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[lovecorekiss]

Hope this isn’t too personal but what are your favorite epithets for the Hellenic Gods you devote yourself to? Like not necessarily the epithets you invoke most often, just your Favorites, whether that be for aesthetics, flavor, story behind it, etc. If that makes sense as a question >.<

It does! And I have plenty!

As for devotion, I love Dionysus’ vegetation related epithets — such as Dendrites, Kaludonios, Sykites, and His war epithets — Areios and Enualios.

I also have quite the unique with Apollon, as I only know him as Smintheus. And I love Apollon Smintheus — Apollon as a plague god is fascinating to me. 

And for Tykhe — I love calling her Agathe Tykhe. It makes me feel warm and I adore her very much. 

There are many gods that I worship, so I hope you don’t mind the short response lol! I hope this helps and remember to take care of yourself!

[lovecorekiss]

🙏

I drew pentacles on things and called it invoking the elements / “protecrion magick.” Gods I hate the spelling “magick”—

[lovecorekiss]

🙏

I bought into the whole “deity work is dangerous!!!!1!” bullshit but I ask Dionysus to yeet spirits so often it’s kinda hilarious. Talk about a hypocrit (Also hint: there were no spirits, I just was too afraid of everything).

[lovecorekiss]

To partake in Hero Worship means to look at a mirror of yourself — these epic humans that lived a thousand years ago are just like you: eternally suffering.

[lovecorekiss]

MISHAPOCALYPSE??

MISHA. APOCALYPSE. MUAHAHAHA

[lovecorekiss]

Homeric Imitation Hymn to Zeus Thaulios

Thaulios. Sing, muses, of your father, Cloud-chasing Zeus, titled Thaulios.  You, Zeus Thaulios, killing god, Are close to Enodia, the averter of evil.  Together, Thessalia was your domain, ruling in shared temples alike Come, blood-stained Thaulios, and be remembered in my song.

Written for @sansinger <3

[teawiththegods]

Hey I have a great New Years Resolution for everyone. 

GET OFF WITCHTOK!

[lovecorekiss]

anon fact things- you’re friendly but still hard to be friends with bc you are just. bam INTELLECT (i hope this does not sound rude it is not meant to)

Apparently I intimidate my friends with my knowledge so you’re not exactly wrong but I assure you I’m constantly nearing peak dumbass lmao. I have 3 braincells for a reason 

[honorthegods]

How can I know if a book on Hellenic Polytheism is based on reliable sources?

I assume you mean from a Reconstructionist view?

Is the book self-published or is published by a well-known publisher or a university press? Nothing intrinsically wrong with a self-published book, but, especially if the author is unknown, it raises questions about the material.

How old is the book? Recent books tend to incorporate new material.

Check the author’s credentials. Do they have a degree in classical studies, archaeology, history, religious studies? Do they claim to have a “continuous lineage” with the past, or access to  previously “secret” or “hidden” information?

Read reviews to assess the quality of a work, from the 5-star to the 1-star reviews. Check JSTOR and the Bryn Mawr Classical Review  for reviews of books in classical studies, archaeology, and ancient history.

Is there a bibliography? What kind of evidence does the author cite? Primary evidence, like Hesiod or the Homeric Hymns? If they site secondary sources, such as academic works on ancient religion, is it  recent or many years out-of-date?  Do they cite archaeological evidence and, if so, is it new or outdated? Do they use their own experiences in working with the gods as a model for everyone?

Does the author provide footnotes to document their statements? Do the footnotes cite primary sources, secondary sources, archaeological evidence?

If the book describes rituals, does the author provide any sources for them? Red flags would include: calling the quarters, celebrating the solstices and equinoxes, fitting ancient Hellenic goddesses into the maiden-mother-crone paradigm.

but it can be difficult to assess the accuracy of the material in books with titles like “Hellenic Polytheism for Beginners” because there the authors seldom cite of sources. Try to find out about the author/s online. Books on Hellenic polytheist practices are sometimes compiled by HP organizations or BNPs (big name pagans); some of the material might be available on their website, so take the opportunity to asses the quality of their sources (and their views on things like race, ethnicity, gender, and gender roles) before giving them your money. 

Books with boring titles like “Ancient Greek Religion” may be dry reading, but they’re honest about what’s actually known by scholars about ancient religion. Learning about ancient practices usually requires reading more than one book to assemble a working view of how devotion was done in the past but, from a reconstructionist methodology, accuracy and understanding are very important.

Don’t feel that you need to buy books to worship the Theoi, Anon. The research desk at your library can help you find journal articles and get books from other libraries. College and university libraries can be especially useful. A great deal of reliable information about the gods and their ancient cults can be found at theoi.com, the Perseus Project, and JSTOR. Many museums have collections of ancient pottery and other art and artifacts online related to ancient rituals and mythology which provide a great deal of information.

I’ll be happy to provide specific recommendations if you wish.

May your path be blessed!

[thegrapeandthefig]

Reblogging to help the people who expressed their difficulties with finding/evaluating quality sources.

[lovecorekiss]

can you tell me more about historical practices in lesbos? i want to get into recon stuff and i feel drawn to lesbos

Ooh, of course! I know a bit. 

Okay so in Lesbos they spoke the Aeolic dialect instead of the Attic. So in Lesbos it wasn’t Helios, it was Áēlios. I’d recommend looking into Aeolic Ancient Greek sometime.

Secondly, look into Sappho. The Adonia, a festival for Adonis, a mortal lover of Aphrodite, was celebrated in Lesbos as stated by this fragment:

Girls: Delicate Adonis is dying, Aphrodite – what should we do? 

Aphrodite: Beat your breasts, daughters, and rend your dresses.

— SAPPHO: A New Translation of the Complete Works Diane Raylor

I also do know that Dionysus was honoured on lesbos, as stated here:

The vintage was an event of joyful and seasonally determined communality as well as of economic significance, and the evidence for it being accom- panied by Dionysiac celebration is found throughout antiquity. In the pastoral romance Daphnis and Chloe by Longus (c. AD 200), erotic desire at a vintage festival on Lesbos is said to be appropriate to ‘a festival of Dionysos and the birth of wine’ (2.2.1). — Gods and Heroes: Dionysus

Tips for Getting into Region Specific Recon

Study who exactly was worshipped in each region. Take notes of the cultic practices in Lesbos, such as the Adonia (but tbh most research about Adonis is absolute trash so it’s more trouble than it’s worth.)

Try to find out books about the local calendar, festivals, etc. You’re going to want to try to reconstruct a calendar.

Read & learn about local mythology! For example, Sappho’s fragment 17 in Diane Raylor’s SAPPHO: A translation of the complete works

Fragment 17

We know substantially more about the content of this fragment from a recent papyrus discovery (Burris, Fish and Obbink 2014). We follow their text. It represents a cultic hymn, which apparently was performed by a mixed chorus of young women and adult women (lines 13–14). The song refers to a story, preserved in Odyssey (3.169–75), according to which Menelaos and some of the other heroes who fought at Troy stopped at the island of Lesbos on their way back to ask the gods for direction. The women celebrate a festival in commemoration of the one organized by these heroes. The song was probably performed at the shrine of Hera, Zeus, and Dionysos in the middle of the island (see lines 9–10). The women’s chorus (and Sappho) privilege the female deity, Hera, in their song over the two male gods also venerated at the shrine.

....

The Lesbians worshipped Zeus, Hera, and Dionysos (Semele’s son) together in a temple which has been situated at Mesa north of Pyrrha in the middle of the island (Pfrommer 1986).

— SAPPHO: A New Translation of the Complete Works Diane Raylor

Just make sure that the sources & material you get is good, as there has been plenty of bad scholarship. 

I hope your day is lovely and that your recon will be easy! Remember to go at your own place and take care of yourself.

[lovecorekiss]

Prometheus (Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World) | Carol Dougherty | download | Z-Library. Download books for free. Find books

Gods and Heroes: Prometheus is a must-read for anyone wishing to honour Prometheus. It goes over His cult, mythology, etc. And it is an amazing read. 

[lovecorekiss]

Info on Prometheus worship?!! We love to see it 🔥

Hell yeah! I am very passionate about Prometheus and therefore I’ll definitely be making posts about him soon enough. I hope y’all enjoy! <33

[thegrapeandthefig]

30 days of Priapus

Day 7 - Names and epithets

This is going to partly a repost of something I wrote a few weeks back, so I’ll stick to the historical ones here, but if you want to see the ones I made up for him, please refer to this post. 

Ανδροσαθων, Androsathon “man-pricked”

Ιθυφαλλος, Ithyphallos “Erect-phallus”

Τυχων, Tykhon “Fortune”

Θριαμβος, Thriambos “Thriamb”

Διθυραμβος, Dithyrambos “Dithyramb”

As a rustic god:

Κηπουρός, Kepouros “keeper of the garden/gardener”

Γλυκερός, Glukeros “sweet” (to the taste)

Αγροιώτης, Agroiotes “rustic”

As a sea god:

Λιμενίτης, Limenites “god of the harbour”

Αἰγιαλῖτα, Aigialita “of the shore”

Ποντομέδων, Pontomedon “Lord of the Sea”

Ορμοδοτήρ, Ormodoter “harbour-giver”

My favorite is Glukeros because I looove the double-meaning. Initially it’s in the sense of the sweetness of ripe fruits but Roman humour and literature really did him dirty and I was so pleasantly surprised by his sweetness, that I already called him a cinnamon roll before discovering this epithet. 

[lovecorekiss]

Myths and legends about Prometheus, the Greek god who defied Zeus to steal fire for humankind, thrive in art and literature from archaic Greece to modern times. As rebel, traitor, culture hero, and protector of mankind, Prometheus embodies the human condition with all its potential for brilliant innovation and for cruel suffering. Throughout the centuries since the Prometheus myth first captured the popular imagination, the fire that he steals for mortals has come to represent the spirit of technology, forbidden knowledge, the conscious intellect, political power, and artistic inspiration. As a god whose name means ‘forethought,’ Prometheus signals mortals’ repeated attempts to overcome the limitations of their knowledge about the future – hope, technology, and prophecy are all part of Prometheus’ complicated gift to mankind.

Gods and Heroes: Prometheus by Carol Dougherty

[lovecorekiss]

Unusual Prometheus Devotional Acts™️

ARSON. ALL THE ARSON. BURNNNNN

Break the rules, I mean, he did it too. 

Be gay do crimes 

Screech at metal chains. They’re rude I swear—

Punch bigots because He is the patron to gay and trans people 

Carry torches around. Because you can. They’re aesthetic. 

Collect candles. All the candles. You must. You gotta. Tamed fire go brrr.

Scream at the eagles and try to not loose your liver too 

Get the clay. Become one with the clay. Sculpt with the clay. Experience the shared human experience of using clay. We have been using it for thousands of years, and here you are too. 

Cry over Phainon. Y’know, that one human he loved so much but got turned into a planet in our solar system. 

Burn!! Fennel!! All the fennel!! Including fennel incense (is that even a thing—)

Campfires are great weapons when you throw them at capitalists ;)

Store fire in fennel sticks because like, He invented that. Maybe use it to be gay and commit crimes, who knows.

Carry around torches / candles / lanterns / etc wherever you go. It’s aesthetic.

Wear stone and iron rings because you can 

Witch. Craft. Medea got some nice stuff from Prometheus and so can you for the low low cost of actually recognising how amazing he is!

Smack people with divination!! He taught humanity multiple very important forms of div and he is ignored. This is a CRIME. 

Spread Prometheus’ cult. He was an utter madlad for humanity, saved and provided for us, and promoted us. He deserves love. All the love. 

Avoid getting your liver torn out. That’s kinda important. It’s like, a major organ y’know?

Aggressively roast but also study Hesiod. He deserves it. 

Scream at animal abusers. Scream at child abusers. Unjust harm to the innocent shall not be permitted in the house of Prometheus.

And more!

[thegrapeandthefig]

An open question to hellenic polytheists

What is it that you have found the hardest about this religion? Things you might or might not have overcome. 

I’m just genuinely curious about hearing your experiences and see if there’s something that stands out. I can’t guarantee to bring solutions, but it could be a good starting point for further discussion. 

[lovecorekiss]

So, everyone knows I’m really into research and reading. But sometimes I struggle with “am I taking my love for the ancient world too far?” and then I proceed to get impostor syndrome. I really suck at having religious crisis, but this one just won’t go away.

[fandomsandfeminism]

You know what the most frustrating thing about the vegans throwing a fit over my “Humans aren’t Parasites” post is?  I really wasn’t trying to make a point about animal agriculture. Honestly, the example about subsistence hunting isn’t the main point. That post was actually inspired by thoughts I’ve been having about the National Park system and environmentalist groups.

See, I LOVE the National Parks. I always have a pass. I got to multiple parks a year. I LOVE them, and always viewed them as this unambiguously GOOD thing. Like, the best thing America has done. 

BUT, I just finished reading this book called “I am the Grand Canyon” all about the native Havasupai people and their fight to gain back their rights to the lands above the canyon rim. Historically, they spent the summer months farming in the canyon, and then the winter months hunter-gathering up above the rim. When their reservation was made though, they lost basically all rights to the rim land (They had limited grazing rights to some of it, but it was renewed year to year and always threatened, and it was a whole thing), leading to a century long fight to get it back. 

And in that book there are a couple of really poignant anecdotes- one man talks about how park rangers would come harass them if they tried to collect pinon nuts too close to park land- worried that they would take too many pinon nuts that the squirrels wanted. Despite the fact that the Havasupai had harvested pinon nuts for thousands and thousands of years without ever…like…starving the squirrels. 

There’s another anecdote of them seeing the park rangers hauling away the bodies of dozens of deer- killed in the park because of overpopulation- while the Havasupai had been banned from hunting. (Making them more and more reliant on government aid just to survive the winter months.) 

They talk about how they would traditionally carve out these natural cisterns above the rim to catch rainwater, and how all the animals benefitted from this, but it was difficult to maintain those cisterns when their “ownership” of the land was so disputed. 

So here you have examples of when people are forcibly separated from their ecosystem and how it hurts both those people and the ecosystem. 

And then when the Havasupai finally got legislation before Congress to give them ownership of the rim land back- their biggest opponent was the Parks system and the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club (a big conservation group here in the US) ran a huge smear campaign against these people on the belief that any humans owning this land other than the park system (which aims at conservation, even while developing for recreation) was unacceptable. 

And it all got me thinking about how, as much as I love the National Parks, there are times when its insistence that nature be left “untouched” (except, ya know, for recreation) can actually harm both the native people who have traditionally been part of those ecosystems AND potentially the ecosystems themselves. And I just think there’s a lot of nuance there about recognizing that there are ways for us to be in balance with nature, and that our environmentalism should respect that and push for sustainability over preserving “pristine” human-less landscapes. Removing ourselves from nature isn’t the answer. 

But apparently the idea that subsistence hunting might actually not be a moral catastrophe really set the vegans off.  Woopie. 

[wondermumbles]

#love seeing discussions about this#because everyone wants to see western conservation as infallible#without realizing that it’s still built on white supremacist and colonialist beliefs

- @finding-my-culture