Apr 28, 2022
Was gifted this little lantern earlier and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. It fits so well on Lucifer and Phanes’ altars, I’m obsessed with it
seen from Austria
seen from Brazil
seen from Canada
seen from Sri Lanka
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from Israel
seen from Germany
seen from Russia
seen from Israel
seen from Türkiye
seen from China
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Austria
seen from Japan
seen from Türkiye
seen from Singapore
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
Was gifted this little lantern earlier and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. It fits so well on Lucifer and Phanes’ altars, I’m obsessed with it
Re: “If you ever doubt the Theoi are real and have influence in our world, one of Them turned me into a morning person.”
I've hesitated to tell this story because it involves a godphone moment and I’m shy about sharing those, but I’d really like to tell people who will Get It.
So, at one point I was writing almost every day. Then I got out of grad school and I thought “I need to sit down and take a break for a minute.” Then six months went by. Then I sharpened my pencils and tried to think of some ideas. Then another six months went by. This stretched on for almost four years, until this spring I was actually wondering if I was done as a writer.
Then an acquaintance talked up The Artist’s Way to me --- for those unfamiliar, it’s a 12-week course designed to break creative blocks through journaling and exercises clustered around several topics. The basic structure and themes are inspired by addiction recovery support groups, and central to the book is the idea of God as the ultimate creative force in the universe and the source of all inspiration. I thought “I read that book when I was about eighteen, but back then I was an atheist and I didn’t have substance abuse problems. I bet it looks completely different now.” I also thought, “I’m stuck in the house during COVID. If nothing else, this could be a way to mark time passing.” (I’m on week 11 right now.)
Having skimmed the book before starting, it was pretty clear to me that the author means “God” not as any specific deity but as a shorthand for “the essential force of creation in the universe"... which happens to be very much how I experience Phanes. So I lit some incense, told Them what I was doing, and asked if They wanted to take part of it with me.
A thought that isn’t mine: If you’ll do all the exercises.
I’d reviewed the weekly journaling assignments and exercises, and was pretty sure I wouldn’t run into any problems completing them, but I was balking at the “morning pages” that are a key part of this process: get up 30 minutes earlier and handwrite 3 pages of stream-of-consciousness writing. Not the writing part, but the getting up part.
I am not a morning person and never have been. I’ve made long-standing career decisions based on the fact that I cannot be a functioning human before 9:30 AM, including the decision to be self-employed and work from home. Left to my own devices, I’ll naturally wake up around 11 AM and fall asleep around 3 AM.
But over the past few years, I’d realized that if I want to be a writer again, I have to get up earlier. I need a daily practice to make progress on anything. And I have a writing job that’s highly absorbing, so creative writing has to come first in the day. I’d been trying to wake up 30 minutes earlier and write for years. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but at the time of this prayer, I was struggling to get to my desk before 10:30.
I said “I’m confident I can do all the exercises, except for getting up 30 minutes earlier to do the morning pages. I don’t believe I can do that.”
Another thought that isn’t mine: What if I helped you?
I said “You’re welcome to try, but I don’t believe it’s possible.”
The next morning, I set my alarm for 30 minutes earlier, dragged my ass out of bed, and filled 3 pages with profanity. Day 2, same thing. I I figured I could keep it up for maybe 4 days in a row before I’d sleep through my alarm and miss my chance. But then something wild happened: I started waking up before my alarm went off. The first few times I thought I’d slept through my alarm again, and I was genuinely surprised to grab my phone and see that it was before 9:00. 9 is a hard red line for me. A morning hour beginning with 8 is a country I’m not allowed to visit. How was I awake?
I decided not to ask and to get to the morning pages. By the end of the second week it was happening so consistently that I’d pushed back my alarm to 8:30. Then I started waking up before that. I adjusted my alarm again for 15 minutes earlier, and I started waking up before that alarm, too. Sometime along the way, my wake-up time sailed into an hour beginning with 7. How was that even possible?
“I can’t believe this,” I said to a friend. “I’ve tried every trick there is to get up earlier, and nothing helped. Now it’s happening with no effort on my part.”
“Is your brain looking forward to its morning dump?” she asked.
“Divine intervention,” I said. “It’s the only explanation that makes any sense.”
I was now waking up around 7:15, early enough to be at my desk by 9 AM every day, and even more amazingly, I was clear-headed and alert even without coffee. For reference: The last time I got up at 7:15 every day, I was in high school, and no way was I conscious before second period. Almost instantly, my work life snapped into an orderly 9 to 5 with a lunch break. My nights and weekends are now reclaimed as personal time. By this point I was approaching my altar every morning like “HOW? HOW are you doing this?”
I realized that if I could push my wake-up time an hour earlier, I could write for an hour at my computer before going to work. So I set my alarm for 15 minutes earlier until I started waking up naturally beforehand, then dialed it back another 15 minutes. 7AM… 6:45… 6:30… 6:15!
I now wake up at 6 AM every day and I have for the past month. I’m sure this may not sound miraculous to people who’ve ever been able to reset their sleep schedules. But when I told my entire family and all my friends, including people who have known me for almost a decade, that I now get up at 6, all of them refused to believe it. So I sent text messages first thing in the morning that say HEY LOOK AT ME!
This is now my weekday routine: up at 6, morning pages, shower and get dressed, do prayers, express gratitude and astonishment to the god/dess who turned me into a morning person, write at my computer for an hour, and then go to work at 9. I’m closing out week 11/12 and not only have I done every exercise in the book so far, I’ve done the morning pages every. single. day. And I have learned my lesson about doubting Them.
You scattered the dark mist that lay before your eyes and, flapping your wings, you whirled about, and throughout this world you brought pure light. For this I call you Phanes, I call you Lord Priapos, I call you sparkling with bright eyes.
Of the First-born king, the reverend one; and upon him all the immortals grew, blessed gods and goddesses and rivers and lovely springs and everything else that had then been born; and he himself became the sole one.
— The Derveni papyrus refers to Phanes
I am FINALLY feeling happy about my new setups after moving. I’ve rearranged several pieces and refreshed some candles, etc, but tadaaa, the current WIPs.
Phobos and fam first (tiny Ares and Deimos), with a new addition of Aphrodite (ty friend for letting me purchase her!) and her little frosted glass pieces. The green shell is actually an Art Deco era ash tray that had never been used, so I cleaned it and repurposed! Found at the thrift store with the blue glass tiny goblet. Still working on my corner for Erebus but there’s a vintage gelato glass filled with roses, black candles, and black scrying bowl on his end. Also an antique pitcher decorated with daffodils for Thanatos, just as my way of politely acknowledging him (I don’t actively worship him), filled with dried roses tucked into its own corner.
Odin and Loki have two halves of the next same shelf, split with a general offering area for everyone else.
Phanes and Lucifer actually have a new amber apothecary jar that’s not pictured bc I’m washing it, but it’s also antique!
And finally we have Nefertem, Anubis (new!!) and Shezmu! Anubis is a WIP, and the empty space in front of Shezmu’s area serves a purpose. I offer all my candle-making fragrance oils there before I use them in my candles, which I feel fits pretty thematically for him and especially Nefertem.
🔆 Terrible light in my work room at night, but I finally got around to making some candles for Lucifer. Antique red glass* filled with Lily of the Valley and a botanical scent that reminds me of sunlight and spring. I have Phanes’ candle (previously pictured here in a cobalt jar, missing from this picture) in another room right now burning as a little bad-vibes cleanse.
There was something very peaceful and therapeutic about making things for Lucifer this afternoon. It was warm and cozy and quiet, and I ended up spending several hours painting and working on other projects I had lying around. His Lily of the Valley fragrance filled the whole house and I still smell it lingering hours later. I feel like I haven’t spent time doing devotional work for my gods in so long, even though I just finished something for Phobos, so it was extremely nice to just sit in the afternoon sunshine and make things for them. Things made specifically for them rather than in honor of, that I can keep and enjoy with them.
* I do not encourage making candles in antique glass, or containers not marked specifically for use as a candle container. It is something I do very rarely and only after testing the glass.
a new space for Phanes I’m building and the rest of my current setup. planning on painting some things to fill in wall space
Small altar update before I have to pack it all up and move: a pretty apple that opens up to a polished golden hidden compartment for Lucifer, a golden egg for Phanes, and a little serpent buddy I plan on turning into some sort of decor.
I’m aware that having them share an altar is a little odd, but I also don’t feel right separating them as I came to worship them at almost the exact same time. So much of their imagery and how I view them overlaps that it feels right to give them their own little space away from my other altars. I worried about it for a while until I just flat out asked via tarot/oracle deck and got a vibe of “quit worrying about it!” soooo here I am.
Found out recently that Phanes is a character in Carl Jung’s diaries. I found this extended description of them from the Black Book. I change “he is” to “you are” and it makes a great modern devotional hymn:
Phanes is the God who rises agleam from the waters.
Phanes is the smile of dawn.
Phanes is the resplendent day.
He is the immortal present.
He is the gushing streams.
He is the soughing wind.
He is hunger and satiation.
He is love and lust.
He is mourning and consolation.
He is promise and fulfillment.
He is the light that illuminates every darkness.
He is the eternal day.
He is the silver light of the moon.
He is the flickering stars.
He is the shooting star that flashes and falls and lapses:
He is the stream of shooting stars that returns every year.
He is the returning sun and moon.
He is the trailing star that brings wars and noble wine.
He is the good and fullness of the year.
He fulfills the hours with life-filled enchantment.
He is love’s embrace and whisper.
He is the warmth of friendship.
He is the hope that enlivens the void.
He is the magnificence of all renewed suns.
He is the joy at every birth.
He is the blooming flowers.
He is the velvety butterfly’s wing.
He is the scent of blooming gardens that fills the nights.
He is the song of joy.
He is the tree of light.
He is perfection, everything done better.
He is everything euphonious.
He is the well-measured.
He is the sacred number.
He is the promise of life.
He is the contract and the sacred pledge.
He is the diversity of sounds and colors.
He is the sanctification of morning, noon, and evening.
He is the benevolent and the gentle.
He is salvation …
In truth, Phanes is the happy day …
In truth, Phanes is work and its accomplishment and its remuneration.
He is the troublesome task and the evening calm.
He is the step on the middle way; its beginning, its middle, and its end.
He is foresight.
He is the end of fear.
He is the sprouting seed, the opening bud.
He is the gate of reception, of acceptance and deposition.
He is the spring and the desert.
He is the safe haven and the stormy night.
He is the certainty in desperation.
He is the solid in dissolution.
He is the liberation from imprisonment.
He is counsel and strength in advancement.
He is the friend of man, the light emanating from man, the bright glow that man beholds on his path.
He is the greatness of man, his worth, and his force.