to-the-theoi

[to-the-theoi]

Looking back through this blog and seeing me picking fights with terfs at like the tender age of 15 brought back memories like a sleeper agent trigger word. Anyways fuck transphobes, they have no place in pagan spaces

[to-the-theoi]

🕯🔥☀️🍂❤️🍂☀️🔥🕯

May Hestia keep your heart and soul warm, even in the darkest of times.

[to-the-theoi]

2500 years old statue of Aphrodite

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Vintage wlw will forever own my heart. We have been here for ages, and we won’t leave.

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A photo of a candle being lit on our recent Aphrodite Altar for Valentine's Day

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“…the dread goddess came from the furthest depths to accept the sacrifices of the son of Aison. Around her head was a garland of terrible snakes entwined with oak branches, and her torches flashed out a blinding brightness; all around her was the piercing bark of hellish dogs. All the fields trembled at her approach; the marsh-dwelling nymphs of the river who dance around that meadow of the Amarantian Phasis screamed aloud.” 

-The Argonautica. Apollonius of Rhodes

Happy Halloween my ghouls! We’re going out with a bang for Classicstober

I’ve drawn Hekate so many times, I wanted to do something new. Then I remembered this chilling passage from the Argonautica where Jason summons the goddess in one of her chthonic incarnations Hekate Brimo (Terrifying Hekate). It kind of reads straight out of a horror movie, so that’s the vibe I went with. 

[to-the-theoi]

little hestia things:

the sigh of relief when you get though the front door and put down your bags

sheets flapping on the washing line

the smell of fabric softener on your favourite hoodie

blankets piled in the living room for anyone to snuggle with

all your family in one kitchen, working together to make a meal

callouses on your fingers from sewing by hand

the smell of cinnamon when you're making rice pudding for everyone

the quiet contentment of people eating a meal they love

full herb and spice racks

forehead kisses and tucking people in

knowing every weird quirk of your house, how to move the handle to lock the door, how much weight to press against your gate to get it open, how to start the fireplace that never wants to get going

communal food shops and picking up people's favourite teas unprompted just because they like them

the overwhelming sense of love and community you get from sharing your lives together as a group

[to-the-theoi]

Pagans are capable of religious abuse too, just as much as large organized religions are capable of religious abuse. We should be more aware of what religious abuse is so we can spot it happening, and to push abusers out of the community because the pagans on here who abuse others through religion genuinely have no business in any kind of pagan space at all.

The second you start abusing someone I think your privilege to be a part of pagan communities needs to be revoked. Below are some helpful articles that give a basic run down on what religious abuse consists of.

https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/signs-spiritual-abuse

https://www.thehotline.org/resources/what-is-spiritual-abuse/

For the record- speaking for the gods in order to make someone else afraid is absolutely religious abuse. Setting yourself up as a religious leader of some kind, in order to gain social power to manipulate others into your favor, is religious abuse. Using your followers to harass others, or manipulating them into giving you money, sex, etc is religious abuse. Setting up extreme double standards that exist to make people feel inherently guilty around the gods is religious abuse. Even putting yourself between a person and their deity in order to relay a message can very easily toe the line of religious abuse. For that last bit, nobody should ever do that to you unless they are a trusted, CREDIBLE friend you have explicitly asked, and is something all parties agree on.

[to-the-theoi]

Prayer to Dionysus

Dionysus, Lord of Madness and Frenzy, I give into the pleasures of life

To live fully and freely.

We find passion in life and celebrate your wild presence.

I honor you.

Dionysus, of the Flowers, the earth grows from you.

Ivy and grape, vine and seed.

God of Vegetation, we consume you,

Foldly and happily.

I honor you.

Dionysus, Torch Bearer,

Ignite our hearts in strife and struggle.

Holy Eternal youth, share with us your zest for life

And show us the joys that wait beyond.

We devote ourselves to you,

Through love and care of self.

I honor you.

Thank you, Dionysus.

I honor and praise you.

[to-the-theoi]

Blessings to you! 🥀🕯

~ Masterpost ~

[to-the-theoi]

A guide to worship of Nike - cheat sheets

Hellenic cheat sheets

[to-the-theoi]

A guide to worship of Thanatos- cheat sheets

Hellenic cheat sheets

[to-the-theoi]

Presentation of the Newborn to Athena by Georges Antoine Rochegrosse

[to-the-theoi]

Hestia - my home and my hearth… 

New linoprints just dropped!  don’t make me pick a favourite colour because I can’t choose..! I’ll post a few peels of this soon.  Etsy

[to-the-theoi]

Praise To Lady Athena

She who is most quick-witted of the gods.

Who leapt forty from her father fully formed.

Clad in warriors armor with deadly spear in hand.

Once her piercing grey eyes have set upon her target, none may stand in her way.

The virgin goddess we call mother; who cradled human civilization in its infancy.

She need no consort, no babe, for she is the mother of wisdom, justice, and reason.

[to-the-theoi]

Hail! Genial King!

Bacchus! To thee belong twain of peace and war, the fight, the jest, the dance, the song; Hail! Genial king!

source: Toast and Tributes by Arthur Grey; Horace

[to-the-theoi]

Ourea: The Mountain Gods

One group of protogenoi (primordial gods) were the Ourea, the gods of mountains. They are the sons and daughters of Gaia, brothers and sisters of the Potamoi, gods of rivers and streams.

Theoi.com describes the Ourea as "old, bearded men partially emerged from between a pair of crags," though Ourea could also be goddesses, such as Aitna in Sicily. In his Metamorphoses, Ovid describes the mountain god Tmolos "On his mountain top the judge was seated; from his ears he freed the forest trees; only a wreath of oak fringed his green locks, with acorns dangling round his hollow temples."

And Gaia first bore starry Ouranos, equal to herself, to cover her on every side. And she brought forth long Ourea, graceful haunts of the goddess Nymphai who dwell amongst the glens of the mountains. She bare also the fruitless deep with his raging swell, Pontos, without sweet union of love.

-Theogony 129, Hesiod

He [Orpheus] sang of that past age when Gaia and Ouranos and Pontos were knit together in a single mould; how they were sundered after deadly strife; how the Astra, Selene, and travelling Helios keep faithfully to their stations in the heavens; how the Ourea rose; and how, together with ther Nymphai, the murmuring Potamoi and all four-legged creatures came to be.

-Argonautica 1.498, Apollonius Rhodes

Like most of the theoi, the Ourea often seem enamoured by songs and music in myth; Kithairon and Helikon competed in a music contest, Helicon was so beguiled by the music of the Mousai that he grew taller and taller until Pegasus struck his summit, and Olympos in Phrygia (Mount Uludağ, Turkey, not the home of the gods) was an inventor of the flute and father to the flute-playing Satyroi.

In the Hellenistic era, each mountain was said to have its own Oread, a mountain nymph. One such nymph was Echo, who protected Zeus against Hera's inquiries and was condemned to only speak the last words spoken to her. The Oreades were often associated with Artemis since they dwelled in her preferred hunting grounds.

Zeus is most commonly associated with mountains and has several sanctuaries dedicated to him atop their peaks. Few if any sanctuaries were ever built at the summits for the mountains themselves.

⛰