my name is ryan! my pronouns are he/him and i’m a genderqueer trans man. i’m 22 years old and i’m a hellenic polytheist.
i’ve been practicing for 10 years and i’m devoted to Aphrodite, but i also honor the other gods in smaller increments. this blog is to collect information, share prayers and hymns, and generally praise the gods.
DNI: terfs/radfems, nazis/neo-nazis, racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes, ableists, zionists, antisemites, and any other forms of bigotry
my blog is not 18+ but please let me know if you’re a minor if you message me so i can properly talk to you without getting into anything inappropriate for young people.
This is by no needs an exhaustive list. Her common epithets listed on Theoi have been repeated many times over, so I just wanted to catalogue a few I haven't seen as often. Its been a very insightful devotional act!
Καλυκώπιδι / Kalykopis - face like a budding flower.¹ It's the second epithet used of her in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.
Καλλίπαις / Kallipais - producer of a beautiful child.²
Μωνογενίη / Mounogeneia - only-born.³ Another variant is μουνογόνη/mounogonē.⁴
Νύμφη / Nymphē - bride.⁵ It was used as another byname like Kore in Northern Greece (where mounogonē was attested as well.)⁶
Πασικράτεια / Pasikrateia - universal queen. From an inscription in Silenus, Sicily, thanked alongside Malophoros (almost certainly Demeter) and Zeus Melinchios, among others.⁷ This is most likely Persephone. The name Pasikrata is elsewhere attested in Magna Graecia, possibly distinct from pasikrateia and thought to be local versions of Aphrodite, Hekate, and others.⁸
Μελίβοια / Meliboia - honey-sweet cow. I'm not positive on the meaning (so if anyone knows for sure, please feel free to correct me!) but its attested in Hermoine as a euphemism.⁹ With this I will also leave: μελιτώδης / melitodes - sweet as honey¹⁰, and μελινδία / melindia, another euphemistic epithet of her's.¹¹ These are mentioned on Wikipedia, but I wanted to actually look into it and see if it was right.
Περικαλλής / Perikallis - very beautiful.¹² Another epithet from the Homeric Hymn. I'm sure you can tell by now I have no order in this haha.
Κυανώπις / Kyanopis - dark-eyed.¹³
Αρρήτου / Arretou - Unnameable.¹⁴ Helen calls her "ἀρρήτου κούρας," maiden who cannot be named.
Χρυσάνιον / Chrysanion - Of the golden reins.¹⁵ This is usually an epithet of Hades, but Pindar invokes Persephone in his hymn as "Πότνια θεσμοφόρε χρυσάνιον," Law-giving mistress of the golden reins.
And... with this I shall stop haha. I'll probably make my own list of *all* the epithets I can find for personal use in my documents. If anyone has anything to add or correct I'd love to hear it! Demeter and Persephone mean so much to me and I'm overjoyed to learn more about them in any way I can.
Sources:
[1] Homeric Hymn to Demeter 8
[2] Euripides, Orestes 964
[3] Orphic Hymn to Persephone 2
[4] IG IX² 305
[5] Euripides, Alcestis 741
[6] Names and Epithets, 6; Epigraphic Bulletin for Greek Religion, 280
[7] IG XIV 268
[8] The Pasikrata Sanctuary at Demetrias and the alleged funerary sanctuaries of Thessaly
[9] Μελιβοια: The Chthonia of Hermione and Kore's Lost Epithet in Lasus Fr. 702 PMG
[10] Theocritis, Idylls 15.94
[11] Psyche: Seelenkult und Unsterblichkeitsglaube der Griechen, pp. 206-210
i always see stuff uplifting persephone's chthonic aspects as queen of the dead by dismissing her as kore, saying shes "just a flower girl," and while i understand being protective of her deathly aspects which are often misunderstood, demeaning her equally important status as a goddess of vegetation, fertility, and grain is, in my opinion, disrespectful. she was portrayed beside her mother with equal status and honors. there is no understating just how important demeter and persephone were to all of greece, and especially the common man! they were the goddesses who provided food and nourishment; without them life was impossible. she is just as powerful at her mother's side as she is at her husband's. just look at eleusis! we can appreciate both aspects (which often overlap themselves) without belittling one or the other
not the best picture because i had to use flash because i couldn’t get the lighting right to be able to see all of these but look! i painted the greek names of the gods i have candles for on my altars! i really like how they turned out :)
Hey, don't be afraid of things that challenge your faith. Seriously, don't.
Either they'll give you a new perspective on things, or you'll become more secure and confident in your current beliefs. But avoiding the hard questions leaves you in an echo chamber with half-baked ideas and an insecurity in yourself. Step out of your comfort zone so you have room to grow.
i don’t post much about specific examples of praying and giving an offering and getting exactly what i need in return but recently i was making my mom a crochet blanket that i thought i definitely had enough time to finish before i did the 3hr drive to my parents house since i had 5 days before i needed to leave, but the day before i was barely halfway done.
i ended up praying (let’s be real, it was more of a begging situation) to Athena to help me focus and get into a flow state of a fiber craft project since she’s the goddess of craftsmanship and especially fiber crafts like crochet, as seen in the story of Arachne and the weaving competition. i brought out an unused pillar candle i had been saving for the right moment and lit it in her honor, and then combined a few different oils in my oil diffuser as an offering. i also turned on some history documentaries about the political side of war to watch while i worked for good measure.
y’all… i crocheted for 6 hours straight. i got through an entire cake of yarn that was about 500 meters. i ended up finishing around 1am — roughly 9 hours before i had to take off for my drive. at the risk of sounding like i’m trying to be trendy, she really came in clutch for me
The sea is a temple. The woods are a temple. Your own bedroom is a temple. The world is imbued with the spiritual. Worship is an act, not a place, and it can happen spontaneously, in reaction to the beauty of a moment.
The thing is, with any spiritual path, you're going to have moments that can be interpreted in one of two ways: pure coincidence or divinely orchestrated, and only YOU can make that call.
For example, I was in the woods - as I so often am - and stopped to say a prayer to Apollo and Artemis. I invoked their twin nature and referenced the python myth. I praised their youth and thanked Leto for birthing them. I finished my prayer and opened my eyes.
With my first step, two young snakes crossed my path. I've seen snakes before of course, but never two young ones at the same time, oddly enough, and I hadn't seen them when I first came down the path minutes before or before I started my prayer.
Now, I could take this as a sign from Apollo and Artemis; two snakes, representations of both Python and the twin nature of Apollo and Artemis. My prayer was heard and appreciated.
Or
I could smile at the pure coincidence. Snakes live in the woods after all, and it is the season where babies of all kinds are out and about. Isn't the world neat?
Ultimately, my interpretation is between me and the gods.
I am hoping that this is some sort of exaggeration or oversimplification because this is just blatant erasure of a major element of Greek culture and replaced by a more Christian version and I want to bang my head into a wall. That’s not what xenia is, and you just erased a major part of the Odyssey.
@watchanddream Sure! This got a bit lengthier than I intended, but I wanted to try and be thorough.
Put far too simply, xenia is the practice of hospitality, but it's also a ritual and in a sense a contract between guest and host. When a stranger arrives at your doorstep, you're expected to feed them and give them a gift as the host. Typically, you're not even supposed to ask them their name until they've finished their meal. Once you've done this as the host, the guest is now expected to share stories and information about themselves, and not burden you or your household. Typically, people focus on how hosts violate xenia, but guests can also violate xenia.
This is called a guest-friendship, and once it's established, you are expected to offer the same to your host should they ever visit. It's a ritual of hospitality, yes, but it's also used to establish alliances and can be passed down through generations. For example, in the Iliad, when Glaucus and Diomedes discover that their grandparents were guest-friends, they decide not to fight, but rather exchange armor.
Theoxeny is a common story you see in myth where a god (typically Zeus) disguises themselves as a mortal and requests to be hosted by someone. Should the host follow the rules of xenia, they'll be rewarded, but if they fail, they'll be punished or killed.
This is important to the Odyssey, as it comes up multiple times, but in particular, the cyclops, and the suitors. In both these instances, Odysseus arrives disguised and gives a false name, the practices of xenia are failed, and Odysseus reveals himself and punishes the one that failed to follow xenia. The suitors in particular fail xenia, as they both fail as hosts, AND as guests, for burdening Odysseus's household.
Xenia being treated as the golden rule comes across to me like a Christian reinterpretation, as while many Greek philosophers did have something similar to the golden rule, those were philosophers, and the idea that it's a religious command from a god seems much more in line with a Christian idea of where the rule comes from. (Note, I'm aware that other religions had something similar, even as a command from a god, but I highly doubt Nolan is drawing inspiration from those instances)
O Ombrios, O Skotitas, O Keraunios, O Hypatos! Brilliant light in the heavens! Trumpet of thundering might! O great storm!
You who inspire equal parts fear and awe in the hearts of men,
As your great dark-clouded chariot rears on the horizon.
O roaring, luminous king, brightening the darkness with an incomparable gleam,
The sharp bolts of light that are yours alone to weild!
For no other among gods or mortals could bear such force and majesty.
Those flashing spears you throw with perfect aim, piercing through obscured skies,
And the fearsome rolling tremors that echo your great voice,
Herald your passing overhead, O holy Olympian Lord!
How blessed are we to be in the presence of your vigor, the just strength that sows life-giving rain upon the fields of the good,
And strikes down with fiery bolts the crude ambitions of the wicked!
Yours is the mercy to allow judgement to pass over us, and the right to let it pour down.
The storm is your greatest incarnation, O Zeus on High, for in it is your might, your glory, your justice and generosity, your venerable and unconquerable reign!
"The gods are not your friends" is slowly turning into bad advice; let me explain...
It worked first when it was said to people who treated the gods like charaters instead of religious figures. It worked when it was said towards people who expect the gods to do everything for them. I think the problem comes from people phrasing it like how parents say "I'm not one of your little friends", like.. you're right.. but it's a horrible way to word it.
Then people thinking "do the gods hate me", "will I be punished for my small mistake", and other similar things found the phrase. I legitimately think a lot of people would benefit from treating the gods like their friends. If you're accidentally disrespectful, give them an offering and apologize. If you said something wrong/ were uneducated, learn and do better in the future. The gods won't abandon you for one small mistake or the actions of others around you. This is without even going into kharis and how you wouldn't ask strangers or colleagues you don't talk to for help on big things without paying them back properly.
So: no, the gods aren't your friends, but you should treat them as well as you'd treat your friends. And if you disagree, you should probably learn to be a better friend. <3
May Hermes help you to find open and welcoming arms wherever you choose to roam. May Hestia help you to find a safe home in every place you rest. May Demeter help you to keep your belly full and nourished. May Apollo help you to remain in good health and always find affordable care when it's needed. May Dionysus help you to stay in high spirits, despite the trials that traverse you. May Ares help to topple the systems that oppress you, bringing them to their knees. May Athena help you to find the wisdom needed to prevail and persevere. May Aphrodite help you to encounter those with love and compassion in their hearts.
