#ares obsession is literally in hyperdrive rn

[orsialos]

Hello, I just saw you're post about working with Ares, and I'm curious. Especially about what you said with him being a comfort to you as you work through your trauma since I've been working through mine. I've been thinking about working with him for a while, and I'd be happy to hear anything you have to share about him.

I think its a shame that he's so pigeon holed. I've seen a lot of people who worship and work with him say he's a paternal and comforting figure. Someone who encourages you to keep going through the worst of it. That'd someone I could really use right now.

Dia duit! My apologies for the delay, i constantly forget to check my asks inbox 🤦‍♀️

You are very correct that the modern interpretation of Ares is very limited and pigeon holes him as an angry, terrifying, almost evil presence. While some of this can be attributed to Athenian bias against Sparta, part of it is also due to the lack of knowledge about his various cults outside of Sparta.

Before I go too far I'mma drop this recently answered ask here about researching Ares, as it has good info about a few things I'll mention below. Ok, so getting into it. Let's talk about a bit of historical background because duh, I love history, and then my personal experiences.

Ares as a Protector - Historical Context

Here, we journey east into the rising Sun to the ancient lands of Anatolia, now modern-day Turkey. Many of the Greek gods worshipped here were syncretized with pre-existing deities as the Greek world expanded. Many of these deity names have been lost to time, but we do have evidence of a pastoral protective male deity that was likely syncretized with Ares. From what I have read, we have the most evidence for this new/syncretized cult of Ares from the Lycian and Pamphylian regions of southwestern Anatolia.

The ask I linked above contains an excellent free paper on an oracular cult of Ares in this region. We have documented inscriptions that this oracle called for a protective "binding" of a figure of Ares for the citizens to protect their shores from raiding pirates. Figures of Ares or figures symbolic of Ares were often found in areas around the city, another demonstration of his dual nature as both pastoral protector and invader.

Coinage is a very useful tool in archaeology for learning more about the important cultural figures in a given society. Time and time again we find detailed coins with an image of Ares, usually with a helmet. While we cannot use this to determine how Ares was worshipped, we can surmise Ares was a large part of daily life in western Anatolia.

This is in stark contrast to mainland Greece, where images of Ares outside of pottery and sculptures are quite rare; Ares was often seen as the literal personification of war itself, the din and fury and bloodlust that comes out during war is all because of Ares. Here, Ares was almost feared out of respect for his chaotic nature and ability to turn the tide in war rather than admired and worshipped for his protective nature.

Ares as a Protector - Personal Experience

Well this is the fun, UPG part! Everything you've heard about Ares - his protective nature, his warmth & tenderness, his encouragement in the face of darkness are all so true it nearly makes me cry! My experience with Ares has been about 70% him being fatherly and tender when i was in therapy to finally talk about my SA trauma and 30% helping me learn to deal with my anger towards life in general (for this I look to wisdom from the mythologies surrounding Ares, especially the death of Adonis).

I'd say currently Ares is more of a "hey, I'm here if you need me" presence in my life, always at the edges and sometimes coming to say hello unprompted, just as a loving father would do. While my worship of Ares has only gotten stronger and more involved over the year-ish I've had him in my life, his daily presence is much more subdued. And i think a lot of that is because I don't need him in my life as much, which is honestly a good thing!

Ares came to me at a time in my life where I was caught up in unresolved trauma from an incident years prior and experienced something that broke the floodgates holding everything back. He was there nearly every second of every day - a warmth at my shoulder, an echo in my mind. At night when i was lying awake trying not to let my mind spiral, i quite honestly felt a warmth by my side as if someone was sitting next to me tracing their fingers along my back to calm me down. What I find a bit unnerving as far as UPG goes is that is what a lot of other people have said their experiences are like with Ares.

It seems to me, from my experiences and what I've heard from others, is that Ares is wonderful at providing solid ground and a strong arm to hold on to when it feels like you are in free fall. He is not pushy or demanding and delights with any time we spend with him. Of course this is not to say his war-like aspect and place on the battlefield does not exist! But rather, as literally any other Greek god I can think of, he is a god of duality and while war and protection may seem at odds, they are truly two sides of the same coin.

Can you tell I love Ares just a little bit?