camssecretcave

[camssecretcave]

I would wish for everyone to be kind with themselves and everyone around them🌸

I don't have many mutuals so my tagging will be casual: @amethyst-aphrodite @thegrapeandthefig

Calling all pagans, witches, and various spiritual peeps.

Making a lil tagging game here :> Ill be looking at all the answers I can find during new years!

If you could wish one thing on behalf of the world, big or small, what would that be?

Mine, Id wish for everyone to have the oppurtunity to live a happy and full life.

Tagging

@zuvluguu

@jezzzebel

@luna-wolf-anastasia

@mikeyanderson97

And @eurydicejones

Should get me a diverse set of answers :> be sure to tag some buddies also! Feel free to join in if I didnt tag you!

[camssecretcave]

I petition and honour sacred Aphrodite.

Holy Goddess; She of the swan and the boar;

She of primordial birth and seafoam blood.

[camssecretcave]

Hera, not just an angry wife

Hello everyone! For those who don't know me, I'm Cam and I'm a Hellenic pagan. A few months ago I've partecipated at the OWC on the amino app in the Pagans and Witches chat! The challenge was talking about myths and legends and I've decided to talk about Lady Hera, the misconception about her and how modern culture sees her. I believe this post can spread a bit of knowledge so I'm going to post it also here!

Disclaimer: I don't work with Hera, this post is based on my studies and the research I've made. Please if you have a different opinion, that's okay and you can share it 💕

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ☁️── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮

Table of contents

I. Who is Lady Hera?

||. The portrait of the villain

III. It's not all black and white

IV. Conclusion

╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ☁️ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╯

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

Who is Lady Hera?

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

The goddess Hera is one of the daughters of Kronos and Rhea, queen of Olympus, wife and sister of Zeus. She presides over marriage, married women, childbirth, heavens and stars. Her children (depending on the myths) are Hebe (cupbearer of the gods), Ares, Eileithyia (goddess of childbirth) and Hephaestus. She is described with an intense gaze and with a capturing beauty (a different beauty from Aphrodite but that's another story). She is the picture of the perfect wife and queen and also her actions represent this aspect. Hera feels equal to Zeus and demands this status to be respected. We can define Hera as the second in command compared to Zeus, often in myths it is written how Zeus himself asks advice to his wife on how to act in the best of ways.

Seems all fair and peaceful, right? Well, being both very devoted to power and to lead the Olympus, we cannot rarely read of conflicts between the two that bring a lot of problems.

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

The portrait of the villain

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

As we said before, it is not so rare that Hera and Zeus fight on several fronts. We have myths that tell us how she tried to reverse the power of Zeus to get it and are much more common stories about Hera who uses her power to take revenge on the lovers of Zeus and his illegitimate children. We need to keep in mind that Hera doesn't just burst in anger and inflicts damage on lovers and children randomly, she uses a well-researched revenge. It should also be specified that illegitimate mortal children and immortals are treated differently. For example, Apollo and Artemis are the children of Zeus and Leto, but Hera as revenge for his cheating decides to just prolong the woman’s birth by holding Eileithyia on Olympus. Mortals and gods must earn her respect (Hera often seems uninterested in the numerous heroes who are equally sons of Zeus but whose fate is death). After she has obtained his revenge, Hera closes that chapter and dedicates herself to something else.

The picture that appears to the world is this: Hera after the betrayals of Zeus decides to target the objects of his desires or the illegitimate children (totally innocent and subjugated to the powers of the gods) only for revenge against her husband, right? Well, things are much more complicated than that.

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

It's not all black and white

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

When we talk about studying the Hellenic pantheon we must take into account that from the centuries where the myths, on which today we base a good part of our knowledge, were written with a very different mentality than we can have in 2024. That is why when we have to go and get information from any writer of the archaic age, we must always keep in mind the context in which he wrote and draw the information as objectively as possible. Sometimes it is almost normal to point the finger and say "it’s Zeus' fault because he cheated!" or "Hera should not hurt innocent people!" , especially if media around us invite to do this. Hera in Percy Jackson is depicted as a horrible goddess who has ruined the lives of hundreds of demigods and everyone hates her. Hera’s stereotype of a revengeful and mean wife is used extensively in the content we see on the internet, from TV series to books. In no way in myths, she is evoked under her aspect as "the angry one" or "the fearsome one", but rather as "Lady of Olympus" like her role says. We don’t need to blame Hera or Zeus or any god, it’s not necessary. Hera’s actions are not to be condemned because it is simply the role as goddess of loyalty in marriage and as queen of Olympus, she is just doing what is her duty. The conflict between Hera and Zeus is part of the order of things, and Zeus himself admits it in the Iliad when he tries to ally Hera to his cause. Her agreement is essential for consensus to reign on Olympus.

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

Conclusion

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

In the past, even after I started my practice, I was very much influenced by information obtained from books and TV series that totally changed Greek mythology. Only after studying from the right and reliable sources, I changed my mind. Zeus was not a horrible god and indeed, working together has really changed my practice and I think the same is true with people who work with Hera. I decided to write this post to do her justice because, informing me more and more and opening my mind, I discovered that under the stereotype of an angry goddess there is actually a beautiful world to discover. I am infinitely grateful that the Cam of the past has set aside her beliefs and opened her mind.

Thanks for reading so far, I hope you liked this post. Remember to never stop feeding your knowledge 🪷

Resources

Il re degli dei, Alessandro Gelain

Mythology, timeless tales of gods and heroes by Edith Hamilton

Hellenismos, by Tony Mierzwicki

Homeric Hymns

The Iliad

The Hera of Zeus, by Gabriella Pironti and Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge

The transformation of Hera, by Joan V. O'brien

[camssecretcave]

Check out this post, it's so valid!!

To Janus. To Jupiter. To the Roman gods.

🪔

𝐓𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬

I. Introduction

II. Gods

III. Mythology

IV. Calendar

V. Ritual

VI. Epilogue

VII. Resources

🪔

𝐈. 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Hey there everyone! This is Sybil (fka Clever Crow). As a Roman polytheist, “Roman polytheism is just a carbon-copy of Greek polytheism” is something I hear on a weekly basis. Whether on YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest or, heck, even academic resources, there seems to be a widespread belief that these two religions are identical. Today, I want to focus on this piece of misinformation and try to debunk it by using historical evidence and examples.

Just a small disclaimer: I will be discussing this topic from a hard polytheistic and revivalist point of view. Soft polytheism is absolutely valid, but in this case it might not be of use when highlighting differences between gods.

Also, I want to thank the following people: Cristina, Mystix, @spiritual-entries and @camssecretcave . They made sure that all information provided here is factual and reliable, and I will be forever grateful to them for their help.

🪔

𝐈𝐈. 𝐆𝐨𝐝𝐬

“Are the Greek and Roman pantheons one and the same?” This is the first question we will attempt at answering within this chapter. To do so, we must introduce a very important concept in Roman religion: interpretatio romana. Before that, though, let me provide you with some historical context.

Ever since the founding of Rome in 753 BCE, Romans were exposed to influences from other Italic peoples: Sabines, Etruscans, Volsci and so on. Because of that, we can indeed say that there has never been a 100% “native” Roman religion.

We can nonetheless differentiate two “phases” of Roman polytheism: pre-hellenisation polytheism and post-hellenisation polytheism (“hellenisation” being the process that merged Greek and Roman cultures and religions during the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE). For simplicity’s sake, in this post we are going to compare the pre-hellenisation version of Roman religion and Hellenism.

Back to interpretatio: what is it? To put it simply, it is the comparison of two different pantheons (which is used to find matches between the gods). It was used so that, when describing other populations’ religions, one could just name a more familiar, local deity instead of fully describing a foreign one (which, obviously, would take much more time). Just imagine being a Roman historian and having to discuss Greek religion: instead of saying “Ares is a god of war, battle and courage”, you could just say “Ares is like our Mars”.

Does that mean that these gods were seen as identical? Absolutely not! Actually, this shows us that Roman gods were a thing long before Greek gods started being adopted in the pantheon (which is the reason why a god like Janus does not have a Greek counterpart).

Sticking with the same example we have used before, we can say that Mars was already Mars before he was equated to Ares. And, because of that, at a closer look, the two are extremely different: while Ares is blood-driven, Mars shows a much calmer nature; contrarily to Ares, Mars has some pretty important ties to royalty (his son being Romulus-Quirinus) and agriculture; while Ares has a relationship with Aphrodite, Mars is married to Nerio; and so on. It is only after hellenisation that these two (as well as all of the other gods) started merging into one single Greco-Roman figure.

As I said before, though, this does not mean that Rome was against syncretism. Quite the contrary, actually: whenever Romans ran into a deity who could be of use to them and did not have a counterpart in their pantheon, they would consider adopting them. This is the reason why Apollo was worshiped by both societies (Romans adopted him in 431 BCE in order to fight a pestilence; his Greek nature never went unacknowledged: for him, ritus graecus was performed).

Fun fact: interpretatio was not only directed to Greece. Roman priests tried to include the prophet Jesus Christ into the Roman pantheon. He was described to them as “a god of love”, so they used interpretatio to connect him to Venus.

🪔

𝐈𝐈𝐈. 𝐌𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲

As I said before, during hellenisation Greek and Roman gods started merging. As a consequence, so did their mythologies…

Actually, no, scratch that: except for a few exceptions, Roman gods did not have a mythology to begin with. Mythology that is Roman in origin revolves around men, not deities (and that is the reason why it is also referred to as “mythic history”, as the protagonists are pseudo-historical figures). Myths in Ancient Rome were used as exempla, examples to teach teens and men how they should behave in a virtuous way.

For example, one of the most famous figures from Roman mythology is Lucius Junius Brutus, the founder of the Republic: he was intelligent (he tricked the cruel king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus into sparing his life), loyal (he never deserted the Romans) and strong-willed (he took the matters into his own hands and kicked out of Rome the cruel king), and every Roman had to aspire to be like him.

In Greece, on the other hand, myths had the task of explaining why something happens. Why do we have a colder season and a warmer one? That is because Persephone comes back from and goes to the Underworld. How do we know how to use fire? Prometheus gave it to men. How did the hyacinth, the flower, get its name? It comes from Apollo’s lover Hyacinth. On top of that, Greek mythology revolves a lot more around deities than the Roman one (which is the reason why there is a pretty intricate divine family tree in Hellenism).

With this in mind, we can say that, with hellenisation, the Roman gods received myths and genealogies (as well as iconographies, in some cases) of their own for the first time ever. However, these myths and these genealogies were not altered to better fit the deity.

This is the reason why Nerio, Mars’ original wife, was forgotten in favor of Venus (Aphrodite’s Roman counterpart). This is why Saturn, an extremely benevolent agricultural deity, started being depicted as a cruel entity devouring his children (yes: I am looking at you, Goya). And this is also why Minerva, who used to have nothing to do with Medusa, started to be seen as she-who-cursed-Medusa (now I am looking at you, Ovid).

🪔

𝐈𝐕. 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐫

Calendars were of extreme importance in polytheistic societies. After all, they were deeply intertwined with their religious mentality… which is the reason why we are briefly going to discuss this matter in this blog.

When it comes to Ancient Greece, the calendar we have the most evidence on is the Athenian one (which, because of this, has become the most widely used in modern Hellenic polytheistic communities). It is lunisolar (keep this in mind!). When it comes to Ancient Rome, on the other hand, we have quite some evidence on three different calendars that modern Roman polytheists can choose from: a lunar one, a lunisolar one and a solar one (the latter happens to be the calendar still in use today).

One similarity that needs to be addressed is the one between Noumenia and Kalends (both being a celebration of the first day of the month). In the Roman version, however, we would also have to add Nones and Ides as recurring monthly festivities.

Another similarity that many seem to highlight is the one between Kronia and Saturnalia, two festivities where abundance is celebrated (as well as, respectively, Kronos and Saturn, who later merged) and the Golden Age is remembered. However! Kronia is celebrated during the Summer, roughly during the Summer solstice; Saturnalia is celebrated during Wintertime, roughly during the Winter solstice. It might not seem like a big difference at first, but it is if we consider this: during Kronia, the harvest is celebrated while it is happening, while the mature crops are being collected; during Saturnalia, the harvest that has already happened during the past Summer is celebrated, as well as the one that is to come.

Last but not least, let us highlight a Roman-only peculiarity. Back in Ancient Roman times, every day had a “quality": they could either be faustus or nefastus (as well as a lot more nuances which we will not be taking into account here). They were of great importance on a religious level, as nefastus days could bring bad luck to a practitioner if they were to take big decisions. Something similar also happened with dies religiosi, during which it was forbidden to go to work (or do anything that was not a life-or-death matter).

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𝐕. 𝐑𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥

Now that we have discussed the more “theological” matters, such as the nature of the gods, myths and festivities, we can briefly talk about the more practical side of things.

Let us start with an all-time favorite: veiling. Nowadays, a lot of pagans (no matter their path or their gender) veil for a variety of reasons: protection, modesty or devotion. And that is, no doubt, valid. Historically speaking, though, things kind of different. While both in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome veils were used by women in order to express their modesty, in Italy they were also mandatory whenever performing rituals (for women and men alike).

Another big difference resides in the views of these two societies over divination. When we think of “divination” and “Ancient Greece”, one of the first things that comes to our minds is probably the Oracle of Delphi (and rightly so!). This figure was said to be able to channel the messages of the gods, and they did so by going into a trance-like state.

In Rome, this practice was seen as unreliable (even though, surprisingly, there are a couple of instances where Romans have asked the Oracle for guidance), as the only reliable forms of divination were those that could be performed when completely conscious (augury, haruspicy, etc). Dreams, too, were seen as an untrustworthy form of communication by Romans.

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𝐕𝐈. 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

There is something we still need to address: if these two cultures, societies, religions were so different, why do so many people believe otherwise?

Well, the answer can be found in 19th century’s anthropological and religious studies. Back then, scholars used to be very fond of the comparative approach (which is a “strategy where characteristics or parts are compared across different research situations to identify differences or similarities”, according to www.sciencedirect.com) and the Indo-European theory.

Too focused on stressing the similarities between Greeks and Romans, intellectuals “forgot” to highlight the differences. Even though nowadays, academically, these hypotheses have been marked as outdated, they are still ever-so widespread.

I hope that this blog will contribute to debunking this piece of misinformation. And I hope that I managed to introduce you, reader, to Roman polytheism… Not just a carbon-copy of Hellenism!

Sybil

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𝐕𝐈𝐈. 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬

The majority of my knowledge on Greek religion comes from “Archeologia greca” by Enzo Lippolis and Giorgio Rocco and theoi.com, as well as some high school classes dedicated to Hellenic mythology.

The following resources talk specifically about this post's subject:

Roman vs. Greek religion (YouTube)

Greek mythology: A second masterpost (Tumblr)

You can check out my full list of resources on Roman polytheism here.

🪔 Check out this post on Amino as well! 🪔

[camssecretcave]

⊹⊱•••《 September: a new start and a summary of the last month of summer 》•••⊰⊹

Disclaimer: This post is a bit long and it’s a consideration that I did, if you do not agree with what I wrote is absolutely fine. It’s just my thought. I hope you have a good time reading this! 💕

Hello everyone! Cam's here!

While I'm writing this post is the 5th of September and the summer officially ended. I try to look at september like a sort of New Year's day. Holidays are now a good memory and we can go back to school or to work (like me with the exam I have for tomorrow🫠). September for me is a month where I can take time to focus on what are the steps to take on various things, and my spiritual path is one of them. I have so many projects in mind and so many things I want to do and this motivation really brings me so much joy.

During august I took time to re-study tarot and honestly, it wasn't always smooth but consistency is the key! And at the end of August I managed to do a proper reading and I was literally in tears.

Lately I'm feeling a deep interest in Lady Hera that really came up out of nowhere. I was thinking about her role and how the world perceives her. So I told myself: "Why not listen to this feeling and look into it further?". And here I am! With like a bunch of books about her on my iPad and a lot of Google pages open in my desktop just for the seek on knowledge. For many it may seem like a mundane thing but I am very proud of myself because just putting in so much effort means that there is an improvement!

So, what's the point of this post?

Take your time and be gentle to yourself. Time will help you if you believe in what you are doing. If you don't feel like doing something right now because you are feeling overwhelmed or it just doesn't feel right, don't push yourself. Take a deep breath and a break, make yourself a tea and maybe write down why you feel like this (I swear it helps). Sometimes to be better at something we need first to take a break. Your feelings are valid and there's nothing wrong in stopping everything for a moment. I wrote this post because maybe there is someone out there who needs to be told that a break does not mean that everything ends and you can’t start again. If you really think it’s your way, follow it until you look in the mirror and don’t regret having gone on .

⊹˚₊‧───────────‧₊˚⊹⊹˚₊‧───────────‧₊˚⊹

I would like to spend the month of September gathering as much information as possible about Hera and Hellenic polytheism. Since these are my goals and I am a creative person, I decided to draw Lady Hera as to put on a tangible plane my intentions. This is also the beginning of a project that I would like to finish one day, I would like to make a tarot deck inspired by the Hellenic pantheon and here I tried to portray Hera as The Empress.

If you want to share your September goals or a reflection about this summer, go on! I would really like to read your thoughts about it and if you ever felt like taking a break from your path to improve yourself, feel free to share your story 💕

I hope this post is perceived in the most positive way possible as I perceive it, have a good time and a good start of September! Thank you if you are still reading this

Hugs and kisses, Cam🌸

Ps: if anyone is interested, this is the drawing (I'm not an artist, still practicing my drawing skills). I talked too much so see you in the next post!!

[camssecretcave]

thank you sillysybylseden for tagging me! I'm so happy to answer at these questions 🥹

・❥・Who, if anyone, was the first deity(s) you worked with?

So, the first deity I worked with was Lady Persephone in 2020, it was an amazing experience🌸. Always staying on the Hellenic Pantheon, i worked with Zeus and Dionysus. I have also had the opportunity to get in touch with Lucifer a few times. I think Zeus and Persephone really shaped my path as a pagan and the person I am now

・❥・Who, if anyone, is the deity(s) you're working with now?

At the moment I think i'm not working with any deity but during the days or holidays dedicated to specifics deities, I like to make an offering and decorate my altar in their honor

・❥・What's your favorite aspect of your practice? (Ex<. doing tarot, celebrating holidays, casting spells, etc)

The favorite aspect of my practice is incorporating crafts in it, such as drawing, painting, making devotional jewerly, etc... I think creativity is an important aspect in my practice and I use it at any occasion I get!

・❥・What's something you want to get better at?

I really want to get better with beign consistent with my practice and incorporating it in every day life, I also really want to practice more medidation

I don't have many mutuals so I'm tagging the blogs I find interesting💗:

@loverrdove @chickenroost @theic-manic @teawiththegods

(sorry if you don't want to be tagged 🥹💕)

I’m starting a tag game!

People are always saying they need more witchy/pagan mutuals so I thought this would be a fun way to find them while getting to talk about your practice!

Who, if anyone, was the first deity(s) you worked with?

Hermes was the first deity that I made the conscious decision to worship though I had always been drawn to paganism. I made a tiny altar, devotional drawings, playlists, and a journal to him. I quickly added Athena and Apollo after that, but it became too overwhelming, and I got burnt out. I stopped practicing for about four years until I started again this year.

Who, if anyone, is the deity(s) you’re working with now?

Artemis was the one who reached out to me this time. She had been sending me a bunch of incredibly obvious signs that took me abt six months to finally notice (my bad lol) but I'm very happy with her now. Athena has also been more present, whereas she was more in the background the first time I tried Hellenism, and now she sits with me at work. Hermes dips in and out and Apollo's the one who's been more in the background. I would like to strengthen my relationship with them because I miss them.

What’s your favorite aspect of your practice? (Ex: doing tarot, celebrating holidays, casting spells, etc)

I like getting things for my altar. It makes me so happy knowing that my gods will like whatever I'm getting; I love getting presents for ppl I care abt. I haven't collected everything into one central altar yet but I'm very excited for when I do.

What’s something you want to get better at?

I want to get better at tarot. I've been doing it for a few years now but I'm still 100% reliant on the guidebook the cards came with and am not very good at making my own interpretations. I'm hoping I'll get better at it with time but it has been quite a while...

Tagging: @buriedpentacles @kore-siciliana @anne-the-witch-ish @serpent-among-vines @khaire-traveler @princesmeadow @hunters-moonlight-serenade @huntingkyrie

[camssecretcave]

Drawing for Aphrodisia

Hello everyone! So, this is my drawing for the festival of Aphrodisia in honour of Lady Aphrodite. For the festival at first I've put some rose quartz, a tarot card with her and my tarot deck on my altar but since a month I had this idea of drawing her. Lately I'm trying to appreciate my body more and started to get interested with make up and skincare and all the things connected with body care. Just a few days ago I've gained enough references and sketches to start! After 4 hours on procreate, I made this! I'm really proud of it and I hope I did her justice, the only things I'm not satisfied with are the colors but it was my first time so I'm still proud of it!

I pictured here over a group of rocks and a giant wave behind her in reference to her connection with the sea. In her right hand she has a little sea-shell mirror. I've put waves also on her golden corset with some roses for her myth. Lately I feel very connected with the sea so I was really happy to add it in the drawing

I think that's all for this post! Thank you for your time and I hope you all liked this drawing.

I hope you all have a beautiful august and remember to love yourself 💗

[camssecretcave]

'*•.¸♡Introduction to the blog ♡¸.•*'

Hello everyone! Cam's here! This post it's just a brief introduction about the blog and its purpose, so if you want to get to know me better, go further!

I'm Camilla but everyone calls me Cam (she/her). My first face-to-face with paganism was in March 2020. Since then, a lot of things changed and so my practice, and for all these changes I took a lot of little breaks but in september 2022 I took the break of an year and an half. I practiced divination, I called myself a Hellenic pagan and I also worked with deities. During this year I felt totally disconneted from my path, I've wanted to re-start sooner than this day but sometimes you need to fix what's inside of you and then start with your surrounding.

So here we are now! I'm a new person with a different mentality and I'm super ready to take back the happines I felt practicing.

Cam's Secret Cave is a space where I can talk about my practice and my belifies and also try to reconnect with it. Here you can find: drawings, little talks about various topics, books, virtual altars and a lot more! And if you feel a bit lost in your path too, remember that it's never too late and you can ask for help to everyone near you.

hugs and kisses, Cam <3

[camssecretcave]

WAKE UP BITCHES THEY FOUND NEW EURIPIDES FRAGMENTS

98 LINES, 80% COMPLETELY NEW MATERIAL