essays on polytheism, minimalism, and everything in between
“Prayer to All of the Gods I” was designed to incorporate deities whom I judged to be important to acknowledge overtly in prayer. The choices of Gods grew out of previous decisions that I made while writing Acts of Speech (availability info here), specifically for the poems addressing public speech, good conduct, and civility. There is a … Continue reading Every Goddess Is Good
Today, I finished reading Olympiodorus’ Gorgias commentary. One of the most striking things about the footnotes and the conversation in general is his attempt to sanitize Hellenic theology and Platonism in a way that is palatable to students on whom he relies for his livelihood in a culture that was now hostile to pagan teachers. While … Continue reading Praying to a God, Religious Identity, and Boundaries
each press of char and bone against divine skin the pool of ash yet warm your hands seeking unity until they are caked in it gathering the remnants of body like single notes into harmonic one the light still shining down burning with the fire of spent worlds of planets singed by Titanic suns life destroyed, all destroyed save the heart unremitting you heal the melodies your lips … Continue reading Dionysiodotes
This is a reblog from last year, and I'm sharing again because there was a climate-crisis-related Anthesteria poem in the post that you may enjoy. Of course, this year is snowier — but the climate crisis is here all the same. As a follow-up to what I said at the end about feeling sick last … Continue reading Blast from the Past — Happy Anthesteria 2020 (699.3)
The Anthesteria is one of my favorite ancient festivals. This year, the historical dates run from sundown tonight (the 22nd) through sundown on the 25th. May you experience all the joys and blessings of the season. Tonight is a good night to open a bottle of wine and make a generous sponde for Dionysos. Blessèd, … Continue reading Happy Anthesteria
On February 15, I drew the Greek Alphabet Oracle zeta (Ζ) for the week — flee the very great storm, lest you be disabled in some way. In previous years, I braced for something to happen because receiving this oracle (to recap: about what I needed to keep in mind to work towards aretē that … Continue reading Stillness, Tumult, and Links
I: Taper this candlethe color of meadblooming with morning lightmellow-sweet fragrancecotton wick yet whiteits sooty blackness divinedlong before my lighterhums electricto offer oil to Hestiato tip frankincensedrop by drop for Zeusas the wick keepsthe beeswax tameits fuel bridledby tight weave II: Jarred a wood wickflat as a fingernailthe candle's flesh whitestudded with fragrancewhen I lit … Continue reading Candles
This short ebook (is it actually a zine? is that how those work?) contains the three prayers to all of the Hellenic Gods that I published on this site in January and February (a modified version of I, the compact II, and the very Platonizing III). The prayers draw a lot of inspiration from Plato … Continue reading I Pulled the Prayers to All of the Gods Into eDevice Formats for Free, In Case You’re Interested
This week, after over a month of waiting, my Brill MyBooks came in. One of the books was Iamblichus' De Anima — or, after the front cover, shall I say <html>Iamblichus' De Anima (yes, literally, I guess he was in fact Very Online) — and the other was a MyBook print-on-demand of Proclus' Hymns by van … Continue reading Two Quotations — van den Berg on Proclus not being Athenian and what that means for sympatheia and Proclus’ prose prayer to the Gods in the Parmenides commentary
KALLISTI 