there are a lot of relatable moments in greek mythology but i think possibly one of the most relatable is the scene in the odyssey where hermes shows up at calypso’s island to tell her that she has to let odysseus leave, eats a bunch of her food, and then spends a good 5 minutes bitching about his job
16. Are you a part of a coven?
~ No, I’m not. I’m a solitary practitioner. I have friends who practice, but the most we do is celebrate a Solstice or Equinox together as we are all different religions and work in different areas of the craft.
48. Do you know anything about your past lives? (if you believe in them!)
~ I know about one for certain, though only I only discuss out with a few friends.
I had a dream yesterday that I was in Whitby and I looked out of the window to see a wolf made of stars and bigger than the eye could hold. Unfortunately, in jpeging this painting I’ve lost a lot of the colour nuance, which is A Sad Thing.
A consequence of being pagan in the modern world is that sometimes you just aren’t taken seriously. I’m not claiming that our religion is necessarily directly targeted by oppression, but in a Christocentric world a lot of pagans still have to keep themselves under wraps and go to worship a god they don’t believe in, and even those of us who can be open about it get treated like crackpots.
I would love to be able to say “I worship the gods of Olympus” without being treated like I’m intellectually deficient. After all, the Greeks were a primitive and superstitious people, even though secular western society has been falsely tracing its lineage to Greece for centuries.
But in trying times, when it just seems like it’s silly to burn incense to gods most people think belong in Mythology for Dummies books, its important to know that these gods were real.
Imagine being ill and being brought to the Temple of Asclepius, and sleeping there, feverish and shaking, and being told of your cure in the night.
Imagine being a bride burning a lock to Artemis before her wedding, hoping that her husband would be kind and her new family welcoming.
Imagine being a sailor near drowning praying to Poseidon and washing up on dry land, and taking a bowl to his sanctuary that tells the world how the god saved you.
The gods were real to these people. They were real to Sappho, who called Aphrodite down resplendent with a word. They were real to Homer and all the poets who begged the Muses to sing through them. They were real to the initiates at Eleusis, who went into the dark unknowing and came out knowing that even in death they would be thrice-blessed. They were real to the people who came to their sanctuaries and decorated them with pottery and marble and art, and who built some of the most spectacular buildings the world has ever seen, just to house their gifts to the gods.
It was not a matter of faith, but of knowing. The gods were real to them, and to us too, they are real now.
I’m a kemetic polytheist and this still resonates with me.
I am the Witch of Keys – I hold a key for everyone that walks into my life and sometimes they hold one for me as well. I have never known myself to run out of keys to offer someone I knew, but there is a first time for everything they say.
So what happens when there are none left? When the locks have all been opened and cast aside? When all the secrets I was meant to help bring to light are there, shining and known? What is left when there feels like no reason left to be there any longer?
That is when I leave. I cut the cord and walk away after holding onto it so tightly that my fingers are bloodied and my knuckles are white. I have nothing left to give and yet I hoped so desperately that I could salvage something of the bond. I can’t, though. It’s time to admit defeat and move on. It’s bitter and it stings, but to hold on any longer is only to make what once was love more sour and rotten.
lachryphagy is the term used to describe the behaviour of tear drinking in nature, typically in environments – like the purvian amazon shown here – where sodium and other micronutrients are hard to find.
bees and butterflies need sodium for egg production and metabolic purposes, but their diets of nectar are low in salt. so the orange julia and sulfur yellow butterflies you see here turn to the salty tears of often stationary turtles and caiman.
and though the caiman and turtles seem to receive no reciprocal benefit from the interaction, they’re apparently happy enough to just help out. (x, x, x, x, x, x)
“… if tears were liquor I’d have drunk myself sick.”
Amethyst's Archive 