New Home

Of Thespiae has just moved to http://ofthespiae.hellenistai.com — please update your links.

I will be updating all of my blog networks shortly.

 

Oops.

Scheduled a chat for today, and wound up going to do something else that made me not here until later.

Ah well….

So, somebody a few days ago seemed to be insisting to my that my interest in Hellenic religion was “purely academic, to supplement [my] image as an aesthete”. As flattering as that may be to some people, it really pissed me off because, as “logical and objective” as I tend to be on various e-mail lists, I had also been hoping that I was saying just enough to clue people in to the fact that there is real and very genuine spirituality behind it all. It turns out that a few people can tell, and I’m very grateful for that (at the very least, it tells me that I’m doing something right).

As I’m sure some have seen me state a hundred times before, I’ve learned to balance a lot of really weird shit with logic and objectivity — it’s not about anything more than balance with me. I suppose one could say that if I didn’t care so much about how I appeared to others… blah, blah, blah… but frankly, we all care, to some degree or another, in some way or another, about how we appear to others — and I could easily argue that a certain person cares so much about appearing “mystical” that he’ll throw the logic-baby out with the bathwater and go vampire-hunting.

A friend asked me on AIM earlier this evening how i feel about “mysticism”, and I’m very open to mystical aspects of religion — like I said, the logic and objectivity is to balance a lot of weird shit. Like, my father, who didn’t even have a heart condition, apologised to my for being such a shit dad two months and change before he died of a freak heart attack at 59. His doctor had just given him a clean bill of health a month to the day before (so my step-mother said). It definitely was one of the things to help shake out those Atheistic leanings, to put it politely, but at the same time, I think that to fully appreciate the “mystical” side of reality, we have to fully appreciate the mundane. To me, this means being able to find some chord of logic to evaluate it all by. Maybe your logic is less hard-nosed than mine, and that’s fine for you.

I also think that there is a range of “dignified” manners to deal with mysticism, and a range of less-than-dignified manners. Not just when relaying these experiences to others, but I think that if we lack a certain dignity when it’s just us by ourselves, it makes that dignity “fake” with others. But for all of these experiences, both external (like the peculiar timing of my father’s death) and internal, I’ve understood a lot of it to be very personal, so I don’t like to talk about it.

In fact, I think I can even say as much that, after one of the few instances that I talked about some such “weird” experience on some e-mail list, I got a very “cold” reaction from the Theoi afterward. It literally felt like somebody opened up my chest and put my heart on ice. It hurt and I was in tears to the point that my room-mate (a pretty staunch Atheist) could even hear me over loud music and opened my bedroom door to ask what was wrong.

So, yeah, for the most part, I don’t talk about things other than devotional rituals, crafty shit, and if I’m doing a divination for somebody, obviously I’ll talk about that. I don’t talk about much else, I fear the reactions over things that may have been meant for me — and after that one time, I’m not sure I’m the best judge of what *was* for me and me alone or not. Occasionally, I’ll sort of get a “signal” that something is for the good of other Hellenistai — like my posts about deities, heroi, nymphai; in part because a lot of those articles are written from a different “head space”, if that makes any sense.

 

Has it been a month, already?

Almost!

I’ve been busy noodling around with the new forum and am noodling around with plans on an expanded site (in addition to other projects I have going on).

I’m seriously considering moving this blog (and Urban Hellenistos) over to the expanded site, in addition to the primary site blog — which, at this time, will be focused on media reviews for Hellenists — because there will be a lot of pros to this.

The most apparent “pros” are that I’d be able to install additional plug-ins and themes — I really like this idea, especially for this blog, which is more devotional than the other one. I know in various Pagan and Polytheist sites, people will debate for days about whether or not on-line offerings, things that are less “tangible” than traditional votive offerings and sacrifice, are good offerings to the Theoi. I see it this way: Anything that you put a lot of work into can be a good offering to a God. Is it going to be on the same level as something that I can hold in my hands, burn, and so forth? No, definitely not, but the harder one works at it, the more apparent that lot of hard work will be, and through that hard work, love and devotion to certain Theoi will shine through.

Another “pro” will be that attachments won’t have as low a storage limit (not like that’s an immediate issue for me right now — my attachments here haven’t even passed 1% of my wordpress.com storage limit).

Well, I think my decision has been made. On the down side, this means updating links at places and what-not, but it could be worse. I shall keep you wonderful readers posted.

Now that that’s out of the way, the next Eros & Aphrodite chat will be 10pm(EST / GMT-0500) on Monday, 27 April 2009 — which would be 4 Thargeleon 696-4, as per the Attic calendar (which, according to Wikipaedia, would be 4 Theilouthios as per the Boeotian calendar). Tell your friends! It’s only a week away!

 

Hellenistai Chat

I have just created a chat room so that I and other Hellenists can converse with each-other as a group. I’m not thinking of any regular scheduled chats except for topic chats on the 4th of the lunar month on Eros & Aphrodite cult, at least for a while, just to see how it works out. First chat is [edit]March 31; 10pmEST/GMT-0500 (7pmPST/GMT-0800).

If this is of interest to you, please feel free to spread the word to others.

 

Antinoos as Hyakintos — think about it, won’t you?

Recently, I’ve noticed some interest amongst Queer men (and some others) in on-line Hellenic (and Graeco-Roman-Aegyptian) circles in the revived cult-worship of Roman Emperor Hadrian’s deified beloved, Antinous (Antinoos in Greek). To a rather small group of individuals, this mere idea is controversial, at best (though they tend to describe it as “Ew! Icky for-een cultus to a Kept Boy™! get it away from MY Hellenismos!” — oi theoi, I almost wish I was joking). I’m going to ignore them, mainly just for being generally unpleasant, but also because 1) they ignore the fact that within the Hellenic religion, “foreign” cults were embraced often-enough that two rather famous ones, Kybele and Adonis, are generally considered thoroughly Hellenised (and really, it seems Antinoos’ only “crime”, in his veneration, is being born far too late for these people); and 2) even if one doesn’t consider Antinoos of ta theoi, his veneration doesn’t seem out of line with certain schools of ancient hero-worship. That said, well, if certain people wish to continue to breathe farts and talk poopie, I’m hardly going to stand in their way — free country and all that.

Now, I’m on this one Antinoos e-mail list (which I’ve been essentially a “silent lurker” to until about an hour ago) and it hit me as I went back to a few sites of info that, while often likened to Dionysos, I see a closer relationship to Hyakintos in Antinoos. Hell, if I wanted to tke a lead from my Token Hindu Friend™, I may even venture to posit the idea that Antinoos was an “avatar” of Hyakintos.

This is pretty much just one of those ideas that just popped into my head in the last hour, and I thought I’d share, cos there’s no real reason not to.

Also, from that same list, Phillupus had this to say:

Interestingly, Antinous is compared to Hyakinthos (and other flower-boys of Greek myth), but never syncretized to him…In several texts, in fact, Antinous is said to be “better” than these other flower boys (Hylas, Narcissus, Hyakinthos, &c.) for various reasons.

Whether one interprets Antinous’ ancient cultus as heroic or deific, the fact is that he was called “Heros” at some places (e.g. Delphi, Socanica, &c.), and “Theos” (e.g. Rome, Leptis Magna, Mantineia, Antinoopolis, Hadrian’s Villa, &c.) in others…those who dispute this are simply at odd with the facts. His cultus was not a foreign import, he was of Greek ethnicity and culture himself, and he is called a “native god” in places like Mantineia, Arcadia generally, and back home in Bithynia. Again, those who assert otherwise are doing so in ignorance of the facts as they are available on the most reliable sources on this matter.

[snip]

And, Thespiae does have a definite connection to the cultus, at least as I see it. Hadrian’s bear-hunt trophy was dedicated in the Eros temple in Thespiae, asking for the kharis of Aphrodite-Ourania (patroness of male homoerotic love) in finding a young eromenos, and this was right around the time (c. 123-124 CE) that he would have met Antinous, by most estimates.
–Phillupus, ekklesia_antinoou

Antinopolis.org/

 

Eros & Psykhe statue on eBay

link: Eros & Psyche Forgiven Santini statue

$99. Free shipping.

I think I need this more than the last statue I wanted to get.

This would look excellent as a part of my shrine.

I’m kind of debating whether or not I should paint my blank statuary. On one hand, I rather like the look some painted statuary has (some other paint jobs, honestly, I think looks rather tacky), but on the other, I like the sometimes simple, almost Modernist beauty of the blank white alabaster or resins that my table-top statues tend to be. If I ever found a statue that I liked better (which happened at least once already, with my Hermaphroditos statue to the left on the shrine, it’s a replacement of one that didn’t “match” Narkissos on the right), I can sell a blank statue more easily — unless, of course, this novel makes me famous, and my hand-painted things end up fetching “one-of-a-kind” prices or some shite. Pretty much only another Hellenistos would buy a statue painted an amateur, and only a well-painted statue.

Tough decision, indeed.

When I make little crafty things for shrines, I definitely believe that I put quite a bit of “my own energy” into the work, that the Theoi can feel the love and devotion, and maybe even guide my hands as I work. Still, it’s a tough decision to paint a statue or not.

 

Kybele & Pan worship in Boeotia

I don’t remember which Hellenic Polytheism list I saw this on, but I recall somebody relatively recently (within the last couple of months or so) saying something about Kybele and Pan being worshiped side-by-side in certain regions of Boeotia. I seem to recall reading that in some book, as well, but owning comparatively few books, I can’t just quick look that up right now.

I’ve found limited info in googling some books, Cybele, Attis and Related Cults by Maarten Jozef Vermaseren & Eugene Lane mentions this in Theban cultus, specifically.

Does anybody reading this perhaps know where else I can confirm this?