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[that-cunning-witch]

Stone cooking supports used to grill skewers of meat by Minoans on Santorini, circa 3600 years old. The line of holes in the base supplied coals with oxygen. Many consider modern "souvlaki" street kebabs a direct descendant of this portable food system. Museum of Prehistoric Thera, Greece. More: https://thetravelbible.com/museum-of-artifacts/

[that-cunning-witch]

No Zionists on my page thank you

[that-cunning-witch]

Friendly reminder that:

The concept of starseeds promotes ableism by minimizing or denying ADHD and autism.

The ancient astronaut hypothesis promotes spiritual colonialism and destruction of other cultures by twisting other people's mythologies and sacred texts to fit their narratives.

The reptilian alien mythology is based on conspiracy theories historically used to justify oppressing and murdering real people. Loosh/blood/adrenochrome harvesting is just repackaged blood libel.

New Age mythology is chock full of repackaged right wing conspiracy theories, the same kind pushed by QAnon.

It's also full of repackaged racist pseudoscience about genetic superiority/inferiority and the function of evolution.

Ascension to 5D was supposed to have happened back in 2012, and the prediction failed.

New Agers are recycling their predictions over and over to catch new waves of people who don't know the movement's history.

Belief in Atlantis is strongly motivated by white supremacy.

For more info, see:

Looks like it's time to talk about starseeds and the New Age movement again.

How the mythology of starseeds, indigo children, crystal children, rainbow children, etc. harms kids

New Age YouTube channel caught recycling claims of imminent "first contact" for three years

Is the spiritual person a conspiracy theorist? A list of red flags

What is spiritual eugenics?

New Age beliefs that derive from racist pseudoscience

[that-cunning-witch]

Hey folks, if you're looking for a generalized term to use in place of "shaman," a number of academic folks have been using the term "ritual specialist."

(If anyone needs an explanation why you ought to use a different term, one is over here.)

[that-cunning-witch]

it’s black history month here are the twins of all time

[that-cunning-witch]

I think something people need to understand is when we talk about an ancient culture or deity with a queer context, we are often not holding those topics and beings to the same standards we hold today.

Whenever someone comments on the queer history of Ancient Greece (for example), there's always at least one person who says, "well the Ancient Greeks weren't the best people" often referring to pedophilia or sexism, and therefore we shouldn't be talking about these queer moments. Because apparently, if we discuss them in any positive light, we are also accepting of the rampant pedophilia and sexism of the culture at that time.

Do you see what this creates?

If we can't talk about these queer moments in ancient history in a positive light, we must only be able to either talk about them in a negative light or just not talk about them at all. In other words, either paint queer history as a bad thing or just not mention it at all, as though it never existed.

Do you see the problem here?

This isn't to say that we shouldn't talk about the inherent problematic nature of queer culture back then. Yes, Ancient Greece had homosexual relationships, but they were typically between two men in an obvious power dynamic, aka an older man and a younger boy. A homosexual relationship between two men of similar age wasn't as common as we would like to think.

But to say we should discard or discredit all of ancient queer history because of these issues is just blasphemous. It is actually powerful to discuss these topics in a positive light while acknowledging the problems in modern time.

In our time, we have the ability to hold these discussions. These opinions. To be able to say "I'm happy there was trans representation in the Dionysian cults" and "I don't like how during Bacchic frenzies rape was the norm" in the same breath is powerful.

We need to show the world that we have existed since the beginning of time. We need to give a middle finger to every fucking person who tries to take our history and cleanse it for the palettes of the average cishet population.

But to try and sterilize the reality of queer history or, worse, ignore it all together in fear of being lumped in with the history that clearly is not okay, is what the other side wants. They want you to be in fear of queer history. They want you to stop talking about it.

Don't let them erase queer history.

[that-cunning-witch]

It's just a cat. Stop acting like the end of the world

[that-cunning-witch]

ummm i'm 21 now?? big yikes!

in all seriousness though, i'm only posting about this bc it's the norm. i haven't posted a whole lot and i wanna do better about that but depression be kickin my ass lol.

all of this to say, i've completed another trip around the sun! now that's something to celebrate!✨

[that-cunning-witch]

It's been forever since I've posted anything, so give me your suggestions!

What should I write/post about? Tell me your suggestions by either replying, reblogging, or sending me an ask :^)

[that-cunning-witch]

apologies for the inactivity as of late. on november 11th, my feline companion of 5 years passed away suddenly. the grieving process has been difficult for me to comprehend and it makes me feel not normal. but at least we now know he's no longer suffering.

[that-cunning-witch]

Oh holy shit they found Silphium alive and growing in the wild.

[that-cunning-witch]

Does anyone have any advice/recommendations on good English translations of the Quran?

[that-cunning-witch]

There is still hope. Say it out loud. Palestine will be free. The Palestinian people will celebrate their culture and heritage with each other. We will love and be loved. Do not fall into the trap of despair.

[that-cunning-witch]

I hope I'm not crashing the post by adding my own personal story to this

I was one of the many people who overlooked Hermes' communication aspect (and Hermes overall tbh). I wanted to work with Iris, goddess of rainbows, since she's also overlooked as being the first communicator for the gods. But... the feeling wasn't mutual. She rarely ever responded to me and when she did it kinda felt forced.

Wanna know who did communicate to me when a message needed to be brought over? Hermes. But I didn't wanna work with Hermes because... uh... he was too popular, apparently? Yikes... (I am very ashamed of my past self).

It also makes a lot of sense why Hermes would be the messenger for me, considering my connection with Persephone (and now Demeter and Dionysus).

So listen to OP and try to interact with Hermes as the patron of communication. And give thanks, too!

Today, I would like to pay some attention to Hermes in His aspect of exchange and communication. As someone who dwells in the niche of interpreting, I very closely feel how important - and sometimes underappreciated - this field of work is; so, Hermes the Communicator.

Hermes is often remembered for other aspects but very rarely for His role of a negotiator and communicator - and how unfairly so! After all, He was the one - in some tellings - to speak to the God of the Dead during the kidnapping of Persephone. He is also the one to assist mortals in the hard tasks of delivering important messages, translating, and - to a degree - making diplomatic deals.

A poorly translated word can start a war, a correctly negotiated deal can stop it. Hermes is as much of a peacemaker an peacekeeper as any wartime-tied God is, as any Deity of wisdom on the battlefield is - but His peace-forging lies in the meeting halls, not on the blood-soaked ground.

I praise you, Patron of interaction, communication, deal-making, and translation. Thank you.

[that-cunning-witch]

Nazis have no place in witchcraft

TERFs have no place in witchcraft

SWERFs have no place in witchcraft

Racists have no place in witchcraft

Just in case anyone was confused

[that-cunning-witch]

Dissecting ancient Greek wedding customs (or “How to adapt the clusterfuck they are into something somewhat doable for the 21st century”)

This post is going to be a bit different. I could stick to writing about the customs we know of from a purely historical perspective, and while it would be informative, it wouldn’t reflect what I’ve actually been up to. Some of you might already know, but I’m getting married, so I approached this topic with the intent of seeing what I could do (and get away with).

So this post is going to be more about method and the practical challenges that come with doing the groundwork of adapting very old (and often outdated) traditions in a way that makes sense for our modern times.

I do have some disclaimers to make before I get started:

Most (if not all) of the literature around ancient Greek marriage is hetero-normative. However, this does NOT mean that marriage rites shouldn’t be adapted for queer marriages or that queer marriages can’t be done within Hellenic paganism. It’s our job as reconstructionists and revivalists to rework and adapt to our needs.

Similarly, this post is bound to mention or detail cult practices that are no longer in line with our modern sensibilities. I also want to make it clear that this post is not a tutorial. I’m not saying how things should be done, I’m only exposing elements that I consider reworkable and propose suggestions so that it can help others make their own research and decisions, with the level of historicity that they deem fit.

While the wedding customs from fifth century BC Athens are decently known, the ones from other cities and regions of Greece are much more obscure outside of anecdotal and fragmentary details (with the exception of Sparta). For this reason, the Athenian example is what I’ll be using as foundation. If you reconstruct practices from other areas of the Greek World, you might find something valuable in this article: The Greek Wedding Outside of Athens and Sparta: The Evidence from Ancient Texts by Katia Margariti.

Basic/simplified structure

The typical Athenian wedding would spread over three days, and be marked by several steps, some of which are listed below. Note that the order of these steps is not precisely known and might have been flexible:

Pre-wedding:

Decorating: korythale at the door, decoration of the nuptial bedroom

The Proteleia

Filling of the loutrophoros

Wedding day

Nuptial bath

Adornment of the bride

Wedding Feast

Hymenaios

Anakalypteria

Nymphagogia

Katachysmata

Day after

Epaulia

Gamelia

Final sacrifices

Some of these steps included specific customs and traditions, not all of which are reconstructible for various reasons.

Decorations

The korythale: the korythale was a sprig, usually from an olive tree (or laurel), which was placed at the groom’s door (and perhaps the bride’s too). The word in interpreted as deriving from “koros” and “thallein”, which would translate “youth-blossom”.

The korythale is very reminiscent of the eiresione, which was a similar kind of branch of laurel used during the Thargelia and/or the Pyanepsia that had apotropaic purposes. Athenian weddings included a procession from the bride’s home to the groom’s house, so the presence of the korythale at the doors would indicate that a wedding was taking place involving the decorated homes.

While I haven’t seen any one make this interpretation, I would still be tempted to argue that decorating the thresholds of houses has a similar protective and luck-bringing purpose than the eiresione, which was also hung above the door of Athenian houses.

The thalamos (nuptial bedroom): While there is no doubt the houses were properly decorated for the occasion, we have mention of special care given to the nuptial bedroom.

It’s important to understand that the procession from the bride’s house to the groom’s went up to the bedroom door, it was generally an important location and its preparation is seen represented on ancient pottery. Euripides mentions the adornment of the bed with fine fabrics, while Theocritus mentions the smell of myrrh (sacred to Aphrodite). There is also evidence that, in the Imperial period, the practice of hanging curtains to create a canopy above the bed was adopted, very likely from Egypt.

When it comes to adapting this today, it is pretty straightforward and there is plenty of room for personalization. The korythale could be challenging depending on how easily available olive or laurel are in your area. I would also argue that the custom could be more loosely adapted so that instead of being at the houses’ doors, it could take the form of a floral arrangement at the door of whatever venue you are using.

Proteleia

In short, the proteleia refers to sacrifices and offerings that would be made to various gods before the wedding. The exact timing of these is more or less unknown, but we have reasons to believe they could be done a day or a few days before the wedding, and perhaps also on the day of the wedding. These offerings were made independently by each family.

It is in this context that the offering of a lock of hair and of childhood items is best known for brides. The recipients of the offerings are varied: In Athens the most mentioned are the Nymphs and Artemis, but various sacrifices to Aphrodite, Hera, Athena and Zeus were also performed. In other parts of Greece, pre-nuptial customs often included sacrifices to local heroines. Plutarch, in the 2nd century AD (and therefore way after the focus of this post) mentions the main five nuptial deities to be Zeus Teleios, Hera Teleia, Aphrodite, Peitho and Artemis.

Today, I believe the exact choice of who to offer to and what to offer very much comes down to personal preferences and circumstances. While we assume that both families made prenuptial sacrifices, we know very little of the groom’s side of things, since the focus was on the bride, and the rite of passage aspect was not present for the groom in Ancient times. This is a gap that leaves room for modern innovation eg. including Apollon to either replace or accompany Artemis or choosing a group of deities that is more couple-centric rather than family-centric.

Personally, I have settled on Aphrodite, Hera and Artemis and have integrated a Spartan custom that includes the mother of the bride in the sacrifice to Aphrodite. Hera Teleia will receive a lock of my current hair, while Artemis will receive a lock of hair from my first haircut as a child (that my mother has kept all these years), alongside some other trinkets. The groom will honour Zeus Teleios in a passive way. And I will honour the Nymphs through the the rite I will explain next.

Nuptial baths

Both bride and groom had a ritual bath before the wedding. Its purpose was of cleansing and purificatory nature, and is consistent with other water-based pre-sacrifice purifications. What made the bride and groom's baths distinctive was their preparation. The bath water used to be drawn at a specific spring or river. At Athens, the water for bridal baths came from the Enneakrounos, the fountain house for the spring Kallirrhoe, but each city had its dedicated source. The water was carried in a special vase named the loutrophoros (bathcarrier) and the act of fetching the water and bringing it back to the homes constituted a procession. The loutrophoros was often given as offering to the altar of the Nymphs after the wedding. It was an important symbol of marriage, to the point that, if a woman died before being married, she would often be buried with a loutrophoros.

This will be more or less difficult to adapt depending on circumstances and environment, but the logic of a purifying bath (or shower even) can be kept (though I would discourage bathing in water you are not sure of the cleanliness of). The idea of having a specific vessel can also be kept. Personally, I plan to have a special vessel for some type of purified water, and while I may not bathe in it, I plan to sprinkle it and/or wash my hands with it.

Adornment of the bride (and groom)

Traditionally, the bride would have a nympheutria (which we could equate as a bridesmaid, but seems to have often been a female relative) charged of helping the bride get ready. I won’t get into the details of the clothing we know about, mostly because there seems to be a lot of variation, and because I consider this to be a very personal choice. However, we can note that both groom and bride were adorned with a wreath or a garland of plants that were considered to have powers appropriate for the occasion (sesame, mint, plants that were generally considered fertile or aphrodisiac). Perfume is also something attested for both bride and groom, especially the scent of myrrh. The bride would wear a crown, the stephane, which could be made out of metal or be vegetal (the stephane is now the object of its own crowning ceremony in Greek Orthodox weddings). The bride’s shoes were also particular for the event, and named nymphides. The bride’s veil was placed above the crown.

Hymenaios and Feast

I am grouping these two since they are linked. The feast was more or less the peak of the wedding ceremony and lively with music and dances, as Plutarch indicates (Moralia, [Quaest. conv.] 666f-67a):

But a wedding feast is given away by the loud cries of the Hymenaios and the torch and the pipes, things that Homer says are admired and watched even by women who stand at their doors.

The hymenaios was a sung hymn in honour of the couple and the wedding, and there were other songs that were specifically sung at weddings. However the hymenaios wasn’t only for the feast, these songs would be sung also during the processions. The hymenaios also had the purpose of ritually blessing the couple, a ritual that bore the name of makarismos.

As for the feast, it was obviously abundant with food and the prenuptial sacrifices provided the meat that would be served. There is otherwise very little difference with what a modern wedding feast would be like: food, drink, music and dance around which gathered friends and relatives of the couple. Like today, the wedding cake(s) was an important part of the celebration. It was called sesame and consisted of sesame seeds, ground and mixed with honey and formed into cakes to be shared with the guests.

Anakalypteria

Note that there is a bit of a debate around this step, which is the unveiling of the bride. Some believe the bride kept her face veiled until this part of the wedding, where her face would be uncovered for the groom to see. Others interpret this step the other way around, where the bride is then veiled as a result of being now married. The timing of the unveiling is also up for the debate. It might have been during the feast (at nightfall), or after once the couple was escorted to the bridal chamber. There doesn’t seem to be a clear consensus.

The concept of unveiling the bride is otherwise something that isn’t unknown to us as a modern audience. As with everything else, how to interpret and modernize it is up to personal preference.

Nymphagogia and Katachysmata

The nymphagogia aka the act of “leading the bride to her new home” took place at night, likely after the feast. It is at this point that the groom ritually led the bride to his home by taking her by the wrist in a ritual gesture known as χεῖρ’ ἐπὶ καρπῷ (cheir’ epi karpo). The relatives and friends of the couple formed a festive procession that accompanied them to their new home accompanied by music and songs. The mother of the bride led the procession carrying lit torches, while the groom’s mother awaited for the new couple in their home, also bearing lit torches.

Once there, the rite of the katachysmata would happen. The couple would be sat near the hearth and the guests would pour dried fruits, figs and nuts over the bride and groom as a way to incorporate them into the household and bless the union with prosperity and fertility. As part of this rite, the bride ate a fruit (either an apple, quince or pomegranate). It is only after this step that the couple would be escorted to the bridal chamber.

These two rites are tricky to adapt in a modern context because of how location-specific they are (and that’s not even taking into account the implications of having family escort you to your bedroom etc). My take would be that the katachysmata is not too far off from the custom of throwing rice/flowers at the couple after the ceremony, and could probably be incorporated as such. The torches could also be replaced by any source of light placed in a meaningful location, depending on the where the wedding is being held. The nymphagogia could also do with an update, the easiest of which could simply be holding hands while leaving the wedding ceremony.

The day after (Epaulia, Gamelia & sacrifice)

The epaulia refers to wedding gifts to the couple, which would be given the day following the ceremony. At this point, it is implied that the couple has consummated their marriage and are officially newly-weds. Pausanias informs us that the term “epaulia” (also?) refers to the gifts brought by the bride’s father in particular and included the dowry.

After the epaulia, the bride's incorporation into her husband's house was complete. This might have been when the groom held a feast for his phratria (aka direct family), as a way to conclude the wedding.

As for final sacrifices, the bride herself may have marked the end of her wedding by dedicating her loutrophoros at the sanctuary of Nymphe, south of the Acropolis.

The epaulia could be adapted, in modern terms, with having a registry. Should someone choose to have a specific vessel linked to the ritual bath today, it could very well be kept, dedicated to the Nymphs and used as a small shrine. Considering how symbolic the object is, there is also room for it to become a piece of family heirloom.

Final words

This is really only a small summary of what a wedding could have looked like, sprinkled with a few ideas of how to manage the gaps, discrepancies and limitations. As I said in my introductions, there are details I haven’t mentioned. Some of the customs detailed here have clear modern counterparts, but others don’t. I’d like to conclude by addressing these.

First, the ancient Greek (Athenian) wedding is completely devoid of priestly participation. It was entirely planned, organized and led by the two families. Religious responsibilities were entirely self-managed. I find this point important to remember because it makes it much more accessible than if modern Hellenic pagans had to seek out an external authority.

Some of you might have noticed the absence of wedding vows, at least in a formal form like the one we are used to in our modern days (derived from Christian and Jewish traditions), this is not an oversight, there simply were none that we know of. As a sidenote, I would also advise against turning a wedding vow into a formal oath. I’m still debating on what to do myself, but I’m leaning towards a religiously non-binding vow that won’t curse me should things go wrong.

Adapting the structures and rites of the ancient wedding to today’s framework of ceremony will naturally lead to changing the order of things, on top of sacrificing elements for the sake of simplicity, practicality, personal preferences and, very likely, visibility. Unless you’re lucky enough to do a private elopement, chances are that relatives and friends might be there, and not all might know or even approve of your faith. I hope this post shows that there can be ways to include traditional religious elements that will go unnoticed to the untrained eye, like I hope it showed that the private nature of the ancient Greek wedding rites is a significant advantage for modernization.

[that-cunning-witch]

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