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YORUBA GODDESSES AND GODS  //// Yemaya / Yemanjá

Yemaya, also known as Yemanjá is the Yorùbá Orisha (Deity) of the Sea. Her name is a contraction of Yey Omo Eja, which means “Mother Whose Children are the Fish”. Yemaya makes her residence in life-giving portion of the ocean. She is the mother of all living things, rules over motherhood and owns all the waters of the Earth. She gave birth to the stars, the moon, the sun and most of the orishas; As all life is thought to have begun in the sea, all life is held to have begun with Yemaya. She is motherly and strongly protective, and cares deeply for all Her children, comforting them and cleansing them of sorrow. Yemaya is just as much a loving mother orisha as she is a fierce warrior; She does not easily lose Her temper, but when angered She can be quite destructive and violent, as the sea in a storm.

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Greek Mythology | Artemis & Apollo

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MYTHOLOGY MEME  |  [6/9] GREEK GODS & GODDESSES » DIONYSUS 

Dionysus was the god of wine and winemaking, theater, ecstasy, and madness in greek mythology. He was the son of Zeus and Semele, a nymph who was killed by the overpowering presence of Zeus when Hera taunted him to appear in his true divine form to Semele. Zeus took the still unborn Dionysus and sew him into his thigh thus resulting in Dionysus to becoming “twice-born”. He is often depicted in the presence of drunken satyrs and nymphs as well as the Maenads, the human women who once a year are driven to madness by his presence. Dionysus is also often associated with Hades and is known to be the “Eater of Raw Flesh”. A popular tale featuring Dionysus is of Ariadne and the Magic Thread, in which Dionysus becomes a heroic figure of mercy as he seeks to rescue Ariadne from death at the hands of abandonment after Theseus leaves her stranded upon an island. The first greek tragedy was written in his honor, and in the old days, people devoted plays and tragedies to the wine god. 

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mythology meme ; echo.

beware, child, you are employed for a terrible deed. a pawn you are in the game of the mighty. your voice shall be your forever curse. from now on all you say has been said before. your spirit, torn and scattered, a lonesome echo, echo, echo…

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A R E S  god of war   &   A P H R O D I T E  goddess of love

“Aphrodite, you and I are creatures of passion, and the blood coursing through your veins is much the same as mine, as is the blood left on the battlefield by my work in the affairs of men and their foaming at their mouths. It is all the same, all made of heat. You were borne of the droplets of blood, of conquering. It is only natural then that we should love each other. We are that which we create, Aphrodite: lust for flesh and lust for blood; you and I create passion, blind and fervid. We are the genesis of the uncontrolled, making men and women out of cowards.” [ x , x ]

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I want to eat ambrosia from your fingertips. I want to lick the wine from your lips. I want to suck the nectar from your veins.

ruin me, apollo. make me daphne. // k.h

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the golden twins ; apollo & artemis

« the sun and the moon. dearest brother and sister, opposites and incomplete. their love for each other is brutal, yet hidden under a veil of stars. they rarely agree on anything, really. one shining bright in the sky, the other guiding lost souls in the dark. but you know what they say about twins; they are two sides of the same coin. a golden coin. »

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Greek Mythology+

Virgin Goddesses

“Ancient moon priestesses were called virgins. ‘Virgin’ meant not married, not belonging to a man - a woman who was ‘one-in-herself’. The very word derives from a Latin root meaning strength, force, skill; and was later applied to men: virile. Ishtar, Diana, Astarte, Isis were all all called virgin, which did not refer to sexual chastity, but sexual independence. And all great culture heroes of the past, mythic or historic, were said to be born of virgin mothers: Marduk, Gilgamesh, Buddha, Osiris, Dionysus, Genghis Khan, Jesus - they were all affirmed as sons of the Great Mother, of the Original One, their worldly power deriving from her. When the Hebrews used the word, and in the original Aramaic, it meant ‘maiden’ or ‘young woman’, with no connotations to sexual chastity. But later Christian translators could not conceive of the ‘Virgin Mary’ as a woman of independent sexuality, needless to say; they distorted the meaning into sexually pure, chaste, never touched.”

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in another life, zeus is lounging on the couch of his best friend’s house and saying, “i’ll get a job, man, i swear it,” even though CEO seats only smell of sweat and he’s the type to smell of leaving, he says, “guess what’s up my sleeve” to ladies and shows off lightning bolt tattoos and gets drunk and cries and begs hera to come home because he has only ever known rest at the seat of her collarbone

hera’s is louis vuitton, devil wears prada. pants suits and hair up in a tight bun. a warning lies ready on her tongue, she is quick to scold, hard to love. she pours fireball into her morning coffee just to remind herself of the way he always smelled of burning, just so she could face a little bit of him and not come back running. in this life, she is divorced, is doing well, sometimes meets up with the baby mamas of her sour-faced ex-lover (if she could wash him out, she would, she would, she would, but lightning loves towers and she only feels at ease in thunderstorms and twenty-four stories because olympus was rebuilt into skyscrapers and nobody can tell her otherwise), sometimes gets over her hatred of them. the one who jumps at swans is her roommate, they both like romance movies and staying out late. she chooses alone. she chooses: i make my own home.

aphrodite is a party girl with black pumps and a wicked smile, facebook messages hephaestus while sex-skyping her little god of war, she says, “sorry” a lot. sometimes she thinks she is running out of love, sometimes she thinks there’s not enough love left. she comes around again to the satin of her lover’s beds, never feels warm. she says, fine. she says, i’m okay. ares here is commander of the department of defense, never settled down, never got the wife and two kids. one day in this life hephaestus hears a knock on his garage door and walks on over. in this life, they’ve got braces for broken people like him. when he answers, it’s just her, no makeup, just her in her big-eyed weepy mess, and she says, “you actually listen” so he listens for a little. she explains slowly; new term, polyamorous. she says, heart is steady bead on both people. he says, “i know, i understand,” she says, “but it’s hurting you,” he says, “i gave up hurting for other people a long time ago,” he says, “the war god and i go out for drinks and talk about anything but you” she cries again, a whole ocean. he says, “i am learning, and one day maybe it will be all us three” she says, “you wait for me,” and he does. more and more often, when the world tastes too much, she shows up at his door, to be the person she is when she’s unbeautiful. in this life, a little down the road, she takes a break from all of it and starts a no-kill shelter called “the golden apple”. hephaestus builds it for her. she kisses him on the cheek. one day, when the ares comes around, the three of them play video games. after that, it is not share-her. it is all-the-same.

athena turns down apollo on the radio, his song trapped in the throats of all who hear it. a good song, a catchy song, a hear-it-once-and-never-forget-it song. athena dropped out of school to pursue knowledge. she teaches around the world with a backpack on her back and a smile on her face. her girlfriend is a librarian. whenever she comes home, she swings the little woman up in her arms and bursts with stories. the woman laughs because stoic athena in public is not the athena of private, is not knowledge-river athena. athena freelances as a journalist. anywhere she can give out information is good enough. eventually her name and “breaking news” are synonymous.

artemis goes to the red carpet on the arms of her brother, says that the world of hollywood is too much sunlight for her, she goes back to working as the city’s best detective, the hunt in her blood for monsters among men. in her free time, she follows athena down to places, traps poachers who would use her name to ruin the lives of beasts. hera has learned long ago not to pester her about marrying. artemis comes out as ace/aro one day to her brother, who rolls his eyes at her. “you still get grossed out every time people kiss,” and then he bowls her over in a hug she didn’t know she needed. this is one of the only times he sees her cry. the next is eight years later at his wedding. the man he chooses as his partner has already undergone a secret artemis-style investigation. he came out clean, and she came out with a second brother. when her twin asks her about the happy tears, she jokingly tells him she was worried his was going to marry his car. he laughs, big sun laugh and says, “trust me, i was this close.” in hot summers, they go down to the docks and the two boys throw atemis in the water. she never stops complaining or loving it and loving them and is entirely happy when he becomes a father.

in this life, demeter raised a flowerchild who never took to the backbreak of farming, and in this life, hades’s black leather jacket at first made her spit. she despised his motorbike and his big smile and how loud his dog was and how her daughter jumped up nimbly on the back of that thing and flung herself at the horizon. but hades tries as hard as he can: the engine gets turned over into clean fuel even though he breaks his third finger in the middle of it, the leather jacket gets swapped out for a faux replication, he becomes vegan (”’sehpone,” he says in wonder one day, “you taught me how to live off of pomegranates”, sephie laughs), he makes deer-crossing signs and petitions for the rights of small-town farmers. Persephone becomes a wedding designer, loves making big shows out of a lot of flowers. after many holiday gifts (some so desperately approval-seeking that demeter actually chuckled at them), she relents. they have brunch on sundays, made specifically by hades and his whole-grain all-organic house. demeter at one point says, “actually, you’re so earthy-crunchy it’s more than even me” and hades drops the plate he’s holding. demeter comes to the engagement party and laughs when the cake is in the shape of a pomegranate seed. sephie says, “don’t worry mom. he knows what will happen if he does anything to me,” and demeter gives her daughter a proud smile and says, “you’ll crush him like a bug, won’t you sweetie?” and sephie looks over at her duckling god of death and says, “exactly”

hestia finds dionysus because that is what she does. a social security worker at first, she becomes keeper of the hearth-less. she starts with a small group of people and eventually became leader of a chain of homelessness shelters, all immaculate and warm and held to her standards. dionysus cries when she picks him up, he talks about having fallen in love again, she says, “rehab is your only option.” it is here that he meets someone who is also pansexual. it is here he realizes he is not broken. it is here where they wean him off of whiskey and heroin (”what a bad combination,” he’d later say, shaking his head, “like you really gotta choose one”) and where he breaks down often and throws things at hestia’s head and calls her more names than have ever been strung against her: it’s here he makes his best friend. when he gets out, he finds he’s still ever-thirsty, but this time, there’s less empty in him. he helps at her shelters. he meets a girl who is bisexual, she takes him to pride rallies. he later bursts into hestia’s room with a rainbow on his face and says, “there are so many like me! i’m not invisible! i’m not fake!” and she smiles and watches the hearth of his chest warm up and helps him become a leading spokesperson for activism. rather than letting people like him die in the streets, he uses his experience to say, “i lived survival, and you can live it with me.”

hermes is a surgeon over in the children’s section, found that this is where he should be. silicone valley wants him for his communication systems, but instead he feels like he needs to be somewhere the action is. poseidon comes to him in darkness with rough palms and says, “i have a very long-standing secret,” and hermes just nods his head. the surgery is done quickly and without charge. poseideon says, “thank you” four million times, and then she takes back off to her company dedicated to clean energy. she calls up hera crying and says, “i dd it, i did it, i did it, but what will he think of me,” and hera says, “i haven’t talked to zeus in six years but if he rejects you i will walk up to him and shake him until the right answers fall into his head” and when artemis hears she says, “i will go with you” and walks at her side the whole time even though poseideon is awash with emotions and ready to burst into tears. zeus opens the door and looks poseideon up and down and says, “did you do something  with your hair, sis?” and poseideon says, “eat my entire” before she’s swallowed by happiness and has to sit down on the concrete step and sob into her palms for sixty seconds. later she puts him in charge of the wind energy portion of her company. he gets his own place, but he never stops missing hera, who watches him from a distance and checks up on him through poseideon. hera says, “right now it’s about me. it can be about him if he keeps up the good behavior.” poseideon has never been so happy. she has her family and she has herself, in one piece, finally. she calls up sephone, she says, “listen, i’ve got a plan, okay?” and of course the wedding planner would have to be in charge of everything. 

in this life, the reunion is beautiful. dionysus doesn’t touch the alcohol. hestia stands beside him proud and wonderful. apollo (who wouldn’t come without being allowed to choose the music) and his husband push artemis into the pool, she returns the favor with athena’s help. hades and persephone beat everyone at beer pong, but demeter crushes them at gin rummy. posideon dances with her sisters. hera stands back and her mouth quirks and zeus watches her the whole time, in his new three-piece suit. aphrodite is in between two men, but she’s no longer quite in between them. she walks over to her once-king and says “love needs time and understanding” and he thinks: of course. of course. he will change who he is for her. she never needed him. he needed her. he needed this to feel in place: he needed a family, as one, as olympus with its golden gates. in this life, for one moment, they are all happy.

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Mythology tag game: Greek + War   / tagged by: Modern Myth Network Tagging: greekclass​ & facinaoris​

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greek deities and their roman counterparts artemis // diana

artemis was the greek goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth and virginity, and the protector of young girls. she was the daughter of leto and zeus, and the twin of apollo. artemis was often depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows. the deer and the cypress were sacred to her.

diana was the roman goddess of nature, fertility and childbirth. she was also a moon-goddess, and her name probably derived from diviana (“the shining one”). diana was mainly worshipped by the lower class (plebeians) and the slaves, of whom she was the patroness. her festival coincided with the idus (13th) of august.

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Oh, the world I would travel to find you again

∟ Sinqua Walls as Orpheus      Kiko Mizuhara as Eurydice 

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darling darling twins with ichor in your veins why do you so love each other? 

— to the children of zeus || sba

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Modern Mythology: Apocalyptic War Female Ares

I am the god of war. Insatiable for battle, I overwhelm, destroy and slaughter men. With Fear and Terror chained to my chariot, I spread war, danger (X)

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DIVINE GENEALOGY * | Amphitrite, Queen of the Sea

Amphitrite was the goddess Queen of the Sea, the wife of King Poseidon. Some say she was one of the fifty Nereides, others an Okeanis, but most simply describe her as the female personification of the sea: the loud-moaning mother of fish, seals and dolphins. When Poseidon first sought Amphitrite’s hand in marriage, she fled his advances, and hid herself away near Atlas in the Ocean stream at the far ends of the earth. The dolphin-god Delphin eventually tracked her down and persuaded her to return to wed the sea-king. (x) * according to Hesiod’s Theogony

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Your beauty makes them weak. You could tear down cities with your smile, and you have.

Helen of Troy, of Sparta, of Paris, of Menelaus.

Helen of war, of blood, of death, of beauty.

(x)

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In Slavic mythology, the Zorya (alternately: Zarya, Zvezda, Zwezda) are the three (sometimes two) guardian goddesses, known as the Auroras. They guard and watch over the doomsday hound that threatens to eat the constellation Ursa Minor, the ‘little bear.’ If the chain breaks loose and the constellation is devoured, the universe is said to end.

The Auroras represent the Morning Star, Evening Star, and Midnight Star, respectively, although the Midnight Star is sometimes omitted. In some myths, the morning Zorya was the wife of the male Myesyats, the moon god, and was a major goddess. In other myths, the Zoryas are virgin goddesses who flank the sun, and Myesyats is an unrelated female moon goddess. The Zorya are associated with marriage, protection, and exorcisms.