sag-dab-sar

[sag-dab-sar]

I just kind of got hit with the fact that no only does the entire republican party hate trans people, but also that most democrats are slowly moving in that direction. In a year or two, supporting trans rights in any level will be a nonsensical radical rare position even among democrats.

tw suicide

It's so hard to be a suicidal person and have to deal with ....the rest of reality. Like I'm trying to survive suicidalness due to chronic physical illnesses not mental illness — secondary depression. Then I get confronted with the fact that the tide of transphobia is rising and will absolutely not stop. And anytime anything else awful comes up it just adds to the despair I already have from worsening chronic illness (I literally have to avoid the news like its a cancer). Its like each of these things are heavy bricks slowly piling on top of me.

The only reason I'm alive is because my mom has told me shes so worried one day she'll find me dead (because some days I sleep during the day so she doesn't get texts from me during the day)

[sag-dab-sar]

Me: I'm so sick of doing nothing all day, tomorrow I will get [task] done, its doable

My illnesses tomorrow (probably):

[sag-dab-sar]

Reduce the white point!

Under Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size

You can make it even darker by messing around with tint. Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters

Also make sure accessibility short cuts are on so you can easily turn things back to normal. Under Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut

[sag-dab-sar]

Internet Archive Link (How to Use Link)

Scribd Link

Hadn't thought to look for an online version since I have physical.

Women's social status was similar to men's. But women were never the legal equal to men. The position of women was generally higher in the early Sumerian city-state because of the importance of goddesses in the Sumerian religion. Later, in Mesopotamia, when Sargon (2334-2279 BCE), the Akkadian king, rose to power, the Akkadians took part in Sumerian religious observances. To ensure religious legitimacy, Sargon was the first king in a long line of monarchs to appoint his daughter, Enkheduanna, as high priestess of the moon god, Nanna, at Ur. Enkheduanna was a highly accomplished poet. The kings of the Ur III Dynasty (2112-2004 BCE) were praised by the songs of their royal women. Female scribes have been identified as the authors of lullabies for the crown prince, long songs to the king, and even laments.

— Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia by Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat p 150

[sag-dab-sar]

Women's social status was similar to men's. But women were never the legal equal to men. The position of women was generally higher in the early Sumerian city-state because of the importance of goddesses in the Sumerian religion. Later, in Mesopotamia, when Sargon (2334-2279 BCE), the Akkadian king, rose to power, the Akkadians took part in Sumerian religious observances. To ensure religious legitimacy, Sargon was the first king in a long line of monarchs to appoint his daughter, Enkheduanna, as high priestess of the moon god, Nanna, at Ur. Enkheduanna was a highly accomplished poet. The kings of the Ur III Dynasty (2112-2004 BCE) were praised by the songs of their royal women. Female scribes have been identified as the authors of lullabies for the crown prince, long songs to the king, and even laments.

— Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia by Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat p 150

[sag-dab-sar]

Okay well bought an external harddrive

Going to download all my pin boards, HOPEFULLY a back up of my entire google drive (I don't know if it'll stay organized in folders), and back ups of all my tumblrs

I'm paranoid because I refuse to ever give my ID to a company, and I don't want to lose anything, and I have a feeling we are going straight to were the UK is rn

When I'll have the energy to actually do it is unknown

[sag-dab-sar]

Thinking Deeply?

In a recent post I mentioned how eclecticism can easily lead to unrestrained personalization. This causes things to get added to a practice but get stripped down, misunderstood, out of context, or culturally appropriated because "my intentions" and "its incredibly personal."

We have to avoid grabbing onto The Thing because its shiny and cool and we want it. Instead we should think deeply about them before adding it into our practices.

But it's not just self identified "eclectic pagans" and "eclectic polytheists", everyone can be prone to those mishaps. As someone with a mixed practice of 2 pantheons and an entirely separate practice I'm eclectic in some sense of the word.

But I was thinking how do we avoid that stripping down effect? What is "thinking deeply"? Because thats rather vague.

The W questions. The W questions are so ridiculously helpful. And they can seem like really simple one sentence answers, but that doesn't have to be the case. Here is an example.

Topic: Apollo

When

Well attested 800BCE onwards. Archaic Greece, Classical Greece, Hellenistic, Roman Empire

Potentially origins "respectively, match Apollo’s association with the bow and arrow and with plagues in the Iliad. Regardless of his particular ancestry, it is likely that there was a widespread cult in the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean of a god known to the Greeks by the Luwian-derived epithet “Apollo.” link

In this question each of the time lines can then be looked into further.

Where

Greece, eventually spread into Ancient Near East during Hellenistic era, and throughout Roman Empire (at some point). Each of these can be looked into more.

List major cult centers ex Delphi. You can draw up a long list of cult centers and work on studying each of them.

Who

Deity, Theoi, God, Divine

Apollo. Twin of Artemis. Son of Leto and Zeus. Father of (lots of people). Can explore his various connections to all the other beings in Greek cosmologies.

This can also include a lot of his mythology since that is who he is as a 'character'

Or look up his possible "equivalents" and syncretisms

Apaliunas in Hittite Wilusa (possibly). Nabû in Mesopotamia, Apulu in Etruscan Religion. Apollo-Helios, Apollo-Hermes, .... apparently "Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes" in the ancient Greco-Iranian Kingdom Commagene in Anatolia Link

What

Music, Art, Healing, Plague, Oracle, Divination, Archery, Hunting, and so on

Could also add epithets and look into each of those (although that could also be under who).

What were his cults like? what offerings were given? and then those answers could be different for all the different cults or time periods we mentioned in previous questions.

Why

And this is where things get intense.

Why did the ancient people of the time periods researched above worship him? Why did the ancient people of all the locations researched above worship him? Why did they pray, what were they seeking?

and then the scariest question of all

Why do I want to worship him, pray to him, give offerings?

---

Each of these questions could be multiple essays individually, and then the area of knowledge only gets larger as you add all the info from all of those essays together and look at it as a complete picture. This can be for gods or spirits, but also concepts and practices. Not all 5 questions will make sense to answer but chuck the questions at it anyways and see what happens. I'm not saying you have to legitimately write the essays, just that this is the way you can think things through.

Make what you add to your practice a bit of a quiz or a puzzle to be figured out, so you can learn its nooks and crannies, it can even help avoid overlooking things because you simply "didn't think about it" because all these questions can be domino effect in research exploration and lead to things you didn't expect.

(Anyways this was a random thought)

[sag-dab-sar]

Did Helpol Tumblr just die? Feels like it.

[sag-dab-sar]

Me: *working on a big post, decided to cite sources even though I wasn't going to* This is so long and no one will care so honestly maybe I should scrap it

The Gods: How much new info have you discovered about us?

Me: ... a lot

The Gods: And you're reading entire articles for the post right?

Me: yeh but the post has no audience

The Gods: *shakes my shoulders* how much has your research increased since starting the post?

Me: Idunno I feel like I haven't done much research this year until now

The Gods: E X A C T L Y. Its for you and us. Got it?

Me: 😦 oh

I honestly forgot that I dedicated research that I do for any blog post as a devotional activity towards the Gods so notes are irrelevant. I really was going to scrap it.

[sag-dab-sar]

2019 was the last happy year of my life, and its so difficult to come to terms with that. "What would life be like if..." are such dangerous questions.

[sag-dab-sar]

Mesopotamian Prayers

"Hymns and prayers have provided us with a window into the religious beliefs of the ancient Mesopotamians.

Individual prayers followed a fixed pattern:

(1) at the beginning there was an invocation praising the deity;

(2) the middle section, which varied in length, was devoted to the complaints or petitions of the worshiper; and

(3) the end included anticipatory expressions of appreciation and praised the god again.

The style of these prayers was not very interesting. They used stock phrases, epithets, and hymnal quotations. Many examples of liturgical poems have been found; they expressed feelings of respect, fear, and spirituality.

These liturgical poems were addressed to a particular god, before whom the worshiper bowed and appealed for mercy, sometimes through flattery.

Only poems composed outside the cult showed more sincere feelings and poetic style-personal requests referring to a specific and very personal experience.

Prayer was used for a variety of purposes, such as imparting magical effectiveness to sacred paraphernalia and warding off the evil effects of eclipses and bad dreams.

Special prayers expressed laments or complaints; others conveyed blessings. Thus, when man enjoyed economic prosperity and spiritual peace, he attributed his situation to the presence of supernatural powers that either filled his body or guarded him. Conversely, a man blamed his misfortunes, illnesses, and failures on the absence of such protection."

— From Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia by Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat p 189

[sag-dab-sar]

Mari Letter A.1146.39-44:

As for me, look at me. Not yet … I escaped from death, and from the midst of Ahuna [I escaped] ten times during uprising[s]. Why, now [am I not] like Dumuzi? They kill him, at the [time of] counting the year. [In the spring,] he always comes back to the temple of Annunitum.

— Source

So now I know he does come back. At least in the tradition of Mari in upper Mesopotamia. Annunitum was a local name for Ištar.

In [Chapter 7] I argue that the evidence from Mesopotamia indicates that the notion of the dying and rising god did not take firm roots there and remained a marginal tradition. On the other hand, the same notion was prevalent in the Levantine cultures. Consequently, it is difficult to suggest a Mesopotamian influence on the development of the dying and rising god in the Levant. While it is plausible that each culture independently developed this innovative concept, I would cautiously propose that the prevailing mythologem of the dying god was initially expanded in the Levant to include the notion of the dying and rising god. This new formulation was then disseminated eastward and northward in West Asia. Ultimately, the mythologem of the dying and rising god was disregarded by the Mesopotamian culture, while it continued to flourish in its place of origin, the Levant.

— Dying and Rising Gods The History of Mythologem In West Asia by Ayali Darshan Noga p 9 (2024). Full Intro & Chapter 1 Link

I have learned in Mesopotamian Dumuzid's revival is almost entirely absent in cuneiform texts and thus cult; minus Inana's Descent. Making my modern festival all that more modern, not sure if I'll maintain it after 2025— more to learn!

[sag-dab-sar]

No, We Aren't "Orthoprax"

I'm speaking about neo-paganism, neo-polytheism, left hand path, non-initiation witchcraft, non-initiation occultism

Orthodoxy = Correct Belief

Orthopraxy = Correct Practice

Many people in these communities like to claim "we aren't like Christianity (alt: Abrahamic Religons). We are orthoprax not orthodox!"

This is simply wrong.

Disclosure: I am a Hellenic Revival Polytheist, Sumerian Revival Polytheist, and practice Shinto.

Orthopraxy

Some practices:

Ngöndro in Tibetan Buddhism

Mounting in Las 21 Divisiones

Offering sequence in Shinto

Mass Rites in Catholic Christianity

Salat in Islam

Halakha in Orthodox Judaism

Yasna in Zoroastrianism

Baptism in Mandaeism

Sāmāyika in Jainism

These are all examples of things needing to be done in specific ways— ie correct practice. Some of the examples also include correct belief. Because Orthopraxy and Orthodoxy are not mutually exclusive.

These things require proper learning from individuals (or things written by individuals) who already know how to do the proscribed activity correctly.

Of course some traditions will have things that must be done a correct way while other things are left up to the individual because there is so much to account for in human experience, but I think I got the point across.

Dichotomy?

In these communities the discussion around orthopraxy and orthodoxy uses a "versus" as a split between the two. When that over simplification leads to complete misunderstanding of the actual terms.

Some things are both correct belief and correct practice— Islam.

Some are just correct practice— Shinto

Some are just correct belief— Protestant Christianity

Some are neither— Neo-Paganism et al

Our related entwined communities don't fully understand this in my opinion. People try to use this dichotomy to separate their new found practices from the dreaded boogyman Christianity— or Abrahamic Religions—instead of actually learning what it means. They want to race to assure new people that "We Aren't Like Them" and they use the word orthopraxy to convey the idea.

Modern DIY Community

If there is a right way to do something that means there is a wrong way to do something.

The vast majority of neo-pagans, neo-polytheists, self identified witches, many occultists would get extremely annoyed if you called their way of doing things incorrect.

If it is "there is no correct way to be a witch/hellenic polytheist/eclectic pagan" then it is not orthoprax.

If it is "your practice is your own don't let others tell you it isn't" then it is not orthoprax.

If it is "there is no one right or wrong way to pray/ give offerings/ preform a spell" it's not orthoprax.

If it is "you can make up any correspondences/rituals/divination you want there are no guidelines" it is not ortnoprax.

The fact is: our practices are fundamentally neither correct belief nor correct practice. We are heteropraxy (different practices) and heterodoxy (different beliefs) even within the same general tradition, e.g Celtic paganism, Hellenic paganism, or even the concept of the different varieties of polytheism itself.

Why is this important?

We all express the idea that your practice/beliefs are your own and then literally contradict that by saying it's orthoprax. So lets look at how the communities being not orthoprax and being heteropraxy effects us— for better or worse.

1. Cultural Appropriation

The idea that there is no wrong way is why many in the communities get very upset when people say what they are doing is cultural appropriation, because they believe there is no wrong way to do things.

When you say "that's cultural appropriation" for them it translates to "you're doing paganism (et al) wrong!!!"

When you say worshipping Lilith as a non-Jew is wrong they say "she personally called to me! it cant be wrong! don't speak for her!"

When you say shamanism is specifically from Tungusic cultures they say "shamanism is a type of spirit work you're just gate keeping!"

When you say your practice is not smudging they say "its my preferred way of cleansing so its none of your business!"

This is a problem, our heteropraxy (different practice) bites us in the ass on this one. Because trying to convince people that something actually IS wrong flys in the face of what the communities tend to believe, that our personal practices can't possibly be wrong.

2. History Smishtory / Anti-Intellectualism

The idea that nothing is wrong practice wise and that no right belief exists fosters an environment for misinformed and disinformation.

Medusa was never a women's shelter symbol

Inana did not conquer death

"The original myth" ... blah blah

Dangerous new age ideas seeping in

No ancient prehistoric goddess worship perfect matriarchy exists

Evil Abrahamic Religion (usually Judaism) destroyed the beautiful Goddess worship— just thinly veils antisemitism

Easter is not Ištar

Thousands witches burned myth

If you ever point out historical inaccuracies you're blasted as not respecting personal beliefs (heterodoxy) and personal individual choice of practice (heteropraxy).

Often times this gets tossed into "you dont have to believe that [insert historical fact] because our religion is orthopraxy not orthodoxy!"

Accepting historical accuracy is NOT orthodoxy, its not a faith system or belief system, its just learning; being willfully ignorant of history because "my practice is my own" (heteropraxy) is simply anti-intellectualism.

Developing modern things (Medusa being patron of abused women) isn't wrong, but claiming it's definitely a historical thing is wrong imo.

3. The necessity of Do It Yourself

For those of us that do not live close to a community of others who share our faith and/or practice we feel isolated. We want to share what we do with like minded people.

If we truly were orthopraxic we would have to correct people on various aspects of the practice they share every single time they share it.

In general if we were picky about prayer, altars, and offerings to the extent orthopraxy demands we'd all have to stop sharing online.

There is a lot of attempted orthopraxy around the words we use which just leads to completely trivial arguments — Post discussing it link

If we actually tried to be orthopraxic we would hide from each other, it would become an incredibly lonely world for us.

4. Eclecticism

Eclectic neo-paganism/polytheism/witchcraft wanders into cultural appropriation, shallow understanding, ahisotrical facts, and unrestrained do it yourself often. Under the guise of "it's incredibly personal." Again, thats heteropraxy not orthopraxy.

Eclecticism isn't inherently bad, as someone with multiple traditions I'm eclectic in some sense of the word. The problem comes in with unrestrained personalization that can have negative effects if you don't stop to deeply think about what you are adding and try to understand it. Things can get striped down, devoid of meaning and context, and sometimes culturally appropriated.

For example, despite my post about not defining words for each other, eclecticism can take things like that to an extreme. I once chose to disagree with someone over the topic of veiling because I still believe words have meaning. And her "incredibly personal practice" was destroying the literal meaning of words. Post Link

I expanded on how to avoid the pitfalls here Post Link

5. Neo-Polytheism: Revivalism vs Reconstructionism

This is primarily confined to Hellenic Polytheism because I'm in that community. For another perspective from Irish Polytheism someone sent me this explanation — Post Link

I know a lot of people hate when I split revivalism and recon but here me out. Most reconstructionists are trying to create some level of orthopraxy based on historically proven-ish practices, even if that practice is coming from the ancient smoldering ashes of mostly dead traditions. I believe thats a defining feature of reconstructionism, that isn't necessarily as present in revivalism. Additionally some practices are more easily reconstructed such as Roman or Greek than others such as Celtic or Iberian.

While some Hellenic Polytheism Reconstructionists work toward some level of orthopraxy they should not try to push it on the rest of the community because Hellenic Polytheism/Paganism as a whole is going to be heteropraxic and that is okay. Minus things such as complete disrespect for Greek culture/people or complete disrespect for the most fundamentally things in ancient Greek religion (eg. hating the gods).

6. How we conduct ourselves

When we accept and understand differences (on many sides) we can better respect each other.

Whenever a question comes up about what you can and cannot do in these communities it erupts into drama, tit for tat, and people deactivating accounts.

While some things can and should be criticized— bigotry, cultural appropriation, anti-intellectualism, invented history, disrespect for the culture ancient or otherwise, removing meanings—we do not have to claim everyone should be doing things in a very specific way.

Claiming everyone has to do x offering, everyone has to preform ritual in this way, everyone has to follow the same purity standards, everyone needs to pray in this style— IS ORTHOPRAXY.

And our communities hate it, so maybe we should stop saying we are what we hate.

-dyslexic not audio proof read-

[sag-dab-sar]

Kamidana from Around the World

It was great seeing the sheer variety of kamidana from Shinto practitioners from all over!

I hope this post also inspires new practitioners in their setups, and reassures them that a kamidana has no singular right setup.

[sag-dab-sar]

not all my thoughts need to be posted not all my thoughts need to be posted not all my thoughts need to be posted not all my thoughts need to be posted not all my thoughts need to be posted not all my thoughts need to be posted not all my thoughts need to be posted not all my thoughts need to be posted not all my thoughts need to be posted not all my thoughts need to be posted not all my thoughts need to be posted not all my thoughts need to be posted not all my thoughts need to be posted not all my thoughts need to be posted

[sag-dab-sar]

Just a small help, the Ancient Greek word for hearth IS Hestia. Same as Thanatos meaning death, Hypnos means sleep and Nyx means night etc. - so Honor Hestia and Honor the Hearth is 100% the same.

Ohhh okay, see I suspected that because Ouranos means sky, Selene is moon, Tyche means luck and so on but the name of the Olympian Gods tended to not be the literal name of what they were the God of.

[sag-dab-sar]

🗓️ Monthly Observances 🗓️

Libation could be at altar, at sink, or no energy version X.

For now, this could change

Static

1st - Shinto Prayers & Offerings

4th - Hellenic - Libations to Gaia; Naiads; Dryads; Horai of [Current season: Spring Eiar, Summer Theros, Autumn Phthinophôron, Winter Kheimôn]

7th - Sumerian - Libations to An & Uraš; Enlil & Ninlil; Enki & Damgalnuna

15th - Shinto Prayers & Offerings

Last Day Month- Sumerian - Self purification from 'sin.' Libation to Ninĝu Ereškigal'am, Gugal-ana, Ninazu

Moving

Full Moon - Libations to Nanna, Ningal, Inana, Utu

New Moon - Libation to Ancestors & Hekates Deipnon meal offering at night

2nd Waxing Crescent - Noumenia, Libations/Offerings to Hestia, Zeus Herkaios/Ktesios, Hera Oikos, Hermes, Apollo Argyieus, Hekate

3rd Waxing Crescent - Libations Agathos Daimon & Agathe Tyche | Clean sacred spaces

Example

Blue = Monthly; Orange = Yearly

Notes

🔹Sources for days

1st & 15th — Shinto Prayers and Offerings, traditional mentioned in a few places during my research

4th & 7th — Hellenic according to Theophrastus' satirical account link

New Moon, 7th, 15th, Last Day — "The Sumerians" p 140 by Kramer not the biggest fan of Kramer but I've seen similar dates within other books just too hard to find

Since they overlap I had to pick which to use when so only 4th for Hellenic, only 7th and 'last day' for Sumerian. I am using Gregorian Calendar because it would be a nightmare otherwise. What I put on these days is modern.

🔹3 Days of Hellenic Month

(I think I have this correct)

For Hekate Daipon, Noumenia, Agathos Daimon all start as sundown the day prior because Greek days started at sunset

Hekate's Daipon would begin on sunset the day of the new moon and go through until sunset on first waxing crescent. I plan to celebrate specifically just the night on new moon.

Noumenia would begin sunset of the day of the first waxing crescent and go through to sunset on second waxing crescent. I plan to celebrate just the day of the second waxing crescent. 2nd day after new moon.

Agathos Daimon would begin sunset of the day of the second waxing crescent and go through to sunset on third waxing present. Plan to celebrate just the day of the third waxing crescent. 3rd day after new moon.