Blog Masterpost

This is a list of Especially Good posts I’ve made on my blog. Once there are enough I will organize them into categories.

Disclaimer: Older posts may include different pronouns or names for me, this blog has been around through a lot of my life changes!

My Library - PDF books I’ve collected for free use

A Skeptic’s Guide to Messages & Signs from God(s)

The Wisdom of the Myths Book Review Pt 1 - I never finished the book review but I still recommend this book to everyone! I have it in my library now too.

My Ritual for Offerings and Prayers - Simple Version - Full Version

Last Updated: 2/6/2021 - Link to My Ritual for Offerings and Prayers Simple Version fixed

#Blog Masterpost #Hellenic Polytheism #Hellenism #hellenismos #Pagans #paganism #dodekatheism #hellenic pagan #hellenic paganism

celestiaphia reblogged

ts-witchy-archive

Low Energy Devotional Activities and Ways to Connect with the Gods

Let's be honest, religion and consistent practice can be HARD, especially when you're chronically ill, disabled, mentally ill or neurodivergent. This is a list of lower energy practices you can do to connect with your Gods when you're having a rough day.

Pray. You don't have to say the prayer. You don't have to do the full cleansing and offering. Just think about the prayer. It could be as simple as "'Deity Name', thank you. I'm thinking of you and appreciate you."
Dedicate any self care you do to the Gods. You've got to take meds? awesome. it's now a devotional activity.
If you can, light a tea light candle. You can think about who you're dedicating it to as you're lighting it.
Tell them about your day. Have a simple conversation with them (again, this can be in your head if needed).
Offer some water! Water is a great offering if you don’t have the energy to cook, collect or buy something.
Incense is also a great offering because you can light it then forget about it and your house won’t burn down (if you follow regular safety measures).
Resting. Your deities want you to be okay. Dedicating your rest to your deities is especially great if you feel guilty for allowing yourself time to heal.
Turn on a video of someone reading mythos!
Put on a deity playlist. There are plenty of pre-made ones on Spotify.
Veil or bind your hair! Whenever I’m low energy I’ll throw my hair in a ponytail and bind it that way. It doesn’t have to be extravagant.
Make a Pinterest board for them!
Post on a digital altar! There are plenty of discord servers that have digital altars and temples. You could also make a devotional Tumblr blog.
Change your phone lock/home screen to something that reminds you of your Deity.

I hope this is helpful to anyone who needs it! Take care of yourself first and foremost. If you don't think you can manage something on this list then thats perfectly fine too! you're not a bad person for not being able to do something spiritual or religious. Ultimately, these things are not a necessity. Don't stress :)

celestiaphia reblogged

pitayaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I made some prayer beads for Lord Apollon

Someone tell me why Golden Sun Charms are SO HARD TO FIND AT CRAFT STORES AAAAAAAAA

I used Citrine beads and I think Carnelian.

I haven’t been really praying or anything, and I’ve been in a slump, but once I get more candles (LED), I can probably get back into it.

celestiaphia

Absolutely beautiful! Great work.

celestiaphia reblogged

just-late-roman-republic-things

*sidles out of the shadows*

*opens jacket, hands you PDFs of every Loeb classical library text in the public domain*

*also hands you links to Gutenberg.org for searchable EPUB books, LibriVox for free audiobooks, the Internet Archive library and the Perseus Digital Library*

*also, if you're under 22 and in the US, you can get a free eCard for the Brooklyn Public Library, and access their entire digital catalogue*

*slides back into shadows*

celestiaphia reblogged

elikoeides

I find some hellenic polytheist spaces to be.... quite restrictive in a way. When I was doing research on prayer, I came across Aliakai's videos and gave them a whirl. It was honestly... kind of disheartening.

I don't pray ritually. Well, not always. I pray because I want to have a relationship with the gods. I pray to thank them for things they have given me, and I pray just to thank them for being in my life. I pray over the small things. I pray all the time. These are not riutalized prayers. I'm not taking a whole bath to cleanse myself of miasma before I pray over these small things. Sometimes I don't have the option.

Perhaps this is just left over influence from growing up around Christians. I think prayer absolutely can be rituatlized, and sometimes it is. When I'm going to give a big prayer with an offering, I wash myself and get ready to pray. But this isn't always the case for me. I felt almost discouraged at that video because to some extent I felt like that was how I HAD to pray and the gods wouldn't accept it any other way. I don't think that's how it is.

The gods aren't going to be cross with you because you said a small prayer without ritual. They aren't going to be mad if you don't give an offering over these small prayers. They aren't going to be mad if you don't want to pray ritually. This is about YOUR relationship with them. Do what works for you, there is no right or wrong way to pray. Sure, there are historically accurate ways, but that doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

Pray however you see fit.

celestiaphia

First of all I agree with everything you said. Aliakai has said in some places that she mainly talks about reconstructing historical practices in a way a contemporary person could do them so she sometimes is overly focused on the historical methods and doesn't give this context. She's also said she's making videos to promote her idea of "common hellenism" so more people have a unified way of practice, which she again doesn't give this context often. It's not exactly deceptive but it can leave some viewers feeling like you did, since they feel like there's no other way to worship.

The important lesson is just because someone is an authority (youtuber who does research and presents it to people is a kind of authority) doesn't mean you have to agree with them or do what they say. I struggled with only following what other people told me when I started practicing and I've been a lot happier now that I take the info in and parse it for myself rather than try to follow exactly how someone tells me to do things.

(further ramble)

I think some of this is the pure recon bumping up against the revival mindset too. Some people only want to do things if it's attested. Others have more wiggle too and personalize their practice.

celestiaphia

I just woke up from terrifyingly vivid nightmare. I was in a tall building during a hurricane and suddenly the building shook and the floors collapsed. I could feel myself falling and hear the floors below me continue to crash and knew I would die.

And in my dream I thought "no, no, not like this. Praise hermes..." and I started to pray because I knew, I would die.

The nightmare part is horrible and I wish I didn't get them. I wake up with panic and take a while to convince myself it's not real. But, the amazing part. I am impressed even in my dreams I call out to my gods. Part of me is afraid it's just play acting and when the time comes, the Christian god is who I'll call to. I guess in a way I know now how true my belief is, if dreams count.

#Nightmare #tw: nightmares #Personal

celestiaphia reblogged

piristephes

belladonna-moon

“In the worship of the latter [Dionysos], women found a religiously approved vehicle for venting their feelings in an ecstatic manner that contradicted and transcended the male-defined mentality of the Greek city-state. When possessed by the madness of Dionysos, women suddenly found themselves free of the patriarchally imposed definitions of self, womanhood, and sanity. Hence, from a nonpatriarchal perspective, the madness of Dionysos had a certain logic after all.”

[Arthur Evans, “The God of Ecstasy: Sex Roles and the Madness of Dionysos”, 1988, p. 18]

celestiaphia reblogged

carrykerykeion

bowsersforeskin

op turned off reblogs but i want this post on my blog

zzoupz

I know basically nothing about tarot cards but I absolutely need to make this a reality

xray-vex

🌩️🔥⚡🏢⚡🔥🌩️

🩸🩸🩸😄👍🩸🩸🩸

DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT

celestiaphia

Hail Dionysus, the twice-born God.

#hellenic polytheism #pagan #polytheism #dionysusdeity #dionysus deity

celestiaphia reblogged

thequeerofdelphi

mirkokosmos

pm1.narvii.com

William Blake Richmond, 1886

celestiaphia reblogged

piristephes

sawbeaver

#hermes #art

celestiaphia reblogged

arkefthos

a-gnosis

05: Zagreus-Dionysos

Now you have died and now you have come into being, O thrice happy one, on this same day. Tell Persephone that the Bacchic One himself released you.

From a woman’s grave in a sarcophagus in Pelinna, late 4th cent. BCE, inscribed on two ivy-shaped tablets lying on the chest of the deceased.

“According to the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus, Hades and Dionysos were the same. The concept of a chthonian, underworld Dionysos who had a role to play in the fate of the soul was widespread, though not fully manifested in state religion. Instead, it was disseminated through private Bakchic mysteries, which seems to have arisen in the late Archaic period.”

“An esoteric Orphic tradition held that Persephone was the mother of Zagreus, who as a child was torn apart and consumed by the Titans, yet came to life again as Dionysos in the womb of Semele. This unique experience meant that Dionysos, in conjunction with Persephone, was able to grant release from the miserable lot of the dead; thus his epithet Lysios (Releaser) had one meaning for the general public and another for the initiate.”

Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide by Jennifer Larson

celestiaphia

Coming around for that once every six months post it where I rant to help process something...

I'm on the up swing religiously which is amazing. I'm not sure what triggered it but I'm also trying to pace myself and not throw myself into everything at once for the start.

I ran into something very weird though. I've been listening/watching a lot of pagan/atheist/religious study YouTube, and the other night I was listening to one as I slept that was talking about Christianity and some how, something in the video brought up a thought in my mind and Im unsure how to process it.

It made me think back to my time as a Christian, as a teenager and a young child. I was raised Christian and stayed Christian until I was 19 in college when I could finally learn about other religions. The main thing that made me leave Christianity was a) being bisexual and the deep conflict there and b) starting to question the validity of the Bible.

But prior to that I was very Christian! But not in the usual way. I didn't really go to church and never really felt like I should or had to go to church. But I prayed a lot, at least once a week at bed. Giving up my anxieties and wishes to God at bedtime was a big ritual for me. I was a weird little goth teen that wore a cross because Jesus meant a lot to me. And why wouldn't he? I was raised from the very start in a church by my grandma. Not maliciously from her, she's one person I consider to be a good Christian.

As a little kid I went to church a lot, and Bible camp (I'll admit *that* was weird). There's a lot in being Christian that is weird.

I'm getting off topic... What came across my mind was that *I missed jesus*. Excuses me what!? I don't miss being Christian, I don't miss "God" or the Bible. But damn, the churches I went to really fed me the Jesus loves me shit and I ate that down. And you know what I miss that. And I think thats okay.

In hellenic polytheism I have never had the same kind of "relationship" with the gods as I felt I had with Jesus. I have prayed silently to some of the theoi at bedtime, but it always feels a little weird or wrong, like I shouldnt be doing it that way, because it's not reconstructionist or it's too much like my past religion.

And maybe it's weird, I don't know, I've never felt the strong "unconditional love" that Jesus is said to have. Again not everyone may have felt that growing up in Christianity but I did. Maybe it was a response to my broken home and trauma. Jesus was my imaginary friend who always loved me, who was always listening and watching, who could be there whenever I asked. And I loved that so much, even up to being a teenager! But I haven't felt that same way with the Greek gods, for whatever reason... It's not really meant to be the same. We build kharis. It's not a personal relationship like Christianity teaches you have with god/Jesus.

I think this shows me I'm missing something specific in my religion that I would value having again and I'm not sure how to replace it/replicate it. There's a lot more I could say about this but it would probably keep getting weirdly Christian. But I'll be clear I don't believe in Christianity at all anymore. I believe in the positive experiences I felt when I prayed to Jesus. (I never want to go back to being afraid I'll burn in hell because I like like girls.)

I'm having a lot of weird experiences religiously lately. This was just one of them. I think I may be leading to something important in the coming months. Guess we'll see.

#Personal #tw christianity

celestiaphia

WIP tattoo of Sophropsyne/Temperance

Not sure how other people feel about getting images of gods tattooed on them, but I figure it's really just a picture from a tarot card, I'm the one who gives it any meaning.

#Personal #Tattoo #Temperance #Tarot

celestiaphia reblogged

thegrapeandthefig

rupertbbare

The Lament for Icarus 2020, Miao He

celestiaphia

I am intersex

Happy Pride Month! This year, President Biden included Intersex in his proclamation for Pride Month. Intersex people are born with a difference of sexual development in their anatomy, reproductive organs, or genetics. It is not a sexuality. It is not a gender identity. It is how we are born. I am intersex and I am proud of my body.

This isn't the usual thing I post here but I'm trying to be more open and unashamed of who I am. Don't forget about intersex people this pride month. 💕

#Intersex #Actually intersex

celestiaphia

I've been working on more intuitive tarot reading lately and I got the spookiest reading right now.

I did the reading generally to get a message about where I am at spiritually right now which I've done a few times before but this was more focused in on a Deity and my connection with them.

I got the upright lovers, reversed hang man and reverse page of cups which tells me, "our connection is good, but you're not getting what you want out of this right now and your creativity/energy is blocked in this area" which it absolutely is. So I pull a clarifying card - what can I do to change this, or should I be patient? And I get the eight of swords - I'm stuck here and I won't be able to proceed until I can remove whatever blind fold is on my eyes. Okay.

So then I pull another card. If I shouldn't focus on my spirituality now, what should I focus on?

I pull the chariot...

I'm currently doing EMDR in therapy for a car crash I was in with the end goal of being able to drive again. And it just smacks me right in the face. I need to focus on this first before I can make any progress spiritually. Until I resolve that trauma, and maybe until I can get behind the wheel and drive, I won't be able to focus spiritually.

GIF by murdaawasthecase-deactivated202

#Tarot #Personal