My name is Ro, and welcome to my religious / Hellenic Polytheism centered blog !
I'm a 23 year old disabled writer and artist, and I've been practicing Hellenic Polytheism for around five or six years. I am devoted Lord Apollon, and I also worship King Zeus, Lady Hestia, Lord Dionysos, and Lord Hermes.
This year I want to be more mindful and engaged in my practice, as well as interact more with the helpol community around me. My hope is to post here with information on the Gods, e-offerings and devotionals, as well as just interacting with the community. I'll be adding to and editing this pinned message the more I post and create; I can't wait to see it grow!
Feel free to reach out to me, I'm usually more than willing to talk and I love interacting with people.
May the Theoi bless your day or night!
My Stuff:
Informational posts I've made about Apollon, Artemis, Hestia, Hermes, Dionysos, Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite
So I've hinted at this a little bit but there has been a HUGE change in my life. My wife and I have found ourselves caring for two children- ages 10 and 15. I can't give a TON of details online, because I want to protect them, but I'm hoping maybe you guys can understand that the reason we're currently caring for them is a direct result of the political climate of the United States. Because of all of this, we are working to become the guardians of these children for the foreseeable future, possibly adopting them if that's something they want (they have expressed they want this, but things change and this will all take time).
I'm hoping you all can understand that even though my wife and I are so happy to have children in our lives, this is NOT the way we wanted it to happen, because it involves a lot of sadness. These kids are going through a lot of trauma, and things are changing almost daily. I waited for things to be confirmed by a lawyer before posting this, but it still could change, and I want to be transparent about that. However, I'm posting this for two reasons:
First, as you might have noticed, I'll be writing fics and answering asks a lot less. While I adore writing and it makes me so incredibly happy, I also adore these kids, and they need me right now. I'm working on finding time for myself, but that's something I'm trying to find a balance with and these kids need adults to rely on in their lives. I'm not leaving fandom or even stopping writing forever, but I definitely will be around a lot less, at least for now.
Second, the legal battle we will need to fight, as well as making sure the kids are comfortable in our home, will be expensive. I created a GoFundMe to try to raise money for this, and I am posting the link below. Again, to be transparent, I didn't put a lot of information there, because I need to protect my identity, as well as the identities of the children. The location on the GoFundMe is inaccurate, and I didn't put my full name, because I knew I would be posting it here. However, I am hoping you all will consider helping anyway. (Also if you notice anything that identifies me on the page that I missed, please lmk....)
If for some unlikely reason things change, and the kids are able to be with their biological mother, please rest assured that any donations will still go toward making sure they are well cared for.
Please, if you would consider sharing the link or (if you are an adult) donating, I would appreciate it. You are more than welcome to dm me or inbox me with any questions, and I will do my best to answer them as long as I can still protect everyone involved.
Thanks guys! I hope you have a good day!
While we are not able to give a lot of details for safety and personal reasons, we hav… S M needs your support for Providing Comfort and Car
Zeus-Helios as an avatar/iteration of Vishnu as they both preserve and nurture the universe and maintain cosmic law and order. one is the god of gods, the other the deva of all devas. Zeus sending out His various children to enact His will, Vishnu sending His diverse set of avatars. the vedas describes Vishnu as “without beginning, middle, or end” and hymns describe Zeus as “the beginning, middle, and end of all things”. just an interesting parallel. the vedas describe Vishnu as endless, and his forms endless. perhaps Zeus, especially Zeus-Helios, could be seen as a name for the same force/ power Vishnu represents: preserving the universe, maintaining order, averting evil, illuminating humanity. just musing :P
reading about the participation of children in rituals as a form of play in ancient greece and came across an incredibly charming story from julius pollux's onomasticon where a flood prevented the adults from reaching a sanctuary to sacrifice a ram to heracles, and the children solved the problem by....sticking a bunch of sticks in an apple to give it "legs" and "horns" and offering it as a sacrifice instead. it's such a charming thought and i can perfectly picture kids these days also pretending at sacrificing an apple "goat" at recess
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)
Pssst! You know you can use the Greek names of the Greek gods, right? I'm not talking about ancient Greek. I'm talking about contemporary, spoken Greek. You know the names still exist in Greek. Right....?
Not only the ancient names for figures and terms have remained exactly the same for the most part, but also they're not worse, disrespectful, or "less formal". They are literally the Greek names of the gods/heroes/creatures/terminology today.
You don't have to address these figures the way our people did more than two thousand years ago. Millions of living Greeks today still speak the names of the Greek gods. In the Greek language.
I understand that the versions you use can depend on the resources available to you. And it's fine if you only know the ancient ones, or you only want to use those. But I'd like to make you aware that you don't have to be stuck in 300 BCE linguistically.
Not even the Greek language itself is stuck in 300 BCE! In fact, by 299 BCE, our language had already slightly changed from the year prior, and it continues to do so every year for... well, for a few thousand years at this point.
Ancient names make sense when one uses them in academic contexts, in the study of ancient Greek society and religion. But this religion and culture don't exist in a vacuum inside your history books. This linguistic stagnation in everyday life, though, is part of the centuries-long Western European / American obsession with seeing the Greek culture and language like something divorced from the real world.
There's no particular justification that demands you use the ancient versions in modern informal settings. On the contrary, why not address the Greek gods in the current form of the Greek language?
So if you want to use contemporary Greek, go wild. Use -ες ending instead of -αι. Go full iotacism. Use Έριδα not Έρις, Μοίρες not Μοίραι, Χάρη not Χάρις, Κάθαρση not Κάθαρσις. The differences are minuscule. And - let's be honest - you were not using ancient and modern Greek grammar (like the Greek cases, which depend on the sentence meaning) properly anyway.
I should add that using ancient Greek terms while there are contemporary ones, looks weird to a Greek. It’s somewhat like choosing to use only horses for transportation because you have not heard about cars. And, in this analogy, the Greek mind goes: but... have you not... heard of... cars... Why horses....
But, like OP said, foreigners using the ancient versions is not considered an offense. Sometimes this is what's most accessible. And of course, one can have other words for the names of the Greek gods in their language. It would be ridiculous to hold such a thing against them.
At the same time, it's good for people to know that Greek language with its names and tems is still around and happy to be of use!
“This linguistic stagnation in everyday life, though, is part of the centuries-long Western European / American obsession with seeing the Greek culture and language like something divorced from the real world.”
this statement and bias is something non-greek hellenic polytheists (like myself) must always keep in mind. we are far, far from interacting with a “dead” culture. it is vibrant and deserving of our attention and respect.
this webpage i found goes through a lot of the god’s modern spellings and pronunciations. anyone can let me know if there’s a more accurate resource!
The world may be in crisis, but the mulberries are ripe, and they taste just as good as ever.
The world may be in crisis, but the fireflies came out at dusk yesterday. And they will come out again tonight, and tomorrow, too.
The world may be in crisis. But today a breeze stirred my hair and cooled my face, and it eased the heat of the summer sun and I took a deep breath and I breathed.
The world may be in crisis, but a stranger smiled at me, and a dog found a good home, and a toddler told his baby sister he loved her.
The world may be in crisis, but the world still holds people who are working to heal it.
The world may be in crisis, but there is still a world. And the world contains us, the world contains love, the world contains beauty. And the mulberries are ripe.
Happy pride month to the heathens, the maenads, the men with fingers suited to a lyre, the women who find themselves carrying Sappho’s legacy, the children of Bacchus who need no definition, the androgynous & the Achillian, the followers of Hermaphroditus. May you breathe easily.
do not forget the patron saint of these weeks that we celebrate ourselves proudly and openly in the streets
her name was Marsha P Johnson, and we have her to thank for so much.
remember, the first Pride was a riot, and she was one of the brave souls who endured it to help carve the path which so many of us walk today. she helped found several activist groups regarding LGBT safety and wellbeing. and she was absolutely radiant, too.
thank you, Marsha. we remember you.
Per Aspera Ad Astra @sunlight-and-calliopes - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
