My Take on Worshipping & Working with Ares
(Disclaimer: "My take" means my personal opinion and deriving heavily from my own experience.)
I work with Ares primarily in Shadow Work, and worship/work with him heavily in my practice.
1: The Misconceptions
I see a lot of "I work with Ares, so I work out all the time for him", and while exercise is wonderful for the body, and I myself love to get in a good walk, I have never devoted that to Ares. I am not saying you shouldn't, but the reason I mention it at all is the fact that many people equate working with Ares or those who do as muscle-headed gym bros who are always having to exercise or have to prove their masculinity. As a computer nerd who doesn't have exercise in their daily life and has chronic disabilities/illness that make that harder, I just don't do that. If I can, I take a good long walk for an hour or two about twice or once a week (if I can), that's mostly as far as it goes. In terms of proving my masculinity? Why? Let's dispense with the antiquated gender roles that say we have to assign the tough masculine aura to the cis guys. I am a trans male who has no issue looking feminine and being both a Queen and a King, that's just how it is. Ares can tell me himself if he has an issue with it, but he never has. And after getting to know him for some time, personally, he's not the type to give a fuck about your gender presentation. That also means, you don't have to be a guy to work with him, as I have also seen before.
Now, if we're trying to be true to the ancient Greek times, he was the primary deity worshipped in Sparta, and once the Romans adopted (which is putting it nicely) the Greek deities into their belief system, Mars was used as the primary deity equivalent to Zeus (Jupiter as he was called), with the common epithet to represent him being Mars Ultor, basically a title of greatness and power for him. He was used to inspire and push young men in those times toward a great strength and motivation in terms of military service as that was a greater focus in their culture than it was in the Greek culture (Not that the Greeks couldn't fight of course, they had their war deities, and Ares was one of them, but there IS a massive shift in the Greek and Roman mindsets when involving war, too much to get into). Now, here's where I stop, as I'm not an expert on Greco-Roman history and the two cultures, but it should demonstrate the point well at least on where these ideas so many people are spreading come from and why many think they're valid for everyone.
2: Worship
I tend to worship him by simple prayer. I take the knife I have and meditate with it, praying to him or simply talking. Sometimes, I don't even take the knife Lol. He's honestly a very simple person to deal with in my experience. You don't need to do fancy shit for him as devotional acts, he values respect and honor above all, so if you are giving that and offering this to him, he's a very pleased guy. I can't and don't use candles or fire in my practice, but my fire element/offering is going into a game and killing some bad guys. Is it semi-stereotypical in terms of the aggression? Kind of. Is it more focused on lessening my own stress and self-control so I'm taking my stress and anger out in a game than on people? Yes, and usually this isn't done FOR Ares, this is done more in terms of working on myself as agreed upon with Ares. Which goes into our next subject.
3: Work
Working with Ares is a huge part of my relationship with him (don't get me wrong, I love to just exist with him and listen to Fallout Boy too) but it's here where I have much more to say as I have always focused on Shadow Work in my life, and that only increased when I started my practice and my move away from the toxic Christianity I was raised with. Ares was not the first to work with me on this, and I had to work on some stuff myself just to be open to the idea of working with other deities. But in terms of Ares, he has been someone that I feel a strong connection to because of the heart, not my masculinity, not fighting others and exercising, but more because of the internal struggles and survival for my life I have had throughout my entire life. Be it with illness, my heart and trauma, or defending others, mainly my little brother, but all these thins took an internal struggle, not am external one. I find I work with him purely in terms of internal survival (either against physical or mental illness) and Shadow Work, which means understanding my heart, my will, and how to overcome the pain that has broken those things in my past. THIS part of him, is the part I rarely see anyone say anything about. Or everyone pairs him with Aphrodite and says this is their thing. I don't understand why it can't be him alone, I have hardly ever worked or dealt with Aphrodite, and while I give her respect and have given her my prayer, she is rarely there as my path just doesn't flow that way.
And also.. Why does no one talk about the fact that Ares can connect to illness too? In my opinion, he connects to illness through the issue of having to fight through it or even fight to keep someone alive.
I love embracing him as someone that doesn't require you to be a cis man with a six pack, or fight a literal war or fight other people just to work with him, and I really want to stress that you don't have to be these things, or change who you are as a person or fit into any requirement to work with him, and you don't have to do this with any deity either. You bring yourself first, that's all you truly need to bring to them, yourself and an open mind and ears to listen.
(Damn, this was long, hope people actually read this rant lmao)
If you got to the end, congratulations! And thank you for reading, I deeply appreciate that and you! 💖
