YourFriendFoster

Any pronouns

[fosterthepolytheist]

My grandparents should have stayed in Greece tbh, I like Chicago and all, but as a queer girlie... America is kinda pissing me off rn

[gravecanine]

Coins featuring the head of Hekate, often accompanied by a torch. These were used in Stratonikeia, in which Lagina was a territory of. What is left of a temple dedicated to her can be found in the aforementioned mentioned town.

[fosterthepolytheist]

My aunt passed recently but the cemetery she was buried in is called "The Queen Of Heaven Cemetery" it was sad going to visit but the name made me smile, especially because my aunt finally got to be with her husband again (they were buried together)

[fosterthepolytheist]

“why are we doing protection when reaching out to a god?” it’s Wicca. a good chunk of general “magical” practices are just off-brand Wicca. it doesn’t even make sense when applied to helpol because, as you pointed out, the theoi are our protection and we don’t need something to keep us away from them, and nothing is going to pretend to be them or whatever people are worried about. you reach out to Athena, you’ll get Athena. but because people don’t research and just assume general magic/wicca stuff applies to helpol, they’ll give out incorrect advice.

Thanks for responding! I know where the ideas I pointed out come from, that was just kind of a mini rant bc I see it getting carried over :)

[dionysian-daphne-deactivated202]

Too many people who are interested in Dionysus worry that he'll reject them if they aren't some flavour of alcoholic, so I say this gently:

PLEASE RESEARCH HIM

Dionysus is so much more than a drunkard wine god who requires your inebriation (he isn't and he doesn't). He's a god of the oppressed, of insanity, of liberation, of death and rebirth, of fertility, and yes, of wine

Dionysus is violence, love, the calm before the storm and the rage within one, the breath before you scream and your roar of victory, communion, ecstasy, dance, utter stillness, anger, joy...

And he will love you no matter what

This post has been rephrased from the original

[fosterthepolytheist]

I made a community called the queer pagan club. It's just for queer of all paths to hangout and chat. Please join if you're interested

[televisionenjoyer]

"if tumblr dies you can find me on bluesky" "if tumblr dies you can find me on Instagram" if tumblr dies you cannot find me. It's over. I'm free.

[fosterthepolytheist]

I had someone ask about prayer etiquette, so that's what this posts is about! Bear with me, I've never really posted on any platform till recently so I'm still learning it!

"Proper" prayer etiquette starts with good preparation, making sure you're clean, in the right head space and have an offering. Starting with being clean, I mean both physically and spiritually, you wouldn't go hangout with your friend while being all dirty and distracted. Start with making sure you're wearing clean clothes, then you'd wash your hands and face, (just running water from the sink works fine in most cases) this is both cleaning and is used to get you in the head space for approaching the Gods. If you like to wear a vail, this would be a good time to do that :)

being in the right head space for a prayer means being able to focus on what you're saying and the God you're talking to. That also means if you're panicking about being offensive to the gods and not fully in the moment it can take away from your prayer, take a deep breath and go for it, the Gods are understanding.

Having an offering doesn't have to be big, it could be anything really. If it's a prayer just to give thanks then the thanks becomes the offering.

Going into an actual prayer, the physical posture you take depends on who it is you're praying to. If you're praying to an ouranic God you're going to stand (if you can't stand, that's fine too!), eyes up (and open) as well as hands. If praying to a chthonic God, the idea is the same. Eyes and hands face down.

so you've cleaned, you're focused, you have you're offering and have taken the appropriate posture. Time to speak your prayer! Usually prayers are spoken out loud unless it's dangerous to do so or the God you're praying to deals with silent prayers.

When calling to the God you'd usually say "come o [God]", or "hear me" and use a specific epithet and something about the god to get their attention. Example (making this part up on the spot) : "hear me, Artemis, strong voiced goddess, born of fair Leto and protector of women and children".

now you ask the God for whatever it is you want and offer, make a case for what you want and why the God should help you. When reading prayers from ancient literature you'll see a handful of different kinds of reasoning given to the gods as to why that should answer the prayer, such as: "I'm giving you this, help please", "if you help me, I'll be able to give to you later", "this person I'm praying for has given you things, help them", and in more desperate situations "I've given you things in the past, please help because I've already done all this for you". And of course give your offering.

ending a prayer, at least in my view, can kinda be whatever feels most natural for you. As far as how often to pray, some people would say once when you wake up and once before you go to bed. Prayers like that of course don't have to be super formal and at least for mornings I've seen making tea or coffee and saying "to Hestia first and last and to all the Gods" using the steam as an offering.

ultimately it's up to you that makes a practice that works for you and I hope this post helped at least a little :3

[fosterthepolytheist]

Random stuff I associate with the gods pt1

i associate "Drive" by Incubus with Ares.

This is a new thing for me, but the song came on in my car the other day and listening to the words it really just hit. If you don't know the song it's essentially about choosing to be present and take control of your life no matter what happens or what people say. Something about making an active choice to be present, which can be extremely hard, gives very Ares to me. Lmk what you think!

[fosterthepolytheist]

First post!!

if anyone sees this, hi! My name is foster, (I use any pronouns) I hope you're doing well :)

I'd love to post more in the future about hel-pol related things and using it to help others in the community but also to help me keep myself motivated and give me ways to continue staying engaged in my practice 💕