I have a few things of substance I’d like to post about in the near future, but I am running preciously low on neurotransmitters at the moment, so this is about all I can get out at the moment, I fear. I need some more sleep, I think.

In any case…

I often look at the search term that people use to find my blog, and some of them can be rather intriguing. In the last week, at some stage, someone used the search phrase of “Antinous son of Aphrodite” in order to find this blog, which I find intriguing for a number of reasons.

One reason is that the Citharoedic Hymn of Curium refers to Antinous as “offspring of the Gold-Winged Mother,” which refers to Aphrodite, and which would then make Antinous equal to Eros or perhaps syncretized to him. That certainly makes sense…

But, another possibility which suggests itself is that, with the parentage of Antinous suggested in the epic poem fragment from Oxyrhynchus that lists him as a son of the Argus-SLayer (i.e. Hermes), if we took the parentage of Aphrodite into consideration alongside this, that would then make Antinous equal to or syncretized with Hermaphroditos–which is very intriguing indeed!

Another hymn from Oxyrhynchus suggests that Antinous’ mother’s name was Mantinoë, which not only connects him to his Arcadian origins in Mantineia, but also further suggests the female heroine foundress of that city-state, Antinoë (which was also a by-name of the city of Antinoöpolis as well).

When we bring the city of Antinoöpolis into the equation, then we have a further suggestion of the possibility of Hathor as a mother goddess to the city, or to Antinous himself, which further links to Aphrodite via the common Graeco-Egyptian syncretism of the two goddesses.

And, if we bring Thrace into the picture, then Bendis also suggests herself as the Thracian mother-goddess who might have some connection to Antinous.

Jumping back to Egyptian and Graeco-Egyptian syncretistic matters, I’ve often said that as a fellow super-syncretistic deity, Serapis is like the grandfather of Antinous; and if we bring in Thracian super-syncretism, then Sabazios might fulfill a similar role. Or, perhaps Antinous is the nephew of one of these gods rather than the grandson…?!?

Bring in Eleusis, and Antinous could well be the son of Demeter, or “Mother Antaia” as the Orphic Hymns calls her at one point. That has various other implications that are also intriguing…

But, that’s the problem: we don’t know with any certainty what Antinous’ human parents were called; and yet, he may have any number of divine parents, even if they are not literally his divine parents and brought him into existence by having sex with one or the other of his human parents. There is room for notions of divine adoption, not unlike what Hera did for Herakles, and there are even some connections of Herakles being suckled by Hera to flowers, oil from those flowers, and deification by drowning, it turns out…I’ll perhaps speak more about those things later, once I have a bit more information on them.

Meanwhile, it seems that the Tetrad++ Group are not the only deities with multiple potential parentage far beyond the usual numbers we’re accustomed to seeing with human parentage! Perhaps they take after their father and grandfather Antinous in that very respect, indeed!

What do you think? Whom might be reckoned as the divine father and mother of Antinous? (And I’d be especially interested in knowing your thoughts on this outside of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian cultural mythological contexts…!)

Yes, folks, you read the above subject line correctly: it’s not meant to be “mortals,” which many in the polytheist community would naturally associate with the theological distinctions preceding it in the above list, but instead “morals,” because there seems to be some continuing lack of understanding on this matter in certain sections of the modern pagan community.

On The Wild Hunt today, there was an excerpt from a recent post on Patheos.com by Drew Jacob on a conference about heroism and how to create heroes. The event sounds intriguing, and I support the notions behind it; I certainly won’t be attending, because I can’t get time off work, and the travel, accommodation, and conference admissions expenses of it would be prohibitive for someone in my current financial position.

But, as worthy as this event will be, and as laudable as its goals are, I think there is some missed points regarding heroism in the ancient world that need to be queried a bit for the general understanding of modern pagans and polytheists.

Drew writes:

In Paganism, heroes are our bridge to the gods. The heroes of legend combine otherworldly traits with a very human set of weaknesses and faults. For all their imperfections, they show us that mortals can embody the highest ideals. All of us have the spark of heroism within us.

For many Pagans, our entire ethics is evolved from the heroic ideal: individuals who follow their ideals, who do not recognize false authority, and who put the quest for truth first.

While these ideas are rooted in ancient myth, today’s psychology suggests that they are quite real: there are ways to help people be more ready to act heroically when needed, ways to increase the level of heroic action in our society.

On the latter point, of course, I don’t really agree that the validation of psychology needs to be added to ancient myth or our religious concerns generally, as I’ve written recently. But, the other points before this need to be teased out a bit more.

It’s a very Protestant notion to think that an important aspect of one’s religion is the ethical or moral shaping that it gives to people. “Here endeth the lesson,” I think, is one of the phrases one should never hear in the context of a religious ritual or service–and that’s coming from me, who is not only the Doctor of the Ekklesía Antínoou, but a teacher in my day job!–and yet that’s how so much of the Protestant ritual life and the ethical reasoning that comes from it is enacted in the modern world. When I was doing my M.A., we studied liberation theology as well as other praxis-based theologies, and one of the most important contentions of these (which I’ve mentioned previously) is that the Christian church is not a school of ethics, it’s a place for the inculcation of eschatological hope. While we can ignore the particular Christian implications of “eschatological hope” there, and I think we can likewise substitute “religion” for “Christian church,” I think nonetheless that there is an important point being made in this statement about liberation theology and praxis-based theologies (of which, I’d argue, paganism and polytheism both ought to be in those categories).

As a result–and other modern pagans and polytheists have made this point elsewhere, and far better, than I could–we don’t look to our deities as moral exemplars for the most part. Act like Zeus and you’ll find yourself charged with rape very quickly; acting like Dionysos as he sometimes behaved amongst humans might get one charged with terrorism or incitement to murder; and if you think Hermes is a good moral exemplar, then you’ll soon find yourself in the dock for theft, if you’re lucky. (And I mean no offense to Zeus, Dionysos, or Hermes at all for these matters–those gods, and many others, are awesome and I shall always praise them!) This is the matter as it appears on the level of mythic narrative, of course, which is not the same as the cultic level, nor even the personal and one-to-one level of individual devotional relationships with deities, and that distinction does need to be made, while also affirming the importance of the narratological “truth” and importance of myths as quasi-theophanies, as others have written on other occasions as well. So, that’s fair enough.

However, many might say–including Drew Jacob, as n what was quoted above–that heroes are kind of that missing link, those moral exemplars, even though they were flawed and imperfect and profoundly human in their actions, their desires, and their mistakes. I can agree with that to a degree; it’s certainly true of Achilleus, and of Cú Chulainn, and of Odysseus, and any number of other famous heroes from a wide variety of polytheistic mythological cultures.

But what about Eunostos of Tanagra? He was a hero who had a sacred grove and was worshipped in Tanagra, and yet all we know about him while alive was that he was the unfortunate victim of a murder; apart from that, we don’t know how moral or immoral he was. And, in fact, after his death his spirit was so troubled and troublesome that it was a detriment to the community, and that’s how he got his hero cultus. There’s really not a lot of moral integrity or exemplary behavior to be found there, to be honest–which doesn’t mean we should withhold our esteem or honoring of Eunostos, by any means, but moral upstanding-ness isn’t why he’s a hero.

So, what about Archemoros (also known as Opheltes)? He was a baby who was killed by a snake, though there was a prophecy attached to it…and, the Seven Against Thebes sort of caused it, and were the first to honor him. He was poorly looked after, and paid the ultimate price for it…and, he was honored as a hero afterwards. He was not an obscure hero like Eunostos of Tanagra, though, who only had a local cult and slight bits of one elsewhere; he was celebrated by the ancient Greek world once every four years at the Nemean Games, one of the four great panhellenic athletic festivals (of which the Olympics was one). He was just a baby in the wrong place at the wrong time–there’s nothing moral or immoral about that.

And what about Melikertes/Palaimon? Another baby who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but who was not only honored as a hero, but also as a god, and who got the Isthmian Games in Corinth celebrated in his honor once every four years. One can argue that he got a bit “grandfathered” into divinity through his cousin, Dionysos, but individual moral merit certainly didn’t come into the question at all.

And what about Demophoön, the child suckled by Demeter at Eleusis? Same thing again: he got a hero cult after his death, but his own merit or moral character had nothing to do with it.

Further examples could be attested that are not infants; but, I think these noteworthy cases (and there are other child and infant heroes attested as well) need to be taken into account because of how important and noticeable and influential they were.

Hero cultus, and the recognition of heroism, involves far more than some perception of the moral aptitudes of an individual, and even more than having done something important or noteworthy in their life. Sometimes, heroism is more a matter of dying right than living right, I think, in the cases above…and in the case of some other well-known heroes like Cú Chulainn and Achilles, to some extent, as well.

So, I think this needs to be kept in mind, as matters of polytheistic cultus (including hero cultus, as in the present case) get explained away by psychology or ethical and moral assumptions rather than by what was the actual reality on the ground was in phenomena that are just as deserving of the term “heroism” as any of the others that would be more palatable to those modern sensibilities.

[A while back--perhaps late August or early September, I think--S. J. Tucker had a contest in relation to a new song she had just released. Due to various circumstances, I was not able to participate in the contest, and even if I had, I probably wouldn't have won anyway; but, I wanted to do what I said I'd have done all the same, and so what follows is exactly that. She asked people to make art in response to/as accompaniment to her song. While I did do visual art a great deal more in the past, and would love to get back into it more, I have not had the materials or the opportunity to do so. Writing a poem or short story based on her song didn't seem the right thing to do either. So, I thought the creativity I'd invest in the project would be mostly in the innovative use of the medium of expression: theological commentary! Read on, if you like, therefore...!]

The Muse speaks:

If I am a little bird
next time I open up my eyes,
well I’m gonna have to learn
how to spread my wings and fly,
and turn loose of all the things
that try to hold me to the ground.
I got no time to be afraid,
so you’re not gonna catch me looking down.

The Muse begins by speaking in the voice of Icarus, son of Daedalus, who was given wings of wax and feathers in order to escape the palace of Minos in Crete. Icarus speaks here of daring, of single-mindedness, and of not possibly thinking of failure. Though failure was the ultimate result of his flight, the confidence required to fly from captivity, and for humans to fly at all, is the key which The Muse focuses upon here in order to suggest that with such confidence, it is possible for humans to accomplish deeds as great as the heroes, and even approaching the gods in their wonder.

The Muse speaks:

I’m gonna shake my tail
and spread my wings,
gonna catch that wind as it’s rushing by.
I’m gonna raise my voice and sing!

It is little known that Icarus, son of Daedalus, was unlike his father, a student of the Muses, and of the school of Orpheus. It is said that in his flight, before he went higher than he should have, he busied himself with a singing competition against the Sirens upon their rocks. Though he nearly overpowered them with his own song, he kept his distance from them so that he would not fall prey to their spell. Wanting to hear their song, however, but not be entirely given over to it, he flew slightly higher so that the wax from one of his wings would melt and fall from his arms into one of his ears, thus half-blocking his senses to the enticements of their melody. This he did by flying higher than he should have, but with one wing deficient, he could not stay aloft, and soon tumbled to his death.

The Muse speaks:

If I am a little flame
or else a dancing thunderstorm,
I’m gonna have all kinds of ways
to keep my little spirit warm.
I might scare somebody here & there
so they wish me on my way.
That’s how it goes when you’re too much
or big and bad and here to stay!

I’m gonna shake my tail
and spread my wings.
Gonna catch that lightning for my very own!
I’m gonna raise my voice and sing!

Here, the Muse refers to the Daktyloi of Pherekydes, the great workers in metal who taught the Cyclopes their trade before Hephaistos amongst the fires of the forge, and even smithed the thunderbolt of Zeus himself. It was they who pioneered the art of goetia in their works of magic and smithcraft, and thus their song is referred to here as well. The Idaean Daktyloi, along with the Kouretes who shared their craft, danced and sang to protect the infant Zeus in his hiding place on Crete.

The Muse speaks:

Ooh, if what you’re seeing doesn’t feed you,
It isn’t that your appetite’s gone wild.
Ooh, if what they’re selling doesn’t serve you,
I double dare you to do your own thing, child!

Pherekydes says that these lines were the last song sung to the youthful Zeus before he left the peace of their protection to face his father Kronos. Still others say that the first two lines were the first words said by Zeus to his father Kronos, who had swallowed a stone instead of Zeus, and the following two lines were Kronos’ reply back to Zeus in defiance of his challenge to his rule of the gods.

The Muse speaks:

If you feel a little lost
and some days you just wanna scream,
chin up, little fish.
I bet there’s something good upstream.
Keep on swimming
and chasing after your big dreams.
I cannot tell a lie:
I’ve seen that even fish can fly!

On another occasion, the gods under Zeus had taken refuge in Egypt, for Typhon had raged against them and overthrown Zeus temporarily by stealing the sinews from his body. The gods were in animal form–Apollon as a raven, Artemis as a cat, Hermes as a baboon, and so forth–and Pan had taken the form of a goat-bodied fish. In this form, he invited Typhon to a feast, and together with the creatures of the sea, they surprised Typhon and overpowered him long enough for Hermes to steal back Zeus’ sinews and return them to him, whereupon Zeus took his revenge on Typhon by imprisoning him in Mt. Aetna of Sicily. To commemorate this victory, Zeus raised the goat-bodied fish to the heavens, as if it were a bird in flight, and called it Aegipan, that is, “Pan of Egypt,” which the learned now call Capricorn of the Zodiac.

The Muse speaks:

C’mon, shake your tail!
Spread your wings!
Catch that sweet current swirling by!
raise your voice and sing!

Shake your tail!
Spread your wings!
Catch that wind. Let it lift you high
as you raise your voice and sing!
Raise your voice and sing!

These final choruses hearken back again to the advice of Orpheus to all who would learn his arts, practice magic and goetia, and enact their devotion to the Muses. For one does not sing in this manner without being granted the breath of the gods upon the winds, and doing so raises the spirits of those who sing to the point that their souls become as gods upon the earth, and in the afterlife they may even reach the blessed state of the heroes and immortals who have been initiated into the mysteries of theosis. Indeed, there is nothing higher, and thus like Icarus–though mislead–one is encouraged to spread one’s wings and aspire to such heights by being lifted on the breath of the Muses–indeed, the very words spoken here–to dwell amongst the gods and heroes in the heavens by raising one’s voice in song.

The Muse speaks still…What does she say to you?

*****

VII Kal. Nov.

I saw a tangle of four serpents in the sand today.

Tiresias was worse—or was he/she better?—for having separated such.

I did nothing, but instead watched them in amazement.

A shrine of a squat god, a dwarf adorned with ostrich feathers
gives oracles in the desolate desert across from Hermes’ city.
I wonder if Mercurius would be daring enough to place his rod
amidst the swirling helix of the serpents?

In his Egyptian form, I think his long curved beak
would not be their tree-limb around which to coil,
but instead their desolation as it slurped them up.

The dancing dwarf-god wears a lion’s skin,
a diminutive Hercules in victory, perhaps,
over some Nubian foe…perhaps another god itself.

I do not know these mysteries; only that dwarves
who dance naked and have the faces of satyrs
often laugh whether they are at killing or at fucking.

I hear the sounds of fucking from some part of camp every night:
the cooks or the grooms, or the Emperor and his boy,
or the Empress and one of her women,
or occasionally both, but never in the same room or tent.

Four serpents; four lovers…my head hurts, it’s all a mystery.

The Empress permits me to ask the dwarf-god’s oracle a question.
“When?” is all I ask; he will know of what I speak.
Whenever you like is the answer I get,
and Go dance with the Golden Goddess.
I wash in the temple’s fountain
and leave my sandals and my tunic on the tiles.

For their austerity in other cities, at this shrine,
the Egyptian priests are a riot of movement and sound,
and no small enticement toward the physical either.
They ply me with wine before they force me to dance
(though there is no “forcing” in it, only the appearance of force).

It is as if the Golden Goddess, this Egyptian Venus of Cyprus,
smiles upon me in her images, looking directly at me with both eyes,
and the wide smile and curled lips of the dwarf-god as well,
whether I spin and nearly collapse in dizziness,
or sit with legs apart simply taking in their visages,
or if I hold in my hand my own engorged flesh.

They say she is a serpent in other places.

With Nile water they rinse off my flesh,
the spatters of seed that scattered on me during the dance.
“The semen of the gods is upon his body”
they say as they rinse my own seed from me.

There are no snakes where I come from.

My head still hurts…did it hurt before the drink?

It has been a long and drunken night.

His lovely face is back, in full force, in my life, and my immediate visual range, once again, dear friends…

So, I arrived back from our Foundation Day ritual for Antinous almost ninety minutes ago, and before I head to bed for the night for a few hours before I have to get up for work at 6 AM, I wanted to get a few thoughts down on how things went.

Including myself, there were eight people present at the ritual: five Mystai, one person I’d not met previously, one of my friends/students who was kind enough to drive, and myself. I brought a relatively small number of gods with me–Hathor, Bes, and Serapis, Wepwawet, Ianus, and Hekate, plus Polydeukion and all of the Divi of whom I have coins (Hadrian, Sabina, Aelius Caesar, Trajan, Lucius Verus, Marcus Aurelius, Plotina, Marciana, and Matidia), but others also brought Hermes, Apollon, Dionysos, Pan, and Aphrodite.

We did a variety of things slightly differently this year: no Obelisk of Antinous, for example, but instead the “Frankensteinian Hymn” from last year (which works incredibly well, and creates the space that the Obelisk also can in a different fashion–to the point that when we left, I had the strange woozy feeling I always get when stepping across a sacred boundary). We “plunked” our stones into the representation of the deifying and transforming waters of the Nile at the start. We also did the preliminary prayer to Antinous, and the prayers for Wepwawet, Hekate, and Ianus. We didn’t do the usual Foundation Day preface, but we did do the deification of Antinous via our version of Coming Forth By Day. We did the Prayer Against Persecution, and also the Antinoan Petition, in which everyone present offered prayers for themselves, and also many of our friends, allies, and co-religionists and community members were prayed for specifically and enthusiastically.

Then, we did several sacred dramas, including “Hadrian and Antinous” and “Foundation.” Then, I read the entirety (including the bits I haven’t posted yet) of “Nine Days Along the Nile,” and parts of it were extremely emotional for me as I read them–more so than I was expecting, actually, to the point I was having difficulty going on because I couldn’t read with all of the tears in my eyes. It was quite wonderful, though, and I’m glad I had a chance to do it. After that, Michael Sebastian Lvx also read the “Orphic Hymn to Antinous,” which was great to hear in a ritual context; we got all storax’d up during it, too. We had considered doing a few other things as well, but due to a variety of matters, we decided to start wrapping things up.

We mentioned one new Sanctus, Lou Reed, and then we ended things as usual, with the final words from Cicero, blessings, and V.S.L.M. Then, we shared the food offerings (in good Egyptian style, being that his deification was Egyptian in origin), which consisted of some lovely bread, and also a chocolate orange, which is now peer-corroborated gnosis as one of Antinous’ preferred offerings.

The ride home featured a lot of Lady GaGa, including the following song, which I’ve been listening to a lot this week, and which has some Antinoan resonances…gosh, I wonder why? (And, as the version here is a tribute to Jamey Rodemeyer Sanctus, it’s all the more appropriate for this occasion.)

As a few other notes for the past week:

1) I’ve been having what I can only call “psychic flashes,” starting on the first day of the Sacred Nights of Antinous. While I get these very occasionally, there have been multiple ones over the past week that have involved knowing the exact words someone will say, or premonitions (in the literal sense) of things that will not be pleasant to know/etc., often involving friends or co-religionists. I don’t know if it’s intensified by the season, or if this is just a coincidence. Anyway…

2) When I covered my image of Antinous at my home shrine in the last hour of the night before the Death of Antinous, I ended up having help in doing so from two unexpected sources: Freyr and some unspecified Celtic deities. I suspect that because of the Hibernian viewpoint of “Nine Days Along the Nile,” that might account for the latter…Of course, even though it was a sad occasion, I was grateful, pleased, and even slightly happy for the help I was given.

And, that’s about all I have to say about it for now…

If Foundation Day’s events do lend auspices for the coming year, then this next year should be fantastic…since last year’s was so bad and restrained, and the year that followed had some of the most difficult things I’ve experienced over the last few years, I can only assume that this next year will be much better in a great variety of ways.

I hope everyone else’s was good, and if you’d care to share your own observances, please feel free to do so in the comments below.

Ave Ave Antinoe–Haec Est Unde, Haec Est Unde, Haec Est Unde Vita Venit!

While I’m never short on potential ideas for what to post on the blog here (and I’ve got three that I hope to get to in the next few days), nonetheless, interesting things always come up and suggest themselves, and I’ve had one…

There aren’t really any major holy days for me here until the 19th of this month, which is still ten days away. So, to augment the other things that I’m doing during the time until then, I thought I’d do a bit of something else.

You’ll have seen that various other people have been doing this Thirty Days of Devotion meme. I have written thousands of words on many of those topics previously, here and elsewhere, and I could likely write thousands more on any of them…but, that’s kind of what I do, so there’s not a great deal in that which would be me doing anything other than “going through the devotion-motions {de-motions?!?],” which may be all right, but I sort of like a challenge when I do things like this…

So, instead, my challenge to myself is to do all thirty days of devotion in three days, with the caveat being that I cannot answer any single question with more than twenty words. As I’m naturally verbose, that really is a challenge…it will be like trying to go from an epic poem to writing a haiku, sort of…!?! Though, I expect on some I will inevitably fail, including the ones I will be doing today.

Thus, without any further ado, here we go!

I. A basic introduction of the deity
Antinous of Bithynia was the deified/heroized lover of the Emperor Hadrian, who became a widely worshipped super-syncretistic deity of late antiquity.

II. How did you become first aware of this deity?
Through John Boswell’s Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality in 1998, then in 2002 I heard about him again through the ANDROGYNE Yahoo!Groups list, and found other modern worshippers of him.

III. Symbols and icons of this deity
A star in the constellation Aquila, which was part of the former constellation of Ganymede/Antinous; the Pamphobeteus antinous spider, or spiders generally; the Antinoeios or Red Nile Lotus flower; an obelisk; a lion; a spear; the moon.

IV. A favorite myth or myths of this deity
There’s really only one to speak of that isn’t entirely novel: the Lion Hunt of Antinous and Hadrian.

V. Members of the family – genealogical connections
His mother Mantinoë (and/or Aphrodite?); his father Hermes (?); his lover Divus Hadrianus Augustus; his lover’s wife Diva Sabina Augusta; his lover’s adopted sons Divus Aelius Caesar and Divus Antoninus Pius; his bride Selene; his children and grandchildren, the Tetrad++ Group (Panpsyche, Panhyle, Paneros, Pancrates, Paneris, Panprosdexia); Polydeukion, Memnon, Achilles, and the family of Herodes Attikos; Lucius Marius Vitalis; and a whole pile of other deities, heroes, Divi/ae, Sancti, and others who have become related to him via various connections.

VI. Other related deities and entities associated with this deity
Diana, Hathor and Bes, Thoth, Re-Harakhte, Hapi, and various others (see above, V, and below, VII and VIII).

VII. Names and epithets
Antinous the Lover, Antinous the Liberator, Antinous the Navigator; Antinous Choreios, Antinous Musegetikos, Antinous Neos Hermes, Antinous Neos Iakkhos, Antinous Neos Pythios; Antinous Deus Amabilis, Antinous Deus Frugiferus; and various other syncretisms.

VIII. Variations on this deity (aspects, regional forms, etc.)
All of the various syncretists of Antinous not already named (as well as already named!).

IX. Common mistakes about this deity
That he is a “gay god” or “the god of homosexuality”; that he was the “last god of Rome/of the ancient world” (Glykon was 5-10 years later than him–and I’m sure he wasn’t even the last one! That’s polytheism for you!); that his syncretisms make him equal to other gods/heroes, or that he himself combines the characteristics of all those others in himself and thus replaces them.

X. Offerings – historical and UPG
We know of none in particular from the ancient world; in the modern world, pomegranate juice, chocolate oranges, storax oil/incense are some of the most commonly offered and appreciated.

May Antinous be praised!

On Thursday, I was at college for longer than I usually am, because that evening, an hour and some after my usual class ended for the week, I was invited to speak in an Anthropology of Religion course, not only in my capacity as a religious studies scholar, an instructor on World Religions, and someone who knows about ancient and modern polytheisms, but as a practicing polytheist. It went extremely well, I think, and there were some wonderful things that few non-polytheists or animists would understand which occurred at the end of it which made it all the more important and meaningful for both myself and the anthropology instructor (who is himself an animist). Perhaps more on all of that another time…

But, in preparing my presentation, I made a PowerPoint, and had some basic definitions of polytheism, animism, and so forth in the early part, and in the “animism” sub-category, I noted both ancestors and land spirits as being particularly important within that specific religious/theological category. When I then made a big list of deities that I personally worship at the end, I noticed I had to also include some heroes, and some land spirits, some of which seem more like deities than land spirits strictly speaking (and especially so in my own life, due to the fact that they reached out to me when I was very far away from the specific land forms with which they are associated). The big one in this regard, of course, is Kwekwálelwet, the Maiden of Deception Pass, who visited me in dreams in 1995/1996 while I was in New York.

That got me thinking: there’s a variety of further types of divine being, beyond ancestors, land spirits, and deities, that we often deal with, and while they may all get treated cultically in a similar fashion (pretty much most of them can and do receive offerings), nonetheless they’re not quite all “the same” when it comes to how they’re understood, what they’re like, what they can do, and so forth.

The following is by no means comprehensive, but I think it’s a start in terms of trying to understand some of the distinctions between different types of divine being, or as some folks might prefer, holy powers, which we in modern polytheism might engage with in different fashions.

Deities: Possibly the most commonly understood, and yet least specific. What actually makes a deity/god/goddess? Some recent definitions I’ve heard from people that might be more useful to consider are that gods have job descriptions and titles associated with them, whereas many of the other varieties of divine being don’t. There may be something to that…

Ancestors: Humans who are no longer living pretty much sums this one up. Some ancestors can become deity-like in themselves (as some people say about Antinous–but, since he was called hero, god, and daimon in the ancient world, I think one can’t quite say that’s true), or can become elevated in various ways…and some of the distinctions that I give further in this list might pertain to these sorts of ancestors. But, anyway…

Land Spirits: While many spirits that are tied to particular features of a given geographical landscape can become deities that end up being worshipped elsewhere (e.g. Hapi or Alpheios) or who end up becoming redefined and expanded when their land feature disappears (like Saraswati, who was a river goddess originally), the majority tend to have a profoundly local cultus, mostly done by those who live on or near the geographic features in question. Some of the other categories given below might be particular types of land spirit…

Heroes: The most obvious category of potential “elevated ancestors.” Heroes tend to have been human, and they usually have a death that is in some ways unusual; they can have admirable lives or important accomplishments, but it’s usually their death and what happens after it that gets them considered in the category of divinity. The fact is, many heroes that were worshipped in the ancient world probably never existed–Achilleus, Protesilaos, Eunostos, Antinoë, and Cú Chulainn probably did not exist at all historically; but, Polydeukion, Memnon, and Achilles did. Whether a distinction should be made, thus, between these is a further question…

Divi/ae: The whole category of “deified rulers” could be expanded far beyond the Roman Emperors, to the Egyptian Pharaohs, and to the Japanese Emperors (who are all the descendants of Amaterasu-Omikami, in any case). In Roman reckoning, they were not considered to be quite-as-high as heroes were, but they were different than mere important ancestors for not only possessing the numen/genius augusti, but also because they had temples, whether individually (as Hadrian did) or more collectively.

Demi-Gods: This is a distinction that some ancient authorities make, but which actually doesn’t often amount to much–namely, that some divine beings are the offspring of deities and mortals. But, that he is a demi-god rather than a full deity does not do much to harm Dionysos, for example; and likewise, both Herakles and Polydeukes of the Dioskouroi are both called heroes and gods in various places, or simultaneously. But, it’s a distinction that some people like to make, and since this particular post is in the business of doing so, we’d better at least note it…

Sancta/e/i: In the Catholic church, saints are pretty much divine ancestors, just as the Sancta/e/i are in the Ekklesía Antínoou. They do have some divine powers in Catholicism, but they’re not to receive direct “worship,” only veneration; in the Ekklesía Antínoou, there’s no reason not to both venerate and worship them, but doing so doesn’t necessarily have to be as regular as some other forms of worship–twice a year may be sufficient, unless one is an especially dedicated devotee of one, which is also allowed.

Faeries: Are faeries a particular variety of land spirit, or something else? Yes, many of them might be tied to particular areas quite strongly, and yet some seem to be able to range more widely than that. And, while there are also gods who are associated with or are within the general category of faeries (the Alfar and Freyr’s relation to them might be one example), they might somewhat occupy a place in a venn diagram that is between deities and land spirits, possibly…

Nymphs: Unlike faeries, nymphs tend to be quite closely and often almost exclusively linked to particular geographic features; however, in Greek tradition, nymphs are often the offspring of deities in some form or another. And some nymphs nearly attain divine status, like Hermes’ mother Maia.

Angels: While most people are used to these beings from a Christian or (*shudder-shudder*) New Age context, angels have been around for a very long time in a variety of ancient cultures. Their name as we know it now, from Greek, basically means “messenger,” and thus I kind of like to think of them as divine messengers, administrative assistants, and the like. Christians have the most detailed taxonomy of angels, with often nine different “choirs” of angels, ranging from the Seraphim and Cherubim all the way down to the lowlier angels and archangels, with five categories (like Powers, Principalities, Thrones, and such) between them. And, as some angels–like Gabriel and Michael–are also considered saints in those traditions, that kind of further confuses matters…

Daimones: In some older Hellenic understandings, even the gods are special and powerful types of daimon, without the negative meaning attached to this word that came from Christianity. With no moral attachments or evaluations involved, it might be useful to distinguish them from angeloi by saying that angels tend to have a celestial orientation or origin, whereas daimones tend to be more chthonic.

Djinn: Coming from an Islamic context, some people consider djinn to be particular types of daimon, whereas others consider them to be particular types of angel. I don’t know…but, they don’t seem to be too concerned with limiting their interactions only to Muslims, so…

Egregores: These are beings that originate in human thought and ideas, and that eventually take on characteristics that can be understood to be divine or god-like in some fashion. I suspect that most of the pop cultural entities that some modern pagans deal with and do cultus to are in this category; and, I think that marshaling enough belief in a particular matter can result in such a being (which might be what many types of fundamentalist Christians are worshipping when they think they’re worshipping Jesus); but, sometimes more subtle things that aren’t even necessarily recognized as any sort of divine being can also fall into this category, including the spirit of a city, a college, a company, and so forth–and, in fact, the whole fiction of “corporate personhood” in essence has legalized egregore cultus in a way that most modern politicians and corporate heads in the world not only don’t realize, but wouldn’t approve of on theological grounds…!?!

Deified Abstractions: Entities like the Greek Eirene (“peace”) or the Roman Discipina fall into this category. They may end up in various divine genealogies from time to time, but they generally don’t have the mythological or narrative standing that other deities do, yet the cultus to them is often just as visible and takes similar forms to any other gods. Also, upholding the usually virtuous qualities from which they derive their names is another way to do cultus to them on a daily basis. Not all are of that sort, however–the Homeric Lyssa (“wolfish rage”) being one example.

Giants: While divine, these beings are often rather chthonic in nature, and some people in modern polytheism outright fear or refuse to worship them or even regard them cultically at all. While further distinctions might be made within these ranks, some of the more obvious ones to potentially include would be the Greek Gigantes, the Germanic Jotun, and the Irish Fomoiri. I don’t personally think we must needs automatically assume “evil” when it comes to these beings, as a good many deities in Irish and Germanic cultures have origins (full or partial) within their ranks.

Titans: Similar to giants, but also of a slightly different nature, since almost all of the “gods” properly speaking from the Greek pantheon come from at least one Titanic parent–Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, and Demeter all come from the Titanic parents Kronos and Rhea; Apollon and Artemis from Zeus and the Titaness Leto; etc. Many modern people (polytheist or otherwise) consider the Titans to be “evil” to some extent even more than they may do the giants, and yet it’s undeniable that some of them were worshipped by the ancient Greeks without any trouble at all.

Protogenoi: The most ancient beings in the various cosmologies/cosmogonies of the ancient world. A few from various strands of Greek tradition might include Nyx, Gaia, Ouranos, Erebus, and even Eros. What some might argue about them is that they’re so far from humanity and so “abstract” and removed from us, they might not be susceptible (!?!) to cultus; but, as I’ve experienced quite the opposite from Nyx at least, I’d argue that’s not necessarily the case…and, Gaia is one of the most widely revered goddesses in modern neopaganism, so that’s something else to consider…

Totems: The collective ancestor of a given species–and yes, humans have them, too. As plants also have these, it might almost sometimes seem as if both plants and animals are in some senses closer to being amongst “land spirits” than some of these other categories…but, there they are, in any case…

Elementals: This makes some people think of Dungeons & Dragons, or of Wicca; and, they don’t tend to be too popular within polytheist reconstructionist circles, to say the least. However, in many ways it makes a great deal of sense to acknowledge these as a category of divine being that is worthy of cultus, because they’re not quite like any of the other things named so far, even though some land spirits likely have more than a little bit of Earth, Air, or Water involved in themselves.

Kami: The Shinto/Japanese general term for “spirit” that encompasses the meaning of “any being worthy of honor and veneration,” and thus close to the Latin concept of numen (of which the gods are one variety). In Shinto, humans can become kami rather than simply joining the collective ancestors; likewise, features of the land have spirits that are also considered kami. The only real distinction made within Shinto itself between types of kami is Amatsukami and Kunitsukami, “heavenly” and “earthly” kami. While including this category kind of problematizes some of the distinctions above, nonetheless as a kind of hybrid understanding (from a non-Japanese viewpoint, anyway…!?!), it might simply be useful to include it to illustrate how complex these matters can actually be within a given context, and more widely.

Orisha/Oricha/Orixa and Lwa/Loa: Various Afro-Diasporic religious traditions have beings that are not quite considered deities, but which are the only divine beings/holy powers which humans can interact with. Amongst practitioners of these traditions, I’ve been told that the Yoruba-descended Orishas are very different than the Haitian Lwa, and while they are ultimately fulfilling a similar function within each tradition, they’re a different class or type of being altogether, and should not quite be lumped in as “just another traditions’ way of understanding deities.”

So, that’s my list at the moment. Have I left anything major off? (I know I have…and to account for all of the different cultural varieties of divine being would take the rest of my life, probably…but, for a working modern polytheist in the most commonly encountered traditions out there, hopefully this is a start.)

While there’s a great deal of (atheist) stupidity due to lack of expanded horizons going on else-internet, and I do have a lot of other posts I’d like to make in the near future, I wanted to record the following for posterity, of sorts, sooner rather than later.

Yesterday morning, I had a dream that involved Antinous, sort of–or, rather perhaps, the living worshippers of Antinous. I find it interesting that this dream came right on the heels of one of my posts yesterday in which I noted that Antinous has been somewhat absent from my direct experiences lately, at least in obvious ways.

The basic setting was PantheaCon (and, as I’ve been involved recently in some behind-the-scenes last-minute organizing and negotiating as far as the program for 2014 is concerned, I suppose that makes sense…), and I was in the process of simultaneously planning/setting up and presenting an Ekklesía Antínoou ritual, in which various people of note were involved, including Xochiquetzal Duti and a few of the Mystai/Luperci (Jay in particular); there was also some music from Sharon Knight and T. Thorn Coyle in the dream/ritual/event as well (though not necessarily the Antinoan part of it, to my recollection). In the midst of the whole thing (while doing a hymn, actually!), I started having a low blood sugar, and was worried about having to ask someone to go with me to somewhere that I could get a candy bar or something to raise it again–and, of course, I was having a low blood sugar in real life/non-dreaming as that part was occurring, and so had to get up and look after it soon after!

But, one of the most interesting parts of it was that there were multiple images of Antinous on the shrine space created for the ritual. There was an Antinous-Osiris bust, very like this one…

…which, as some of you may know, is the only one of the ancient Antinous statues that I’ve seen in person at this point, when he–along with Herodes Attikos, a Serapis, a Horus falcon, Trajan, and others–came to Seattle with the “Roman Art from the Louvre” exhibit in 2008 (though this was a favorite one for a while before that!). It was a bit taller, and didn’t have as broad shoulders as the one above has, but it was along these lines…

Then, there was a second one, which was very definitely *mine*, by which I mean it was (at least as far as the dream was concerned) the one I have on my home shrine, which isn’t quite like the following one, but is along those lines:

In the dream, I understood this one to be an Antinous-Hermes.

And then, there was one that Mystes Jay brought, which was understood (not surprisingly, given his own history and interests!) to be an Antinous-Apollon. While the exact look of it isn’t something that actually still exists, part of it seemed to be somewhat similar to the following statue:

I remember, then, distinctly feeling that though my predilection for triads was thus satisfied by these three presences, I didn’t quite feel it was complete because there was no Antinous-Dionysos (even though many would say “But Osiris is syncretized to Dionysos, so…”). The other odd piece about all of this was that even though the multiple images were there to facilitate access to Antinous by many people present for the ritual, at the same time, two of the images were facing toward the wall on the circular table where they were placed as their temporary shrine for the ritual, while the third (the Antinous-Apollon) was facing forward for direct access by those who were present…and, based on how we have allowed individual prayers in rituals at PantheaCon, and how many people were present, but there being only one Antinous to access, it was going to take hours to get through everyone’s prayers, because there were hundreds of people present.

Wishful thinking, certainly…!?!

So, I suspect that there may have been at least some slight divine directions being given here: even though we may not realistically get hundreds of people at our ritual(s) at the PantheaCons of the near and far futures, nonetheless: a) prepare several images of Antinous so that he can be easily accessed; and b) make sure my blood sugar is running high before a ritual starts, lest I get low in the middle of a hymn!

Every once in a while, a site that collects archaeological stories relating to Rome lists one of my entries here at the blog…and, it’s often quite amusing to me, because the things they link to have almost nothing to do with archaeology. (I suspect the intelligence aggregating these stories is a bot of some sort, thus.) Nonetheless, all of the legitimate archaeological stories it also gives (though not all are…!) are often of interest to readers here, as well as myself, so I’ve chosen a few of them that pose some interesting questions or possibilities.

First, a curse tablet was found in Jerusalem recently, which invokes the deities Herems, Persephone, Pluto, Hekate, Ereshkigal, and Abrasax. I wish I could see the edited text, as I suspect that it might be one of the common magical syncretistic formulations where the goddesses are concerned: perhaps Persephone-Ereshkigal, perhaps Hekate-Ereshkigal, or maybe even Persephone-Hekate-Ereshkigal. (I wrote on that very subject in an essay here!)

Next, if you have the anatomic capabilities for such (whether naturally or artificially), you might ask yourself: where does your penis point on the morning of Winter Solstice? It seems such questions were rather relevant to the Emperor Augustus when he founded the city of Augusta Praetoria Salassorum (now Aosta in Northern Italy) when it was captured from the local Salassi people in 25 BCE. The apotropaic function of the god Priapus, as well as just phallic imagery in general, is well-known from Greek and Roman periods, but it seems that they served a calendrical function at that time as well. (Which brings up the question: might all such carvings have had a similar function on ancient Roman monuments? As most of them have been removed from their original sites, it’s probably difficult to determine that now, alas…)

Next, “that’s not a blob! That’s my adopted father!” A twice-life-size head found nearly two-hundred years ago in Roman Britain in Bosham might have been a monumental depiction of Trajan, set up by Hadrian, on analogy with such a statue that also existed in Ostia outside of Rome. This has been determined by some laser scanning techniques and then comparisons with extant statuary.

In a further Romano-British story that is interesting but also frustratingly lacking in some details, photographs, and good methodological processes, a villa near Stroud might have actually been a Romano-British temple, as evidenced by an octagonal-shaped building, a large bath house, a coin depicting “Cernunnos,” and a further figure shown on a winged horse. That “druids” might have used it, though, is a serious over-reading, I think…

And finally, a 2,500 year old Thracian horse grave! Very interesting indeed!

That’s all for today, I think!

Guess who’s the birthday boy today?

The above statue of Antinous is not from the ancient cultus; it dates to no earlier than 1700. Nonetheless, it’s the most youthful image of him that I know of…though he’s 1904 years old now (in Roman inclusive counting), nonetheless, birthdays always put one in the mind of a person when they were born, at least in this one’s mind.

Here is the oldest “younger-looking” statue of him, however, from Olympia, which is the basis for the Antinous Olympic pin that I wear at all times:

I’ve made offerings twice today already, and also sang him Felix Natalis twice…

I was hoping to have a feast with various Mystai and co-religionists this evening, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen; I may have the feast on my own, though, depending on a few things. Bathing with oil at the public baths (as they did at Lanuvium) and horse-rites (as they did at Antinoöpolis), likewise, are pretty much right out, unfortunately.

More often than not, I’m finding, I’ve not been able to do as much as I’d prefer ritual-wise on this day; even though it is pretty much the second-most-important holy day of our ritual year, it’s one that not too many modern devotees have taken much of an interest in, alas. The best one I had, I think, was in 2007, when I was able to have the feast with three other individuals, of whom two went on to become Mystai of Antinous within a few months, and the other was among the first of the Assistai. (Thus the dangers, perhaps. of joining in this feast…!?!)

The poem I wrote for this occasion last year is a good one; but, it’s never enough to simply rest on one’s earlier poetic laurels, as it were, so I shall have another for this year below, complete with music that I associate with this date and occasion that you can have play along as you read, if you like.

A Light in Bithynia

Chiron the centaur, fosterer of heroes
shone on the city gifted with pines,
the seed of Arcadia in Bithynia.

Men’s waxing gibbous face watched
as Mantinoë gave birth to Antinoë’s descendant,
foster-child of Bendis and Sabazios, Pan and Hermes.

And from the brightness of the celestial orb,
Selene watched as intently as the other gods
under the cloak of Nyx on his first night of breathing.

Apollodorus began the Forum of Trajan in Rome,
but the Emperor’s foster-son Hadrian did not approve,
thought it too conservative, too Roman.

His eyes cast themselves to the East,
the provinces he saw before and during the war
with the Dacians and their wolves of battle.

In time, Fate’s spun strings would entwine the two,
would bring future Emperor to the child just born,
after years of growth, learning, and riding horses.

Helios would come to be glad at his sight daily,
and all the heroes amongst the stars each night
would give their light to the hero, still a child.

Under the four pillars of Nut and the wings of Isis,
child favored of the gods and delight to the people,
sleep well on this night, sweet one.

Ave Ave Antinoe–Haec est unde vita venit!

*****

Today, in Neos Alexandria, is also the festival of the Finding of Osiris by Isis. These two festivals converged a few years ago as well. The death and birth of Antinous are about four weeks from one another; so, to have Isis and Osiris’ holy festivals of death and rebirth around this time as well each year is apt, and very likely no coincidence.

So, if you can, honor them as well on this day!

Dua Wesir! Dua Aset!

So, though my prospects for celebrating Natalis Antinoi with anyone who cares at all or would get the significance of it looked pretty grim earlier, I managed to have some successes with it, after all!

I sent out texts to various Mystai and co-religionists, and almost everyone answered them with good wishes…which was a lot more enjoyable than I thought it might be!

And, I contacted two of my students who live one town down, and they came up and shared a feast with me at the local (fabulous!) Greek restaurant. We were seated in a booth that had a plaque of nymphs on the wall, as well as a clock with the gods Zeus, Apollon, Athena, Artemis, Hera, Aphrodite, Hermes, Poseidon, Hephaistos, Hestia, Demeter, and Ares on it; we noted the absence of Hades (not surprisingly), but were surprised that there was no Dionysos…but then again, grapes and ivy are all over this particular restaurant, so he was there whether pictured or not on the clock! I had my small Egyptian Antinous with me at the table, and offered all food I ate to him in the course of the dinner, and the stop for a dessert of donuts later as well. Thank you to both of them for coming up for the occasion!

No horse rites; no public baths with oil/swimming pool/hot tub…but, at least the dinner was completed, and not too much unlike the way that it would have been done in Lanuvium, minus the wine! [ or as you may prefer...!?!]

Also: today the final schedule for PantheaCon 2014 came out–check it out here! As you’ll see by a quick perusal of it, I’ll be busy (as usual!) at 2014′s gathering: I’m putting on four sessions myself (on the Ephesia Grammata on Friday at 1:30 PM; Lupercalia on Saturday afternoon at 1:30 PM; the Beard Blessing Ritual on Monday at 9:00 AM; and the Youth Blessing Ritual on Monday at 11:00 AM), and will also be in “Yes They Are!” again with the Circle of Dionysos on Sunday at 11:00 AM, and will likewise be involved in a ritual that Rev. Selena Fox is putting on Saturday night at 7:00 PM. I plan to attend many other sessions, and to see folks and hang out with them, perhaps get a massage, perhaps get a reading of some sort, and if we’re lucky, maybe we’ll even get at least one Inundation in at some point, too! I still don’t have a room booked at the Double Tree, but I hope I’m not too late with that…putting on rituals when staying at other hotels, especially in the early morning, sucks…so, we’ll hope for the best on that.

But, for this moment and this particular holy occasion, I’m thankful to Antinous for making this such an enjoyable series of events today, from when it started twenty-two hours ago until now, when I think I shall soon be enjoying some sleep before all of the things that will occur tomorrow for the occasion of Bithynia Day.

So, one last time…

Felix natalis tibi,
Felix natalis tibi,
Felix natalis Antinoo
Felix natalis tibi!

Et multiqueeeeeeee!

Ave Ave Antinoe!
Haec est unde vita venit!

Nothing reminds us of how very different the ancient world was than the kinds of holy days and civic celebrations that are marked on their calendars, which are not marked on ours. Today is one such day, because it is the Epibateria or “festival of first-entry” of Hadrian into Oxyrhynchus in Egypt on this day in 130 CE, still only a month after Antinous’ death. That the community of Oxyrhynchus (and then Tebtynis as well two days hence) would record this as a significant, annually-marked event might seem as odd as Seattle having an Obama day perpetually as a result of his visit for two fundraisers earlier this week. Thus, it may seem even more odd to be marking such a festival at all, even for a reconstructionist religion like the Ekklesía Antínoou practices, nearly two millennia later in locations that are nowhere near Egypt. Yet, here we are…

The importance of Oxyrhynchus, and its various papyrus finds in the 19th-21st centuries, to the reconstructionist-methodology-employing aspects of what the Ekklesía Antínoou does is almost inestimable. To just name a few things which come from the P. Oxy. corpus that have relevance for us:

–The long fragment of a poem, possibly the one known from Athenaeus to be by Pancrates/Pachrates of Heliopolis, on the Lion Hunt of Hadrian and Antinous, which not only gives us material for that particular holy-day’s observance, but which also compares the lion to Typhon, names Hermes the Argos-Slayer as Antinous’ father, and gives a further Arcadian connection for Antinous in comparing his horse to Areion, the divine horse that was the child of Demeter Melaina/”Arcadian Demeter” and Poseidon…and all in the less-than-fifty lines that survive in this fragment.

–A fragmentary cult calendar that gives the dates of Foundation Day as well as Natalis Antinoi, and mention of the “horse-rites” in relation to the latter.

–A fragmentary hymn that was written for the accession of Diocletian in the late third century that celebrates Antinous, the red Nile lotus, and his being raised to the heavens as a star by the moon-goddess Selene.

–A highly fragmentary “Encomium for Hermes and Antinous,” about which not a lot more can be said because of the state of the text, and the reluctance of the editors of the P. Oxy. corpus to provide any attempt at translation of what little can be discerned.

And, those are just the biggees, really; there’s tons of other interesting and useful texts from the site which add to our understanding of the background of this cultus, of culture in the city of Antinoöpolis in late antique Egypt, and on classical civilizations generally speaking.

But, as with my comments yesterday, I am really having a tough time understanding how it is that modern Americans justify the way they’ve decided to celebrate this holy occasion for this year.

First off, there’s this whole phenomenon of “door-buster” observances, which apparently take place at large retail locations. I thought such observances were more appropriate to other religions, and even then, only during “jubilee” occasions, but apparently some people are for having such events to commemorate Hadrian’s entry into Oxyrhynchus for hors d’oeuvres and an overnight stay, and perhaps a stop at a local scroll shop. I can certainly get behind anything in which people line up to knock doors down in order to get access to literature…but, that leaves me even more confused, since these large corporate retailers aren’t exactly known for stocking particularly high-quality literature. Hmm.

And, even though I am in favor of modernizing when it is more convenient to do so, deciding to call this whole occasion “Black Friday” rather than “Hadrian’s First Entry Into Oxyrhynchus” seems like a rather large leap to make, too. Okay, sure, so Hadrian was a “future Osiris” at the time, and Antinous was a “current Osiris,” and Osiris is thought of as being associated with the color black, and the alluvial soil of the Nile was likewise black, which Antinous restored with the inundation the next year after his death…but, I think this kind of pushes the concept of synecdoche to the breaking point. Eeesh.

But where were all the crowds of revelers this morning when I went out? I don’t know…the place looked like a ghost town, to be honest, between 9 and 10 AM. Apparently, in some locations they were so fervent in their celebrations that they were trampling each other and injuring each other; yet, in my current town of residence, the downtown area with all of the shops–located, amusingly enough, on the main street of town, which is called “Commercial Avenue”–had only a small number of cars parked along it, and even fewer driving up and down the street in that area. I got in to the post office (Hail Hermes!) and only had a short wait, then to Radio Shack for phone credit (Hail Hermes again!), and to the pharmacy for insulin (Hail Hermes and Asklepios!) with little waiting…where was everyone else? Why no busting down the doors of these places, or of the many other great shops, businesses, and other places downtown in Anacortes today? Did everyone in town have somewhere else important to be today or something? (As if people would actually flock in great numbers to a mall twenty miles away, or some other such random large corporate retailer, rather than patronizing the businesses in their own community?–Only in the sickest and most wretched society would such actions substitute for the good activities of pilgrimage to holy sites and participation in civic festivals for community harmony and prosperity.) I know we lament our small numbers as modern polytheists, but this really is sad and disturbing to see so few people who are good citizens in this most minimal fashion.

Well, I’ve also got a treat for you, for those who really like to go very far back in their precedents for practice in modern paganism and polytheism, in the form of an appropriate form of dancing to do on this occasion, as well as at Saturnalia next month. As you’ll see, this goes back to the very earliest period in which paganism was practiced in the United States. Watch the end of this video in particular to see how this form of dancing works.

Yeah…pretty cool, huh? That they were doing that sort of dancing in ancient times–as far back as 1961, in fact!–just boggles the mind. It’s as if a hand has reached across the centuries (both of them…or, at least, part of both of them) and touched us all on the shoulder with this wonderful inspiration. It’s great that modern paganism has such deep and primal and ancient roots as this, isn’t it?

[Polytheists have a bit more to draw on, of course...but, as stated before, we're such a minority, it hardly matters, don't you think?]

Well, in any case, let us hail the deities of this day, and consider these three days of festivals at a pleasant close!

Hail to Hadrian! Hail to Antinous! Hail to the gods of writing! Hail to Hermes and Asklepios and Osiris!

Today, I was up early and attended the Koshinsatsu Takiageshiki Shikishidai at the Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America–or, what I like to call “Shinto Inferno”!

[Note: the above photo is not of this year's ceremony, it is from another year. We did not have snow this year--thankfully!--nor were there tents set up for the spectators around the fire.]

This ceremony is toward the end of the new year cycle, which began with the Oharahi Shiki Taisai in mid-December, continues with the Hatsumoude, and will complete itself early next month with Setsubun. The thanking, purification, and burning of all of last year’s amulets, arrows, ofuda, shimenawa, and various other items occurred today, and it was a more difficult process than it often has been in previous years; but, the result was that inside the fire, there was a green flame that various people, including the Guji of the Shrine, took to be very significant and auspicious as the end of the cycle from last year. Let us hope that is the case…

*****

In other news: since returning, I’ve found out that my trip to PantheaCon has been imperiled by forces utterly beyond my control, but I will not know with any certainty whether this is the case or not until sometime tomorrow, when the relevant authorities can be contacted and things can become sorted out. I’m prepared for all contingencies, and will do all possible to make sure that I am able to attend if it is within my power to do so; however, I’m also resigning myself to the possibility that the contingencies involved may require that I cannot attend at all. This would be most upsetting, to put it mildly, but I literally have no way of knowing whether things will go well or poorly with what I will be able to find out tomorrow, nor if there is anything I can do about any of it. I will not say much more on the topic at present, other than this brief note to simply let people know that this might be a matter that will be spoken of in the immediate future (i.e. later tomorrow) once I know what the situation is. In the meantime, though, I can inform everyone that it has nothing to do with myself nor anyone I know having health problems or the like; it’s an entirely administrative thing (which doesn’t involve myself nor anyone at or associated with PantheaCon itself) that I was not even aware of until less than an hour ago, and which I won’t know more on until tomorrow. Pray to Hermes, Hanuman, Lugus, and all of the auspicious travel deities you may know of on my behalf between now and then, though, if you wish to aid in my efforts to be present.

May Ceres Legifera bless my efforts and guide my words on this her holy festival.

So, I’ve written about this two-day festival, Paganalia/Sementivae, in the past for 2012 and for 2013. If you want to know more of the history of this festival, I suggest you read those. My celebration of it this year, as with most of the festivals I’ve observed thus far, has been with more poetry and less explanation, and I hope to keep that trend up for the remainder of this month and the rest of 2014 to come.

There is much that I could write here today, on various things of note and relative importance, but I’d like to first point out a few things that were linked to on The Wild Hunt in the course of this festival that might have some relevance not only to it, but to the topics I’m going to discuss today.

First, there is a review of Ronald Hutton’s new book by Graham Robb that mentions Sterculinus…I don’t know if Wiccans at Stonehenge think of Sterculinus while they use the porta-potties, but there are certainly more than a few reconstructionism-methodology-employing polytheists who do, including the present writer…!?!

Next, on a Christian philosophical website, John Cuddeback has written a short article on (ancient) pagan piety mentioning Aeneas…and while it’s a good article in general (though, of course, it asks certain questions and has certain assumptions because its author and intended audience is Christian), I kind of have to respond: “Yeah, but what about us modern pagans and polytheists?” And, in terms of writing about pagan or polytheist piety, I’m also asking The Wild Hunt why they haven’t mentioned this topic when it has been written about recently by many different modern polytheists (pretty much the only modern pagans of whom I’m currently aware who use the term “piety” in a non-pejorative sense), but that it merits a mention in a “Pagan News Roundup” when it is written by a Christian, and not even from a viewpoint that considers such things (i.e. pagans or polytheists) still exist and are worth taking seriously.

And segueing from that topic into the next one, I cite three things that have been posted (to my knowledge) in the last few days: one by Rhyd Wildermuth, one by John Halstead, and one by Sannion, all having to some extent to do with both the matter of “Pagan Tea Time” that is going on over at Patheos, and of the issue of polytheism and the wider world of paganism. (I don’t have the time nor the technology to make “Pagan Tea Time” possible at present, unfortunately, but I commend anyone who is able to do so.) Further discussions of this nature, including ones I’ve been taking part in, have also occurred over the last few days in various backchannels, and while I acknowledge them, I don’t think it’s necessary to direct you to them; I hope to address some of these matters below.

And all this on the heels of the latest post from The Wild Hunt by Heather Greene, which talks about the mainstreaming (or, at least, the mainstream acceptance of) Wicca. The gains made by Wicca in this regard are not likely to extend to any reconstructionist-methodology-employing forms of polytheism anytime soon, and thus the further ability to marginalize and ignore the concerns of polytheists is a privilege that Wicca enjoys while other forms of paganism do not.

Why am I writing some of the above? Because today and yesterday are the festivals known as Paganalia, and I always think it’s useful on these days to reflect on the “state of paganism,” as it were; in previous years, I’ve written why I still call myself a pagan (even though many polytheists no longer do so), and why I think that paganism is still a useful and viable concept and a productive umbrella under which to gather.

After 2013, though, I’m not sure I can or would still argue that point.

Something that was very useful in the discussion (particularly in their comments sections) between Rhyd and John Halstead is that there are some real differences between how certain words are being used, and they amount to much more than different groups of people arguing over which definition in Webster’s they’re preferring at a given moment. There are very real differences between an adjectival usage of polytheism and polytheist (e.g. “There are polytheistic elements in my theology”) and a substantive usage of it (e.g. “I am a polytheist”). I think Rhyd is very much on to something as this matter being one of major importance, and which is likely at the root of many of the debates that have occurred in the past few months especially.

There is a very big difference between the simply meaning of “polytheism” (i.e. “many gods”) and the ways in which “polytheism” is being defined as people are often wont to define it (i.e. whatever adjuncts they want to add to it which fit their own adjectival usage of it and more fully describe the remainder of their theological position, but which has nothing to do with polytheism-qua-polytheism). Add in the matter of the qualified term “devotional polytheism” (which tends to mean that there are many gods, and that those who identify as such place the gods and their concerns, and our concerns for the gods, first and foremost in our practices and theologies), and you’ve got a recipe for all kinds of confusion, resentment, and arguing that seems to have no end (which may be due to entirely other factors, e.g. people’s attraction to drama, etc.; and, I don’t exclude myself from that distinction on some occasions).

What first must be understood in the above matters is that no polytheist (adjectival or substantive) speaks for all polytheists; further, no devotional polytheist speaks for all devotional polytheists, and no devotional polytheist speaks for all the varieties of polytheist. We all just speak for what we think is best personally for ourselves, and sometimes doing so involves saying why we disagree with something someone else is saying about these matters. I’ve written about the highly contextual nature of polytheism here previously, so I shouldn’t need to rehearse all of those arguments again…

So, perhaps, in no particular order, I should jot down some ideas or responses to some of the things I’ve been seeing abroad in the blogosphere in relation to these matters.

1) The statement “you [meaning devotional polytheists] don’t own the word ‘polytheism.’” Yes, but that’s true of any and every word–no one owns these words any more than they do any other word, and that’s the nature of language. This is why, I think, the Greeks regarded Hermes as the god of language as well as the god of thieves, because all of us “steal” our knowledge of language from all others we interact with all of the time. (It’s not to excuse or discount legitimate plagiarism when it exists, or copyright infringement, etc.) So, if no one owns it, no one controls the definitions of it exclusively–and that also extends to those who are saying “you don’t own it” to others in order to define it however they wish.

2) BUT, that doesn’t likewise mean that the word (or any word) can be defined any-old-way, however one wants to define it. The utility of language is in its specificity, which is why we consider a phrase like “I’m going to talk about some stuff and things that are important to people” to be not very useful, whereas “This article is on the Roman holiday of Sementivae and how it was observed by the lower classes in the late first century BCE in Southern Italy” is considered extremely useful because of its precision (even if it’s not a topic that will appeal to or interest everyone–which is, again, why the specificity is useful, because it tells those who are interested to look at it, and those who aren’t that they can afford to pass it up). The range of meaning of words does eventually get exhausted in some cases, particularly when it shades into the territory of other words that already exist. Let’s take the word “mother”: it tends to mean the female biological parent of offspring, but it could also mean a female adopted caregiver of youthful offspring, or a temporary person fulfilling such a role, or anyone who acts in a way to nurture something in development. But, if I insist that my usage of “mother” also includes “biological males who tend plants in a community garden once a week,” people are going to start thinking that the word “mother” has legitimately lost its meaning in that particular set of usages. That variety of person is not called a “mother,” it’s called a “community gardener,” and keeping those two sets of terms distinct is actually quite useful. There are limits to how elastic certain definitions can be, and though semantic shifting and drifting can and does occur, there is a point where it becomes rather nonsensical.

3) In any case, the matter of “who is a real polytheist?” still seems to be a question lurking behind a lot of these discussions, and it is a rather important one. Further questions that should be asked are: what does one gain by identifying as a polytheist, or by laying claim to the term as part of one’s overall theological makeup? The reason that the question is important is because those who have a similar definition of polytheism, and who invest that understanding with a similar weight of importance, are more likely to understand one another and to be able to work together better than those who make polytheism a subordinate or adjunct to another theological model or understanding that has practical implications for their spirituality.

So, here’s the resolution I’m going to adopt for myself in the future, and it’s one that I’m not entirely happy with, as you’ll see.

I’m going to call myself a “devotional polytheist” from now on. I hate the term “hard polytheist,” and have never really liked it nor adopted it for myself; there’s all kinds of sexist and phallocentric aspects of the terminology that I find resentful and distasteful. I’ve preferred “polytheist” all on its own, because I think it is simple and relatively easy-to-understand and does exactly what it says on the tin, i.e. indicates the acknowledgement of many gods, which is the best understanding of my own theological position that I have ever come up with for the last twenty years of my practice. (“Polytheanimist” is also not bad, to highlight the animist aspects of my practice…but anyway.) However, I am willing to concede at this point that because there is so much misunderstanding about “polytheism” generally, and that some who have polytheistic aspects of their theology may not weight it as heavily as I do, that a more specific term that is qualified by another term would be more useful to future discussion. I have never resented or been put off by the term “devotional polytheist,” and I do use it from time to time; now I’m going to have to be more assiduous about using it all the time. I still think that “polytheist” should be able to carry the weight of my entire theological and practical outlook, but apparently it can’t, because some people who use the term don’t think that the recognition of the reality of multiple deities is either the most important descriptor of their outlook, or that devotion to the deities is important and essential. I concede that on the latter point in particular, “polytheism” alone has probably never been sufficient to indicate that such a focus for one’s practices is as high a priority as it is for those of us in the modern world who identify in this fashion.

At the end of the day, I am still a pagan (in the ancient definitions of the term), because I’m rural, I’m a civilian (and as I teach at a military college, and am a non-military member of a family that has been largely military, I live and work in a predominantly military community, and for many other reasons that such a distinction is important!), and I also worship the gods…and yet, it was only the latter matter that became important when the term “pagan” was used theologically by Christians in late antiquity when they came to prominence and eventual political hegemony. For many pagans today, being a “nature worshipper” is more important than acknowledging gods…which is fine, but it is a very good reason why many devotional polytheists no longer identify as such. And, I’m going to leave that matter for the moment…

Rather than focus on the Paganalia aspects of this set of holidays, therefore, I am instead finding that I’ve focused on the Sementivae aspect. What do I mean by that? It’s not so much that we are all united as children of “Mother Earth,” it’s that we worship and properly acknowledge the goddesses Tellus Mater (or Gaia, if you are more Greek-leaning) and Ceres. It’s not so much that we should all be united under the pagan umbrella any longer in Paganalia, but instead that the “scattering of seed” that is implicit in Sementivae means that we will all grow in whatever way we might where we find ourselves scattered to upon the earth. To use the ecological and rural metaphors that have been so beloved of many of us, it does no good and makes the pagus starve if all of the seeds remain together, because only some of them (on the outside) will germinate, while many others never will. In order for us all to flourish, we must scatter, and we must not fear doing so.

I wanted to make a brief reply to Sannion’s recent post in response to mine, regarding a very particular point that he drew out–guess what that was about? (And, since he no longer allows comments on his entries, and this seemed like something I should clarify publicly rather than in a private e-mail with him, here we aare!)

For the record: I have no problem with phalloi (whether of the kinds nature makes or the kinds that humans fashion themselves)–and, in fact, I wish I could see more of them (and not just pictures!) of both the kinds referred to previously…and, I also wish I could *ahem* do other things with them more often than I get to…

But, not to put too fine a point on it: there’s a very big difference between having a penis and being a dick. I fully approve of the former, in whatever form that might take; I entirely disapprove of the latter.

While I do have a variety of disagreements and critiques with some aspects of feminism, one thing I think feminist theorists got spot-on is the phallocentric nature of patriarchal society, and the manners in which this is a source of many social ills, including: the oppression of women and the realities of rape culture, the stigmatization of homoeroticism (because it is “improper” phallic usage on the male side, and “inadequate” phallic usage on the female side) and in particular the degradation it presupposes of passive male partners (known now in modern gay culture as “bottom shaming”) as well as the assumption that gay men are “assassins” and “terrorists” with their phallic obsessions, the problems with transphobia on all sides (why would “men” ever give up their penises to become women, and how could “women” ever become men without “real” penises), and so forth…and, mind you, I DO NOT REMOTELY AGREE WITH THESE VIEWPOINTS, I’m only mentioning them as examples!

There are better and healthier, less neurotic, and less damaging ways of relating to and valuing and enjoying phalloi than what patriarchal phallocentric cultures have done, certainly; but, some of these excesses did start in the ancient world, and while I can’t say that there is any kind of one-to-one correspondence between any of the ancient polytheistic cults (of Dionysos, Hermes, Priapus [with whom I have some major issues, admittedly], Fascinus, etc.; and, in other areas of the world, Shiva, Sarutahiko-no-Okami, etc.) and the origins and propagations of some of these harmful cultural ideas, nor with the continuation of some virulent forms of sexism and oppression in the cultures which still revere some of these gods, at the same time I think we have to tread very carefully with all of this.

I’ve always thought that there was some geek somewhere sitting in a basement, chuckling to himself after all of these years, about the terms “hard drive” and “floppy drive,” even when a “floppy drive” became a 3 1/2″ disk made of hard plastic rather than a softer one…but, even then, that it was 3 1/2 inches “floppy” still would have been a matter for chuckling for the right kind of geek, I think.

Likewise with this notion of “hard polytheism” vs. “soft polytheism” (whether the latter is monism, duotheism, syncretism, or what-have-you). I suspect that some pseudo-ubermensch from one of the more sexist forms of modern polytheism (perhaps some form of heathenry) coined the term “hard polytheist” to show how extreme and so forth they were in comparison to the lighter, “fluffier,” often-goddess-centric forms of paganism that emphasized a more-or-less squishy Triple Goddess or One Goddess, etc. (That would actually be an interesting project to research: when did the term “hard polytheist” first come about? I didn’t hear it until about 2005 or 2006…And, it probably came about on the internet, I suspect.) “Stiff” polytheism, “erect” polytheism (though I often think that the insistence that we are “orthopraxic” and thus in some sense “upstanding” almost has that same effect), “tumescent” poltyehsim, and so forth would have given the game away too much; so, why not “hard” instead?

Notice something about Antinous here, and in every full-figure statue of him that exists (excepting, of course, the many that have his penis broken off): he’s not “standing proud” by any stretch of the imagination, and I don’t think that’s just Greek aesthetics playing into how he’s portrayed.

There is an important lesson in this: the default ways that male anatomy works is that one is not “at full extension” at all times, and if one was, it would be difficult if not impossible to concentrate on anything or get any work done whatsoever. And that, dear friends, is how devotional polytheism operates best, I think: assuming that most of the time, you’re not going to be at the “heights” of ecstatic engorgement (though there’s nothing wrong about getting there occasionally, by any means!), and that you’ll have to do a variety of other things, including thinking and feeling clearly, to practice most usefully. It’s not easy to do that when you’re half-a-stroke away from orgasm. And, most of the time (and not unlike almost all sorts of human relationships), devotional polytheism isn’t orgasm, it’s simply doing what you know you have to in order to maintain your relationships, so that when the orgasms arrive, they’re that much better and more meaningful and less likely to simply be mechanical, one-night-stand sorts of affairs.

The sexual metaphors possible in theology generally speaking are rather infinite, but when you are dealing with matters that are rather directly phallic, one has to just grab the satyr by the cock and prepare to be dragged along for a while (and, knowing satyrs, it can be a very long while). So, I hope that makes my own position on these matters clearer, even if it says absolutely nothing about what positions I prefer in terms of other matters (and that’s something that you can only learn by direct experience…not unlike a great deal of things in polytheism).

So, in mentioning Pete Seeger yesterday, I got to listening to and thinking about some music from the 1960s, and I went immediately to this Jefferson Airplane favorite of mine:

And that also got me thinking:

We know Antinous’ birth-date from two different independent sources (a Graeco-Egyptian cult calendar and a Latin collegia constitution from Lanuvium), so it’s pretty certain that November 27th was his birth-date. (There’s no other reason for the selection of that date…!)

So, if that is his birth, then we also know that, likely as not, and barring any knowledge about him being premature or late in his birth, his date of conception was probably in late February, or possibly early March if he was a bit early (but if he had been, the likelihood of his survival past infancy would have been much lesser).

In certain other religions, the conception of their main divine figure is celebrated nine months exactly before the birth; so, what about following a similar pattern for Antinous?

Or, should it be forty weeks before, since that is reckoned as the perfect amount of time for someone to be fully gestated in the modern scientific world?

If we went with “nine months,” that means his date of conception would be February 27th.

If we went with “forty weeks,” that means his date of conception would be February 20th.

But, there’s already a lot going on in that latter vicinity of February, whereas the end of the month is a bit clearer…

Or, perhaps we could do something wacky with leap year? (Though the year 110 was not a leap year, from what we know…but his birthday would have been on a Wednesday that year–appropriate enough for someone connected to Hermes, and who is even said to be his son in some texts! The year 112 was a leap year, but that would make Antinous a great deal younger than we thought, which then throws a few matters of interpretation off for how his life unfolded…hmm.) If we went with this, and then only had his conception take place as a festival during leap years, that might be intriguing…indeed, I had heard of people suggesting in Neos Alexandria before I was a part of it that (in absence of knowledge of his actual birth-date) Antinous’ birth be celebrated on leap year…but this actually lines up relatively well…

And, in any case, there could be certain further Serpent Path connections that could be engineered for the festival as well…

So, I don’t know: what do you all think?

1) Should Antinous’ conception be celebrated at all?
2) And, perhaps more importantly: how? What activities would be done on that day?
3) And, what date in late February would be the most sensible one for it?

I’m eager to hear your thoughts on this, especially if you are a regular devotee of Antinous!

So, it’s hard to disentangle where to begin with PantheaCon this year (even though I’ve already taken a stab at that), and I suspect I may have to devote an entire entry to each event that I organized or participated in, and likewise another for some general matters, etc. I’ve been in touch with some folks about some of the things which occurred already…and there’s just a ton to say.

But, I thought I’d begin with the last event, and the one which had the least number of people present (though I think that might have been a good thing in this circumstance), which was the “Youth Blessing Ritual” at 11 AM on Monday. The description is as follows:

The Ekklesia Antinoou recognizes the wisdom and blessings inherent in youth, and in this ritual will bless and protect youth (and all others present), and demonstrate the wisdom of youth by having those youths present (i.e. anyone under 20) help to create the ritual and bless others by doing so. The ritual will involve Antinous, as well as the family of Polydeukion and Herodes Attikos. For anyone to attend, but particularly for young people–and feel free to bring your parents or older friends along, too!

I had expected that there would be some adults, and a few teenagers at this. For whatever reason, the adults did come, but there wasn’t a single teenager there, nor were there any people in the rough age range of 20 to 30 either.

But there were around 8 children under the age of 10, some of whom had one or more of their parents with them.

As they were coming in and I was chatting with them, I started to revise some of my plans for how things would go, but I didn’t scrap them entirely by any means.

We blessed an offering bowl with all of our good thoughts (and some of the kids were extremely adept at this), and then offered them to the gods and heroes honored on the occasion. (I had some alcohol, but I didn’t want to pour that with a mostly under 10 audience present in case some of their parents might have objected.)

I started by talking about Antinous and Polydeukion briefly, and answered some questions, and then did the Latin Antinous opening prayer, and the Greek Polydeukion prayer, and one very precocious boy (and only one of two boys there out of the whole group of children) then said “Now can you translate those for us?” So, I did. I taught them all how to say “Ave!” and “Khaire!” for the Latin and the Greek as well.

I went on to tell them the story of Herodes Attikos, “the richest man in the world” when he lived, and his family, and all of his children, the “Alphabet Boys” for Attikos Bradua being some of the Trophimoi (Polydeukion, Achilles, and Memnon), and a few other things. I tried to keep it short and simple, while also not talking down to the kids, because that used to drive me nuts when I was a kid–even at six years old, I thought the tone of voice many adults spoke to children with was needlessly patronizing, but then again, I wasn’t the typical kid.

Some amusing as well as poignant moments included:

1) When I talked about Herodes Attikos using his money to help those who were less fortunate, the precocious eight-year-old boy said “I’m less fortunate, because whenever I have money, I spend it all on books.” I said I could sympathize.

2) When I had to explain that many of the statues were broken because some people later (I didn’t say who) destroyed them so that everyone would forget about them, there was some despair and confusion on the part of the children, who said “Why would anyone want to do that?”

3) During a later part of the ritual, one of the girls came up to me and whispered that she had to use the bathroom. One of the trusted adults (since her parents weren’t present) accompanied her to do that.

4) They had a good grasp on superheroes (like Batman), but I introduced the concept of ancient heroes to them, and child heroes. The precocious eight-year-old said, “I want to be Batman,” and I said it would be better for him to be himself and try to be a hero, and he responded, “But Batman is really Bruce Wayne.”

The next part of the ritual involved me giving them the first Youth Blessing on behalf of Antinous and Polydeukion, for long and happy lives that are protected from harm. I made all of the adults in the room laugh when I asked the kids, in all seriousness, “Do any of you know the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram?” (They didn’t, but some knew what a pentagram was, at least!) I used the Ephesia Grammata for this, which I ended up using throughout the weekend for a variety of things. They didn’t really report feeling anything from that, and on further clarification, the precocious eight-year-old said that “it felt weird” because “I didn’t feel anything.” Hmm.

Then, the last activity was to have the kids go to the banners around the room with representations of Achilles, Memnon, Attikos Bradua, Regillus and Lucius Claudius Herodes, Athenais and Elpinike, Appia Annia Regilla, and Herodes Attikos, and then come up with what they thought each of those people would give for blessings to the whole group of people there. They had a little time to organize themselves for this, and then we went around the room to see what they came up with.

First was Achilles, and a mother and her son–who was not-quite-one-year-old!–were the ones at Achilles’ banner. The boy could stand and walk a bit, and he had been quietly smiling and staring very big-eyed at me and others earlier in the session, but he had not made any noise that I had heard, and he was adorable! I said, “So, what did you come up with for Achilles?” And right on cue, he started laughing…and, that was perfect, because even though his image looks rather sad and moping, Achilles has come through as a very joyful and vibrant child in the work we’ve done with him, and there couldn’t have been a more appropriate blessing to everyone than the laughter of a very young child. We were off to a good start!

I am having trouble remembering the blessings given by Memnon and Attikos Bradua’s representatives at this point, but several of the under-ten-girls went to those stations, as did a few older/adult individuals.

The blessing from Athenais and Elpinike was done by a girl who was very shy, and when they came in she hid behind her mother and made noises to the effect that she didn’t really want to be there. However, at this point, she came out of her shell, and said very forthrightly that the two sisters would bless everyone with good sleep. That’s a blessing we could all use, and I could certainly still use now!

The precocious-eight-year-old went to Herodes Attikos’ station, and initially said that “I give you nothing!” but I sort of questioned that, and he revised a moment later and said, “I hope you have everything you need and want.” So, that seems like an improvement.

I decided to wrap it up about then, as their attention spans probably wouldn’t have gone on much longer, and thanked everyone. The precocious-eight-year-old then asked if we could play games (he brought his own!), or have a puppet show, and I told him about Glykon, and he asked if I could make the snake puppet now. Maybe in a few years…!

What did I learn from this event?:

1) Things don’t always go as expected; but that doesn’t mean that they can’t still be successful (which I think this was).

2) Don’t lower expectations based on the audience or attendees; raise them, and you will not often be disappointed. This ritual went exactly as I had hoped it would, and there were no major omissions or deletions or revisions along the way; the only difference is that I didn’t get as detailed about some things as I had originally intended (I didn’t talk about how Regilla was a priestess of Demeter and Tyche, how Herodes was involved in the cultus of Nemesis at Rhamnous and the Eleusinian Mysteries, or how Polydeukion was connected to Dionysos, Memnon to Artemis, and Achilles to Hermes).

3) There is enough here in the Ekklesía Antínoou and in this particular set of divine beings and their stories that can interest children, including very young children (around the age of 5).

4) Children can, likewise, roll with Latin and Greek, and can get into some basic reconstructionist matters with all of this.

5) If this is done in the future, if I want for teenagers and 20-somethings to show up, I’ll have to somehow make that more explicit–I guess the word “youth” doesn’t seem to apply to them or resonate with them, for some reason. (Though, they are by no means the only group who did not tend to read the description of the ritual, and instead seemed to assume things about it just by the title without reading further…I’ll talk more about that in subsequent posts.)

So, some of the kids stayed around and played and hung out in the space for a while longer, and then I had a nice leisurely time being able to take down all of the shrine materials, pack them up, and then still had time to spare to hang out and chat with several different people.

If any of you reading this attended the ritual, and can add in further things I didn’t remember from it to the comments here, I’d be most appreciative!

It was a successful event, I think, given the timing of it (11 AM Monday events are almost as poorly attended as those at 9 AM and 1:30 PM, it seems, in my experience not just putting them on but also attending them otherwise), and given the nature of those who turned up for it. It kept me on my toes, certainly, and that’s not a bad thing at all! It seemed to be rather long by my reckoning, but it ended up only being about a half hour in total…although that time distortion may be due to my medications, and the general lack of sleep I had during the con’.

But, I wish now to extend the blessings of Antinous and of Polydeukion to everyone reading this, and who was there, and who would have liked to have been there as well!

May Antinous and Polydeukion, the two Trophimoi, and all of Herodes Attikos’ family, grant you a long and happy life!

As one of the further “bonuses” I promised in relation to PantheaCon, I wanted to write the following piece below.

Many of you know that I wasn’t, for various reasons, able to be in the “Yes They Are! Meeting and Greeting the Queerest of Gods” performance ritual run by Circle of Dionysos this year. I won’t say much more on “why” at present, but this was something I have literally been looking forward to since 2011, because that was the last time the ritual was done, and that year I portrayed Set. The next person in line after Set, as soon as that ritual was done, was Favorinus of Arles, so I’ve been preparing that performance since 2011. I didn’t get to do it this year–which was “good” in a way, because I certainly would have gone over the allotted time, but that also meant that there was that much more time and space for others in the ritual to do what they needed to. Depending on a few things, the following may be the basis for a whole session next year at PantheaCon…who knows? In any case…

Some of you may be familiar with Favorinus of Arles as one of the greatest Sophists of the second century, and as a teacher of Herodes Attikos. He was a “born eunuch,” a “hermaphrodite,” and what we’d probably consider today to be an intersexed individual (though he doesn’t seem to have identified as a non-binary gender, from what we know, hence the pronouns I’ve used thus far). He also plays an essential and enjoyable role in All-Soul, All-Body, All-Love, All-Power: A TransMythology, which is fresh in my mind, of course. So, it seemed like this would be a good day to present this to all of you, given that his student’s family’s days are coming up starting tomorrow, and his children and grandchild’s birthdays are today.

I am writing it below as if I had presented it to the group assembled for the performance ritual at PantheaCon, so there are some stage directions in it, and a little bit by an M.C. at the beginning, as well.

So, without further ado, hear the words of Favorinus of Arles!

*****

[M.C.] And now, introducing…

[Fav.] There’s no need, there’s no need! There isn’t a person here who doesn’t already know who I am!

[Favorinus poses in silence and waits for the applause of those present.]

Ahem. I believe I said, THERE ISN’T A PERSON HERE WHO DOESN’T KNOW WHO I AM!

[Still silence.]

Hmph! Well, they take down your statue in Corinth because they think you’ll be a bad influence on the youth, and suddenly no one knows who you are any longer, nor greets you as you deserve! Well, no matter–this is a wise and intelligent audience here, and I’m sure some of them, at least, know who I am, even if they’re afraid to say so before others and thus would garner disapproval by association.

You! Young man, certainly you know who I am?

[The man shakes his head.]

No?!? Well, apparently, the youth are not as educated as they used to be. You there, my good woman, you look very intelligent: certainly, YOU know who I am?

[The woman shakes her head.]

Apparently, then, looks aren’t everything. And you, my good person whose gender is neither male nor female, surely YOU must know who I am?

[The gender-variant individual shakes their head.]

Great gods above and below! Does no one know history any longer? Forget Herodotus and Thucydides, just pick up a scroll now and again, dear friends!

Well, I suppose then the burden falls to me to introduce myself. Ahem!

My name is Favorinus of Arles, and as I used to say, there were three paradoxes of my life:

I was born a Gaul, and yet I spoke perfect Greek;

I was born a eunuch, a hermaphrodite, and yet I was accused of adultery

(And, dear friends, I assure you, I was guilty!);

And finally, I was someone who had contradicted the Emperor, and yet still was alive.

And that Emperor was the Divine Hadrian, the Greekling, the devotee of Disciplina, the great man himself. He had a temper, and many other things–like the fear of the entire Empire and all of her enemies, who never dared to strike him, except for that one time…–but he was also a slave to the Lady Philosophy, and could not concede a point of logic if it was made against him. In this, he was truly reasonable.

You may wonder at the third less now, and at the second even more, but let me start with the first, for it was the most unusual in its day, and may shed further light on the second in turn.

I was born in the wilds of Gaul, in one of the cities of my people. My status at birth was unusual, but was not a sign of divine disfavor nor of any concern. I was, like all Gauls, raised in the women’s quarters until my teenagerhood, but where the other “real boys” then became members of the warband, the gods had another plan for me, and I was taught in the techniques of poetry.

But I soon realized that my fortunes were not to be found amongst my own people singing the praise of good senators and the satires against the impious, but instead would be found in the city of Rome and Athens and all the cities of the Greek East and Asia Minor. A small pouch of coins half-empty would be my fate amongst my own people, and rather than feel that was fitting to someone of my state, who had an “empty pouch” below my belt as well in my own flesh, I set out on the road to greater fame and glory in those distant place.

Dear friends, I found it, for never was a tongue as honeyed in all of Gaul since the time that Ogmios walked the earth and made his sticky chains of eloquence to entrance the ears of all who heard him.

But it was not the arts of Ogmios I learned in Rome, but the arts of Cicero; and it was not the great words of Hermes I learned in Athens, but those of Demosthenes. And the arts of philosophy I also learned, and became great in them. Though not everyone enjoyed my words or my company, including Polemo of Smyrna, who made it a point to demean my person and my character in his book on physiognomy–as if what shade a person’s skin is, or the shape of their eyes, or what they have between their legs has ANYTHING AT ALL to do with a person’s morals! I can only imagine what he had down below to have such opinions of others…

And my fame grew, and grew, and grew, until there was rarely a city I’d approach that did not beg me for a night of oratory in the public amphitheater! And there was not room enough for another spectator nor auditor on many such occasions! I decked myself out in the laurel crown of the victors, and painted my skin with gold paint, for my words were as golden as honey…

And even the Emperor himself became interested in my words, and demanded an audience. And I gave it to him.

But there were others who were not satisfied with my words. No, they demanded more of me, more of a performance by me…and it was not even a performance by me that they wanted, but instead a mere “showing.”

They hounded me constantly: “Come to the baths with us, Favorinus!” “Come and wrestle in the palaestra with us, Favorinus!” “Come to the gymnasium with us, Favorinus!” They would have done better had they been honest and simply said, “Take your tunic off, Favorinus–we want to see your penis!” And, it would have suited their purposes to have asked such in a rhyme, no matter how low or lewd such a sing-song street-poem might be.

I took my baths alone, I did my exercises by myself, and I bought a villa to make that happen. Yes, I could afford one, slaves and all, but that was the price of my fame and my peace of mind.

Until one day, when the Emperor’s young lover said to me, “Favorinus, would you care to join me in the baths?” And when Antinous of Bithynia asks you to come to the baths, you do not refuse!

So we went, and his clothes came off easily and quickly…and mine less so. But his eyes never left the level of my face, and his voice never wavered, and we sat in the baths, cloaked under the same sheet of refreshing water, and he never said a word about what I had beneath, nor did he even look. Dear friends, I cannot say that I was as chaste in my gaze as he was…but look at him! Could you have been either? I dare say not! But, for his modesty, for his courtesy, and for his good and virtuous mind, he deserves thanks and praise–if anyone deserved deification after death, it was him.

You may ask, therefore, what message I have come to give in so many words? It is simple, dear friends, and it is a twofold message.

First, the lesson that Antinous of Bithynia exemplified is a lesson that too many amongst us must yet still learn: it is no one’s business what any of us has beneath our robes. If you feel you must ask, realize you are boorish and rude, and if you are not willing to then let the likes of me see your own genitals, measure them with a rod and weigh them with a balance, and perhaps make a mold in wax to remember them afterwards, then likewise you are not in the right in asking about us in turn.

And second: did you ever think the likes of someone such as myself would not only be known to history, but would be a celebrity and even a superstar in the centuries of late antiquity? Do not fail to recognize that if you exist now, there have been ancestors who are much like you, who have had your same physical characteristics, your same social challenges, identities similar to your own, no matter how strange or even non-existent the world now tries to make you think you are. We are weeping with you at every step of the way during your difficulties, and we are crying out to be remembered, so that we might give you what wisdom our own lives and our own trials have given to us.

But, I leave you with one final thought, for who amongst the Gauls and the Greeks does not like a Triad? What drove me to such heights of fame, and such a quest for glory, despite all of the challenges I would face? Why, an unshakeable confidence in myself, that I had something to offer and to give, and to present to others. This confidence is alive and well amongst you. There is nothing wrong with being as fabulous and as fantastic as you actually are on as large a stage as you’d like. For, no matter what the critics said of me, and no matter how much those who hated me spouted their bile, there is nothing which can be compared to the adulation of the crowds, the full theatres, and the applause, applause, applause…

I had my final Religion 101 class this evening at one of the colleges I teach for; their term is eight weeks long, with a five-hour course once a week each of those eight weeks.

It was a good class–in fact, in my summary statements about religion, I went over a number of things I often find myself doing, but then there was a point where I took a slightly different direction, and ended up making some statement that was actually really profound, and I saw lightbulbs go off and waves hitting people across the room…and now, I can’t remember what in the world I actually said, and almost as soon as I had said it, I forgot it. I made what the class thought was a joke about having been inspired and temporarily overcome by “something,” but I kind of think that must be what happened, because I usually remember things that I say pretty well…

So, thank you Antinous, Hanuman, Hermes, Brigit the Poet, and Thoth for whatever it was that came through me earlier tonight!

One of the other things that happens at the end of every one of these classes is I tell people what my own religion and religious history is, because usually by the end of the first class, they’re dying to know. However, I have them use their critical skills and information to analyze what they think my religion is based on what they’ve learned of each one. The answers on these days are always interesting to hear. I often hear “You must be an atheist or agnostic,” because they don’t think it’s possible to present a view of so many different religions in as unbiased a fashion as I am usually able to maintain (though certain religions involving a bad sci-fi writer are hard to be unbiased on!). I once got the answer of “Irish Jew,” because I obviously went to Ireland “for some reason,” and then the person in that case said I was more eloquent about Judaism than any other religion–and, it’s true, I do get fairly deep into Judaism when we cover it to distinguish it as strongly from Christianity as possible (because it is quite distinct from it, even though a lot of Christians–and even pagans!–don’t know enough about it to know the deep differences it has with Christianity, down to being neither creedal nor monotheistic!). People also often guess Shinto because of my deep involvement in the Shrine, and often the amount of knowledge I have on it and the obvious respect and esteem in which I hold the Shrine’s priest and the Shrine itself when we visit it.

Variations on the above (except for atheist/agnostic) were all stated tonight; and also, “liberal Christian,” “Buddhist” (you obviously do some kind of yoga”–which is amusing because I’ve never done any other than the approximation of bhakti-yoga that I do as a devotional polytheist!), and–this amused me–Pastafarian.

I also have had one student in the past say “syncretist” and “polytheist,” and because she was right, she wanted to know if she could get extra credit. Nope, sorry! I did have one student say “modern pagan,” and I kind of gave away the game at that point–not meaning to–when I said, “Ah, you’ve done research!” (Sort of…)

However, one that I didn’t expect to hear, nor to hear the evidence for, was “Wiccan.”

I asked, “Why do you think I’m Wiccan?”

The student answered, “Because of all the religions you’ve talked about in this class, Wicca is the only one where you just said something about the religion, and then didn’t say anything negative or critical about it.”

I then replied, “Well, in fairness, the only reason that I didn’t is because we didn’t have the time–if we had another half hour or three hours now, I could fill it with reasons that I might be critical of Wicca.”

But, imagine that! I, who was involved in this on the “polytheist ‘side’” (!?!), was thought to be Wiccan because I was not critical of it and simply presented it fairly.

It kind of makes you think, dunnit?

[Note: though this post is in the "humor" category, it's because I find it funny--EVERYTHING in the above is entirely true, and I am reporting it as correctly and completely as I can remember and as I have felt warranted in this discussion. There is no irony or sarcasm in anything above. It's just funny in that sense of "unexpected" and even "uncanny," I think, in my own mind, and something I never would have expected in a million years, given that we hardly discussed Wicca in the class at all this time.]

At last (!?!), we come to the 2014 Festival of the Trophimoi and Family of Herodes Attikos, which begins with the festival of the Treískouroi–Antinous, Polydeukion, and Lucius Marius Vitalis, the main God, the main Hero, and the main Sanctus of the Ekklesía Antínoou. (And, in case you wondered, our main Divus is Hadrian, and our main Diva is Sabina, and likely our main Heroine is Appia Annia Regilla, who is part of the Family of Herodes Attikos…!).

But, in other religions, it’s also another holiday today, and so in honor of that, I present to you the following photo of Antinous.

As Stephen Fry once said in a sketch, “Get! That! Arse!”

Among the things which will be occurring this week of devotions is the first-ever semi-public ritual devoted to the Trophimoi and Family of Herodes Attikos, down in Redmond (an eastern suburb of Seattle) this coming Saturday, March 8th. More details can be found here. I’m looking forward to that very much indeed!

However, I also have individual devotional goals for the week, which includes (surprise, surprise!) writing at least one poem each day. This year, I’ll be writing poems in the voice of each of the celebrated dates’ primary recipients of devotion, in honor of some other deity or hero–as, being a polytheist, it is always important to remember that no divine being exists in a vacuum, before or after their death if they are a human who becomes a hero or god, or even if they are a god: remember, it was Hermes who is one of many deities credited with innovating sacrifice to the gods.

Because today honors the Treískouroi generally, you’ll find the givers and the receivers of the poetic offerings on this day interesting, I suspect…! So, stay tuned for that later today/in a short while, and there may be other things on the way as well, depending on how time and energy levels go in the next ten hours.

Hail, Thanks, and Praise to the Treískouroi!
Hail, Thanks, and Praise to Antinous!
Hail, Thanks, and Praise to Polydeukion!
Hail, Thanks, and Praise to Lucius Marius Vitalis!
Hail, Thanks, and Praise to the Trophimoi!
Hail, Thanks, and Praise to the Family of Herodes Attikos!