Anna from Athens

Animal Sports Photography, Belgian Shepherd news, and my occasional rumblings.

[ashkaztra]

All the plagiarism, environmental and negative effects on the ability to think and research that comes with generative AI aside —

I just don't understand the concept of outsourcing fun.

Like — When I write or draw, or do anything else creative, I do it because I think the process is fun. Frustrating as hell at times, but ultimately fun. Why the hell would I want a computer to have fun for me?

I want an AI assistant that can do my dishes and clean the house so I have less chores and more time to have fun. That's the kind of AI that would tempt me. But to outsource fun so I can do — What? Doomscroll more? Why the hell would I want that? Have you seen the dumpster fire that is our world right now? We need hobbies to keep us from mentally and emotionally imploding more than ever.

[ashkaztra]

I really have to start checking book genres more closely. This is the fourth time this year I've started a book I loved the summary of and somehow missed that it was a YA novel.

Now, I'm not one of those people who think that YA = bad, not at all. There are some really good YA books and writers. But I'm 40 years old and I have very little interest in the kind of teenage/young adult issues that always comes with these books. Sorry, I got this book for the ghosts and the witchcraft, not high school drama.

If I'm reading about realistic issues, I want to read about realistic issues that I actually have to deal with. Less "haunted but I have to do my homework and deal with the Popular Kids" and more "there's a demon but I have to pay taxes and feed the cat".

I don't have a lot of things I consider triggering to read about, so I don't always check details too much, but I really have to start because I've had several books this year I've found myself thinking "this would be so good with older characters".

Still going to finish my current read, because it's not a bad book at all! It's just not my age category of choice.

[tommyknards-archive]

TRUE BLOOD | 3.03

[annafromathens]

The best of True Blood

[aur-ochs]

The Homeric Oracle - Comprehensive Edition

The practice of divining via verses from Homer’s epics is well-established among the ancient greeks, with references to the practice being made in many writings and plays of the time. A list of verses used as responses is recorded in several different papyri and they’ve always been the same verses in the same order, implying a well-established text being copied. Unfortunately, these texts individually are incomplete in their recording of the method used for this type of divination. I, having nothing better to do, have brought these elements back together to describe the homeric oracle in the way it was intended to be performed.

FIRSTLY: only certain times on certain days of the month are viable for this divination. Unlike the verses, these times are seen to vary somewhat based on the text where they’re recorded, but the most complete chart is found in the PGM.

(Source: PGM VII 155 - 167)

Greeks used a different system of days of the month so 31 isn’t indicated here. I would assume it’s not viable just to be safe.

SECOND: One must first say a specific prayer to Apollo before using the oracle. This was quite a pain to get a hold of since the only page where it’s preserved doesn’t have a publicly available translation. It’s composed, fittingly, of disjointed verses from the Odyssey and the Iliad.

“ Hear me, O king that art haply in the rich land of Lycia

or haply in Troy, but everywhere hast power to hearken unto

a man that is in sorrow, even as now sorrow is come upon me.

And tell me this also truly, that I may know full well,

what I desirest most, and the dearest wish of my heart. “

(source: Oxyrhynchus 3831)

THIRD: The oracle itself is performed by rolling three 6-sided dice, or one dice thrown three times. You record the 3 numbers from this throw and this gives you the identifier for the verse.

A full list of the verses can be found in PGM IV, but I dislike the translation of Homer they use to write english versions of the verses. I highly recommend this resource which lets you search the original text by both book number and line number, so you can see exactly which original greek lines were meant to be indicated and compare them side-by-side to the translation.

Odyssey in greek, Odyssey in english

Iliad in greek, Iliad in english

I put all the verses into a spreadsheet for my own convenience, so feel free to use this image as a cheatsheet if you don’t want to have the pdf open all the time. My notation here is basically O for Odyssey, I for Iliad, the middle number indicates which book of the text, and the last number is the line. An asterisk indicates a missing verse. When there are multiple verses listed, that just means that identical or near-identical text is also found in those locations.

(Source: PGM IV 1-148)

Ultimately, this technique can be used for just about anything since its responses cover such a wide variety of topics. Some even compare it to “newspaper horoscopes”, noting the vagueness of its answers. However, I think it’s a bit more profound than that, given that this system was almost certainly transmitted to a priest or magician by Apollo himself. Other PGM spells contain invocations of Apollo and specifically note that he can “teach the art of divination via the Epics” in this way. It’s also notable that historians are unable to find any pattern to which verses are assigned to which dice rolls, which may have helped to insert missing verses, implying some semi-random method of assignment. It’s my eventual goal to retrieve these missing verses from Apollo and make the oracle complete again.

It’s worth noting that a site exists to perform the oracle for you, and uses the correct verses and everything - I can never spell the name right so here’s the link. My friends and I have had wonderful results using this tool to communicate with entities, but we suspect that its random number generation is a little skewed, so I would still recommend throwing your own dice if you want to perform the oracle.

[kuutamosonaatti]

The Procession 

Panoply Vase Animation Project

[annafromathens]

How cool is this! :D

[nehetisingsforhekate]

Hekate's Many Names' Sources

Sources for Hekate’s Many Names:

This post explores where I garnered the Many Names of Hekate. These sources may not focus exclusively on Hekate, in fact, many of them only mention Her in passing or a paragraph or three.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 My Hekate FAQ

Primary Sources:

Apollonios Rhodios, 3.861-63, 1246. as listed on theoi.com.                 Argonautika. Athenaeus. Aristophanes, fragment 388. Euripides, Helen.                 Iphigenia. Grave Stele in Athens The Greek Magical Papyri, trans. Betz. Hesiod, Theogony. Hippocrates’ Of Sacred Disease. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Kallimachos. Lycophron, Alexandra. Michael Italicus, Letter 17. Oracle Table from Pergamon dedicated to Hekate. The Orphic Argonautika, 902. Ovid, Metamorphoses. Pausanias, Description of Greece. Pindar, Paean 2. Porphyry, Fragment III. Suidas. Sulla, “The Privileges of Free Nontributary States.” Temple of Zeus in Nemea, inscription. Various numismatic sources.

Secondary Sources:

Athanassakis, Apostolos N. Hesiod, Johns Hopkins, 2004.  —————-. The Homeric Hymns, Johns Hopkins, 2004.  —————-. The Orphic Hymns, Johns Hopkins, 2013.  Bell, Robert, Women of Classical Mythology, ABC-CLIO, 1991.  Betz, Hans Dieter, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells, Vol. 1, University               of Chicago, 1992. Brown, Robert, Semitic Influence in Hellenic Mythology, William and Norgate, 1898. 

Cavendish, Richard. Man, Myth and Magic, vol. 1, Marshall Cavendish,  1970. Corrigan, Kevin. Reading Plotinus: A Practical Introduction to Neoplatonism, Purdue Univ. 2004. Farnell, Lewis Richard. The Cults of the Greek States, vol. 2, Clarendon Press, 1896. Ford, Andrew. Homer: the Poetry of the Past, Cornell, 1994. Forlong,  J.G.R. Encyclopedia of Religions or Faiths of Man, vols. 1 through 3, republished through           Kessinger Publishing, 2003. Garraffo, Salvatore, et al. “Taranto,”  Institutio per la storia e L'rcheologia della magna grecia, 1995. Garrison, Elise P. Groaning Tears: Ethical and Dramatic Aspects of Suicide in Greek Tragedy, Brill, 1995. Heidel, William Arthur. The Day of Yahweh, Century Co. 1929. Henry, Elisabeth. Orpheus and His Lute: Poetry and the Renewal of Life, SIU Press, 1992. Johnston, Sarah Iles. Hekate Soteira, Scholar’s Press, 1999.                 Restless Dead, University of California Press, 1999. Kerenyi, Karl. Hermes: Guide of Souls, Spring Pub. 1996. Knight, Richard Payne. The Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology: An Inquiry, Nabu, 2010. Lewis, Charlton T. An Elementary Latin Dictionary, American Book co. 1890. Newton, Charles T. A History of Discoveries at Halicarnassus, Cnidus, and Branchidae, vol. 2, RP Pullan, 1863. The Numismatic Circular and Catalogue of Coins, Tokens, Commemorative and War Medals, Books and Cabinets, vol. 16, Spink and Son, 1908. Pomey, Francois and Andrew Tooke, Tooke’s Pantheon of the Heathen Gods and Illustrious Heroes,       repub. Kessinger Pub, 2010. Rabinowitz, Jacob. The Rotting Goddess: The Origin of the Witch in Classical Antiquity. Autonomedia,     1998. Ramsay, William Mitchell, The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, Clarendon Press, 1897. Ronan, Stephen. The Goddess Hekate, Chthonios, 1989. Smith, William. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, Taylor and Walton, 1844. Supplementum epigraphicum graecum (SEG) 42, 1816.

Other Sources: The Perseus Project: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/ The Archimedes Project: http://archimedes.fas.harvard.edu/ Voces Magicae. Leonardo. “Hekate in the PGM,” http://voces-magicae.com/2015/04/17/hekate-in-the-pgm/ 

[darachbeo]

real

[brookbee]

David Bowie and Mick Ronson performing "Time," 1973

[dappermouth]

A coal-black prince, on cloven feet.

[awesome-brick]

reblog if you are ASEXUAL, support ASEXUAL PEOPLE, or SECRETLY A DRAGON IN HUMAN FORM

[silentthevoice]

Petition to change “he looked at her like she was the sun” to “he looked at her like she was the moon” and any other variation bc I look at the moon in wonder and love and amazement while I’ve only ever just squinted angrily at the sun

[louisamayanniecat]

He looked at her like she was the sun, in that he never looked at her except in frustration. He basked in her warmth, he complained when she was gone, but he never looked. On days she was muted, he complained. On days she was stronger, he hid from her. He never looked at her until she was leaving, and in the beauty of the sunset he wondered how he’d never seen her before.

[musterniillustrates]

blooms -  the zine amrit brar, 2017

compilation zine of illustrations, now available in print.

buy the zine | instagram | patreon

[musterniillustrates]

made flesh amrit brar, 2017

short semi-stream-of-consciousness zine. i like putting my art and textposts/tweets/random journaling stuff together, especially when they end up being unlikely companion pieces. a lot of these are illustrations from the marigold tarot with the accompanying notes/text i haven’t shared alongside the cards yet. i’m planning on bringing printed copies with me to short run in seattle this weekend!

| instagram | shop | patreon |

[annafromathens]

Wheelchair tennis - What you need to know | Tennis magazine | TennisMessage Magazine

What are the basic rules and biggest tournaments in wheelchair tennis? Two bounce rule: In wheelchair tennis, the players have the right to let the ball bounce...

A quick intro to wheelchair tennis.

[berlynn-wohl]

[annafromathens]

So perfect!!!

[spaceslayer]

Buffy: Is that why you’re always cleaning your glasses? So you won’t have to see what we’re doing? Giles: Tell no one.

[marisatomay]

we;re watching the avengers and bc j*ss wh*don is weak and didnt have the spine to play toxic by britney spears when loki wrecked that museum gala we did it for him and honestly? it made the movie 248375% better

[marisatomay]

ur welcome

[annafromathens]

I never knew how perfect this would be! :D