sheoftheheights

[sheoftheheights]

Calling all Hellenic Polytheists!

Hey!

I recently opened an Etsy shop called SillyCityWitch, and I’m selling some digital altar prints for Hellenic Polytheists! 💗

So far, I have prints for Athena, Hekate, and Aphrodite, with more to come!

They’re only £1 each, and it would mean the world to me if my fellow pagans and witches would support me.

I also sell digital spell planners and virtual crystals, if that takes your fancy 🔮

Pleas visit this link: SillyCityWitch

Reblogs are appreciated!

May The Theoi Bless You

[sheoftheheights]

Calling all Hellenic Polytheists!

Hey!

I recently opened an Etsy shop called SillyCityWitch, and I’m selling some digital altar prints for Hellenic Polytheists! 💗

So far, I have prints for Athena, Hekate, and Aphrodite, with more to come!

They’re only £1 each, and it would mean the world to me if my fellow pagans and witches would support me.

I also sell digital spell planners and virtual crystals, if that takes your fancy 🔮

Pleas visit this link: SillyCityWitch

Reblogs are appreciated!

May The Theoi Bless You

[sheoftheheights]

— to you, o king of power & might, to you, o lord father zeus, do i sing. i give  worship to the strength of you, the power that rings and echoes within my very bones. o lord  of the heavens, lord of the earth, lord of all that dwells  within, to you i sing. illuminate the dark where my feet tread, your strike of lightning to chase away  the foes before me. out of chaos, o mighty king, led  me forward. guide me in righteous ways, bring holiness to my words, & lend me your strength. o blessed king! ruler of all the gods!— king of glory & brightness! it is to you that i sing — 

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Hera.

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*through gritted teeth* every day i choose to be kind *barely restraining myself from violence* i choose to have compassion *tamping down the vicious bloodlust inside me* i choose to care and to be kind and to love

[sheoftheheights]

a 17 year old black girl in my state was just sentenced to 5 years of probation, gps monitoring, placement at a “women’s center” (which is still a correctional facility), 600 hours of community service, and ordered to pay $150,000 to the family of her rapist, who she stabbed to death in self-defense. there is no fucking justice.

[sheoftheheights]

Commodified fantasy takes no risks: it invents nothing, but imitates and trivializes. It proceeds by depriving the old stories of their intellectual and ethical complexity, turning their action to violence, their actors to dolls, and their truth-telling to sentimental platitude. Heroes brandish their swords, lasers, wands, as mechanically as combine harvesters, reaping profits. Profoundly disturbing moral choices are sanitized, made cute, made safe. The passionately conceived ideas of the great storytellers are copied, stereotyped, reduced to toys, molded in bright-colored plastic, advertised, sold, broken, junked, replaceable, interchangeable.

What the commodifiers of fantasy count on and exploit is the insuperable imagination of the reader, child or adult, which gives even these dead things life—of a sort, for a while.

Ursula K. Le Guin, foreword to The Tales of Earthsea

[sheoftheheights]

“Athena blessed her with intelligence, great artistry and skill, a finer mind than anyone has ever had before, even the braided girls of ancient Greece, Tyro, Alcmene, garlanded Mycene– none of them had Penelope’s understanding.”

— Odyssey 2.116-121, trans. Emily Wilson

[sheoftheheights]

we need to stop the fandomification of greek myth. we need to

[sheoftheheights]

Swan Lake

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WHAT ARE EPITHETS?

Epithets are descriptive bynames used to express quality characteristics. When used in relation to the gods, epithets tend to denote location or function. Other times they take on a decorative quality.

Examples of epithets that indicate location:

Zeus Nemeios, or “Zeus of Nemea.”

Hera Argeia, or “Hera of Argos.”

Aphrodite Kypris, or “Aphrodite of Cyprus.”

Examples of epithets that indicate function:

Zeus Ombrios is a deliverer of rain.

Hera Teleia presides over marriage rites.

Aphrodite Nikephoros is a bringer of victory.

Examples of decorative or poetic epithets:

Zeus is popularly called “The Thunderer.”

Hera Boopis tells us that she has cow eyes.

Aphrodite is called both golden and shapely.

HOW ARE EPITHETS USED?

Simply put, epithets help us differentiate between the many faces of the gods.

Using Haides as an example, I might invoke him as “Haides Polysemantor,” the ruler of many. As Polysemantor, Haides acts as king of the dead, and this instantiation of him will be concerned strictly with matters that involve that specialized role.

Similarly, if my friend invokes him as Haides Plouton, he’d be fulfilling a specialized role as the god of agrarian wealth. Both Haides Polysemantor and Haides Plouton can be identified as the same god, but the use of epithets makes it clear that they have wildly different spheres of influence.

HOW I MAKE SENSE OF EPITHETS ― UPG

When white light passes through a prism, it’s split into seven distinct wavelengths (i.e., the colors of the rainbow). This phenomenon is called dispersion, and I’ve been using it as a means of explaining epithets (especially the seemingly contradictory ones). For instance, how can Hera exist as Khera (Widow) in Arkadia and as the wife of Zeus elsewhere?

Well, when a god that prevails over a large sphere of influence (white light) passes through a medium (our consciousness), they’re split into specific waves that are easier to see and understand. These waves, or epithets, have their own mythologies, competences, and even places where they reside.

WHERE CAN I FIND THE EPITHETS?

Theoi.com has a wonderful collection of epithets that can be found at the bottom of each god’s cult page! :)

[sheoftheheights]

part of me enjoys the Gods the most when They manifest in the worst qualities. Aphrodite is my hypersexuality when it begins to slip out of control, Dionysos is my disorders and symptoms when they start to consume me, Hermès is my raging brain who refuses to do necessary work or doesn't want to get out of bed in the morning.

it makes me feel less alone. like my flaws and lows don't make me a terrible person. the Gods exist in all that is good and all that is bad. Their neutrality soothes me. I know that no matter how hard I fuck up, the Gods will kiss my nose and wipe my tears for they know exactly the way I feel.

it's different that way. a God can be as forgiving as They wish but nothing will ever compare to knowing a Divinity exists in my faults. a God touches them and embraces them as apart of Their domain. They ARE my faults, They are the world's faults. They are perfect in Their imperfection.

the Gods teach me that it is Divine to be imperfect.

[sheoftheheights]

the hellenic polytheist urge to scream at everyone who slanders Zeus and Hera.

[sheoftheheights]

william shakespeare / elisabetta sirani / john singer sargent / john william waterhouse / edwin austin abbey

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The festival will begin on Hadrian’s birthday, 24 January, and run until the end of the Roman festival of Saturnalia on 23 December.

[sheoftheheights]

gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss? nah. exile, excommunication, execution. 

[sheoftheheights]

Of the Myths

When the topic of "Greek Myth" comes up in conversation there are many who immediately jump the gun in defense of the gods, and to an extent, rightfully so. In many myths Hera, Goddess of Marriage and Queen of Olympus, is often portrayed as spiteful and seeks revenge for her "scorned marriage" by attacking the women that her husband Zeus, God of the Heavens and King of Olympus, supposedly slept with. Acts which are often portrayed as coercive and down right non-concentual, full of misogyny.

Do I think either portrayal of those divine beings is in anyway shape or form accurate? No.

Do either of those portrayals affect my views of those deities? Not anymore, not as someone who has reached out to them and thought on them.

But do I still feel a sense of comfort in some of the myths? A unique sense of humanity and a connection that brings me closer to some of the deities.

100% without a doubt.

My heart swells with love and pride when I think of Prometheus crafting man with his hands. From the clay and waters of Gaia. It brings tears to my eyes thinking that Aphrodite saw and sees beauty in the things I would consider flaws. It makes me smile knowing that everytime I create something, craft something soothing and uniquely mine, Apollo and Hephaestus and Hermes and Athena and so many more look at that and smile with me because it is not only reflecting something of myself but also something they influence within me.

The myths are how I came TO the gods.

Practice is how I came to KNOW them.

Be kind to each other. And be at peace.