The Olympeia festival is an amazing one that you can read about right here. It is celebrated on the nineteenth day of Mounykhion on the Attic Calendar in honour of Zeus Olympios. On this day, we hail the King of the Gods on his most venerable aspects, reminding the ancient games that were held in His honour in one of His the most famous temples.
As I don’t have any bulls to prepare a nice barbecue in honour of the Gods as an offering, I did a standard ouranic ritual on some simple steps:
Lighting up my Hestia candle and chanting Her hymn. Grabbed a bit of olive leaves and set them on fire, placing them on water right after to make lustral water (khernips).
Purified the place and myself with the lustral water.
Chanted an hymn to Hestia and made the first offering.
Placed olive leaves on my altar and sang the Homeric Hymn to Zeus, calling in prayer for His presence and adressing the King of the Gods as Basileus (King), Olympios (of Olympia) and Hypatos (Most High).
Poured the libations of honey and water to Hestia and then to Zeus.
Offered a standard offering of milk-bread with honey and olive leaves, and also honey incense.
Thanked Him for the blessings received and prayed for other important things. Then I said my thanks for the presence of the Theoi and finished it by pouring a last libation to Zeus and the very last for Hestia.
That’s honestly my go-to formula for almost every ritual, but I always like to do additional stuff for a festival. Like chanting poems related to the festival, dancing and having a good meal after the celebration. As people would do horse races and competitions on this day in His honour, we could bring some of this aspects by doing exercises, friendly games and having fun in a Theoi-Honouring way today! :]
Happy Olympeia to us all! May Zeus’ blessings find us and guide us all towards wisdom, virtue and happiness!