our minds that should spur us to action, and that action, the more philosophical minded might say should be to ponder and consider rather than to act upon. But a wise man once said, or if he didn’t he should have, that thinking about doing something is only half of the equation, and that acting upon it is the other half, and that the one without the other is simply either impulsiveness or timidity, and in the end, is that not what being a rational thinking person is about, about melding the two together so that we can experience life in the best way possible without allowing ourselves to fall victim to the sheer drop that is the extreme?

And is not the God of boundaries suspiciously well equipped to help in this?

A journey

In honor of Hermes, I am hoping to undertake a journey. Because Plouton has not been as generous with the gold as I would like, however, think I may have to simply undertake a journey of solitude to some place near that can also be new to me. Perhaps one of the nooks and crannies that make up this city to which I have not yet made myself privy. If exploration is the key, than certain parks in the area are certainly open to me, and since Spring will soon be upon us, so too will the vast network of bike paths that lead to such places as state parks, dams, rivers, and farm land.

It is, perhaps even possible I may be able to undertake a bike ride from Dayton to Columbus, but in my current shape that may be more a matter to be discussed with a doctor than a plan.

So, why a journey in honor of Hermes? Well, because while I cannot travel like I once did, I can still explore, and there are always beautiful things to photograph, even in a city like this, which has been left to drown in the decay of the post industrial age.

And Hermes’ urge, that urge to see new things, to explore, to be revitalized by these things, is one that I have almost let die in me since moving out here. Not having a vast metropolis nearby like New York or Boston kind of stripped me of it, but remembering m travels in France, Spain, and Portugal, I have to try and recall how some of the best experiences were quiet ones, in small places that seemed to be cut off from civilization, even if by walls, and that that is a feeling that can be captured almost anywhere.

So, I am hoping that Wintergeddon ends soon so I can get my ass out there to see what it is Hermes wants me to see, and perhaps even why.