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Godesses of night in paintings

Auguste Raynaud (French, 1854–1937)

Auguste-Alexandre Hirsch (French, 1833-1912)

François-Léon Bénouville (French, 1821-1859)

Americo Pedro (Brazilian, 1843-1905)

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e-offering to Mother Mary

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I’ve been listening to “Blood Moon” by Saint Sister a lot this season and it inspired this piece of a spooky Minoan Artemis dancing in the woods. 

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Hekate moodboard

Pyrophoros, keeper of the sacred fire May you light my way as I stumble on the path Mistress of the restless dead May you protect me in the depth of night Astrodia, You who walks above and below I bring you my love and devotion

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devotional acts to morana:

• burning/drowning her effigy on either maslyana week or ivana kupala (depending on the tradition; or you can do both)

• learning about your ancestors and doing ancestral work. leave offerings to your ancestors, whether in your family, or dead people that you feel connection to.

• tending to graveyards: root out the weeds, clean the graves, take the trash out, leave flowers for the dead. don't forget the offering to the graveyard keeper spirit!

• celebrating rusalka week (a week preceding pentecost). in some traditions, morana is considered a chieftess upon rusalky! so honor rusalky, leave offerings to them, welcome them in our world; and, when the time comes, help them find their way home.

• doing shadow work and being gentle to the parts of yourself that are hidden and unwanted

• winter swimming, and swimming in general

• respecting death and the dead, embracing change and transformation

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If a girl was hunting me I would kiss her

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Thassa’s Oracle by Jesper Ejsing 

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PRAYER IN HELLENIC POLYTHEISM

There are three main parts to prayer in ancient Greek religion: the invocation, the argument, and the petition.

THE INVOCATION —

This is where you address the god by name, including any honorifics, references, functions, or qualities you wish to entreat. Several stacking elements of identification are used here—including epithets.

THE ARGUMENT —

Why should the god listen to you? Remind the god of your prior relationship. If you haven’t yet built one, you should ask a friend or devotee to pray on your behalf. Better yet, use this as an opportunity to introduce yourself to the god and sing their praises.

THE PETITION —

State your purpose. This can include what you want the god to do, regardless of whether your request is specific or relatively intangible.

Of note is the fact that the petition is not a mandatory part of the prayer structure. “You might as easily invoke a god and remind them of your relationship, but not want anything specific, just to keep in touch as it were, and that would be totally fine” (Dr. Ellie Mackin Roberts).

PRAYER GESTURES

According to Aristotle “we humans all stretch our hands towards the heavens when we make our prayers” (On the Cosmos). Pollux too suggests this, using the phrases “to pray to the gods” and “to stretch one’s hands upward” interchangeably.

That said, not every prayer was accompanied by a grand gesture. Simon Pulleyn relates how artistic depictions more commonly show the worshipper with one hand raised—not above the head, but “held out in front of [oneself] in a gesture like that used by a policeman to halt traffic” (Prayer in Greek Religion, 1997, pg. 189).

Don’t overthink hand gestures. More than anything, know that prayers were typically done when the individual was standing, their face tilted up towards the heavens (where the gods reside). When consulting the Underworld gods, though, it would make sense to direct your prayers downward. An example of this is seen in the ninth scroll of the Iliad when Althaea prays to Haides and dread Persephone by kneeling and beating her hands on the ground.

MORE ON PRAYER GESTURES

The following illustrations were made by @seedsandsprouts / @jellynymphh and show the many gestures that can accompany your prayers to the gods.

Spoken prayers are typically paired with more dynamic gesticulations, while those that are silent (or muttered) are done more discreetly.

Ancient peoples believed that the gods could hear silent prayers, but such a practice was regarded as anomalous and looked upon with great suspicion. Such suspicions are better left in antiquity, seeing as we live in an age where spoken prayer is no longer standard.

When praying with one hand raised to your lips or the heavens, the hand at your side can be balled into a fist with the thumb tucked into the fingers.

Happy praying! :)

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um um um. hera as the guardian of zeus' oikos. hera as the legitimizer of divine offspring. hera as the source of hardships (monsters!) and the opportunity for kleos. hera as another controller of mania. hera as a cultivator of immortality. hera, not as a symbol or key of power, but as its arbitrator.

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lady hecate aidonaia of the underworld , titan goddess of witchcraft , crossroads , necromancy and the moon .

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my co-called comfort character

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the thing about worshipping morana, for me, is that there is no easy way out from doing my own research. you can't trust ANY info on slavic mythology on the internet, it's just so littered with unsourced nonsense, often made up by russian neonazis and conspiracy theorists, and so to worship any slavic god you must seek out the works of actual ethnographists, historians, anthropologists, folklorists, and even then you often must check twice. morana really requires me to do my homework man!

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The Gods are not trans allies.

The Gods are not trans-friendly.

The Gods do not ‘support’ queer people.

The Gods ARE trans. The Gods ARE queer.

The Gods are transgender, They are transsexual. ‘Trans’ means ‘beyond, across’.

The Gods are beyond gender. Beyond sex. Beyond flesh. Beyond normality and norms— thus, They are queer. They are trans. They are on the other side of gender, of sex— on the side we cannot even begin to understand.

The Gods are transsexual and transgender and queer not (only) within our human understanding of transness— They are not trans in the way we humans are trans.

But They are still trans. They are the original transness. The ultimate transsexuality.

Transness as a transition from a state to another state, from a form to another form— from Their divine form to one we humans can behold without being consumed by Their inherent queerness. From Their divinity to words we humans can attempt to understand and think of without being utterly lost in the enormity and infinity of the divine.

Transness as a journey, a constant state of evolution within the world— evolution of the world itself, for the Gods are the world, are beyond time, beyond space, yet constantly changing.

The Gods do not love trans worshippers despite their transness, despite their queerness. The Gods love trans worshippers for their transness. They love us because we are trans. Because we are queer.

As we defy norms, we become closer to Them— trans people are humans, mortals, but I firmly believe that there is something inherently holy in transition. To change yourself, to think the limits of the body and to alter your own flesh is to create, is to destroy. To understand how limitless the world is— how flesh and sex and gender are human things, social things, that are made by us and can be expended and transgressed— is to take a step towards the Gods.

The Gods love you. You are made in Their image. Or maybe— you make yourself in Their image. And that is beautiful.

(reminder that this is my vision of divinity, not a definite fact, even if i think there are a lot of things (in multiple cultures/religions) that point to the divine being beyond gender)

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Sleeping at the Beach, Eyes Wide Open

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Facing the dream