Hellenistic - Blog Posts

…. So I’m kinda really new to this whole Hellenistic polytheism thing in terms of actual worship. I know I can’t do much in terms of the traditional stuff because of where I live and my current situation, but for the last year when I’ve been sad over a breakup, I peeled a pomegranate with my bare hands.

Last time I did my little ritual, I talked to Persephone (idk if she heard me or not but it felt nice and a little less lonely) and told her that she made a lovely choice for fruit.

… that was a few months ago. I feel like she’s a pretty understanding person/goddess in knowing how much I can do right now, but I kinda feel a little bad that I haven’t done it since January (or so). I know it’s not pomegranate seeds, but I want to thank her for being patient with me (and also to like… not have a mental breakdown again).

I dunno what to do right now…

Any suggestions are welcome.

[...a son, of many shifts, blandly cunning, a robber, a cattle driver, a bringer of dreams, a watcher by night, a thief at the gates, one who was soon to show forth wonderful deeds among the deathless gods.]

Does anyone else on the pagan community feel genuine love for their deities? Not in the romantic sense, but more in the way you love a family member. It's especially strong coming from a religion where you never felt a genuine connection to "your" God. You felt fear, obligation, confusion, curiosity, and maybe love on some level, but this love is different.

It is finally understanding the feeling people around you described from being in church every Sunday. It's growing up finding the congregation's hands in the air, the singing and crying, the raw emotion to be... unusual, strange. What were they feeling? How can I feel this way? You try to forge that connection, but you're never successful. You start to doubt the God you grew up with. You wonder if he hates you, or if you're not trying hard enough — if you're broken.

...Then, one day, you find what you've been searching for all this time, somewhere else. You experience the feeling of finally meeting your soulmate, finally finding your place or your tribe. You experience the pure joy, the peace, the childlike wonder, the longing, the wisdom, the bond, the reverence, the admiration. You experience an unfamiliar tightness In your chest when you pray to them or make offerings.

I've never felt more in love than I am with my gods. Ive never felt more at home, more at peace.

I hope to feel this way for the rest of my days, because what is life without the gods? What is life without something beyond this world, yet at the same time, an integral part of understanding the meaning of existence on this physical plane — on this planet?

them sillies

... Ἥρη δὲ κραιπνῶς προσεβήσετο Γάργαρον ἄκρον Ἴδης ὑψηλῆς· ἴδε δὲ νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς. ὡς δ' ἴδεν, ὥς μιν ἔρως πυκινὰς φρένας ἀμφεκάλυψεν, οἷον ὅτε πρῶτόν περ ἐμισγέσθην φιλότητι εἰς εὐνὴν φοιτῶντε, φίλους λήθοντε τοκῆας.....

---Hera reached quickly the top of Mount Gargano on the high Ida, and she saw Zeus gathering the clouds, and when he saw, passion (ἔρως) invaded his wise soul, as when for the first time they bonded in love and went to the bed, unknown to his parents----

(Illiad -  XIV, 293-295)

Once Zeus took his power, decided to take to wife and noticed the beauty, worthy to became the Gods' Queen, in his sister Hera, who lived isolated in Eubea's Island, along with her nurse Makris, in the house of Thetis. Since it was very difficult getting close to her, because she watched assiduously over the nurse 'cause of her early age, in a cold winter day, when Hera were by chance alone and lost in a country roead, Zeus used a strategy and in the form of a cuckoo numb and shaking from cold, he leaned of her shoulder. The Goddess took pity and warmed him up with her robe, starting to caressing him. The cuckoo transformed himself in an handsome and attractive boy who made himself known as Zeus, who declared his love to the Goddess and asked her hand. Heca accepted, so the wedding were celebrated on the Olympus at all Gods presence. The wedding between Zeus and Hera is ofter told as an happy marriage even if Zeus had lot of nymphs and mortal women as lovers, whom in the end these unions were symbolics, for example to indicate what the Earth needed  rains to be fecundated, or the Moon runs through the vault of heaven from east to west. These adventures sparked the jealousy of Hera and lot of poets attributed this kind of jealousy to heaven events, even it is told that the king and the queen of heaven, with their fights determinated rough hurricanes and cold winters. Despite everything, the divine lovers continued to be perhaps the only durable in the Olympus and from the marriage of Zeus and Hera were born four children: Hebe, Eileithyia, Ares and Hephestus