you ever seen anyone lose their mind on mic?

hi!

[caprisun-helpol]

hi there, were @the-capricorn-system! they/them, it&/its&, or !/!s (mix it up a little!), call us caprisun collectively.

this blog is for us to talk about our religiousness - were a hellenistic polytheist, collectively (although grahams an atheist) and wanted a space to talk about that that isnt just a notebook.

we worship lord apollo, mainly (to the point that hes actively spoken to us), and also want to worship lady artemis and a couple others.

tagging system:

#general musings - talking tag

#others speak - reblogs

#[headmate].txt - to signify which headmate is talking. may use multiple in one post, because we often cofront and stuff.

other tags will be added as we go along!

[helpoldoll2]

𝜗𝜚⋆₊˚ just a reminder...

⋆˚࿔ aphrodite loves your face no matter how much you pick at its flaws.

⋆˚࿔ apollo makes the sun shine for you even when you're at your lowest.

⋆˚࿔ artemis quiets the world around you when your aching body needs rest.

⋆˚࿔ ares watched every single atrocity that has happened on this planet so you wouldn't have to.

⋆˚࿔ athena tries to make you see the logic of getting better and not staying stuck where you are mentally when you've struggled too long.

⋆˚࿔ hades knows it's not your time yet.

⋆˚࿔ hermes has noticed you don't joke as often.

⋆˚࿔ hephaestus wonders if you'd find comfort in building things the way he does.

⋆˚࿔ nike is waiting for you to heal.

⋆˚࿔ hera would silence all of tartarus if it would ease your pain.

⋆˚࿔ zeus makes storms so you have reasons to stay in and rest when the world is far too much for you to handle.

⋆˚࿔ when hecate goes for walks with persephone, they discuss subtle little things to do to make you feel better.

⋆˚࿔ poseidon wishes you'd realize his oceans weren't as salty as your tears.

⋆˚࿔ dionysus gives your friends the idea to come over for a movie night and comfort you.

⋆˚࿔ eros constantly bothers his mother, asking if she'd help him find a lover for you and begging to know if it would ease your pain.

⋆˚࿔ asclepius nudges you towards finding help if things get that bad.

⋆˚࿔ the muses are there when you finally laugh at something you see, whether it's on TV, in public, with your friends or just on your fyp.

⋆˚࿔ hestia watches lovingly as you finally prepare yourself a proper meal for the first time in ages.

[forthegothicheroine]

I’m not a classicist, but I suspect one of the reasons so many of the Greek gods are portrayed so unflatteringly was less because they were seen as villains than because they represented their domains.  Of course Zeus sometimes misuses his power, that’s what a king does.  Of course Artemis’s wrath is wild and painful, that’s what nature can be.  Of course Hades snatched away a young girl from her mother’s arms, that’s what death does.  This is one of the reasons callout posts for some gods comparing them negatively to ‘nicer’ gods are kind of missing the point.

[selavy]

as someone who is partially a classicist, this is a better analysis of Greek mythology as a whole than 99.95% of the takes I’ve seen on here (and a substantial number of the takes I’ve seen in ~academia~)

[earhartsease]

we also suspect the gods were to humans like the elements, vast and out of control and therefore like dysfunctional parents with too much power, that’s how they read most of the time, like “mummy and daddy are fighting” but mountains are getting exploded

[caprisun-helpol]

THIS IS ALSO WHY ZEUS HAD SO MANY KIDS BTW. he was the FERTILE rain.

[kurzler]

a quick psa to anyone recently getting into greek mythology and is a victim of tumblr and/or tiktok misconceptions:

-there is no shame in being introduced to mytholgy from something like percy jackson, epic the musical or anything like that, but keep in mind that actual myths are going to be VERY different from modern retellings

-the myth of medusa you probably know (her being a victim of poseidon and being cursed by athena) isn't 100% accurate to GREEK mythology (look up ovid)

-there is no version of persephone's abduction in which persephone willingly stays with hades, that's a tumblr invention (look up homeric hymn to demeter)

-as much as i would like it, no, cerberus' name does not mean "spot" (probably a misunderstanding from this wikipedia article)

-zeus isn't the only god who does terrible things to women, your fav male god probably has done the same

-on that note, your fav greek hero has probably done some heinous shit as well

-gods are more complicated than simply being "god of [insert thing]", many titles overlap between gods and some may even change depending on where they were worshipped

-also, apollo and artemis being the gods of the sun and the moon isn't 100% accurate, their main aspects as deities originally were music and the hunt

-titans and gods aren't two wholly different concepts, titan is just the word used to decribe the generation of gods before the olympians

-hector isn't the villain some people make him out to be

-hephaestus WAS married to aphrodite. they divorced. yes, divorce was a thing in ancient greece. hephaestus' wife is aglaia

-ancient greek society didn't have the same concepts of sexuality that we have now, it's incorrect to describe virgin goddesses like artemis and athena as lesbians, BUT it's also not wholly accurate to describe them as aromantic/asexual, it's more complex than that

-you can never fully understand certain myths if you don't understand the societal context in which they were told

-myths have lots and lots of retellings, there isn't one singular "canon", but we can try to distinguish between older and newer versions and bewteen greek and roman versions

-most of what you know about sparta is probably incorrect

-reading/waching retellings is not a substitute to reading the original myths, read the iliad! read the odyssey! i know they may seem intimidating, but they're much more entertaining than you may think

greek mythology is so complex and interesting, don't go into it with preconcieved notions! try to be open to learn!

[skipperdamned]

It's also worth nothing that the Greek World was not a monolith, it was a collection of city-states, each with their own societies and variations on Hellenic culture; Gods and Goddesses had radically different personalities and portfolios from island to island, and even between different cults on the same island. The modern accepted interpretations we see today are synthesized from later writers like Ovid, who were attempting to codify a specific Greek pantheon and culture from the disparate societies around the Aegean.

[rainbowgod666]

@comicaurora

[comicaurora]

yep, just like everything else, greek mythology gets more complicated and less clear-cut the further down you go, but it is extremely worth the dive

[genderkoolaid]

Also, not to be a religion nerd on main, but please keep in mind that Greek mythology did not come out of nowhere, and ancient Greek religious beliefs and practices extended far beyond mythology. In fact, the vast majority of the time, myths were created to explain pre-existing traditions, not the other way around. Myths were told for a variety of purposes, and it is hard to fully understand them without understanding ancient Greek culture and ancient Greek religion and the real human beings who created these stories for religious purposes. You do not have a full and complete understanding of any ancient Greek god just by reading myths, because those gods were not just literary inventions. There are many aspects of various gods, or entire divinities, who were extremely important in people's everyday lives but never featured heavily in panhellenic myths.

Keep in mind that once Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe, these stories were re-interpreted as all being secretly about Christian mythology but retold by Satan to confuse people, and the impact of Christian chauvinism continues to linger in how many people engage with this stories. The idea that all polytheistic gods are essentially just superpowered humans who are evil and reckless and immoral is at best a massive, massive reduction in the wide variety of ways ancient polytheists engaged with their gods and religious views on morality and the gods. At worst it is part of the "religious evolution" model in which polytheism is just a primitive, less-evolved version of the True Religion, which is monotheistic Christianity (with animism being the "least evolved").

If you really like Greek mythology, I'd highly recommend learning a little bit about how actual ancient Greek religion worked. And even if you don't want to, at least keep in mind that these stories genuinely mattered to real people (and continue to matter to many modern polytheists) and that the ways in which we, in Christian cultures, talk about them is often heavily shaped by Christian chauvinism even when we don't realize it.

ESPECIALLY when these are Greek stories, and non-Greeks in the Anglosphere + the non-Greek West tend to ignore that we are not the primary inheritors of this cultural legacy. These stories do not exist just to be entertaining to modern Anglos. They exist outside of us and in a variety of different cultural contexts, and that matters, even though we've been taught to view Greek mythology as uncritically "ours" to interpret however we want

[seasaltandwisdom]

you cannot be anti-immigrant and a Zeus worshipper.

being an anti-immigrant hellenic polytheist is directly against the Gods, and you are not welcome to my blog.

[whatkindoftrickeryisthis]

I truly think that one of the best things you can do with your polytheistic practise is to stop listening to random people on the internet.

Don’t listen to the people who tell you that the gods don’t care about or love you. Don’t listen to the people who tell you an offering of water is not good enough. Don’t listen to the people who say it’s a requirement for show of devotion to have expensive items strewn across your altar. Don’t listen to people who tell you that you should have an altar even if you can’t. Don’t listen to people who suggest your disability makes you worthless to the gods because you can’t do what others can.

Try to find and make your own experiences with the gods, and look at what works for you and them. Please don’t let some random post on the internet stress you out and make you think you are doing something wrong (chances are, you’re not, especially if it’s absurd statements like the above).

[rosary-enthusiast]

I will perhaps have people mad at me for this, but it’s my passionate opinion that we, as Hellenists, or really any ‘pagan’ worshippers, should not demonize Christianity, & should not hold ourselves above other religions.

Not being Christian is now not the default, & in many ways, non-Christians are mistreated, however this was not always the case. There was a time when worshippers of gods familiar to us were the colonizers, & the oppressors, who martyred Christians.

On top of this, when you see yourself as inherently better than Christians, you are likely to fall into the fallacy of being unable to see your own Christian influences. Many of you speak of divinity in a way reflective of Christianity, many of you hold onto the idea of humans as inherently dirty. Sometimes, you’re influenced by other traditions & you don’t even notice- for instance, I’ve seen Wiccan practice touted as if it’s something ancient or inherent to Hellenism.

Sometimes I see people lamenting the fact that there are churches instead of temples, saying outright that it would be better if everyone was a Hellenist. I feel people forget what it was once like when there was only temples- it was not free, it was not safe for women, for foreigners, for the lower class. Believers in the Theoi did not become more moral then Christians solely though their faith in the Gods.

We have just as much potential to be harmful, bigoted & cruel as Christians. If you do not deconstruct, & if you hold anger against others for their faith, you are not breaking a cycle, you are continuing it.

[applefoam]

Studying for Athena is the only way I can get through it at this point, sigh.

[queer-pagan]

Something cute to counteract all the drama and motivate me to do more research:

HelPol community, what is one lesser known Greek God/Hero that you worship, and what has been your favorite part about Them or your worship of Them?

[wisdom-devotee]

Hephaestion is very encouraging?? Every time I don’t want to do something I need to do, its always his playlist that I gravitate to, and even though it’s not super different in vibes to a ton of my other devotional playlists, it’s very motivational.

Tiresias is the only hero I can visualise. I can’t visualise deities either. Maybe Athena, but not as clearly.

Not sure about a favourite thing with Melinoë, maybe the connection to childhood

[caprisun-helpol]

Hi. I saw this it seems relevant to you i think/silly/pos

LMAO yeah! yeah thats relevant to our interests!

[rose-by-the-sea]

Aphrodite loves sex workers and victims of sexual assault and intersex people and people who are insecure about their body/self harm and nonwhite people and queer people and fat people btw. pass it on