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Newbie Devotee Challenge - Day 17

How did your deity respond to the different offerings you gave? Discuss their response. Did they enjoy one offering more than another? Were all loved equally? Were they less than impressed? How will their opinion of these offerings influence future offerings you make to them?

Due to poor memory and having spaced out this challenge so that it’s lasted me far longer than just 17 days, I can’t say I fully remember. With the song playlist, I remember that at first there seemed to be no feeling of Lady Iris being present until I put more work in and got into the details of things. I now think that what’s most important in giving an offering to Lady Iris, at least for someone like me, is time and effort and remembering the wonder of her. Keeping one’s word is important too, as I believe I told her I would do this challenge

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Newbie Devotee Challenge - Day 16

Create a song list that makes you think about your deity. Give a brief reason for choosing each song, and provide links to youtube videos for other people to enjoy! You can devote the energy you put into this project as an offering for your deity.

Chungha - Love U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SOnndZJ8y8

First off, the tropical summer vibes! The imagery of sun and water and bright colors make me think of her. Plus, the mv has some iridescent colors that aren’t super in your face - like irl when you notice some small iridescent thing or rainbow and think of Lady Iris

Kard - Hola Hola

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USx4WyrkfU4

Another tropical summer song! This one has a couple of lyrics that translate to something like “like sunset covered with pastel tone film“ “day by day drawing and painting over the green utopia“ “ocean view spectrum in one big frame“

Derek & Brandon Fiechter - Beautiful Greek Music – Iris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR_fxnD_4LI

A break from the tropical summer vibes for something that was made with Lady Iris in mind! It makes me think of devotion, particularly a memory of devotion from years ago

f(x) - All Mine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxLYJ2trV-Q

This song isn’t the perfect fit, cause it has a bit of a possessive streak to it, but the rest of the vibes are so good. Like someone in the comments mentioned that this song has them seeing bright colors exploding. And the lyrics mention the rainbow, the ocean, the sun, the white cloud, and the wind

Red Velvet - Mojito

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIP0IU30V5c

Another summer song! This one highlights colors in the chorus and mentions the color of the summer

Kep1er - Le Voya9e

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaD-HnGdEC0  (ignore the channel’s outro music)

This song is summery, beachy, and pretty in a delicate, youthful, almost magical way. It sounds like flying in the chorus and seeing where the sky, water, and sun meet

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Newbie Devotee Challenge - Day 15

Create an aesthetic moodboard for your deity. Pick a variety of images that you associate with your deity and arrange them in an aesthetically pleasing way. Give this to your deity as an offering.

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Newbie Devotee Challenge - Day 14

Draw a picture of what you believe your deity to look like. If you don’t like your art style, find a picture of a celebrity/model/someone else’s art that fits your image of your deity, and discuss why you believe your deity looks that way. 

In my mind, Iris looks a bit like Elena Kampouris. Kampouris is an American actress with a Greek father. She has a youthful, slightly fairy-looking visual. I think Iris would look a bit like a fairy (because she has wings), have waves/curls, and have light colored hair due to her ties with sunlight, clouds, and the ocean (which makes me think of sand)

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Newbie Devotee Challenge - Day 13

Write a poem for your deity. Use you compiled list of information as inspiration. Give the poem to your deity as an offering.

beautiful daughter of the wonders of the sea and the amber-lined clouds, an arched road comes when you call full of light's seven colors. you, messenger, storm-footed, from the heavens to the ocean and beyond - to even the realm of sleep - you travel. you speak the words that must be said, golden-winged attendant of Olympus

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Newbie Devotee Challenge - Day 12

Reflect on what you’ve learned over the past 11 days. Do you feel like you have learned more about your deity? Are there still aspects of your deity that you don’t understand/are unclear? For Day 12, research anything about your deity that you are still uncertain of. Compile your research, as well as any information you previously learned from this challenge/past research, and combine them into a text post/write them in your BOS/save them to a flashdrive. Keep that information close for future reference. You may choose not to post the compiled list, but post the reflection.

I did learn some more about Iris while doing this challenge, however, I felt like I still had more to learn. So today, I learned about her family. I was originally under the impression that she only had one sibling, Arce. However, I have now learned that depending on the source, she has Hydaspes as a sibling, as well as the Harpies.

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Newbie Devotee Challenge - Day 11

Try using a different method, one that you have either never used or rarely used, to try speaking to your deity. Discuss the results.

I decided to use bibliomancy as I’ve used it once or twice before with Lord Hermes. It worked well. I was able to feel what book and what section I should look at. And I think since I’ve had a lot of literature classes, I was able to easily interpret it. I think if I’m having difficultly interpreting a message in the future, I’ll try using bibliomancy to see if that can’t help make things clearer for me

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Everyday ways to praise Hermes:

Thank a mail carrier for their service.

Messengers have always been important members of their communities, and present-day is no exception. Without them, civilization would grind to a standstill—no matter how automated things are.

Mail carriers are modern-day messengers, and they deserve more credit than they get.

They face dangerous weather, difficult driving conditions and physical exhaustion every single day. Last year around Rural Dionysia, I thanked a mail carrier for her service, and she got the BIGGEST smile on her face as she excitedly told me that this was her third day on the job and that I was the first person to thank her for her service so far.

Especially this time of year—thank your local mail carrier, and consider a holiday gift, whether it’s a tip or something else.

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I love Hermes. He’s so supportive and nurturing. I asked him what I could do to worship him better, what he expects of me, and what advice he has for me, and he basically just told me to work on bettering myself and that would make him happier and prouder of me (not that he’s not already). I just felt like I needed to post this because he’s literally so amazing. 

He wasn’t quite as obvious about his presence tonight as he has been in the past, but I think he knew I needed him to be a bit more calm and subdued than usual. I just love him so much that I feel the need to share it with y’all. I love his trickster side and he knows I do, but it’s nice to just be chill for a little while. I don’t see many people talking about his calmer, more serious side often, so I feel like someone should say it. 

He’s definitely capable of being more serious and subdued and he adjusts his personality according to what you need in the moment. As the god of communication, he’s very perceptive of what you need and he takes that into account when he’s communicating with you, more than most other deities I have experience with. 

He’s been such a joy to have in my life, and he cares so much. That’s about it, I just love him and wanted to rant about it. Hope this post finds you well and blessed be :)

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Newbie Devotee Challenge - Day 10

What method(s) do you usually use to contact your deity? (tarot, godphone, ect) Why do you like using that method?

I use prayer to contact Lady Iris. I think prayer is simpler for me than using tarot or some other methods that require a go-between. It feels natural, and it’s something that can be done almost anywhere. I sometimes feel her presence, and while I’m not always able to pin-point her message, I think having direct connection is important to me

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I don’t know if it’s cultural/latent Christianity or just standard media illiteracy, but people need to seriously read up on the nature of mythology in ancient cultures. Like seriously.

So many people treat myths as factual accounts of events. I have never seen any literary scholar, anthropologist or historian make the claim that this was the way the ancients viewed their myths. It’s metaphor. It’s allegory. It’s symbolism. It’s a narrativised ritual. It’s artistic social, political, cultural commentary, instruction or expression. The claim that a myth should be interpreted literally is never made by serious researchers, because it

1) is inherently unprovable and unarguable, which renders it scientifically irrelevant.

2) it blocks off many more salient interpretations that can co-exist with other contradictory non-literal interpretations.

3) it does not seem consistent with the way myth was treated by storytellers and scholars of the time.

Myth is an inherently flexible medium. It’s beautiful and elegant in its manifold meanings. Stop trying to make it a literal account. It isn’t. Never has been. Do your research about the culture, the medium and the traditions you discuss, before making wild statements, before writing ahistorical retellings, or trying to cancel gods or the people who follow them, based on texts that were written (and before that orally handed down) thousands of years ago in a cultural tradition entirely different than ours.

STOP PROJECTING YOUR OWN LITERALISM AND REJECTION OF COMPLEXITY ON OTHER CULTURES.

It’s ignorant, it’s incurious, it’s incorrect and frankly disrespectful, racist and colonialist to insert your misunderstood notion of mythology in a culture that you have barely researched.

Some people need to be a bit less concerned with being seen as perfect paragons of moral righteousness, and a bit more with not spreading misinformation, cultural ignorance and media illiteracy.

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Iris Greek goddess of rainbows

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🌈Offerings for Iris🌈

(All things I have offered that she has liked 🌈❣️)

• Figs

•honey

•white cake

•milk with cinnamon

•peaches

•any berries

•seeds (you can also toss them around for the birds and she will love that 🥰)

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Offerings To Iris, Goddess Of The Rainbow

Wear something colorful!

Go cloud watching

Go to the beach

Smile and wave at any rainbows you see

Use a hose to create a rainbow

Plant some irises

Bake and offer Her honey cakes

Connect with a friend/family member

Go on a run

Offer Her sea shells

Decorate Her altar with colors and cotton ball clouds (idea from TikTok)

Put up fairy/star lights

Pass on important messages

Don’t break someone’s trust

Collect rain water

Collect sea water

Learn a new language

Leave positive messages on post it notes for people to find

Read Her mythology

Pray to Her

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Newbie Devotee Challenge - Day 9

Discuss your daily/weekly/monthly/etc. worship “schedule.” What do you do for your deity? What offerings do you give? How often do you pray? And so on. Are you happy with how much/little time you give your deity? If not, what could you do to change that?

I pray to Lady Iris almost every day. Generally once when I wake up and once before going to bed. Sometimes the prayer is just a quick bow and thinking of her name. Other times, I thank her for all that’s she’s done and/or think things like Good morning to you, Lady Iris, golden winged messenger of the heavens.

I think it would be nice to give more offerings throughout the year. Right now, I’m dedicating the act of watering my garden to her, but in the cooler months, I often don’t do too much. I also think physical offerings like food are good as it sometimes feels a bit more special.

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Hermes shrine at Munigua, Roman ruin at Spain