sang the tiger to her king

Hellenic pagan. Oathbound devotee of Ares-Who-Is-Too-Much. You've probably blocked me at some point.

[soloontherocks]

who the fuck is still reblogging that carrie fisher post

who is it, I see the alerts, what are y’all doing

[soloontherocks]

@christowitch-main at what point have you been here so long that you merge into the walls of the website and become part of the ship Davy Jones style

[christowitch]

Like 3 years back.

[soloontherocks]

PART OF THE SHIP PART OF THE CREW PART OF THE SHIP PART OF THE CREW PART OF THE SHIP PART OF THE CREW PART OF THE

[soloontherocks]

@christowitch-main at what point have you been here so long that you merge into the walls of the website and become part of the ship Davy Jones style

[soloontherocks]

hold the fuck up why do I still have followers who the fuck are you people what’s going on

in unrelated news I got a new dog named him after captain america and got promoted, so i guess that’s your biannual life update covered for the next few months??

[soloontherocks]

listen..... i believe in time and healing and being a bigger better person and positive energy vibes...... but that being said, I did just absolutely log into tumblr for the first time in months purely to steal the deleted pagansuncensored url out of spite

[soloontherocks]

anyway the real 2020 character development was me realizing “hey maybe the gods are just nice and actually want me to be happy and successful because they’re nice, not because they have a list of demands and they need me to get my shit together before they assign me homework” I realize “maybe gods actually just basically good” isn’t a fundamental giant galaxy brain thought for anyone else, but consider: shut up I’m dumb

[soloontherocks]

also I’m not back, I just logged onto tumblr to check how old Steve Rogers is today, and no that isn’t a joke

[soloontherocks]

I cannot properly explain how much your response to birbreligion motivated me. It reminded me that I've been using the "I'm young and stupid and still learning" excuse for too damn long, I can only hope to one day show a similar devotion to the Theoi as you. Honestly, thank you for that 12/10 post

The nice thing about worshiping the Theoi is it’s a try your best situation. The annoying thing about worshiping the Theoi is…it’s a try your best situation.

Like…I get a hundred asks along the lines of “I can’t afford this offering” “I don’t know everything about Hellenismos” “I’m new and afraid I’ll fuck everything up” blah blah blah. And it’s all meaningless anxiety, not actual concerns anyone needs to waste time on.

On the other hand, I see plenty of people who CAN do better, but just won’t. Not out of lack of spoons, or poverty, or recent convert status. Just out of laziness, or willful ignorance, or just plain being a cheap asshole.

Arete is the goal. It is always the goal. It means we must strive to be the best us we can be. Not the best ever, just the best individual we are personally capable of being. So, “I am literally not capable of this because of disability/poverty/I don’t know how to do it and have literally no way of learning” is TOTALLY FINE.

The problem is when people pretend to themselves and others that “I don’t want to” is the same thing as “I can’t.”

Are you really incapable of finding time to research, or have you just assigned the gods a lower priority level than screwing around on Tumblr? Can you honestly not afford nicer offerings, or do you just not want to inconvenience yourself by cutting back on your recreational spending? Are you “too disabled” for formal reconstructionist ritual, or do you not feel like putting in the effort to do it right?

It’s even worse when people act like not only do they not have to try harder, but they have some sort of divine permission to blow it off. Is it really religiously optional to observe, say, miasma, or do you just not want to? Are the gods really okay with you disrespecting them, or are you just too much of an asshole to behave properly?

Anyway.

The point of this wasn’t to accuse you personally of being any of these things. It was a reminder that there’s nothing wrong with being young and stupid and still learning…as long as you are ACTIVELY AND HONESTLY TRYING TO BECOME BETTER.

The issue is, by its nature, it is super easy for people to let themselves off the hook. Nobody ever believes they’re being a lazy asshole. Everybody’s got an excuse. No matter how many times people ask themselves “is this really my best” there will always be some people who will shamelessly answer yes even when the answer should be no.

So here’s my tip to you. Don’t worry so much about being young, stupid, and still learning.

Instead, spend your energy honestly and sincerely questioning your motives.

Don’t try to be as good a worshiper as so and so, or as knowledgable as so and so, or as experienced as so and so. You’re new. You’re naturally not going to be able to achieve that right now. It’s not logically possible. How can you expect to be as expert in this religion as people who have been a part of it for years?

What you should be doing instead is always improving. And constantly asking yourself “can I do better than this?” And when the answer comes back no, asking yourself “okay, but is it, like, REALLY no, or do I just WANT it to be no so that I don’t have to work?”

One thing worshiping Ares has taught me is that the trappings of religion are nothing without the work and the dedication. Devotion isn’t a measure of aesthetic and edgy tumblr posts and how many books you own. It’s a measure of how hard you’re willing to try to do your best. Not anyone else’s best, not what you feel like calling your best. Your actual, honest, individual best.

If you can master actually answering that question honestly, you’ll be miles ahead of some people who have been doing this for a lot longer but with a much lower level of personal integrity.

[arkefthos]

I agree with absolutely everything in this apart from the implication thats theres a certain level of disabled that would allow someone to dial back on their worship.

I know that youve put, theres a difference between “i cant” and “i dont want to”, but disabled people, especially people with chronic pain and fatigue like myself, often miss the internal markers that signal weve crossed that boundary. We often end up doing something we technically cant, and shouldnt, and suffer for it massively over the next few days, weeks, however long, purely because there is that massive pressure to be doing your best. A lot havent quite learned what our own best looks like, and use an ablebodied idea of ‘best’ because we’ve got nothing else to go on. So its really important to be able to curate our experiences, even if it means that instead of cleaning the altar, we need to spend our spoons on the washing up and then take a break, even if that break is the rest of the day.

I hope that these distinguishing boundaries make more sense and that im not coming across as accusatory. I’d like to dialogue about this and if ive misread your original post, please let me know.

[soloontherocks]

the entire point of this (several year old) post was that it’s important to develop an accurate picture of what your personal best actually looks like rather than holding yourself to an inaccurate standard (either too lax or too strict) or relying on a standard defined by someone else, and it specifically says that it’s more important to apply critical thought to analyzing what that best really is than it is to follow any one dictated path about what you should or shouldn’t do. You’re suggesting an implied meaning that not only isn’t in the post, but that is directly antithetical to what the post is arguing for. 

also, for context, OP = disabled, not that I should need to explain that to justify my right to say what I have to say.

[soloontherocks]

my religious practice is honestly just that graphic design meme but instead of a frog theres clipart of Hermes and the caption reads “theoi are my passion” in comic sans

[soloontherocks]

every four to six months

me: “I miss having a tumblr blog but I don’t miss the drama crap, that sounds exhausting, fuck that, maybe I’ll just like, talk about my practice and my worship or whatever”

me: “didn’t I quit talking about my religious practice because it leads to negative behavior patterns like attention-seeking religious decisions and an overeliance on aesthetic due to the replacement of personal gnosis by outside influences and false authority?”

me: “…….oh yeah I remember why I only had a drama blog, that makes more sense now”

[soloontherocks]

so anyway the latest practice update is that rituals are for the weak and the people who don’t work 10 hour shifts, I honestly don’t see the point, mostly my religious practice on a day to day basis these days is me going “sup Ares” and Ares going “sup” and me going “love u” and him going “cool” and us just like, yknow, living our lives in a way that doesn’t revolve around me pretending to be an ancient greek every waking second. I have shrines still but they serve more as reminders of the gods’ presence than as workspaces that I actually work with, and we’re chill with that and it works for us. every once in a while I’m like “hey gods, should I be doing more??” and the gods go “ehh.” and then I go “aight then if it aint broke” and I go back to work or whatever the fuck. 

is this the “right” way to practice my religion?? well I changed careers from manual labor into a WFH office job with a handpicked schedule and double the income and also my mental health is *chefs kiss* amazing, so I aint hearing no complaints from the Big Folks In Charge

maybe the real “Vital Spiritual Work Demanded By The Gods” was the “my own self interests and general wellbeing” we met along the way

I joke but also yes it’s what I’ve been saying all along, glitter is bullshit, glitter is useless, glitter is for the worshiper not the worshipee, real religious practice is the love under the glitter, fuck glitter edit: I wrote this like a bitch who pulled two allnighters playing videogames because I am a bitch who pulled two allnighters to play videogames so let me translate: after long thought and divination I have concluded that what the gods want is to be loved and acknowledged and included in our lives, and that the real sacrifice to be offered is just, yknow, caring about them as People who are important to you

I will now proceed to not post on tumblr for the next three months only to be reminded suddenly it exists and make another basically identical slightly manic post about how I’m doing fine and the theoi are cool ass dudes

[soloontherocks]

anyway the real 2020 character development was me realizing “hey maybe the gods are just nice and actually want me to be happy and successful because they’re nice, not because they have a list of demands and they need me to get my shit together before they assign me homework” I realize “maybe gods actually just basically good” isn’t a fundamental giant galaxy brain thought for anyone else, but consider: shut up I’m dumb

[soloontherocks]

i only come back to this site to driveby bodyslam people being dumb about paganism and the bible, that’s it

[christowitch]

Religious debate is good for the soul 😂

[soloontherocks]

but bad for the blood pressure

[dots3a]

So the Binding of Isaac in the bible is just a rewriting of the near-sacrifice of Iphigenia by her father Agamemnon. Literally stripping power from female deity to ascribe it to a male deity and a daughter as a worthy sacrifice obviously didn’t work, so a son, because obviously boys are better.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

[soloontherocks]

@slimedot​ so the fact that the battle of troy took place approximately 1200 bce and abraham lived approximately 2100 bce is what, time travel?

you’re not smart, you’re just mildly antisemitic.

[soloontherocks]

@slimedot in case this went over your head since you strike me as maybe being a bit slow on the uptake: christians didn’t write the story of abraham and isaac. jews did. it’s not from the bible. your math is off by several thousand years. fuck off.

[soloontherocks]

i only come back to this site to driveby bodyslam people being dumb about paganism and the bible, that’s it

[soloontherocks]

Passover: “Let’s talk about how the lamb was sacrificed so that God would save us from slavery because we had faith.”

Easter: “Let’s talk about how the Lamb was sacrificed so that God would save us from ourselves because we had faith, because maybe the real slavery was the sinning we did along the way”

Pagans: “………..yeah i’m just not seeing the connection here, but hey look, rabbits, maybe it’s like a sex thing”

[soloontherocks]

“maybe the real slavery was the sinning we did along the way” is my new go-to explanation of Christianity

[soloontherocks]

is it that time of year again

[dots3a]

So the Binding of Isaac in the bible is just a rewriting of the near-sacrifice of Iphigenia by her father Agamemnon. Literally stripping power from female deity to ascribe it to a male deity and a daughter as a worthy sacrifice obviously didn't work, so a son, because obviously boys are better.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

[soloontherocks]

@slimedot​ so the fact that the battle of troy took place approximately 1200 bce and abraham lived approximately 2100 bce is what, time travel?

you’re not smart, you’re just mildly antisemitic.