#Selenedeity

[doe-prince]

I love how you draw deers. Have any tips on how you draw them?

I'm hesitant to give any serious pointers because I personally lean more to 'well this looks good' than 'this is anatomically accurate'. So I'll recommend Deertush's tutorials for actual knowledge instead!

[teawiththegods]

On the flip side of my Helios UPG is my Selene UPG which is that she’s the most introverted of introverts. Hence why she has her “phases”. She needs to build up the energy to be fully perceived by everyone and then once she does she needs to hide away again to recharge. She’s quiet and prefers the soft sounds of the night. She enjoys getting to know people through their dreams and the little wishes and stories they whisper to her.

[piristephes]

Gods and Divination

Sarah Illes Johnston differenciates the prophetic nature of divination that comes from prophecies and dreams to the ones like dice-casting and ornithomancy. Although both can be divine-inspired, the former two are naturally developed whilst the other ones must be learned. As a polytheist, knowing the divinatory ways associated with your deity can be quite a nice way to improve your relationship with said deity.

That being said, I'll list some gods here that were associated with divination methods, oracular shrines and whatnot:

Apollon, being the God of Prophecy, is related to most divinatory arts. The Oracle of Delphi was said to be able to make prophecies inspired by Him. Also associated with: Dice-casting (cleromancy), bird-watching (ornithomancy/augury).

Hermes, being the God of travels and roads is most associated with many aspects of those who travelled throughout the world - Seers being some of those. In his Homeric Hymn he is said to have received the power of divination from Apollon himself. He's particularly associated with astralagoi/psephoi - the alphabetic oracle, which uses dice-casting techniques (cleromancy) to predict the future.

Helios, the Sun-God had association with divinatory practices, as said by Apollonius, who uses a form of pyromancy (fire-based divination) after offering frankincense to Him.

Zeus, the King of the Gods, is said to have near all-knowing wisdom, with some saying that Apollon's prophetic power is essentially based on delivering Zeus' designs and divine will to the Cosmos. Zeus had a whole bunch of oracles associated with Him and in many moments of the Illiad where Calchas, the Seer is present, he predicts the future by usage of birds omens (ornithomancy) that deliver messages from Zeus.

Hades and Persephone, the King and Queen of the Underworld, were both honoured in the Nekromanteion - a temple structure that housed many divinatory practices regarding the dead (necromancy). Spirits, daimons and other chthonic gods were mostly associated with this form of divination.

Poseidon, the God of the Seas, also had association with oracles. Pausanias mostly relates him to the one at Delphi before Apollon claiming it as His own. Like many gods here listed, He is said to send omens in the sacrifices offered to Him, particularly bulls.

Selene, the Moon-Goddess also had a shrine and oracle described by Pausanias. The Goddess would answer whatever they wanted to learn through dreams, said shrine was also shared with her brother, Helios.

Many, many other Gods had their own ways of sending omens, communicating or helping people to read the future. Those are just some of Them in a list that I hope you guys find useful.

Oh well, I can't stress enough how important divination was and still is to worshipping the Theoi. Learning about it can be intimidating at first, but I hardly believe that you gonna regret reading about it.

Anyways - off I go!

Eirene! (Peace!)

Sources: Pausanias' Description of Greece; Ancient Greek Divination by Sarah Illes Jhonston; Greek Folk Religion by Nilsson; The Homeric Hymns.

[theoikos]

Selene: 🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕

Me: 💙💛💛🤍🤍🤍🖤🖤🖤🖤🌙🌕💕😍😍😍😍😍🥰❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[phemonoi]

Dikhomenia 💫🖤🌕

Dikhomenia is the middle of the lunar month, a special day to celebrate Selene and Artemis. It is also a good time to make spells relating to manifestation, focus, gratitude and motivations.

When the Full Moon approaches, Dikhomenia begins. Here is a ritual you can make in order to honor Selene.

You will need:

Two pieces of paper

A pen

Candles, incense, offerings

Hymns to the Goddesses

Laurel leaves for khernips

A recipient with water for khernips

The ritual:

Devote your activities to Selene and/or Artemis

To start preparing the ritual, take a warm bath and relax

Clean up and energetically cleanse yourself and your space, getting rid of any items that you no longer need

Additionally to your preferred method of cleansing, consider making khernips to purify yourself, and your altar and offerings.

Have a tea

Now to begin the ritual, light your candles and meditate as much as you need in order to ground yourself

In a piece of paper write down everything you want to achieve this month, and in another piece of paper, everything you want to get rid of.

Chant your preferred hymn to Selene

Chant an hymn to Artemis as well

Additionally, you can write your own poetry to them, or make a promise to fulfill your goals as best as you can this month

Chat with the goddesses! Compliment them, tell the moon everything you love about her, thank them for what they do for humanity and nature and yourself.

Present an offering and bestow it. I personally think a stick of incense is enough, but if you want to share the tea you had prepared before, or make any other type of libation, that's fine.

Present to the goddesses each piece of paper where you've written down your goals and what you no longer need. Explain to them what it means for you and why you want this.

Carefully burn the piece of paper with the list of things you no longer want, recognizing the lessons you learned (even if they're negative things) and thanking the goddesses for accepting this offering and blessing you

Keep the other piece of paper, because when you're finished with the ritual you'll leave it out for the moon to bath it with its light

Pray and thank to your patron deities or any other god and goddesses you like/you associate with this time of the month.

End the ritual as you do usually. I normally chant “khaire theoi!” and make a reverence.

After closing the ritual:

Now put the paper with your goals written on it outside where the moonlight can touch it. You can fold it or put it inside a safe (preferably transparent) container if you want. I know sometimes it rains at night and the paper can get ruined.

The very next night thank Selene for shining her light on your goals and Artemis for granting you the strength and motivation to achieve them.

You can either burn the paper or keep it until the next Full Moon.

[winebrightruby]

Amalgam Hymn to the Moon

[I drew phrases from the Taylor and Athanassakis translations of the Orphic Hymns and the Evelyn-White and Athanassakis translations of the Homeric Hymns. For this one, I drew from the Orphic Hymns to Prothyraia, to Selene, and to Artemis; and the Homeric Hymn to Selene.]

Luna, holy goddess of the night sky, you hold the keys to every threshold; you see all that passes on earth. Light-bringing, splendid, gracious and nurturing, you delight in festivities and you loosen girdles, O gentle comforter of souls. Crescent-crowned, bull-horned Moon, you are changeable, eternally cycling, waxing and waning, feminine and masculine, mother of time, mother of all-nourishing dew, mother to every child who cries in the night. Luminous and amber-colored, your arms are eternally outstretched in fond embrace; you delight in peace, in the quiet contentment of night. Torch-bearing maiden of beautiful stars, when you guide your chariot through the night with your veil and long cloak billowing, a heaven-sent glow envelops the earth; sacred beauty arises under your radiance. O long-winged Luna, fair-blossomed, bearer of fruit, lover of horses, you bathe your beautiful skin in the Ocean and drape yourself in your bejeweled raiment. Blessed lady, marshal of the stars, you grant fulfillment and favor to those who honor you; to mortals you are a token of promise, an omen: through your own light, shine and save those who praise you!

------

Amalgam Hymn to Venus Amalgam Hymn to Saturn Amalgam Hymn to the Sun Amalgam Hymn to Mars Amalgam Hymn to Jupiter

[amethyst-butterflies]

A fun piece I did today - tarot inspired, of course: The Moon! 🌙

[greekromangods]

Endymion and Selene

62–79 AD

Pompeii (Origin)

Fresco

Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli

** Visit my Links page for my other blogs & Facebook Pages

[hellenic-polytheism]

Do you ask Selene for anything when you pray? If so, what? If not, why did you choose to start praying to her?

I don’t ask for anything from her. I don’t really consider myself to be ‘praying’ to her, I guess? I just tell her that she’s beautiful when I see her in the sky lol.

[hellenistic-oneiros]

🌙💞I love selene💞🌙

[teawiththegods]

Feels like Tumblr got kinda "one or another, no in between" on this tbh. There can be multiple gods for something, especially in religions that have varying and often contradictory accounts of the gods.

Thats pretty much how tumblr is about everything tbh especially the Hellenic Polytheism community on here. A lot of worshipers either don't realize or refuse to accept that our religion is very complicated and full of contradictions that can all be true at the same time.

My stance on it is that even in antiquity gods were overshadowing and even full on replacing other gods all the time. ESPECIALLY the twins! One of the reasons Apollo and Artemis are influential in so many realms is because they have absorbed other gods and over took their associations. So honestly seeing Apollo and Artemis as representing the sun and moon is pretty much honoring this tradition of theirs of overtaking the realms of other gods.

However of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with keeping the sun and the moon with their ancient keepers, Helios and Selene. Or finding a harmonious way to honor both ideas.

[piristephes]

Regarding the Moon Situation!

Theoi has an interesting bit about Selene, Lady Moon herself, and ancient witches who tried to mess with Her. “Lunar eclipses and the phenomena of the "red moon" were believed to be caused by the evil magics of Thessalian witches, who drew the goddess down from the sky in order to extract her blood. It was customary for villagers to beat cymbals at these times, to negate the witches' power and restore the goddess to the sky. “ (source) 

So, yeah, a bunch of witches tried hexing up the Moon, which is funny to think about. And if you guys wanna do something nice to Selene in her honour, we all could chant one for hymns and beat some cymbals (or maybe just clap, get creative).

I’ll leave one for hymns here. Praise Selene! Khaire, Aigle Selene!

Homeric Hymn 32 to Selene (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C7th - 4th B.C.) :

"And next, sweet voiced Mousai (Muses), daughters of Zeus, well skilled in song, tell of the long-winged Mene (Moon) [Selene]. From her immortal head a radiance is shown from heaven and embraces earth; and great is the beauty that ariseth from her shining light. The air, unlit before, glows with the light of her golden crown, and her rays beam clear, whensoever bright Selene having bathed her lovely body in the waters of Okeanos (Oceanus), and donned her far-gleaming raiment, and yoked her strong-necked, shining team, and drives on her long-maned horses at full speed, at eventime in the mid-month: then her great orbit is full and then her beams shine brightest as she increases. So she is a sure token and a sign to mortal men. Once Kronides (Cronides) [Zeus] was joined with her in love; and she conceived an bare a daughter Pandeia, exceeding lovely amongst the deathless gods. Hail, white-armed goddess, bright Selene, mild, bright-tressed queen! And now I will leave you and sing the glorious of men half-divine, whose deeds minstrels, the servants of the Mousai, celebrate with lovely lips."

 May the Moon guide us, lovely pagans! 

[theoikos]

One time I gave Selene salty stuff as an offering and she basically was like. Haha that’s cute but no, where are my sweets. I love sweets and pastries. No salt! Please!

[evaduplanart]

Two new illustrations of Selene and Iris <3 

[winebrightruby]

Selene and Hekate

I understand why people might look at Selene and Hekate and say they are opposites, full moon vs new moon. Selene is bright, peace-loving, gentle. Hekate is dark, powerful, fierce. But the thing is, the unifying symbol of “moon” is much more powerful than the opposite phases of it.

They both know secrets -- Selene, like Helios, is said to see everything that passes below the heavens. They are both nurturing -- Selene is mother to fifty or more daughters, and Hekate is nursemaid, kourotrophos, caregiver. They are both lightbearers -- Selene in her holy radiance, Hekate with her torches. They are both associated with the night. 

And they are both sources of magical power. Hekate is well-documented as goddess of witches. Selene is held and bled by the Thessalian witches, of course, but I would submit that she can pass down her power voluntarily as well. Helios, her brother, is the progenitor of the two famous Greek witches any student of Classics will immediately name: Circe and Medea. Both are directly descended from Helios as daughter and granddaughter respectively. While both call on Hekate in some form, it cannot be denied that their divine blood, Helios’ blood, gives them power beyond that of mere mortals. Does Selene not carry the same divine influence as her brother? It would be beyond a reach for anyone to claim literal descent from the Titan goddess, but I think it’s worth considering whether Selene, like Hekate, can bestow her power and authority on mortals who engage with her through prayer, devotion, and spellwork. My experience is that she can and will. 

Trying to make family trees for Greek mythology is an exercise in frustration, I know. But Selene and Hekate are pretty consistently related in the same fashion: they are first cousins once removed. Selene is actually one generation closer to Ouranos+Gaia, and since Helios’ power seems to dilute through the generations (Circe = basically a minor goddess; Medea = maybe a goddess? maybe a mortal? who can say really), this would suggest that Selene has more of what we consider “magic” to dispense than even Hekate does. 

On the whole, I regard them as more similar than different. Two points in a cycle resemble each other more than any point outside the cycle, basically. I’m far from an expert, but this is the point my reading and experience have led me to so far.

[amethyst-butterflies]

My beloved goddesses!

Was doodling and ended up drawing Artemis, which led to drawing the rest of them! 💜💜