#tiresias worship

[wisdom-devotee]

If anyone would like to know anything about Tiresias PLEASE ask me, I have such an urge to chat about him

[poppies-in-november]

[th3blind-prophet11]

//does mod happen to have headcanons for Tiresias?

…

//OHOH BUDDY.. DONT EVEN JOKE.

‼️Trigger warning / content warning‼️: ||Sexual abuse , gender dysphoria||

Tiresias barely ever mentions their ex husband , but it’s known because he had 3 biological kids. They did not want to have any children , but as its Ancient Greek times and they were a woman , it’s not like they had a choice.

After one kid their physical health declined , and it was advised to him by Apollo for them to not get another , but their partner at the time decided against it. Because it wasn’t an order is was advice.

Tiresias was always reluctant on having kids and it showed but it’s not like their lover cared. They had 2 other children after that. Their husband left after realising they were a man before , and left Tiresias with their kids. Tiresias doesn’t want their kids to feel bad about themselves so they never told them.

After the birth of his scone and third child Tiresias would be crying to Apollo about how much it hurts and how awful he feels about himself , after the 3rd child , Apollo cursed the man who married Tiresias.

Practically this is the reason why he’s always been so averted to touch in all my rps , he only a few people they told about this was Apollo , Persephone and Hermes in that order.

He has a few parental figures , which is his biological mum who’s a nymph that worshipped Athena , who blinded him , Hades , Persephone , Poseidon , and hestia.

Hestia adores Tiresias a lot.

Tiresias got with Hermes because he and Aphrodite are very close Because of that one epic the musical reel with the cast , And basically he blatantly called Hermes voice hot and seductive and she was like “I’m setting you guys up” and to her not surprise , they hit it off really well.

Turesias loves birds. Like a LOT. he has a service owl himself.

Hermes making Tiresias take off the eye mask when he kisses him so from the corner of his eyes he can see the very faint pupils in the prophets blank eyes dilute.

Tiresias after being turned to a woman became a priestess of hera. There is no information as to why they became one but I like to beliebe it’s so they are on her good side.

Anyways after becoming a priestess Hera granted ~~Her~~ them clothing made from different types of silk , one of which being a nightgown which was comfortable enough for ~~Her~~ the to actually enjoy wearing. It was not too feminine and didn’t give ~~her~~ them any unnecessary dysphoria.

After they had permission to transition back to a man , they gave away the clothes they never wore to their daughter Manto , and kept the ones that had special memories to them like their wedding dress from when they got married.

Something that they kept That wasn’t tied to anything special was the night gown , mainly cuz they liked it and it was soft and felt nice to sleep in.

Tiresias relies on certain personality traits and voices to identify people.

Hermes being the trickery god one time thought it'd be funny to fuck with the prophet and copy other's traits and voices.

He would switch from like let's say Zeus to Aphrodite to Apollo and Tiresias would get really confused and annoyed and maybe even overwhelmed from how quickly the voice changes. Which kind of makes the other feel guilty-

It's safe to say Hermes will NEVER do that again-

Likes these dresses

[just-a-mer]

Odysseus returns both gestures to the fullest, holding as firmly as possible and letting the kiss overflow with love impossible to express. Perhaps that earlier naivety from his childhood had returned, but the siren couldn't stop himself from feeling hopeful. It was a sensation he hadn't experienced in a long time and was one he desperately needed.

To be able to help one person he loved; it was a relief. "I will." He confirms. "Even if this doesn't work, I'll be here with you through it all. We'll make new memories if all else fails. I'll tell our stories to you."

"Tir, my star, I found them!" Odysseus yells, quickly swimming to the shore and grabbing the prophet's hand. Even without the sight of his shaking and drenched form, Tiresias can hear Odysseus' quick breaths.

It was hard for a mer to gather information that didn't travel among the sea foam, but a passing ship and a human on board had finally given him the answer he'd been searching for. At least, the one he had hoped would be it.

ooc: I know we have the other rp going on, but I couldn't wait to send this ask in hsbsjsms /silly

[ they jumped at the touch, grasping their love’s hand as an anchor to help ground them ]

“What—who—?—Love, please! You’re shaking; settle, then you can tell me everything.”

[olympianbutch]

How does hero worship work? Do you worship them just like you would any god? Why would you worship them specifically compared to the gods will they help you with certain specific things like fertility? Who is considered a hero? I know some people worship The minotaur but what about Medea? Is she considered a hero amd was she ever worshipped?

TBH, Anon, I have a very complicated relationship with hero worship, and I do not perform it.

I simply don't see the usefulness in incorporating hero worship into my practice because I am not in a position to do it properly; I have no ancestral ties to any particular heroes (hero worship was performed by the descendant group), and I am not in the vicinity of the bones of any dead heroes, which is a huge problem because the purported body parts of the special dead are exactly where they derive their powers.

There's also the fact that I really don't like the heroes. You will never, for the life of you, see me exalting Odysseus, Achilles, Patroklos, Agamemnon, or the like, in a religious way. I may have some favorite Greek mythological figures, like Tiresias or Perseus, but I would not worship them for the reasons I've explained.

(To be clear, I am not saying that people can't worship the heroes. These are simply my reasons for not doing so.)

[mask131]

The myth of Dionysos (1)

What’s better to complete this Christmas season, alongside some Arthuriana and some ghost stories, than some Greek mythology?

There is a great book in France that serves as a key research reference, and that is called the Dictionary of Literary Myths, composed under the direction of Pierre Brunel. Within this bookthere are several articles covering the complexity and evolution of the Greek gods, both within their own mythology and within European literature as a whole (with a strong focus on French literature, of course, being a French book). Given I do not know if the book was ever translated or not, I thought I’d share some of the text within it. And to begin, I will focus on one of the several articles dedicated to Dionysos – the god you English speakers known as “Dionysus” (even though the whole -us thing stays completely weird for me who grew up with all the Greek names ending in -os). This first article, written by Alain Moreau, is titled “The Antique Dionysos: The Elusive One”, and as the title says, it is a study of the figure of Dionysos within Antiquity.

I will offer here a vaguely-faithful translation of the text – and given it is a longarticle, I will break it down over several parts.

THE ANTIQUE DIONYSOS: THE ELUSIVE ONE

Of all the gods of Olympus, Dionysos is the one whose character is the hardest to define. Despite his many historical uses and the numerous interpretations of mythologists, we cannot fully understand the god. His origins, his childhood, his physical appearance, his behavior, his role in the city, his symbolism… It is all rich, all complex, all fleeting. Dionysos is the god of metamorphosis: the elusive one.

I) The origins: Old god, new god

The impossibility to confine Dionysos within a specific setting already manifests in the beginning of this investigation: the research of the god’s origins is puzzling. There is no doubt that Dionysos is a very ancient god. He was called “Dendrites”, “god of the tree” – and he was even depicted with branches growing out of his chest – which links him to the oldest deities of vegetation and fecundity, the ancient mother-goddesses. For example, the Greek Demeter: Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter says “Everything that huts Demeter also hurts Dionysos”, and Pindar names him “the consort of Demeter” in his Isthmics. Dionysos is also linked to Cybele, and though her to the Syrian goddess Kubaba – the Dionysos-Cybele link is made clear in Euripides’ Bacchants. There is also the Phrygian mother-goddess Zemelo, whose name sounds strangely like Dionysos’ mother’s, Semele. And all these deities were worshiped in Asia Minor, in Thrace, in Crete, and in the Aegean world. In Athens, very ancient festivals partially celebrate him; Anthesteria, Apaturia, Oschophoria… It explains why Tiresias, in the Bacchants, speaks of “traditions that come from our fathers, and whose age is as old as time itself”. All points out to the Dionysian cult having pre-Hellenic roots. During the Mycenaean era in the middle of the second millennium BCE, his presence was attested by two tablets found at Pylos written in linear B. The name of Dionysos is found in its genitive form: “diwonusoyo”. Bacchants gives us another clue about the ancient nature of the god: beyond the tragedy-of-impiety that is the death-punishment of Pentheus, one can sense a second level of comprehension, maybe hidden to the play’s creator, but that mythologists and ethnologists all perceived. That is to say, a ritual of human sacrifice – the tragedy takes its root in a primitive rite.

And yet, the historian Herodotus claims in his Histories that the name of Dionysos is the last one that the inhabitants of Greece learned when discovering their gods, while Pentheus and Tiresias in Bacchants both call Dionysos a “new god”. A new god, because he is foreign, supposedly coming from Thrace or Asia Minor. Ancient Greeks analyzed his name as coming from a fabulous land, whose exact location kept changing from person to person, but that was always outside of the Greek world: Caucasus, Ethiopia, India, Arabia, Egypt, Libya… Numerous myths tell of the strong difficulties that the cult of Dionysos had to face when implanting itself in Greece – especially in Boeotia, the land of Dionysos’ mother, Semele (who herself was the daughter of Cadmos, the founder of Thebes). Mythologists themselves were fooled and, up until a recent date, most of them believed that Dionysos was a latecomer to the pantheon, an imported god.

Where does this contradiction comes from? It is probably because of how unique the worship of Dionysos was: religious possession, orgiastic rituals, running races throughout the mountains… It always made him an eccentric, isolated god, a god of the people rather than a god of the aristocracy (he plays almost no role within the works of Homer), and as such a much less prestigious deity than the other Olympians. But Dionysos had his revenge: starting from the 8th century BCE onward, it seems that the god “woke up” and was brought back under the spotlight, thanks to women, who spread his cult. Various religious movements coming from Phrygia, Lydia, Thrace and the Greek islands also helped this renewal by revitalizing the old forms of the cult and accentuating its orgiastic aspect. The rise of Oriental cults in Athens at the end of the 5th century made everything go even faster. All these outside additions explain why the Greeks themselves felt that Dionysos was a foreigner and a “new” god. All in all, this look at the god’s origins accentuates one of his most fundamental characteristics: the impossibility to clearly define his personality.

II) A very complicated childhood: births and rebirths

The childhoods of Dionysos all bear the same strangeness. He is a god that is constantly born and that constantly dies, before escaping those that hunt him down, and finally imposing himself definitively. Let’s take a look.

1) Semele, beloved by Zeus, follows the wicked advice of the jealous Hera, and asks the king of the gods to appear before her in his full, shining glory. Zeus, who had made the solemn promise to grant any wish Semele would make, has no other choice but to obey. He appears to her wrapped and surrounded by thunder and lightning, and the poor Semele dies because of it. She was in her sixth month of pregnancy – and Zeus saved Dionysos from death, by ripping the fetus away from his mother’s belly, and placing it in his own thigh. There, Dionysos finished his growth during three more months, before finally being “born” out of Zeus’ leg. This is why one of the etymologies of “Dionysos” means “the god born twice”. In France, it also led to the common expression “se croire sorti de la cuisse du Jupiter” ; “to believe one’s got out of Jupiter’s thigh”.

2) The god Hermes, by order of Zeus, gives the child to king Athamas and queen Ino, rulers of Orchomenos. They raise the little Dionysos by forcing him to wear feminine clothes, in hope that Hera will not recognize him disguised as a girl. Unfortunately Zeus’ wife is not fooled, and she turns Dionysos’ foster parents insane. Zeus then transports his child towards Nysa, and entrusts him to the nymphs of the region. This time, it is said that he was turned into a kid (as in a baby goat). In the Homeric version of the story (found in Iliad, VI), Nysa is replaced by “the divine Nyseion”, a Thracian mountain where rules king Lycurgus. Lycurgus ended up hunting down the nurses of the child and wounding them – the terrified Dionysos jumped into the sea to flee the attack, and ended up protected by the goddess Thetis. [Note: Jeanmaire offered an alternative reading of the Homeric tale, proposing that maybe the Nyseion was actually the name of the "country of the Nysai", aka the land of the Nymphs, which would make it an Ancient Greece version of Elfland or Fairyland]

3) Finally, there is the Cretan legend of Dionysos-Zagreus. While the legend was only recorded by very late text, in truth it seems to be a very ancient story: the name Zagreus first appears in the 6th century BCE in the Alcmeonis, and then came back in the first half of the 5th century within Aeschylus’ Sisyphus the Runaway. In the Zagreus story, Dionysos is given a new group of nursing parents: the Kouretes. As they dance with their weapons around the child and do not pay attention, the Titans discreetly reach Dionysos-Zageus and lure him away using toys (a ball, a spinning top, a mirror, a fleece, jackstones, apples, a bullroarer…). Once they had him, the Titans killed him, dismembered him and cooked the pieces of his body within a cauldron before roasting them and eating them. Zeus struck the Titans with his lightning, but hopefully could resurrect the young god, using his still-beating heart that had been saved by Athena from the Titans’ gruesome feast.

Next time: The Shapeshifting God, and A Complex Personality

[fishcake-anon]

"ugh...this is going horrible..."

FISHCAKE ANON!

emoji representation : 🍥

Sexuality : "bi? I think?"

Pronouns : "any. I don't really care."

Age : "I'm 18, probably. why are you even asking??"

Species : "uh...human? my mother is part nymph, though. does that count as anything?"

INFORMATION ABOUT ANON UNDER THE CUT!

so. this anon started as a self-insert, and now has very minor lore. buckle up.

- a normal person

- like that's all there is

- 🍥 is just a normal person in the ancient greek times

- the reason they speak/act so modernly is because they got a cellphone (magical sources or something) and stumbled onto tumblr, including ask blogs accounts, from a very young age.

- 🍥 is more sympathetic than most of the people around them

- they love psychology and actually want to be a therapist (which is...difficult. in the times they live in.)

- they have SEVERE anxiety. like the worst anxiety to ever anxiety.

- they are a follower/worshipper to hermes, apollo, demeter, hestia, and hades. mostly hermes since that one has been the longest

- hasn't interacted with the gods outside of the ask blogs (and is terrified to do so.)

- has a more modern style of worshipping the gods due to the media influence

- grew up pretty normally. one mom, no siblings/dad. but not in an angst way, just a bit of daddy issues

- REALLY likes tiresias’ blog for some reason.

- is basically just one of us in greek mythology.

- THIS CHARACTER SHOULDNT BE TAKEN TOO SERIOUSLY !! it's just for fun!

now some stuff about me💪💪

hi, I'm kirbytuna! also known as kirby, kirb, tuna, or salt!

I am infact a MINOR‼️ I understand that the character is 17+ but please do not act inappropriately. do not dm me please, I will not answer.

ONLY GREEK MYTHO/EPIC THE MUSICAL BLOGS INTERACT !! i actually don't really care but it's just the preference and I ask that you respect it. I DONT MIND OCS/ANONS THOUGH‼️‼️

if you would like to be tagged, please let me know in comments ! (or be removed from tags)

ps: DONT GET TOO ATTACHED TO THIS ACCOUNT!! I also have severe anxiety and may delete it sometimes in the future.

@themessangergod @th3blind-prophet11 @phoebus-the-sun @tickle-anon-the-god

[paigetics]

He lifts one foot first, sliding the sandal away. Then the other. His thumbs press gently into the arch of her foot before he bows his head to press his lips to the inside of her ankle. Soft, slow, worshipful. Another, higher this time, his mouth trailing along the delicate curve of her calf, lingering where muscle gives way to softness.

Her breath stirs above him, uneven. He moves higher still, trailing his fingers up her calf underneath her dress, to the delicate skin behind her knee.

His other hand slips beneath her thigh, fingertips skimming over smooth skin until they find something—a slim scabbard, fastened with braided leather cords, the steel blade warm from resting against her body.

A weapon kept close. Just in case.

Odysseus loses his breath completely.

"Did you think I wouldn’t be prepared?" The question is teasing, almost coy—but there’s something in her tone that catches.

“You—" He swallows hard, slipping his fingers between the sheath and her thigh, heartbeat erratic as something dark and dizzying curls in his gut—heat, possessiveness, anger, and relief, all at once. That she'd felt the need to keep this on her, in her own home. That she might have had to use it. But also—the poised, lethal readiness of her—the quiet promise of ruthlessness. It makes his head spin. 

He tries again, his voice weak. “You always were clever. Always thinking ahead.”

Her hands find his hair, guiding him back up to look at her as she tells him, agonisingly tender, "I wanted it to be you who found it."

His grip spasms at her leg. He can’t speak.

Those first weeks on Ogygia, he sat by the shore every day, despair thick on his tongue, whispering quiet offerings for escape. But the years stretched long, and the gods were cruel, and his desperate bargains changed. No longer let me return—just let her be safe.

Because he had been warned. Blood in his home. Men who had long considered him dead and saw no reason to wait any longer. A murderer in his wife’s bed.

He wonders if the breeze sighing through the Asphodel Meadows carries Tiresias’ laughter.

Read More

[vulnerasti-cor-meum]

if I were to dress for Halloween (my fundie-lite mother, ofc, reared me to be wary of the devil-worshipping festival that is Halloween) I would love to tie a bloody bandage across my eyes and be an Oedipus or a Tiresias or a Hazel Motes figure. Very appealing the idea of a figure who only gains sight when he gouges out or acids out the eye of the body.

[wisdom-devotee]

31 DAYS OF HELPOL: Day Fourteen and Fifteen

Do you have any hobbies that fit into your deities’ domains?

I consider writing (poetry and narrative) to be under Athena’s domains of crafting and wisdom. Literature analysis too. And I suppose in part, using this blog to share knowledge about Hellenic Polytheism and have discussions about it definitely fits under Her. I don’t think any of my hobbies fit under any of my other deities, but divination is definitely a Tiresias thing for heroes.

How has your worship changed you?

It’s made me more motivated. Happier. Helped me connect to the world around me, people online, my family, and of course my Gods and Heroes. It’s made me learn things about myself like what I value, what interests me, what I need and what I’m looking for. It’s changed my outlook on life, people, history, and the world.

[thedansemacabres]

Hinthial, ais of the ghostly reflection

[ID: An image of a pond at dusk. The woodland shore is visible to the viewer, curving slightly to the left. Above the pond is a forest of trees, reflecting onto the pond. The water also reflects the dark sky with hues of pink.]

By Morgan, poetry by Nico

THE AISER OFTEN HAVE NAMES THAT DIRECTLY RELATE TO THEIR DIVINE PRESENCE, and Hinthial’s means ‘ghost’, ‘reflection’, and ‘mirrored image.’ Like many of the aiser, little evidence exists for her. While this post is short, Hinthial’s existence does implicate more on the ideas of Rasenna afterlife and perhaps a chthonian Turan.

Hinthial’s name tells us the most about her. In scenes with ghosts, spirits are addressed as “hinthial”, before their name such as the scene of hinthial Tereais or hinthial Patroclus. This tells us that ghosts, with hinthial also meaning ‘reflection’, are ghastly mirror images of the living in Rasenna cosmology.. Considering this, we can see Hinthial as a goddess of ghosts, but also of mirror reflections, mirror divination, and related to beauty through her divine reflections. 

THE ETRUSCAN MIRROR 

One of the very few direct attestations we have of hinthial is from a divine dressing scene. These scenes depict Turan being adorned by her circle/her handmaidens, as Turan represents the aristocratic lady in Rasenna society. 

Hinthial here is depicted as a finely dressed older woman holding a mirror. As such, we can understand the mirror—called malena or malestra—as her symbol, befitting for the ais of the ghostly reflection. 

Scenes of Turan often show her being attended to by her divine circle, many of which share aspects or relation to her—Zipna is associated with beauty, Thalna with childbirth which is a possibility of Turan’s blessing of pleasure, Mean with Turan’s association with peace, etc. Turan likely has a chthonic aspect like Venus, as a statue of her named the “Cannicella Venus” was discovered at an Rasenna necropolis. Fascinatingly, this kouros style statue was likely modified from a traditional male kouros into a feminine one, essentially undergoing gender reassignment. Hinthial being in her circle could possibly give more to the concept of a chthonic Turan.

MODERN WORSHIP 

As with most of the aiser, worship of hinthial will have to largely rely upon UPG and inferences we can make about her. Firstly, as a goddess of the mirror image, she can be venerated in connection to beauty and our reflections. Secondly, we can honour her as a goddess of ghosts. She guides the reflections of life we see when we interact with the undead—perhaps making her of interest to modern necromancy and death-focused practices as a unique beauty and death ais. To our current knowledge as of November 2023, there are no worshippers of her, and so the newest generation of Rasenna polytheists can become her first devotees in a millenia. 

Hymn to Hinthial by @poeticnorth

I call out to Hinthial

The ghostly queen within mirrors

She who is the reflection of the dead

And serves as Handmaiden to Turan

You are the shadow of the dying

The shade of the departed

You weave fate deftly

And reflect it from your realm

Matcher of lovers, patron of beauty

Who reveals flaws and strengths

From within the looking glass

Ghost of Tiresias, friend of the buried

O Hinthial, I sing to you now

wordpress link

References 

De Grummond, N. T., & Simon, E. (2009). The Religion of the Etruscans. University of Texas Press.

de Grummond, N. T. (1985). THE ETRUSCAN MIRROR. Source: Notes in the History of Art, 4(2/3), 26–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23202423

Bonfante, L. (1993). ETRUSCAN NUDITY. Source: Notes in the History of Art, 12(2), 47–55. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23202935

File:Bronze mirror from London with Zipna Malavisch Hinthial Munthuch Turan Drawing.jpg – Wikimedia Commons. (n.d.). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bronze_mirror_from_London_with_Zipna_Malavisch_Hinthial_Munthuch_Turan_Drawing.jpg

[milfthewmurdock]

poor tiresias rlly cant win. in the bacchae pentheus accuses him of only worshipping dionysus so he could make extra money on prophecies and sacrifices for him. in the OT oedipus accuses him of conspiring against him with creon and being a fake. and in the odyssey he's just straight up dead

[mybookof-you]

"There is not much philosophy in the Oedipus. There is not, in comparison with other Greek plays, much pure poetry. What there is, is drama; drama of amazing grandeur and power. In respect of plot no Greek play comes near it. It contains no doubt a few points of unsophisticated technique such as can be found in all ancient and nearly all modern drama; for instance, the supposition that Oedipus has never inquired into the death of his predecessor on the throne. But such flaws are external, not essential. On the whole, I can only say that the work of translation has made me feel even more strongly than before the extraordinary grip and reality of the dialogue, the deftness of the construction, and, except perhaps for a slight drop in the Creon scene, the unbroken crescendo of tragedy from the opening to the close...

As to Tiresias, I wish to ask forgiveness for an unintelligent criticism made twelve years ago in my Ancient Greek Literature, p. 240. I assumed then, what I fancy was a common assumption, that Tiresias was a "sympathetic" prophet, compact of wisdom and sanctity and all the qualities which beseem that calling; and I complained that he did not consistently act as such. I was quite wrong. Tiresias is not anything so insipid. He is a study of a real type, and a type which all the tragedians knew. The character of the professional seer or "man of God" has in the imagination of most ages fluctuated between two [Pg x]poles. At one extreme are sanctity and superhuman wisdom; at the other fraud and mental disease, self-worship aping humility and personal malignity in the guise of obedience to God. There is a touch of all these qualities, good and bad alike, in Tiresias. He seems to me a most life-like as well as a most dramatic figure."

h/t Mr. Welch, high school World Lit teacher

[greek-myth-hellenism]

I hate to be the “well, actually” person here, because I don’t think there’s anything wrong with personally viewing Zeus as a protector of childbirth (you could really pray to him for any kind of protection), BUT I do think we should be careful about sources.

The epithet, as far as I could find, comes from a single source: Pausanias’s Description of Greece. He’s now considered a reliable source, so there’s no reason to doubt him, but he is just one source describing a single instance of an epithet’s use and not widespread worship. Here’s what he has to say about it, as translated by W. H. S. Jones (the guy who proposed the fascinating theory that malaria was a primary cause of the collapse of classical empires, earning himself the nickname “Malaria Jones”):

"The city of Aliphera [in Arkadia has] . . . set up an altar of Zeus Lekheates (In child-bed), because here he gave birth to Athena. There is a stream they call Tritonis, adopting the story about the river Triton." Pausanias, Description of Greece 8. 26. 6

The only other references I could find from a simple internet search were these:

1) the Theoi.com reference @pomegranatehymns found, which claims to be from Pausanias but seems to be taken word for word from William Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology from the mid-1800s. It’s considered pretty accurate when it comes to things taken from primary sources, but Wikipedia notes that “…the context in which ancient evidence is viewed, analysed, reconciled, and understood has changed considerably in the intervening centuries,” (a statement that applies to any historical analysis written a long time ago).

All that to say that I have no idea if Smith is correct in the translation of “protector of,” or if Jones is more accurate with “in childbed.” Which sounds pedantic, but leads me to the other reference I found…

2) Nicole Loraux, a French historian who was known for her writings on gender in Ancient Greece, addresses male birth stories in The Experiences of Tiresias: The Feminine and the Greek Man.

Disclaimer: I haven’t read the whole book, which you can read here.

Loraux gets into philosophy of male figures absorbing the feminine. Zeus’s connection to childbirth is well known because he HIMSELF has given birth several times. Loraux’s argument is nuanced, long, and complicated, but suffice to say she thinks the idea of males giving birth is more about power than an appreciation of mothers.

Yeah, this sent me down a rabbit hole.

TL;DR There’s no evidence that childbirth was considered a domain of Zeus. Lekheates comes from a single reference to a single altar in the location where Zeus was said to have birthed Athena.

BUT anyone can pray to Zeus for any reason they want. It was, and is, common practice to pray to the gods for general protection and success. Many homes kept household altars to Zeus, and I’m sure people have prayed to him for guidance and protection in affairs of the home and family. Your prayers are your business:)

Zeus has a lot of epithets.

Most of them about power, law, storms, kingship. Things you’d expect from the king of the gods.

But Zeus-Lekheatês stops me in my tracks. It’s one of the most unexpectedly tender epithets he has.

The name Lekheatês comes from lekheion, which refers to the bed where a woman would give birth. So Zeus-Lekheatês is, in essence, Zeus as the god of childbirth. The god who protects women during labor. Which, if you really think about it, is wildly fascinating because it’s so unlike the usual way Zeus is framed.

Birth was dangerous in the ancient world. No epidurals, no modern medicine. Just blood, pain, and the gods’ mercy. A mother could die. The baby could die. It was a moment of pure vulnerability, teetering on the edge between life and death. And here’s Zeus, not just presiding over grand cosmic fates or battles or oaths, but over this. Over the most raw, intimate struggle of all. Over the act of bringing life into the world.

And the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Zeus is, above all else, the god of balance. The one who maintains order, who ensures the cosmos doesn’t spiral into chaos. And what is birth if not the ultimate balance between life and death? A single moment where fate could tip either way? Zeus doesn’t just decide who wins wars, he decides who lives, and that includes the smallest, most fragile of beginnings. It’s an aspect of him that feels strangely human, almost gentle. It’s not the Zeus of the thunderbolts or the one swearing unbreakable oaths on the Styx. It’s Zeus as a guardian. A protector.

And if that doesn’t change how you see him, even just a little, I don’t know what will.

[wisdom-devotee]

31 DAYS OF HELPOL: Day Five

How much have you bonded with your deities?

Ive bonded the most with Athena and Ares I think. I’m a devotee of Athena and Ares was the first deity who I felt called to, so the bonds I have with those two are really special I think.

I’ve also bonded a fair bit with Melinoë, as since there isn’t a lot of information on Her I’ve had to work a lot on making that bond personal.

I’m trying to bond more with Aphrodite and I’m working on offering some bigger stuff to Her, because I have quite a big ask and I want to make sure the offering is equal to it.

As for heroes, I’ve bonded with Odysseus the most I think, but Penelope isn’t far behind. I’d also consider myself really close to Helen.

With Tiresias, I haven’t bonded with her that much yet because it’s quite recent I’ve started worshipping him. Hopefully when I do this again next year I’ll have more to say on him!

[wisdom-devotee]

So I’m only devoted to Athena, but I also worship Ares, Aphrodite, and Melinoë, and I’m starting to worship Hera and Zeus. When I started out I only worshipped Nemesis and soon Philotes too. Then I also worship Odysseus, Penelope, Tiresias and Helen. So altogether that’s 8 actively, 10 if you count Hera and Zeus, and 12 if you count Nemesis and Philotes.

I guess I balance this by incorporating worship into daily tasks. When I walk to college I listen to a devotional playlist. I dedicate self-care (things as simple as showering) to Aphrodite. When I read a book, I dedicate that action to someone if any of the characters remind me of them. My study materials are offered to Athena. I offer parts of meals and snacks to them, when I remember.

I have specific days dedicated to some of them - every third of the month is dedicated to Athena because that’s Her birthday. Some deities have a corresponding day of the week, but weekly worship fees like a lot for me and I have too many deities to fit that anyways, so I make it a specific thing instead, like every first Tuesday of the month goes to Ares. Whenever the 13th falls on a Friday, that’s dedicated to Aphrodite.

Most of all, if I do struggle with balancing, I give myself a break. I forgive myself whenever I’m inconsistent. I don’t have to feel bad about this because I haven’t made any promises to the deities that I will be consistent.

Dear fellow Hellenic Polytheists,

Currently I am only devoting myself to one God (Lord Ares), just because I’m new to this and don’t want to overwhelm myself. I still pray to and interact with the other Gods, but only devote myself to one. I have been getting some callings from others, but until I feel like I can handle balancing the devotional acts of one God, I’ll wait to take on others.

It got me wondering though, how many Gods are the others in this community devoted to? How do you balance your time between them all?

I would love to hear about your experiences and the tips and tricks you all have, either in the comments or reblogs!

-Blessings!-