The Gods are beautiful and worthy of worship. If you are anxious about honoring them, don't feel embarrassed. This post walks through some false beliefs and expectations that are useful for anyone with such anxiety to address. A few days ago, I wrote something on social media because I was disquieted by some things I … Continue reading Advice About Honoring Gods for the Anxious
Getting Close to the Body with the Phaedo in Tow
At Phaedo 64a, Socrates — who will shortly be given hemlock by his executioner — begins one of many famous parts of this discussion by saying that “those who happen to have gotten in touch with philosophy in the right way devote themselves to nothing else but dying and being dead.” What follows is a … Continue reading Getting Close to the Body with the Phaedo in Tow
The Gods as Anchors in a Shifting Routine
My workplace started having us report onsite at the beginning of August. Times of change and upheaval are times for reevaluating everything one does. The Gods are the stones around which the waters of our lives move, providing structure no matter how rapid or slow we wind downstream. Photo by Satoru Takamatsu on Pexels.com Sometime … Continue reading The Gods as Anchors in a Shifting Routine
Quiet, But Still Praying
The first degree of prayer is the introductory, which leads to contact and acquaintance with the divine; the second is conjunctive, producing a union of sympathetic minds, and calling forth benefactions sent down by the Gods even before we express our requests, while achieving whole courses of action even before we think of them; the … Continue reading Quiet, But Still Praying
July 2021 “We Are Individuals in Communities” Divination
Obligatory context: In 2020, due to feeling a lot of social burnout, pessimism, and pain about our wider polytheistic communities, I started doing a divination reading every three months about the polytheistic communit[y/ies]. The point of this divination, like most divinations I do, is to highlight growth areas that we may be missing that prevent … Continue reading July 2021 “We Are Individuals in Communities” Divination
Sallust, On the Gods and the World, Chapter 2
That a God is immutable, without Generation, eternal, incorporeal, and has no Subsistence in Place.And such are the requisites for an auditor of the gods. But the necessary discourses proceed as follows: the essences of the gods are neither generated; for eternal natures are without generation; and those beings are eternal who possess a first … Continue reading Sallust, On the Gods and the World, Chapter 2
Looking at Sallust’s On the Gods and the World (Chapter 1)
This post begins with some personal background of why I want to look at Sallust. Its middle section is an exhortation to anyone who may be on the fence about worshipping a God to just try it out without pressure. The final section is a glance at Chapter 1 of Sallust’s On the Gods and … Continue reading Looking at Sallust’s On the Gods and the World (Chapter 1)
A Brief Post on Birthday Offerings
On my birthday every year, I give an offering to the Gods. It's often something small — until the pandemic, my birthday usually happened while I was at a library conference, so the most I could do was a quick prayer with my travel ritual tools (a small libation bowl) and images of the Gods … Continue reading A Brief Post on Birthday Offerings
Some Passages from Damascius’ Philosophical History
At the beginning of the month, I devoured the fragments of Damascius' Philosophical History, an out-of-print translation filled with interesting anecdotes about people in the polytheistic intellectual scene of Late Antiquity. The translator, Polymnia Athanassiadi, identifies many continuities between the world of Damascius and Mediterranean cultures today even while emphasizing the extreme cultural loss and … Continue reading Some Passages from Damascius’ Philosophical History
