Per Aspera Ad Astra

HelPol focused blog ☀️ Apollon devotee ☀️mostly reblogs

[sunlight-and-calliopes]

χαῖρετε!

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

My personal blog @faun-writes

Apollon themed dividers by vibeswithrenai here

My KoFi account -- current goal; new wheelchair!

[rosary-enthusiast]

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.

[paper-mario-wiki]

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.

[mollyjames]

Actually, I rather like being trans

[mollyjames]

I suppose being cis would be nice and all, but it doesn’t quite have the same “I will sieze Destiny by the throat and force it into the shape of my choosing” kind of verve

[kyleesarthell]

Struggling recently with gender stuff, needed some positivity for the soul

[tricksterhowls]

Apollon/Apollo is truly a fascinating deity. Everyone knows his light side; his association with light and the sun. He is indeed a being of light but light is not always gentle. Think of the sun's rays; are they always gentle? Are they always warm and welcoming?

Apollo is both the life giving warmth and the sun and scorching desert sun. Apollo protects us but he also strikes us down.

A lot of Apollo's darker epithets fascinate me. He is a healer but also the bringer of disease. He is the protector of youth (particularly of young men) and when young men die suddenly he is said to be the cause.

He has associations with death and the dead; he is not a psychopomp but he is more associated with the rituals of the dead. Making sure the dead get burial rites or protecting the deceased's bodies.

He is also called wolf-god. When you think of wolves what do you think of? You think of a wolf pack most likely. Loyalty, family, protection.

But think of how fierce wolves are; how farmers fear them. I see Apollo embodying both that loyalty and protection but also that fierce, primal fear that wolves incite in people.

He is endlessly fascinating; he is a being of duality just as much as any other deity. I honor his light aspects as well as his dark ones.

[templehyacinthus]

Apollo is my patron, and the deity I regard as my personal savior, precisely because of his duality.

For years I was taught to worship an all loving and all knowing God - who could stop the misery of the world but chose not to (for one reason or another, all of which never made any sense to me). I was supposed to believe that this humanoid god loved me unconditionally but wouldn’t lift a finger to end the abuse I suffered (more often than not, abuse I suffered I n his name).

But Apollo? He is both the Sun that grows the flowers and scorches my skin - neither act done out of love or hate, but both done out of nature. He is the burning Sun and I cannot expect him to bend reality or nature to the whims of humanity, let alone a single human such as myself.

I worship him, not because I have to - but because I choose to. I choose to see Apollo for who he is - a force of nature. I choose to see how he is both life and death - both creation and destruction - as is the way with all art. Art is not inherently good or bad - kind or cruel - art is just the act of creation, and it can take on endless forms.

I know that not everyone engages with the Theoi or their Gods in this mindset - but in my humble opinion, it is the most freeing way to worship 🙏🏻

[bodhi-devotee]

the orphic hymn to Apollon emphasizes His duality and His all encompassing nature. Apollon reminds that balance is maintained through duality. He is life and death, light and dark, healing and illness, so on and so forth. i pulled snippets from two different translations of the hymn — x x

“Rural, light-bearer, and the Muse's head, Noble and lovely, arm'd with arrows dread: Far-darting, Bacchian, two-fold, and divine.”

“You cast light upon the roots below and hold the boundaries of the whole kózmos: For the origin and completion are both in your care…

The cause of the blooming of all things; with your resonant lyre you harmonize the entire axis of the heavens, At one time advancing to the lowest pitch, And at another to the highest, You temper the entire axis; you keep the tribes of living creatures distinct,

You have mingled in harmony the share of all mortal men, You have mixed an equal measure of winter and summer, You have arranged the highest three strings in the winter, the lowest in the summer…”

big fan of the orphic hymns!

[shinugodda]

god of earth and heaven, joel-peter witkin

[ranrandraws]

hermes and crocus

[tepkunset]

May 5 is the Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People. (Also known as Red Dress Day.)

Show your support and pass on your strength by wearing red on May 5, and raising awareness. And if you have never read the Reclaiming Power and Place report, you can do so here.

Additionally, while the day is typically centred in Turtle Island, let us also not forget our international cousins, especially in Palestine and Sudan.

[lore-gore]

May 5 is Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women's Day. A reminder that 84.3 percent of native women have experienced violence. 56.1 percent of native women have experienced sexual violence. And the 3rd leading cause of death for native women is murder.

And they haven't even gathered significant information on native women living in URBAN areas. It could be much higher.

Dwell on this. Wear red.

[existennialmemes]

Two seemingly contradictory beliefs that we actually must strive to hold simultaneously:

You don't owe anyone anything

Meaning: you do not have to make yourself suffer for the convenience of others

We owe each other everything

Meaning: we could not survive without each other and everything we do to help another is crucial to ensuring our own continued survival

You don't need to be a doormat, but also don't get comfortable slamming the door when you have the resources to extend a hand instead.

[tractim]

pentheus as the judgement card for the dionysian tarot deck 🎭

[twunkish-cleric]

The fact that there are gods with disabilities makes me so emotional. Hephaestus, Tyr, Hodr, Odin and other disabled deities just prove that being disabled is a vital part of the human experience, not a deviation from it, and that concept alone is so moving. Just like there are deities for specific human experiences like fertility or war, there are also deities with disabilities, which just proves that we have just as much of a place on this earth as mothers and warriors do. The idea of that has genuinely pulled me through some hard times.

[bodhi-devotee]

oh Paean, oh Phoebus, i hear the bird songs and know they sing for You!

they sing for the harmonizer, for the far-shooter, for He who casts light upon the roots below!

oh Apollon, how the birds know you so deeply and love you so intrinsically. there is so much i have to learn from them, from your winged supplicants!

[philhelias-moved-deactivated202]

Apollo holding the kithara from the Temple of Venus at Hadrian’s Villa (detail)

Attested to Apollonios, circa 150 AD

[community-gardenss]

they still say your name.

[virgo-vestalis]

Hestia, first and last, sacred goddess of hearth and home

I call upon you to protect the domestic worker - those who do the thankless work of caring for children and cleaning homes. May they be honored and rewarded.

O Hestia protect the migrant - those who leave the familiarity of their own homes and loved ones in search of a better life to support their families. May they be honored and rewarded.

Eternal Hestia may you protect those so often overlooked by society - the dishwashers, cooks, landscapers, nannies, maids, construction workers, and all those whose toil is used to build and maintain homes and society without thanks. May they be honored and rewarded.

Painting is The New American Gothic by Criselda Vasquez