Monday, June 26, 2017
Delphic Maxims #7:Perceive what you have heard
So this is the last one of this month and it's Perceive what you have heard. What does that mean? Well I'm going to take a crack at it. When you hear something it's natural to just assume that you know everything. However, there's always two sides to everything and you must listen to both and then decide which one is telling the truth. Don't just take people's word for it.
Saturday, June 24, 2017
Athenian Month of Hekatombaion Begins
Today is the start of a new Athenian year. Here are the festivals, observances, and so on.
June 24: Nourmia
June 25: Agathos Daemon
June 26: Honoring Athena
June 27: Honoring Aphrodite, Hermes, Heracles, Eros
June 29: Honoring Artemis
June 30: Honoring Apollon
July 1: Honoring Poseidon and Theseus
July 5: Kronia
July 8: (Daylight) Libations to Athena
July 9: Sunokia/ Full Moon (Honoring Selene, Artemis, and Hecate)
July 16-23: Panathenaia
July 21: Athena's Birth
July 23: Hea Kai Nea (New Moon, Honoring Hecate)
Have a good month.
June 24: Nourmia
June 25: Agathos Daemon
June 26: Honoring Athena
June 27: Honoring Aphrodite, Hermes, Heracles, Eros
June 29: Honoring Artemis
June 30: Honoring Apollon
July 1: Honoring Poseidon and Theseus
July 5: Kronia
July 8: (Daylight) Libations to Athena
July 9: Sunokia/ Full Moon (Honoring Selene, Artemis, and Hecate)
July 16-23: Panathenaia
July 21: Athena's Birth
July 23: Hea Kai Nea (New Moon, Honoring Hecate)
Have a good month.
Friday, June 23, 2017
Last Day of the Athenian Month and Year
Today is the New Moon and it's also the last day of the Athenian month and year. We honor Hecate but also Zeus and Athena. I hope that you all have a good one and may the coming year be good to you.
Monday, June 19, 2017
Delphic Maxims #6: Know what you have learned
Time for another one. So what does this mean. When you learn things there is a difference between learning from a book and knowing what you've learned. Knowing what you've learned means that you've mastered it. And that's the most important then that you can do.
Monday, June 12, 2017
Delphic Maxims #5: Be overcome by justice
This is the next one and it's something that we see either followed or abused. Being overcome by justice means that you don't allow those that have violated laws to go unpunished. You set out to make sure that justice is served and that those that are punished are punished. However don't abuse it and if things are going to happen, let them happen.
Saturday, June 10, 2017
Libations to Zeus
When it's daylight it will be time to honor Zeus and give him a libation. For me, however, it will take place when I get off from work. This is the last Libation of the Athenian month and year and one that I look forward to. Here's the altar that I have set up for this month.
Thursday, June 8, 2017
Hellenic Holiday: Bouphonia (2017)
When the sun goes down it will be Bouphonia. Here's some info, which I got from Wikipedia.
In ancient Greece, the Buphonia (Greek: Βουφόνια "ox-slayings") denoted a sacrificial ceremony performed at Athens as part of the Dipolieia, a religious festival held on the 14th of the midsummer month Skirophorion— in June or July— at the Acropolis. In the Buphonia a working ox was sacrificed to Zeus Polieus, Zeus protector of the city, in accordance with a very ancient custom. A group of oxen was driven forward to the altar at the highest point of the Acropolis. On the altar a sacrifice of grain had been spread by members of the family of the Kentriadae, on whom this duty devolved hereditarily. When one of the oxen began to eat, thus selecting itself for sacrifice,[1] one of the family of the Thaulonidae advanced with an axe, slew the ox, then immediately threw aside the axe and fled the scene of his guilt-laden crime.[2][3]
The Athenians of the age of Aristophanes[4] regarded the sombre ritual as archaic; its founding myth attributed its inception to Cecrops, the chthonic king of remotest legend (Aristophanes), to Diomus (Theophrastus, cited by Porphyry in De Abstinentia 2.10.2) or to archaic Erechtheus (Pausanias 1.28.10). The Dipolieia survived at least to the time of the Roman Empire.
Details of the rite can be reconstructed in detail, thanks to a passage in Porphyry that has been traced to a source in Theophrastus[5] The offering of grain was a reminder of the time "when people shrank from eating oxen," as Plato related in The Laws (782c), "and offered no animals in sacrifice, but rather, cakes and the fruits of the earth soaked in honey, and other such pure sacrifices."[6]
Although the slaughter of a laboring ox was forbidden, it was excused in these exceptional circumstances; nonetheless it was regarded as a murder. The axe, therefore, as being polluted by murder, was immediately afterward carried before the court of the Prytaneum, which tried the inanimate object for murder, and, after the water-bearers who lustrated the axe, the sharpeners who sharpened it, the axe-bearer who carried it, each denied in turn responsibility for the deed, the guilty axe or knife was there charged with having caused the death of the ox, for which the axe was acquitted (Pausanias) or the sacrificial knife was thrown into the sea (Porphyry). Apparently this is an early instance analogous to deodand.[3] In the enactment of this comedy of innocence, and the joint feasting of all who participated save the slayer himself, individual consciences were assuaged and the polis was reaffirmed.
In ancient Greece, the Buphonia (Greek: Βουφόνια "ox-slayings") denoted a sacrificial ceremony performed at Athens as part of the Dipolieia, a religious festival held on the 14th of the midsummer month Skirophorion— in June or July— at the Acropolis. In the Buphonia a working ox was sacrificed to Zeus Polieus, Zeus protector of the city, in accordance with a very ancient custom. A group of oxen was driven forward to the altar at the highest point of the Acropolis. On the altar a sacrifice of grain had been spread by members of the family of the Kentriadae, on whom this duty devolved hereditarily. When one of the oxen began to eat, thus selecting itself for sacrifice,[1] one of the family of the Thaulonidae advanced with an axe, slew the ox, then immediately threw aside the axe and fled the scene of his guilt-laden crime.[2][3]
The Athenians of the age of Aristophanes[4] regarded the sombre ritual as archaic; its founding myth attributed its inception to Cecrops, the chthonic king of remotest legend (Aristophanes), to Diomus (Theophrastus, cited by Porphyry in De Abstinentia 2.10.2) or to archaic Erechtheus (Pausanias 1.28.10). The Dipolieia survived at least to the time of the Roman Empire.
Details of the rite can be reconstructed in detail, thanks to a passage in Porphyry that has been traced to a source in Theophrastus[5] The offering of grain was a reminder of the time "when people shrank from eating oxen," as Plato related in The Laws (782c), "and offered no animals in sacrifice, but rather, cakes and the fruits of the earth soaked in honey, and other such pure sacrifices."[6]
Although the slaughter of a laboring ox was forbidden, it was excused in these exceptional circumstances; nonetheless it was regarded as a murder. The axe, therefore, as being polluted by murder, was immediately afterward carried before the court of the Prytaneum, which tried the inanimate object for murder, and, after the water-bearers who lustrated the axe, the sharpeners who sharpened it, the axe-bearer who carried it, each denied in turn responsibility for the deed, the guilty axe or knife was there charged with having caused the death of the ox, for which the axe was acquitted (Pausanias) or the sacrificial knife was thrown into the sea (Porphyry). Apparently this is an early instance analogous to deodand.[3] In the enactment of this comedy of innocence, and the joint feasting of all who participated save the slayer himself, individual consciences were assuaged and the polis was reaffirmed.
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Being Sick
One of the bad things that can ever happen to anyone is getting sick. Yesterday I was supposed to work but since I have pink eye, I can't. Today I'm going to the doctor to have it looked at and the meds given to me. Only then will I be able to work. Hopefully by Saturday there will be improvement. I got pink eye, I believe, from the cold that I had been given. I hate not working but that's one of the facts of life, getting sick.
For the ancients getting sick most likely sucked as well. However, there were no hospitals around. Doctors were part of Asclepius or even Apollon, his father. Of course they weren't called doctors, but priests. If you were sick you would go there, give a sacrifice that could be eaten, spend the night in the enkoimeteria, a big sanctuary, guest house and sleeping hall with 160 patient rooms that was all made of holy limestone, and there you would have a dream where Asclepius would tell you what you had to do to regain your health.
If you were healed then you would return with a model of the infected body part and give that as an offering. I'm going to do that when I'm healed. Until then I'm praying to both Apollon and Asclepius for healing.
For the ancients getting sick most likely sucked as well. However, there were no hospitals around. Doctors were part of Asclepius or even Apollon, his father. Of course they weren't called doctors, but priests. If you were sick you would go there, give a sacrifice that could be eaten, spend the night in the enkoimeteria, a big sanctuary, guest house and sleeping hall with 160 patient rooms that was all made of holy limestone, and there you would have a dream where Asclepius would tell you what you had to do to regain your health.
If you were healed then you would return with a model of the infected body part and give that as an offering. I'm going to do that when I'm healed. Until then I'm praying to both Apollon and Asclepius for healing.
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
Hellenic Holiday: Skirophoria (2017)
When the sun goes down it will be Skirophoria, which honors Athena,
Poseidon, Apollon, and Demeter. I don’t really have much information but
it was an important holiday. Enjoy your holiday and may the gods bless
you.
Monday, June 5, 2017
Delphic Maxims #4: Respect your Parents
This is the first one for this month and its a call to respect your parents. In the modern world we try and teach our children to have respect for us. However, there are those out there that try and unlearn that in our children. When they learn to disrespect us they make it clear that they don't appreciate what's been given to them. They teach this to their children, if they have them, and things get bad. Respect your parents and be glad that you don't live way back when when you could of been killed.
Thursday, June 1, 2017
Knowing the Gods are Real is Not What Makes Them Real
Note: I forgot to write a couple Hellenic holiday's down but I blame being tired on that. I will write them down when they come around again.
I was reading "Under the Ancient Oaks" and the title above is the title that he used. I'm going to just talk about what I've seen and how it connects to the title. I've been in the Polytheist community for about eight years. I found the community when I left Wicca. Though I will admit that sometimes some of my practices look Wiccan when all I'm doing is trying to figure out how to best approach what I'm doing.
In the time that I've been around I've seen debates over the gods and if their real, archetypes, so on. Personally I view them as being real. But my view isn't what makes them real. It's their presence in my life, how I've interacted with them, and how they have helped me. I've asked the gods for help in strength, patience (my present job is very stressful because people want me to work faster than is possible), and protection while traveling. I've done offerings to the Norse, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman gods. I'll add Celtic as well.
These gods are real because of my personal experience with them. Their real because I feel their presence in my daily life. That's what makes them real, not because I believe in them. I believe the Greeks, Romans, Norse, Celts, and Egyptians knew their gods were real because of the interaction that they had with them. They could feel their presence in their daily lives and that fed the belief. Anything less would be insulting.
So that's what I get from the title and that's what I get in my daily life.
I was reading "Under the Ancient Oaks" and the title above is the title that he used. I'm going to just talk about what I've seen and how it connects to the title. I've been in the Polytheist community for about eight years. I found the community when I left Wicca. Though I will admit that sometimes some of my practices look Wiccan when all I'm doing is trying to figure out how to best approach what I'm doing.
In the time that I've been around I've seen debates over the gods and if their real, archetypes, so on. Personally I view them as being real. But my view isn't what makes them real. It's their presence in my life, how I've interacted with them, and how they have helped me. I've asked the gods for help in strength, patience (my present job is very stressful because people want me to work faster than is possible), and protection while traveling. I've done offerings to the Norse, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman gods. I'll add Celtic as well.
These gods are real because of my personal experience with them. Their real because I feel their presence in my daily life. That's what makes them real, not because I believe in them. I believe the Greeks, Romans, Norse, Celts, and Egyptians knew their gods were real because of the interaction that they had with them. They could feel their presence in their daily lives and that fed the belief. Anything less would be insulting.
So that's what I get from the title and that's what I get in my daily life.
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