Come Come, Dawn

Come come, Dawn
Lady of the rosy skies of morning
Usher in the morning
Shoo away our fears
For in the darkness of night 
In the absence of the Sun
Man has many things to fear.

Come come, o Eos, who holds the keys of heaven.
Come come, o Aurora, who the Romans did call
Come come Ushas, your name far in the East
Grant us above all else, self realization
And the willingness to see the truth before us.

I am Human

I am God
-ever present
I am Goddess
-ever living
I am Man
-ever worshipful

Man has his place
Between the heights of the heavens
and the depths of the pits
sharing equally in light as in darkness

I am Mind
-ever thoughtful
I am Emotion
-ever chaotic
I am Woman
-ever balanced

Woman has her place
Between the heights of love
and the depths of compassion
sharing equally in war and peace

I am Soul
-ever growing
I am Body
-ever changing
I am Human
-ever doubtful

Human has his place
Between the heights of passion
and the depths of despair
Sharing equally in grace and disgrace

At Sunrise

There is a moment, every morning, when the sun is about to rise
The earth takes a breath
The night bids farewell
And the gates of heaven are wide open

It is a moment afforded every man
To look upon the world
And search within himself
And find the light hidden within him

There is a moment, every morning, when the sun rises to blinding glory
Each man is made visible
His light once again hidden
And the public face is all we see

It is a moment to wonder
To ponder your being
And decide to not be who they want
But the man you were meant to be.

Since i am on this kick...

…I'd like to touch on an aspect of the Gods, Zeus and Aphrodite in particular, that is often spoken of but is seldom explored because I think it creates an uncomfortable feeling among Pagans who have had to deal with the universalist aspects of divinity as taught by the Abrahamic religions.

 

The aspect I am talking about is referred to as "Heavenly" or "Higher" among those who have explored Aphrodite and her aspect of Ourania (her title derived from the same word that gives the protogonos Ouranos his name). This is an aspect of a higher order of being, of potential and possible transcendence rather than immanence in nature and the affairs of mankind. 

Zeus, as king of Gods and men, is also seen, at least by philosophers and such, and one can assume (Though if I were a scholar I would never do that without corroborating facts) that the average Greek probably didn't see the Gods as simple super-humans, but as beings of transcendental power and awareness. That the Gods were worshipped throughout "Greece" and that the Greeks believed that the Gods of foreign people were their Gods in different forms indicates that the Greeks did believe their Gods had transcendental and omnipresent properties.

But, my worship is not about what they did, but about how what they may have done informs my world view and my relationship with the Gods, and I have come to believe, for quite some time now, that the Gods are truly universal and that the idea of aspected divinity, that being divinity that can and does appear differently to different people, cultures, and religious systems is the correct form in which to accept the Gods.

Aphrodite has many aspects, of course, but the two that seem to bookend them all are Porne and Ourania. Now, there is no dogma in Greek religion, but these two aspects of the Goddess that seem to be in opposition to each other to our modern way of thinking, are also fairly common ways to see the Gods. The Gods are often said to have Olympian and Chthonic aspects, two aspects which seem to be in opposition to each other, but which to me always speak to a universality in the power of the Gods.

Zeus Pateras, Zeus Olympios, etc., speak to Zeus as a heavenly deity. As a father god, as a god of the highest places (Olympic referring to the highest place or state of being) he is also a God who is everywhere and can always hear your prayers, so, is he not then a universal being? Omnipresent?

It is aspects such as these, omnianything really, that sometimes make Hellenistoi nuts, because while some philosophers seem to agree that the Gods were universal this way, what we know about Hellenic ritual and practice seem to indicate that the Greeks did not believe this, but rather that Gods could be localized. Thus, Aphrodite Ourania and Aphrodite Porne, both aspects of this goddess that were everywhere in nature all at once, are troublesome. 

I think where the problem lies is in accepting that the Gods are universal, but their aspects don't have to be. You could, for example, be a gay man and accept that Aphrodite is present in your love making (or your crazy fucking, whichever one you enjoy, or both) yet not accept that she is in the sexual exploits of a Dominatrix. The Dominatrix might disagree, but from your personal perspective, this is true. Therefore different parts of Greece saw the different deities in different ways, in the ways that those deities were said to have interacted with or blessed those particular localities. Therefore a Persian man would see the Goddess in a way that was appropriate for his culture and in a way that he believes the Goddess had interacted with his people. So, if the God(dess) of love is said to have punished the people of his land, he might see her as threatening or punishing, yet if he believes that she has blessed his life and that of his people with much love, joy, and happiness, he would see her very differently. 

It is easy, I think, for people to read myth, philosophy, and poetry of ancient times and forget the human component to religious perception.

Zeus the King of Olympus, sitting on his throne, is a distinctly different image or icon to meditate upon than Zeus Chthonios, or Zeus of the Underworld. It is often easy to confuse an aspect like this with that of say Hades, who is lord of the underworld and therefore very much Chthonic in nature, yet it is important to remember that the ancient people did not get confused about this. Zeus who is prayed to by the people for the gifts of the earth, perhaps in combination with a goddess like Gaea or Demeter, is Chthonic because he is being asked to grant gifts that come from the earth itself. Wealth, good harvests, etc., are all things directly related to the earth and therefore chthonic in nature, and so if Zeus is given credit for granting such gifts to a people, he is interacting with them as Chthonios. 

But the aspect of Chthonios is also linked to the house snake, that spirit of protection that is often depicted as a snake in iconography, and is therefore linked to the earth, and as Lord of Hosts (I'm sure you've heard that before, as the God of the Christians inherited this title from the Pagan Era Sky Father God, who the Gods called Zeus) he is also a God of the home and the protection it provides, a domain often granted to Hestia, Lady of the Hearth. 

So, perception makes a God aspected, as the perception of Zeus as "earthy" makes him Chthonios, but that is excluding the will of the deity, and so I have to ask myself, are the aspects of divinity merely human perception and interpretation of the Gods, or do the Gods consciously (if such a term even applies to such beings) decide to be seen this way?

I can't answer that, I will not pretend to know the will of the Gods, but I do believe that there is a will at work when a deity who is sought out is believed to have intervened is doing so because he wishes to, and that these aspects are therefore part of their nature, a nature which is vast and hard to put into categories, but which can be gleaned through a study of their past actions and the myths that grow around them.

On the nature of myths and science, via the myths of Zeus.

In this argument, and I admit that my arguments are often meandering things, so I will try to stay on topic here and make an actual point.

LOL

It is noted, for this is not some sacred revelation I have just had and am imparting on humanity, that religious myth, of most religions, seems to reflect many aspects of cosmology and other philosophical sciences (physics, for example). That is to say that when reading creation myths, for example, they often speak of occurrences in times so ancient that no man could have ever witnessed it, and yet often, the myths themselves speak, in metaphorical terms, of things that science seems to indicate actually happened. No, not the same way they happened in the myths, remember, metaphor, but did happen none the less. 

Because I am currently trying to focus on Zeus, let us use him as an example. 

According to myth, in the beginning there was chaos, and while the word chaos has survived today, and currently means disorder or a disordering, in the myths themselves they seem to indicate a gap (like the Ginnungagap of the Norse Myths) which in a way is an indicator of nothingness.  From the nothingness come certain "gods" who are named things like night, darkness, aether, light, earth, and attraction (Nyx, Erebus, Aether, Hemera, Ge, and Eros) and there is something to be said for this, because as we look back into the beginnings of the universe we see the nothingness, the darkness, the sudden light, the formation of matter and gravity, and so here there seems to be an instinctive, or perhaps revealed, knowledge if the beginning of things. 

But then the earth gives rise the the sky, again, factual in a geological history sense. Together, these two, under the influence of eros, being the gravity that binds them one to the other, give rise to the ocean, the mountains, etc. It is during this divine age that what we know as the Earth is made into something similar to what we know today, a world of water, raining skies, varied landscapes, etc. Eventually the darkened skies clear, and the Titans are released from their imprisonment, and so they see the Sun for the first time, for Kronos is a much more tumultuous being than Ouranos, not the starry sky, but perhaps the cloud heavy sky of the primordial earth. Here, the same forces become more refined, they are Titans rather than Protogonoi, but the Titans are wild, gigantic creatures. Brutal forces of nature rather than the gentler forces we know today. 

Eventually, this Titanic Age gives way to the Olympian Age, and it is here that we meet Zeus. Zeus, the new Sky Lord, Zeus, the storm, the lightning, the thunder god. With him, the children of the Titans, in many ways, nearly indistinguishable from the Titans except that these beings seem to be more subtle, smaller, more down to Earth. It is as if the divine power that began with the Protogonoi has spread itself out into the cosmos, becoming more diffuse, more subtle in its power. One might even say that as the universe itself expanded, so did these beings. But here on Earth, the aspects of these beings, these Gods, that have shaped and given form to our world have also been experienced by the very life that has come into being here. 

In myth, it is not 100% clear who or how life is created, is it there when Zeus ascends to the throne of heaven, is it created by the Gods, that is, by the forces they unleash on the world, or is it brought into being even later, by the death and resurrection of yet another of Zeus' children, Dionysos? Whatever the case may be, we do know this, that earth, sky, and sea were all fundamental in the formation of life, and thus its creation. That the very air, the fluid of the ocean, the elements of the earth, and the spark to fuse them to chemical life from lightning were all part of how it happened, and Ge, Poseidon, and Zeus are all part of how it happened.

That Zeus, the Sky Father, is the great King of Heaven is not at all surprising then, as man dwells upon the Earth, cultivates it. Man may sail upon the sea, fishes from it. But man lives in sky, walking in it, taking it in and letting it out at every moment, and so he is there,  the Father we live within, part of him in a very real way. Could the being we know as Zeus, then, be female? Sure, the Egyptian story has Earth as male and Sky as female, it is essentially irrelevant, these are beings of eternity, beings who lived long before there was such a thing as gender, for even gender is essentially an accident of chance. 

Yet as we ponder Zeus, his coming into power, the great war that shaped the very world, we must also ponder the nature of his myths, and those of all the Gods, with a much keener eye, to understand that within them there is truth, sometimes subtle, sometimes blunt about where we came from and how, and the only real way to understand that is to view them through a mind that can correlate the myths with science and observation, so that we can understand a fundamental reality about the relationship between man and god, that we must put into it as much as we take out of it. Not just read myth and take them at their word, but seek to make sense of them. 

Zeus is not literally the sky, but it is his power that makes the sky what it is, and as you breathe it in, remember him and the stories that can guide you to wisdom. 

Zeus's Affairs Visualized

Zeus's Affairs (launched) | visualizing.org - http://goo.gl/wVFsP via @Shareaholic

Father Zeus

I have touched on the aspect of Zeus that is father. It is the aspect of the God that is, perhaps, the most easy to understand for modern thinkers, for in western tradition, this is the aspect of the sky God that was conflated with the middle eastern father God YHWH. 

It does not escape me, of course, that the primacy of the father in this kind of religion is the result of patriarchal culture, but I'd like to explore the father aspect froma slightly different angle here. What angle might that be? The angle of a man who did not have a father, at least not one that mastered in any positive way.


See, the Hellenic pantheon is organized in a way that made sense to the Hellenes, and is therefore patriarchal, I will not contest that organization, it is what it is. What I want to touch on is that for me, Zeus has often been unreachable, inaccessible, unavailable, and as I sit and ponder the why of it I must admit that I have basically approached him as I do my own father. As absent.

Unlike the ancient Greeks, who saw the Gods everywhere, in the light of morning, the breeze, the sea foam, the storm, I am far too analytical a person to see the world that way. Don’t get me wrong, I sometimes sit and watch the sunrise and it takes my breath away. I appreciate it and and made humble by it, but I do not actually see the Helios there. To my mind, the sun is like a poetic representation of a divine power, but has a distinct existence apart from it. So, the sun is not Helios, it is a symbol of him that we human beings can latch onto as a focus for our worship and/or honoring of his power.

So too it is with Zeus and the sky, the storm, the thunder and lightning. They are but symbols, religiously speaking, and Zeus is not literally throwing lightning bolts or stirring the sky with his scepter to cause storms. In fact, to my way of thinking, everything about the imagery of the Gods, including their anthropomorphism is just symbology while the true Gods, those beings divine and beautiful, are separate and transcend such physical form and function.

But Zeus, more than the rest (Hades too, sometimes) is far and away the most obscure to me. Not because I don’t think of him when I look at the sky, or when I hear the terrible force upon my  windows during tornadic storms, but because he is father, and even more than any of the other symbols. More than the storm, the throne, the eagle, the majestic lightning bolt, this concept of father is one that eludes me, because I have never felt the closeness of a father, the affection, the love. Even today, on those rare occasions when I see my father, I feel a very vast distance between us, and it is not a distance he is putting there, not these days when he is older and perhaps longing to make up for lost time, but me. I am putting up those walls. In my heart there is no space marked “Dad” and there is nowhere for him to go.

So it is I have to ask myself, does this mean there is also no space marked “Dad” for him? For Zeus, sky father, father of Gods and Men, All Father? Is there no room in my heart for a Divine Father just as there is no room for my mortal father?

Father Sky

Father Sky
who rains and thunders
listen to our prayers
our hearts we pour out to you
our offerings we make

Father Sky
who snows and blusters
listen to our needs
our wants we sing to you
our offerings we make

Father Sky
who blows and chills
listen to our pain
our healing we seek from you
our votives we leave

Father Sky
who strikes with light
listen to our joy
our laughter we wish to share
and Zeus do we call you

Zeus and the Polis

The Polis, a word that means city, was a central part of the organizing force in Greek culture. The Greeks became a "civilized" people, civilized referring to the act of creating civil order, cities, governments, etc., and in so doing the growing cities became central to the way they developed as a culture because their power and influence grew over the centuries in such a way that Greek culture became almost indistinguishable from the very concept of the Polis. 

To think of the Greeks simply as a people of the Polis, however, is a huge mistake. As modern people we seldom have a chance to understand the realities of how the Polis worked, and how the population of Greece must have adapted to suit the growing power of these states, not because we don't know anything about the Polis, we do, quite a bit, but rather because the works of art, fiction, myth, philosophy left behind by the ancient Greeks were very much centered upon the Polis, which became a place where artists and thinkers went in an effort to work their talents where the money was (or the resources of the time) but the population of Greece was very heavily a rural population. The people of the countryside remain, often misrepresented in modern academic works, and for many, the Polis and the way it was organized was the center of all Greek life, including religion.  

We know that among the cults of the Gods among the Greeks, the Hearth Cult was one of the earliest, and that this is reflected in myth when Hestia, the Goddess of the Hearth, is named as the first born child of Kronos. When she is called the Eldest and Youngest, the first and the last, something that is reflected in ritual as well. But what does this say to us today? Since the cult of the Hearth is, essentially, a civilized cult, it cannot really have been a cult from the beginning of humanity, or even the beginnings of the Greeks as a people, but rather a cult that was established as people were already gathering into towns and building the fortress towns that would become the homes of the Mycenaean Kings. Add to that that the Minoans already built palaces, and we are looking at a cult that was part of the Polis structure. 

But the Greeks also had a myth of a different kind, the myth of Prometheus and his gift of fire to humanity. If Prometheus stole fire from Zeus to give to man, then man must have needed to preserve it, and this gift of fire was not something that came late, but rather early. So, perhaps this cult of the Hearth is not a cult of the Polis after all, but a cult that comes from the early folk, and perhaps travelled with the people way into the past, long before there were Greeks or Mycenaeans, or Minoans, for all of these people used fire, all of them had received the gift of Prometheus and Hestia. 

What is all this rambling about?

Well, when considering Zeus, and the other Gods, it is important to consider where the stories of the Gods come from and, perhaps, why, and many of the stories told of the Gods, fanciful and beautiful as they are, are shadows of older stories, reflections of our history and the interactions with the Gods that our long lost ancestors managed in those dark times. But also, that these stories were never static. They changed and were made more fanciful, or more down to earth, by succeeding generations. Generations that experienced and understood the Gods in new ways. And many of these people, one can say most, were not people of the cities. Not civilized folk in the conventional sense. 

We must, when considering the Gods, try to put their stories in a broader context than just the Polis and remember that the Gods are not just Gods of civilization, poetry, and art, but also Gods of the wild and dark places.

Yes, we pagans have a love of connecting the Gods with nature, but it is important that we not forget that nature can be a cruel and unforgiving thing, and that the powers that be do not act for our benefit, but for the benefit of all things. That the religion of the Gods was not simply the religion of the Polis and its organized festivals designed to garner their favor, but the religion of the lesser known people, the people of the fields, the forests, and the wilderness at large. A people who understood that Zeus as the thunderstorm could kill as easily as rain down much needed rain, and that they did not hate or blame him for such, but rather understood that, perhaps, they were not the center of the universe or the center of Zeus' concerns. 

Still, the Greeks did build cities, cities of magnificent achievement in art and thought,  and if we must seek to remember that the Gods are also the Gods of the country folk, we must never forget that they were also Gods of the cities, where they encouraged through their worship the flowering of European civilization, and that for this, we must be eternally grateful. 

Zeus

God. It is a word filled with meaning, both subtle and blunt, and in our Judaeo-Christian culture it has taken on the form of a proper name, which of course, it is not. But the concept that we know as God is certainly not a new one, nor a unique one, for it is found in the philosophies of ancient pagans, of Hindus, Buddhists, and Shinto philosophers.

In our own religion, the religion of the ancient Greek pagans, the God who comes closest to this conception, of a deity as all powerful and all knowing, is Zeus, and it is Zeus and his iconography, imagery, etc., that gives form to the otherwise nebulous figure of the Jewish YHWH, for the religion of the Christians owes an enormous amount to the imagery and iconography of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The image of God as a man, older, bearded, kingly, sitting on the throne of heaven is quite literally the same image as that of Zeus on the throne of Olympus. The anthropomorphizing of Jehovah, which as a transliteration of the word YHWH has a remarkable similarity to the word Jove, the Roman name for Zeus (though to be fair the two words are technically unrelated), is essentially Zeus layered over with Jehovan iconography and myth.

The Greeks understood Zeus to be the God of Gods, father of Gods and men, the king of kings. In so understanding him, in so invoking him, they elevated his status in their religion to one of near omnipotence and omniscience, two divine aspects not shared by his fellow gods, or even by him in the myths of the Greeks, yet of all the Gods, Zeus was the Greek God par excellence, the pan-hellenic deity that was unmistakably the Lord of the Greeks.

I say they elevated him because this is not about whether a God is or is not these things, but rather about how he was worshiped and understood by his worshipers. It is these qualities that the ancients passed on to us, this notion of Zeus as an immense being who is the God of Gods, so it is this that I, and anyone else wishing to worship or honor him, must contend with.

To understand this aspect of Zeus one must understand how the Greeks came to worship their Gods, how the Pantheon they worshiped was organized, and how that organization mirrored old aristocratic ideas of rule, order, and a manifest destiny that some classes of people felt was their inherent right.

Zeus, you see, is a God who is worshiped not as a child born to rule, though he was son of the previous ruler, but one who fought his way to the top. In this he is very much a reflection of society. The Greek culture came into being in Greece not by being born to it, but through successive waves of migration, often called invasions, in which a war like people from the North and East entered what is known as Greece and through the course of centuries gained control from whatever people were there before them, and whatever powers were exerting control over these regions. But like Zeus who must enter the world and then fight his way to the top by battling out with his father, the Greeks must also fight, among themselves and against those who would usurp their growing cultural influence and power.

One could argue that the great disaster that weakened the Minoan culture such that it could easily be taken over by the Mycenaeans (Greeks) that followed was an act of divine war. As the Greeks were growing in power Kronos was battling it out with Zeus, and as they took over the reborn Gods (regurgitated by Kronos) were battling it out with the Titans for control of the universe. This is not exactly how my theology would explain this, but it is an argument for how the myths explain the emergence of a powerful pantheon of Gods that would lead the Greek people to a flowering of culture and philosophy seldom seen in the world.

Zeus wins this war, and soon he sits at the very throne of Heaven, and so he embarks on an orgy of marriage, marrying the local goddesses and producing offspring with them. The religions of the old people merging with the religions of the new and new and various aspects of the Gods emerging as the people adopted and adapted new forms of worship, new iconographies, new myths. What was once two people struggling for control became one, and the Gods of the more powerful of them became the Gods of all, as they married and merged with the local forms and aspects.

Zeus was now father of Gods and men, and he usurped whatever creation myth may have been present, becoming the instigator of the creation of man.

See, Zeus isn't just a deity, he is the deity into which the people of ancient Greece poured their wonderfully active spirit. He represents not only their belief in powers higher than themselves, but a belief that their history, reflected in his, has value and is, in a way, sacred. This is not to say that Zeus is simply an abstraction of that spirit of the people, no, the Greeks saw him as much more than that, as a force of nature, as an immanent power felt by all, breathed in and out by all, motivating and animating them to action and feats of great skill both on the battlefield and on the racing track. They saw him as omnipresent in the way the air around you is omnipresent because he was, to them, the very sky itself. He was the sky father.

In this immensity and all pervasive cultural influence, Zeus is very much like the modern conceptions of the Judaeo-Christian God, or perhaps even more so like the all pervasive Brahman of the Hindu religious sphere. A God who is so immense in scope and power that he is everywhere you are at all time. He is around you and in you, and therefore very difficult to come to grips with. Meditating on Zeus becomes difficult when one seeks to understand all of him, and so we are grateful, i think, to the aspected forms the Greeks spoke of in their writings and myths. It was not necessary then, nor is it necessary now, to believe you know Zeus in his entirety. That might even be considered Hubris. It is, however, okay to be intimately and expertly knowledgeable about Zeus in one of his many aspects and to do him honor as such.

So it is that I choose a couple of aspects of Zeus to venerate in my life. The father, for I have none to speak of and so he is it, the sky lord, for the beauty of the thunderstorm is something I have always admired, and that of Zeus as watcher of men.

It is these I hope to explore as I move forward.

To Zeus Pateras

Zeus Pateras

Lord of the vaulted skies

Watching from high Olympus

Over us, your children.

Grant us your ear.

 

Zeus Pateras

Lord of the mighty oak

Who whispers from its rustling leaves

To us, your mortal children

Lend us your voice

 

Zeus Pateras

Father of divine wisdom

Who traffics in the eternal fate

Of your troubled children

Lend us your counsel

 

Zeus Pateras

Father of the radiant healer

Who metes out sickness and health

To us, your ailing children

Lend us your strength

 

Zeus Pateras

Lord of eagles

Who fly to the corners of the Eath

To watch your fragile children

Lend us your vigilance

 

Zeus Pateras

Who sees us from afar

And gives to us nourishing rain

To feed your starving children

Lend us your divinity

 

Zeus Pateras

Lord of hosts

Who seeks justice in all things

Especially in us, your children

Lend us your divine hand

 

Blessed may you be, now and forever

Bye Artemis...

I have decided to move on from Artemis, she does not seem at all interested in me.

I have managed to glean some things from her, to learn some new things about myself and her, but I find that I cannot connect to her the way I did with apollo or Athena or even Hephaestos. There is something ominously large about Artemis, a deity so often depicted as a small child in myth, that I think maybe she seeks to have me learn from others before, maybe, I return to her at some point. Life is about learning, after all, and I will continue to learn about the Gods for the rest of my life. Perhaps she will become my tutelary deity later on in life, perhaps not.



Speaking of ominously large, the next deity on this path is Zeus. Talk about large, bold, ominous, and difficult to come to terms with. Unlike my haphazard approach to this until now, however, I may have to put this one into some kind of planned writing schedule, with very specific topics in mind. I am not sure, but be that as it may, I want to hear from people about their experiences with him and with Artemis, I know I don't have many followers here, but since I mirror this on my iskios.com site, I am hoping to maybe become better engaged with the few people who read this.

IAmAn Ex-Member of the Westboro Baptist Church

IAmAn Ex-Member of the Westboro Baptist Church

Ever wonder what makes the Westboro Baptist Church so horrible? Check this out, from one of the children of Fred Phelps...

Goddess...

In passion’s grip
In love’s embrace
In thought and feeling, Goddess take
My heart
My soul
My eternal gratitude, blessed may you be

In days bright light
In nights cool dark
In bliss and ecstasy, Goddess see
My heart
My soul
My eternal gratitude, blessed may you be

In love’s sweet laughter
In lust’s harsh moans
In desire and longing, Goddess feel
My heart
My soul
My eternal gratitude, blessed may you be

In my soft prayers
In my scented smoke
In offerings and sacrifice, Goddess accept
My heart
My soul
My eternal gratitude, blessed may you be

Pride

Here I am in Columbus, Ohio for the.annual Stonewall Gay Pride festival which happens here every June. It is called the largest Gay Pride festival in the Midwest, but I have to assume that excludes Chicago, though having been here several times, it would not surprise me of the parade itself was not the biggest even including Chicago.

I left home last night and spent the night doing honor to all those soldiers who have given their all in the east against sexlessness.

Before leaving home I made a small offering to the gods, and one in particular to Aphrodite, goddess of fabulous parties and pride in our sexual and gender differences. I did her proud, I think.

But now it is morning and I am sitting across the street from the Ohio State House, drinking a really good cup of coffee (am I the last one to know Tim Horton has such awesome coffee?) And pondering a few things.

First, I find out annoying that the politicians in the state house, with the help of the Columbus city council have moved the parade route just enough that technically it no longer passes right in front of the state house. It annoys me that our politicians, our so-called representatives, have become like the monarchs of old. If the people are making demands, hide then away and ignore them.

Second, I was pondering the role of Artemis on this day. I have to be honest, I am not sure I can come up with a way in which this particular goddess is of particular influence to a gay man. Yet to lesbians Artemis is known for being important to the exploration of the feminine that lesbianism implies.

My lesbian sisters must, I think, hold a deep respect for a deity that explores and encourages female independence, female strength, female love, and female power over their own fates.

So here I am, a gay man in Columbus, up too early, being taken for a ride by Artemis, who is reminding me, on this day of Pride, to not forget the women who have been fighting the fight for equality along side Al those men who get most of the attention. To remember and honor them.

Link to YSEE and role of the hellenic priesthood

The YSEE and the role of Hellenic Priests...

Strike me Athena

In a blinding flash, you strike me.

I am made stronger by your blow.

 

And as I fall you hold out your hand.

I am made safer by grasping it.

 

And in the midst of this battle you whisper to me.

And through your words I am made wiser.

 

It is a battle of wills. 

Mine mortal and fallible, sometimes weak. 

Yours eternal, patient, and strong.

 

In a moment of weakness I reach out to you.

In recognition of weakness I am strengthened.

 

In a moment of silence I listen for you.

In the sounds around me I am fortified.

 

In a moment of terror I see you for what you are.

In that terror I see my reflection.

 

These are moments of realizations.

Mine of the self, frightening and true.

Yours of revelation, blindingly pure.

Blessed May You Be

Candles lit in your name

Incense burning in your honor

Loaves of many types made for you

Blessed may you be

 

Children dancing for your pleasure

Women weaving as you taught

Nude men compete for you

Blessed may you be

 

Parades to attract you

Processions to show our pride in you

New garments for your statue

Blessed may you be

 

Many come to honor you

Many come to play

Many come to rejoice in brotherhood

Blessed may you be

 

The sacred calves are brought forth

The sacrifices are made

The many will be fed today

Blessed may you be

 

For your guidance they plead

To propitiate you they act

To call you back into the world of man

Blessed may you be

More on disconnection...

So, since I believe that we can be more connected to some Gods than others based on our reactions and decisions, which Gods am I most connected to and why? Which am I not very connected to, and why? Understanding that these are conscious connections, not subconscious or natural connections, since at instinctive, physical, and natural levels we are connected to all of them. 

I am connected first to Athena. I have always been mercurial. Some might say I am bipolar, or Cyclothymic, though I do not have an official diagnosis for any of these except depression, which I got during a brief stint in a psychiatrists office. Through my teens and 20s, and most of my 30s, I suffered through what I call "hyper issues". Stress causes my mind to start running very fast, I get hyper, and once this happens I find it very hard to think clearly, or even though I am thinking clearly, it is happening so fast that I can't keep the thoughts in place long enough to be fully cogent. In other words, I go a bit crazy. It is not at all strange that I would reach out to the divine for help, and I got my answer from Athena. 

I have told this story before, but maybe it bears telling again. During one of my catastrophic turns at employment, of which I have had many, I had a Greek friend named Maria. She invited me to go to Greece, she had family there so we could stay with them and it would not cost that much. I could not go, the short notice would not give me enough time to save up the money (I have been to Europe twice, actually, but never to Greece) So, I asked her to just bring me a souvenir. By this time I'd already made my transition, long before, from Christianity. I'd been exploring the mythic cycles, Norse, Egyptian, even a little of the Greek, but not much of them. My heart was searching for help, for a connection to the divine, and then Maria came back from Greece and handed me a gift, a small statuette of Athena, which still sits on my altar to this day. (over 20 years now)

I am not prone to seeing things as signs, I tend to think too logically for that, even in my most hyper states, all the thoughts are really quite logical, just too fast, but this thing, sitting in my hands, it seemed like a sign to me. I'd been seeking, and Athena sort of bonked me over the head with a statue of herself. It is not coincidence, in my opinion, that the first deity I found myself drawn to this way was Athena, a deity most associated with wisdom, thought, and thoughtfulness. 

From there, I went whole hog. Learning who and what Athena was, I was also forced to see the divine as a far larger thing than I had thought in my upbringing. Learning of Athena also meant learning about Hephaestos and Aphrodite, Ares and Apollo. Of Theseus and Perseus, Herakles and Orpheus. Of Aristotle and Perikles. Of a once living theology that did not seek to limit wisdom, but expand upon it. An imperfect people who were at once highly civilized and deeply barbaric. Of Gods who did not seek to convince us of their perfection, but to accept that all things are light and dark, deep and shallow, and based on our own perceptions, good or bad. 

I've always been gay, but up until this time, I'd been very limited. Growing up as I did meant shying away from sexuality. My mental issues meant I, more often than not, chose to distance myself from people. I sought to seem normal, even though I felt like I was nothing of the sort. In seeking to distance myself, however, I just seemed stranger to the people around me, because I was so very hard to get to know. This is still true of me, and it is something I am trying to change. 

Yet then, in my 20s, with a budding sense of a new reality emerging around me, I also began to accept Aphrodite in my life. Of course, not knowing so much about her, I accepted parts of her but not others. I accepted the sexuality, the eroticism, and the raw physical aspect of the goddess, mostly ignoring the more sublime, emotional, and heavenly aspects. I am a dude, this is not strange, we tend to accept sex before emotion, and for some of us, it is hard to consolidate the two. Learning to do so is a lifelong path, one that Aphrodite continues to help me with. 

During my life I have also tried to end my life. I don't want to go into details, but after one such bout with those suicidal tendencies, I cam to realize that Hades was my "silent patron". That in all of that, death had refused to take me, and I must strive to fight those tendencies, and thanks to him, I have done so for 20 years. I have learned too that it is important to talk about suicide. If I have feelings of a suicidal nature, I should express them, not hold them in for the shame it brings, and by doing so alleviate those feelings. This comes from my acceptance of Aidoneus in my life. 

Hestia is a strange one for me, but since moving away from family, something I should likely like to eventually discuss since they were part of the reasons for my craziness, I have accepted Hestia in my life. I do not own a home, I am an apartment dweller, but this is my home, and in it there is a spirit of "welcoming" that many have commented on in the past, and I think Hestia is the reason. Every morning begins with a candle lighting at her altar, and every night ends with its extinguishing at that altar. 

These four deities form the core of my daily religious life. At some point or another during my every day I think or meditate on them. During work, the most stressful part of my day, Athena and Hades are with me, in my thoughts, and by allowing them in I try to maintain the balance in my head while Hestia and Aphrodite, two very different deities indeed, remind me of why I put myself through the stress that is work. 

As for disconnect, there are certainly some deities with whom I seem to feel little or no connection. 

Though I often pray to him, and I often post prayers to him on my HellenicPrayer twitter feed, I do not actually have much of a connection with Apollo. It is odd to me, because I see Apollo in a similar light as Athena. Both are deities of a high order. They are both deities associated with the heavenly more than the chthonic, yet Athena is a deeply held part of me, while Apollo is not. Oh, he is there, in my body's ability to heal, in my instinct for truth, etc., but those are all instinctive, natural things. 

Hephaestos too is a God with whom I always have a hard time connecting. Perhaps because my work is more service than creation. Perhaps because I don't have a sense of entrepreneurship or a deep sense of ambition. See, Hephaestos is a worker god. One could argue that building a web site and writing this blog is the work he means for me to do, but I don't see this as work, so I find myself often at a loss of to understand him. 

Zeus. I find that there are times when I feel a deep connection to this deity, and certainly I feel it when my heart skips a beat at the sudden sound of a thunderclap that has struck too close for comfort, but Zeus is an enormous being. All the Gods are enormous, mind you, but there is something about Zeus that simply seems too big to handle. He is harder to encapsulate in a theological thought experiment than the others, and while Hades has a similar feeling, I felt Hades' effect on my life directly, while with Zeus it is an all pervasive kind of feeling, and maybe it triggers a defensive mechanism in me. 

Whatever the case with these deities, I accept that at some level or another I am connected to all the Gods, yet on a conscious level, I definitely see some as being very connected and some barely connected, and the rest fall in between. 

With connection comes disconnection

Having posted my theory that all the Gods are in constant action in the world, and that we, as living thinking creatures, feel their influence then decide how to act upon them, I must now ask this question.

Since we feel the influences of the Gods and act upon many, but not all, thus forming connections with some Gods more than others, what of those Gods whose influences we choose not to act upon, are we disconnected from them?

I find the question interesting because it brings to mind the erroneous belief we as human beings seem to have, a conceit really, that we are separate from nature. That anything we do or say is somehow contrary to nature. Is it possible for human beings to disconnect from nature when we are, in fact, part of it? And since nature itself is a kin to a manifestation of the divine Gods and how they interact with each other and space/time, can we, any of us, ever truly be disconnected from any of the Gods?

As I was thinking about this the other day I was watching a TV show about a young woman who was diagnosed with a form of juvenile sociopathy. Now, I am not a psychiatrist, but if I remember correctly, sociopathy is a kind of disconnect between the emotional and the cognitive being. That is to say that although sociopaths often seem like they are emotionless, they are not, they are simply disconnected with their emotions so that they become unable to feel some emotions or others. Empathy, for example, is a big problem among those who suffer from forms of sociopathy, because they can be driven to act upon their impulses, their curiosities, without concern for how it might hurt or affect other people.

So, since emotion and cognition are natural processes, how is it they can be thus disconnected? And if it can happen within our own mental processes, why not with our own mental processes in relation to the influences of divinity?

Whatever the answer to that question may ultimately be, it is clear that people will act upon or be more heavily influenced by some divine forces but not others, and this is not always a matter of choice, but of our inborn instinctive reactions as well as our conscious ones.

I am a little crazy. Some 15 years ago I left Connecticut and moved to Ohio to be with a man I had fallen in love with. That relationship did not last more than a year, but my relationship with Dayton Ohio has lasted, and it has done so for a variety of reasons. The man I moved here to be with was also a Hellenistos, at least in so much as he was basically a Wiccan with Hellenic underpinnings, and while with him I managed to learn a special lesson, that I had not properly turned to the Gods to help me with the issues that had most been my adversaries for most of my life.

Some form of cyclothymia had a hold of me. Mood swings, rage, suicidal tendencies, all had been so strongly a part of me for so many years that I finally found, away from my family, and now alone after he and I split up, they were like demons haunting me. (not literally, mind you)

I had already been a Hellenistos for some time, years in fact, but now I turned to them in earnest. I began to seek out and understand what it was I felt and why, and in doing so I found myself more strongly drawn to the Goddess who had always been my patron deity, Athena. I began to understand that many of the things I felt could be dealt with, internally, by focussing my mind on Athena and seeking her power to ease my emotional mind and give me a stronger sense of logic. It is not a quick thing, it means slowly changing the way one thinks, but in addition to understanding that I could choose to draw on her influence I was also pulling away from another. Ares.

I have mentioned that I believe Artemis is also a goddess of emotion, of instinct and its many impulsive reactions to the world around us, but I have now also come to understand that when I drew on Athena's strength I was also pulling closer to an aspect of Artemis, the aspect of huntress.

The hunter doesn't just kill to kill, but also to control population. The goddess of instinct does not just cause impulses, but allows you to hunt them down in your mind and control them, and as I am getting closer and closer to moving forward in my star pattern, I am beginning to understand how much of who I have become over the last fifteen years has been due to not only the instincts I feel, but her power to force you to confront those instincts in combination with Athena's divine wisdom.

So, now that I have come to this realization, that Athena and Artemis have allowed me to pull away from Ares and his more vicious instinctive influences, where does that leave my relationship to that God? Can I, eventually, come to a good balance between these Gods and when I do, will I know it? Will I be too disconnected from Ares to realize I need him, because while I may never be able to be completely disconnected from him, I may be disconnected enough that I fail to recognize him as he gives me good things.

Am I wrong?

Interaction...

 

At this point, I think I need to take some time to examine something important to my personal theology, the interconnectedness of all reality, from the lowest levels to the ultimate wholeness of it, which includes the divine. 

 

It is important, as always, to remember that none of us knows everything. That certainty in belief is usually the sign of someone who is unwilling to think about what he believes. We have to be willing to see new things and accept or not accept them not based in whether it agrees with what we already know, or think we know, but based on whether or not it makes sense in a logical manner. 

 

Applying this kind of thinking to religion is, of course, problematic, because religion relies on a few things that, for those inclined to logic, are illogical. Faith, belief (not the same thing, by the way), personal experience, and group experience, often are undefinable, because they are personal, or shared on a limited basis, and as a result cannot be reproduced in a way that allows for examination. 

 

But it is important to try to apply this kind of thinking even to religion, even if in non-absolute ways. On the topic of totality, the interconnectedness of everything, it is also important to note that both religion and science have a few problems. Religion attempts to explain the totality of all "creation" in terms of the divine, and it is of course necessary to admit to ourselves that we simply do not know divinity in any concrete way. Science attempts to explain the totality of the universe through one of its most demanding and exacting languages, mathematics, and again, even the best scientist has to admit that the theories produced by mathematics cannot be accepted without observation and verification. 

 

In this science has the upper hand because unlike many who accept things on faith they seek to verify and prove rather than simply accept and not question. In either case, however, there are symbols and important concepts that come to define the cosmos and our place in it in ways that fill us with awe. 

 

It is my personal belief that the cosmos is like a meeting place for distinct forces, forces we call Gods, but which science may, perhaps, refer to simply as fundamental forces. By this I mean that the cosmos we see around us is the result of the interaction of several forces, like water is the result of the combining of two distinct atoms in a particular configuration (H₂O). Myth, for example, tells us that at the beginning there was chaos, and that from the chaos arose Nyx, Erebus, Aether, Hemera, Eros, and Ge, and probably a couple of others I may be forgetting. To me, these are clearly representative of the fundamental reality of the beginning of the cosmos. 

 

The big bang is the chaos, a spectacular explosion that renders the nothingness that was (nothingness is not quite right, but I can't think of a better word as I write this) into a turbulent mass of interactions. Nyx is the night, space itself, Erebus is the darkness, beyond the shockwave of the big bang and together, space and darkness are joined and bring about what are often seen as the darker aspects of the divine, such as death and decay. But with the explosion comes Hemera, the day, and Aether, the space within the shockwave. That is, the turbulent space unfolding from the big bang itself. Then there is Eros, a very special power. You see, Eros is there as the chaos of the cosmos begins to coalesce, and as a result, there is gravity, and from gravity there comes matter. Eros, though a weak power in comparison to the chaos around him, is a very pervasive and patient power. It interacts with everything. He draws things together as well as binding them. Then there is Ge, matter itself, which we call The Earth. Together, these forces in interaction, form what we call the universe. 

 

Of course, we are beginning to understand that the universe is much more than what we can directly observe. It would appear to be multi dimensional, some dimensions perhaps being hidden from our view yet at the same time interacting with the rest of the cosmos. Things like Dark Matter are poised to be proven without doubt, even if the proof we already have is nearly conclusive enough for all but the most stubborn. 

 

For us, however, I want to consider the interactions of our Gods and how they affect us. 

 

See, we are living, thinking creatures, but we are not in any way separate from the universe. We like to think we are, but we are not. Everything about us, our behavior, our thinking processes, all of it follows the "laws" of the cosmos. Laws which are part and parcel of how the Gods interact with different things. 

 

For this conversation, we accept that the Gods are in some way or another synonymous with the forces that drive the universe. And we accept, though it is not really a matter of faith but provable fact, that we are affected by those forces on a daily basis. 

 

The forces of the cosmos, the Gods, are all pervasive. A God does not decide one day to shoot you with the arrow of love just to fuck with you, for example, but we are affected by them continually, and we are forced to endure ebbs and flows of their influence based not just on the forces themselves, but our interaction with them, because in spite of our influence from the divine forces of the universe, we are still thinking creatures with free will, and so our decisions affect how we cause those influences to be stronger or weaker in our lives. 

 

So, we are constantly being influenced by Artemis. It is a primal power, one that forces us to make decisions on a daily basis because hers is a power that is instinctual. Hers is a power that drives us to behave in ways that make sense from a purely instinctive perspective. It is part of our animal instincts, part of our survival and predatory instincts. But, Artemis is more than that, and so as we interact with her power, her force, her natural essence, we must rely on our own mental ability, our own sense of logic, of emotional stability to set how we react to that influence. 

 

But it is more than that, because just as we are being influenced by Artemis, we are also being influenced by Aphrodite, Athena, Hera, Dionysos, Hephaestos, Ares, and Hestia. We are, in fact, being influenced by all the Gods to different degrees, always. 

 

I think that the influences of various Gods, and their various aspects, is different on different levels of the cosmos. Eros, for example, is a force that draws things together. He draws light to the black hole, but he also draws men together in friendship, and lover to each other. It is not an emotion, the way Aphrodite's power manifests, but a deeply instinctual need in mankind to be one with another. A deep need for companionship and contact. It is easy to see how one aspect of his power, the literal force of gravity, can be seen as more powerful than the other, the need for human interaction, but both have a deep impact on their respective fields of influence. 

 

But when we are drawn to others, and then also influenced by Aphrodite we have that wonderful mix of emotions we call lust and love, and when another influence, a need for bonding, to form a family unit comes into play, you are now being influenced by yet a third power, Hera, and it is the combination of these, that forms the union we call marriage, in whatever permutation it may manifest in your life. 

 

We begin to see that the many influences of the Gods can become complex. The trifold influences that create the basic family unit can then be infused with others, like the wisdom of Athena, as we have children and seem to impart our knowledge to them, and the power of Ares, and contentious issues brought about by individual characteristics create friction in the family (Eris) and again, the Wisdom of Athena must be brought to bear to fix the problems that may arise, or perhaps dissolve the union for the greater good of the individuals. 

 

In groups, the influences become even more complex. Ties of friendship, civic duty, fear, aggression, all manifest in the group just as they do in the individual, and in groups we are influenced yet again. From the influence of artistry from Hephaestos and Apollo applied to create beauty for the group to enjoy to the use of those very same influences to create implements of war to defend the group, we see that these influences carry weight and force our hand (in reaction to them) on a daily basis. From the smallest family unit to the largest nation.

 

So, understanding this, and understanding that on a physical level, these same forces apply to far greater things, the way gravity, a relatively weak force, can also create the monstrosity that is a black hole, so too do the forces of attraction and instinct (things behaving as they do because they must) affect us deeply even as we often seek to deny those influences. 

 

The power of man lies there, in that innate ability to decide how to act. In accord with those influences or in denial of them. It is our ability to decide what to act upon that makes us what we are, and it is in deciding what influences mean the most of us that we decide which Gods we have the most contact with on a daily basis, and in turn, which are most likely to receive our adoration and worship. 

 

Blessed be, and happy earth day!

Flowering Aphrodite

It starts as always
The blessed Earth
Her flesh made moist
Her heart made fertile

And by the edge
Where sea and earth meet
There steps forth a form of utter beauty

To the carpet
Of bright green grass
She steps and walks newborn
Attended by the seasons of the world

And at the edges
Where plant meets sky
There emerges a bud

Into bright bloom it grows
Bright and delicate
The stunning rose
In subtle imitation of its mistress

Into the air
The scent flies
Free and alluring

That beauteous flower
Gorgeous beyond all others
Yet but a pale manifestation
Just a reflection of her divine beauty

By the light of Morning...

By the light of morning

In the chill air

We greet you, o Helios, Lord of the Sun

 

 

And at this hour

And with all our hopes laid bare

We seek you, o Helios, Lord of the Sun

 

 

For when the Sun rises

And the light of day kisses our skins

We will know you, o Helios, Lord of the Sun

 

 

So watch us today

As we play, as we toil

Watch and guard over us, o Helios, Lord of the Sun

 

Puritanical Attitudes...

I am a dude.

A man.

I like to think about sex, have sex, and then think about it some more. It is the way I am built, as a man, and I don't apologize for it or try to hide it behind façades of puritanical saintliness, and neither should you. And, I say I am a man as part of the introduction there because in our patriarchal culture, these are things generally accepted about men, but if you are a woman, and you think about sex, like sex, and have lots of sex, you shouldn't apologize either. 

Since I am focusing on Artemis during this path on my star, and if you are unaware, this is what I am talking about:

 

I started at the 12 o'clock position, with Hestia, and then followed the path to each as I found myself reaching a point of terminus in my meditations of the God in question. The rotation goes toward the right, so, Hestia to Apollo, Apollo to Hera, etc. At this point, I am at Artemis, and have been for some time. There is no time limit, just at some point I reach a moving on feeling, and do so.

So, because I am at the Artemis point, I have been pondering sex in relation to what Artemis represents to us, in our modern world, with regard to sex. As I have posted, Artemis is a Goddess of instinct, of nature, etc., and as such she is also part of the mating instinct. Not the actual sexual intercourse part, but of the instincts that drive us to propagate the species. But that doesn't change the fact that sex is part of my life, our lives, and on a daily basis we all encounter things that make us think of sex, want sex, seek out sex. 

And if this is the case, if even the chaste Artemis is intrinsically tied to the human sexual drive on some level, then is it fair for us to subscribe to the highly puritanical and sex hating attitudes that our culture, and Christianity, try to push on us, even if it is done hypocritically in a nation where sex sells?

I have to admit that, in spite of my free thinking with regard to sex, I am still trapped in the puritanical attitudes of our culture. And if anything, Artemis is calling on me to set myself free from these, to learn to love all aspects of myself regardless of how society views me. That includes my homosexuality, my slight bisexuality, my love of comic books, my inability to dress worth a damn, etc. And if I like having a threesome from time to time, then so be it, accept that and be open and honest about it.

Now, this may seem odd, but it seems to be on a path to helping me release myself from the shyness that has often trapped me, caged me, and made me feel inferior to others. I often see people having fun and wonder what it must be like to be like them, to be so free, yet in other ways I also look at people and wonder how they can live so trapped by strictures and sexually repressive attitudes. How can they live their whole lives in closets.

But we all have closets, don't we? We all need to crack open those doors and step out to see that there is a lovely forest of wonders awaiting us, and all we need to do to be realized, to be free, is to run through it naked and unafraid. Puritanical ideas are something we have to liberate ourselves from, and it is an uphill battle, because Christianity has broken us down, forced us into some kind of weird slavery that, even when we let go of Christ, even when we realize Christianity is a lie, it is still  something we have to battle in the culture, because the entire culture has been permeated with it. As Hellenistoi, Pagans, Wiccans, Asatruar, whatever you may be, we have to learn to separate ourselves from the notions that enslave us to Christianity, and that includes sex, because we as a people must allow ourselves to be what we are, without them telling us we have to be something else.

Malevolence

On the opposite side lies malevolence, the desire to do wrong or harm to others.

 

The ancients saw many forms of malevolence in the world. They believed in things like magical charms, curses, and spirits that sought vengeance for wrong done to them. The ancients also believed that the Gods could act in ways that would seem malevolent to us. They could punish us, sometimes for great misdeeds, like the killing of a parent, or for small things, like not offering the proper respect to their temples. But the malevolence of the Gods, if we choose to even call it that, is not one based in evil. The Gods did not act out of hatred toward us, though one could argue the myths of the persecution of the wives of Zeus by his divine wife Hera are filled with hatred, they fall into a different category of myth than I am discussing here, because one could argue that the many wives of Zeus, the mortal and divine women he impregnated all over creation, were mythologically linked to Hera herself, aspects of her, but that is a discussion for the future I think.

 

When Artemis changes Actaeon into a stag, she does not kill him, she offers him the ability to survive. When Semele foolishly asks Zeus to see him in his divine form (naked, if you will) he warns her, begs her almost, to ask for something else, anything else, before he finally acquiesces and kills her in the process. When Arachne challenges Athena, she does so knowing there is a price, a price she is willing to pay. Humanity makes bad choices, and the Gods make the price clear. Failure can bring you misery, but failure to try, to seek, to explore the possibilities is part of who and what we are.

 

We humans, however, have a tendency to lay blame. On each other, on the Gods, on nature itself, and seldom do we seem to take responsibility for one particular thing, that we are creatures of free will and we choose to take these risks that sometimes bring us misery and misfortune. The Gods merely give us opportunity, and perhaps shine a light in the right way from time to time, but what the Gods think is the right path and what you may perceive as the right path are different things. The Gods do, after all, have a vast point of view not limited by space and time (meaning not limited to aging and mortality) and so that path that brought you misery yesterday may be the path you needed to take, the lessons you needed to learn in order to become something great tomorrow.