hearthglow

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“Library Extension immediately shows you if any given book is available at your local library. It’s available now for Chrome and Firefox.”

“From there, anytime you browse at an online bookstore like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads or even Audible (yep, it works for audiobooks, too), Library Extension will appear with library availability information for any selected book.Better still, one click is all it takes to visit the associated library or e-book service page, where you can then borrow the book or get on the waiting list.“

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Went on a mini-adventure today to see this incredible mural in Denver. Painted by PichiAvo as part of the city’s “Crush Walls” event– I’m in love.

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I’m a worshipper as well, and big on the underworld side of cultus in general, though I don’t talk about it as much. Open for discussion tho!

do you know if there are any roman polytheist url lists? trying to find proserpina devotees.

I’m not sure! I’ve never come across them before but I’m not really involved with the Roman side of tumblr!

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I’m in! I love to just...bounce ideas, if anyone’s not noticed, lmao.

Anyone want to make a Roman polytheism discord with me? I haven’t been able to find any specifically geared towards Roman practice, and most of the Greco-Roman focused servers skew heavily Greek. Which is groovy, just… I don’t have anyone to talk about Roman-specific concepts and practices with. 

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Art of the Day: Sarcophagus with the Triumph of Dionysus

The triumphal march of Dionysus (or Bacchus, as he was generally known in Rome) through the lands of India was equated in Roman thought with the triumph of the deceased over death. At the left, Dionysus rides in a chariot pulled by panthers. Preceding him is a procession of his followers and exotic animals, including lions, elephants, and even a giraffe. A bird’s nest is concealed in the tree at the far right; on the same tree a snake is pursuing a lizard. Many of the animals depicted had special significance in the mystery cult of Dionysus Sabazius. On the lid is the birth of Dionysus and his reception by nymphs, shown between satyr heads (on the ends), one smiling and one frowning. The enormous attention to detail on this sarcophagus exemplifies the talents of the best Roman relief carvers. Learn more about this object in our art site: http://bit.ly/2Cebfif

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The whole Science vs. Religion is very much a Christian thing, not an all-religions thing. Uncovering the mysteries of how the world works is, for many people throughout history, part and parcel of worshiping the divine. There are probably a great many breakdowns on that by much better-placed religious scientists than you can find in the comparatively wee polytheist community, so I’d actually look at how other mainstream religions answer that question first, to give you a different baseline.

But on the whole, it’s just not something we’re terribly bothered by? There’s something at stake if you tell a Christian of a certain sort that what they believe is historically, factually wrong. We don’t generally have anything at stake. Our myths don’t work like that. LOTS of people’s myths don’t work like that. It’s the frustrating middle of a Venn Diagram of “GOTCHA: Your myths are fake because science!” and “GOTCHA: Your religion is backwards because it doesn’t function just like Christianity!” Which is, incidentally, the same central sliver that classical academia has only crawled out of in the last 50 years.

So this isn’t something I honestly give any thought to at all, outside of looking at the history of academia. It has zero theological significance for me.

If pressed to invent some, or account for the anthropological origin of a tradition, my answer has always just been “People Feel Thing.” People Feel Thing, so they give it a name and see what happens. People Feel Thing, so they interact and see what happens. People Feel Thing, so they fiddle with structures until They Feel Thing that seems like they’ve got it right. Humans like structures. Some humans Feel More Thing and some Feel Less Thing. And inevitably, humans are a mess and get many things wrong.

The reason that simplistic answer works for me is that it’s both what I’ve experienced and seen in other polytheist friends. Being a kid, Feeling A Thing. Not having any word for it until you grow up and discover, oh, other people Feel That Thing too. And as an adult it’s the same way you hone a practice: well, that Felt Wrong so we’re not gonna do that again. Let’s try this instead. Listen, I’m not saying it’s nymphs, but that river has a Feel about it, and I’ll throw a flower in when I pass, and that’s that. That offering would be better than this other one, but I couldn’t say why. This holiday is significant even though it’s meaning is lost, and that half-remembered one doesn’t speak to me at all.

Upon realizing they’re a polytheist, how does anyone choose a tradition? I always Felt something about Latin and passed it off as my linguistic zeal while I was off studying other polytheisms and trying them on like precious, irreplacable hats, unique in all the world. Only to discover I look, and Feel, awful in hats. There was no moment where I sat down and analyzed which paths would suit me; I Felt A Thing, and by the gods, it would not go the hell away.

So there’s always a measure of trusting your own perception, or at least deciding to follow where it leads even if you have questions or complaints.That doesn’t mean rejecting science; it also doesn’t mean interrogating your every feeling against all scientific evidence. It’s actually kind of the same spirit of inquiry that drives science to begin with, at least for those polytheists building traditions or mucking around in the academic/archaeological mud.

In the end, is Jupiter the vague placeholder for why the sky makes that Shiny Boom Attack, or is he manifest in the experience of thunder and lightning, the force and power, the way you still jump and turn your head even knowing exactly what it was, and why, and all the science behind it? Did people ever confuse the two? Sure! Does that mean modern polytheists have to believe exactly what a peasant in 250 BCE believed without the intervening millennia of growth and change? Nahhh.

A question for the polytheistic community

(Note: this is out of genuine curiosity because I’ve always been drawn to ancient Greek gods but told that they’re just folk tales representative of an ancient culture’s values/ways to explain what they didn’t know, and nothing more)

How do you worship gods who were created by a small group of people long gone, or who are the gods of something that we now have an exact scientific explanation for (e.g. the changing of the seasons, or the sun going across the sky)? My brain is trying to resolve the urge to worship vs the analytical, ‘the world doesn’t work like that,’ ‘all gods are Fake News,’ ‘blah blah blah,’ part of my brain (I was raised atheist).

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Archaeologist Finds New Evidence Of The Romans Who Escaped Mt. Vesuvius

The plaster casts of Romans killed when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. are internationally famous, but scholars have long known that more people escaped the volcano’s destruction of the Bay of Naples than were suffocated by it. New evidence from inscriptions provides clues to where these refugees settled.

In a forthcoming open-access article in the journal Analecta Romana, archaeologist and historian Steven Tuck of Miami University explains how his creation of a database of Roman last names led him to match up records from Pompeii and Herculaneum with records from the parts of Italy unaffected by the destructive power of Vesuvius. Tuck’s goal in doing this work was not just to identify refugees but also “to draw conclusions about who survived the eruption, where they relocated, why they went to certain communities, and what this pattern tells us about how the ancient Roman world worked socially, economically, and politically.” Read more.

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Elicia Edijanto  -  http://eliciaedijanto.tumblr.com  -  https://www.instagram.com/eliciaedijanto  -  http://www.eliciaedijanto.com  -  https://www.facebook.com/elicia.edijanto?fref=ts&ref=br_tf  -  https://twitter.com/eliciaedijanto

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Roman polytheist struggles: Having to buy Parentalia flowers at obscene Valentine’s Day Markups

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For the poetry, hows bout Janus to start it off

every beginning is an endingevery fresh start,every new chance,is born from an ending “when one door closes, another opens” great opener, toss every door open, and i will take them all one by one toss every door open,and i will close them on my way out

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Flora and Pomona preparing for spring! (For bff Proserpina to finally visit?)

sweet flora is impatient, dandelions dotting half-dead lawns.gentle pomona reminds her of the killing frost and the harsh winds.flora is always first, always in a rush,fragrant flowers before ripe fruits, but the maiden spring will soon be joining them, and pomona coaxes a few buds out of sleepy branches.

they rush to greet her as she emerges,buds unfurling to leaves,flowers bursting forth to follow her,to watch her rise like the sun

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Ariadne & Dionysus

twitter / instagram

www.janaina.net

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If your spiritual framework was forged by gibbering priest-lawyers reading fate in the entrails of dead men in an ancient forest when the world was young and Rome was yet arrogant with the strength of youth, or in a wasted land of fire and ice and black rock when men sailed unknown seas in open boats, or in some other such place and time, it really shouldn’t be much of a stretch for you to question and un-learn the toxic assumptions of our host culture.

Come with me, brother. Let’s drink deep of life while the gods let us have it. Let’s ride on the wind and on the backs of wolves. The trolls take what you foolishly call “tradition.” Let us transgress.

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This is my religious group! Ave Antinoe!

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This is what’s extra wild to me, because surely after gaining a lot of northernly provinces, they encountered enough snow to have some sort of association. We have stuff about soldiers complaining about snow! Where is the graffiti telling off the gods for it! Curse tablets condemning people to freeze their feet off and have their roofs give under the snow!

A question to fellow Roman polytheists, not at all influenced by currently being quite happily snowed-in.

Which deity do you associate with snow?

Looking primarily for UPG reflections, I guess. There’s Jupiter for all manner of storms, of course, but I tend to associate him only with the proper thunder and lightning sort. The rest I put to the Tempestates, whom I consider something like storm nymphs, and the clear-skied winds to the Aurae. But snow is……different.

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the gods have had mentally ill worshippers for as long as they’ve had worshippers.

the gods have had chronically ill worshippers for as long as they’ve had worshippers.

the gods have had neurodivergent worshippers for as long as they’ve had worshippers.

they won’t be offended or think less of you just because your devotion looks different to able-bodied neurotypical devotion. they understand.

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Vesta was possibly the month god for December, so #SameFeel there. But like you said, she’s more the view from inside the kitchen window, rather than the world outside.

I REALLY like Sirona for it, especially as an incidental foil to Apollo-who-won’t-stop-blinding-me-on-my-morning-commute. And of course, the sun shining off the snow is even worse.... Something in the lethargy but endurance of her cold-blooded snakes, as well. This is excellent to ponder and work with, thank you!

A question to fellow Roman polytheists, not at all influenced by currently being quite happily snowed-in.

Which deity do you associate with snow?

Looking primarily for UPG reflections, I guess. There’s Jupiter for all manner of storms, of course, but I tend to associate him only with the proper thunder and lightning sort. The rest I put to the Tempestates, whom I consider something like storm nymphs, and the clear-skied winds to the Aurae. But snow is……different.