New Home

I have just moved Urban Hellenistos to http://urban.hellenistai.com/ and will be updating blog/feed networks shortly. Please update your links.

Quick Memo to the Pagan Community

Link to YouTube.com video for those who may need it.

Despite being a polytheist, I manage to keep a reasonably open scientific mind about the world around me. I don’t accept any “spooky” story at face-value, and I examine spiritual experiences critically and open-mindedly before concluding that it was spiritual and not something completely mundane or ordinary. That’s simply what open-mindedness is: The willingness to consider other possibilities or perspectives as well as new ones before forming one’s own conclusions. The video goes into far more detail.

Chat review and New Forum!

First things first:
The chat on March 31/April 1 went swimmingly. A handful of people showed up, and I was very pleased. Main topic of discussion turned out being the creation of a stronger face for the greater Hellenic community on-line, which brings me to topic #2:

I have created a new forum for Hellenistai! There are a small number of people already signed up and a few “starter threads” in a butt-load of topics. Come sign up and enjoy.

I’m also working on a “main site” to compliment the forum. This will concentrate pretty much just on media reviews for Hellenistai and with Hellenists in mind. I’m still working out the look and feel of that one, but I’m also more than willing to have other people writing articles for that site, as well. Feel free to contact me (rowan@sexyhobbitsuperstar.com) if you have ideas — I’m not going to expect individual media reviewers to submit more than one or two things a month, and I may be interested in other regular columns or articles. Again, I’m still in the brainstorming phase here, so feel free to contact me.

The Chat room should also be assumed “open 24-7″, but scheduled chats will be announced with a minimum 48-hour notice.

Hellenistai Chat

I have just created a chat room so that I and other Hellenists can converse with each-other as a group. I’m not thinking of regular scheduled chats for “Urban” topics just yet, but I think, at least for a while, I’m going to have topic chats on the 4th of the lunar month on Eros & Aphrodite cult (so, yes, this will be cross-posted to Of Thespiae).

If this is of interest to you, please feel free to spread the word to others.

Colours

So there was this post on the Neokoroi e-mail list asking people what colours they associate with the Theoi. Here’s my own list:

Zeus: Dark blue, “burnt” orange
Hera: Lilac, peacock blues and greens, iridescent purples
Athene: Grey, copper, certain shades of olive
Hephaestos: “gunmetal” greys, charcoal
Aphrodite: pale pink (like almond blossoms)
Adonis: bright blood reds
Eros: Bright purple
Hermes: kelly/emerald greens
Apollon: Ecru (kind of an off-white)
Artemis: reddish brown, silvery blues
Hyakintos: Purples, Blues, and Greens
Dionysos: Wine (a deep reddish purple), certain brownish greens
Hermaphroditos: Lavender, bright pink
Pan: Pine green, dark browns
Kybele: Orange, Magenta
Hekate: saffron yellows, warm reds
Nyx: Black, darkest blue
Hemara: bright sky blue, sunny yellow
Eos: the reds, oranges, purples, and pinks I’ve seen at dawn
Helios: Yellow
Selene: Silvery-grey, Silvery-blue, and the orange of the harvest moon
Demeter: the amber-gold with flecks of green of cornfields

Balance

One thing that has maintained my interest in the Hellenic religion, no matter how much some of my co-religionists may drive me nuts, is the Apollonian ideal of Moderation and Balance. In fact, this ideal seems to be held by some of the seemingly “saner” Pagan religions practised more widely in North Amerika than Hellenismos. I have to agree that, to the average Abrahamic religionist, Polytrheism may seem a little “unhinged”; I’ll agree that it’s not as common and so those who have it deeply ingrained in their thoughts and beliefs that Monotheism is “normal”, the belief in multiple Gods and Goddesses may seem “abnormal” and in this society “abnormal” often translates to being synonymous with “crazy”.

In my own personal practises, I balance out a lot of the “crazy” (not that I actually think anything I do makes me certifiable, in fact, my therapist even agrees that it doesn’t) with a lot of rationality. I examine my seemingly mystical experiences with logic, just to rule out perfectly rational explanations before jumping to the most fantastical and least probabl explanations, first. Most of the time, something can be explained with something utterly mundane, on rare occasion, it can’t.

Now, acceptance of the mundane does not necessitate disbelief in the fantastic; but the mundane and the fantastic do and should co-exist in balance with each-other. A friend of mine once explained the Apollonian / Dionysian paradigm as sort of a slightly more complex take on the Yin-Yang symbolism — a true Yin-Yang symbol contains a seed of the other within each half of the circle. Logic and Science may be within Apollon’s domain, but so are oracles and mysicism, something that has always been associated with those living outside the realms of “normalcy”. Ecstasy and “wildness” may be in Dionysos’ domains, but so is the ability to convincingly put on a mask, even for a short time, thus necessitating a need for some degree of control.

While Nietzsche painted Apollon and Dionysos in a sort of “yin and yang” fashion, he missed the part where balance is necessary for the two to be complete, and thus painted a picture not to two of the Theoi worshipped widely across ancient Hellas, but two 100% Black/White extremes. Nietzsche’s Apollon isn’t about “moderation in all things”, but about total control over oneself. His Dionysos is closer to the “Jimbo Morrison” in Oliver Stone’s highly fictionalised and exaggerated biopic, The Doors: a near-constant ecstatic, perpetually drunk, out of control. Ray Manzarek has since said that the fictional character based on Jim Morrison in the Stone film was very unlike the Jim he knew in real life — rather than the poet and philosopher he became friends with, the true Dionysos to Ray’s Apollon who, in Manzarek’s words, “[would] kiss and love through the connection made through [their] music”.

Though Dionysos is typically regarded as “rustic” to Apollon’s “urban”, Dionysos’s can be felt in the theatres of the cities, the nightclubs, the basement parties that nobody wants to admit were as planned out as they were. Likewise, Apollon does tend to venture out into the woods to commune with his Nymphai and cry out against the death of Hyakintos and other loves lost. It’s all done in perfect balance, perfect harmony. To let ecstasy overshadow reason or vice-versa is to invite total madness and spiritual impurity. Recognise when you need to reel in one for moderation and strive for the ability to recognise those moments.

Urban Hellenistai & Food Sacrifices

A question I see coming up frequently enough on Hellenic lists concerns food sacrifices. Many of the responses are impractical for urban dwellers, but some are actually very practical.

First off, let me state that in Hellenic practises, food sacrifices are a tradition that goes back to ancient worship. In ancient times, there were two kinds of food sacrifices: offering of a small portion or whole serving of food to non-Cthonic deities; and the offering of the whole of the servings to the Cthonic deities, sometimes with the adage “What the Underworld receives is [Theirs] — They Below receive all in full, because it is NOT our time and we are not ready to sup at Their table just yet.” Many food offerings were burned in the hearth of the home, or the hearth of the polis during large community fests and rituals, some weren’t. Some temples had designated areas for perishable (food) and non-perishable offerings, and sometimes when the perishables would stack up, they would be carted away to a separate area just outside the city — sort of a “landfil” to the Theoi.

Some urban homes still have working fireplaces, though those are less common, these days. If you live in a house or apartment that has a working fireplace, by all means, feel free to burn your offerings safely there. All that’s required is that you know how to operate your fireplace safely.

If you have a backyard, many urban-dwellers these days have a small designated “composting” area where food-waste is casually dumped and biodegredation is assisted with the help of red worms. This option is essentially keeping with the ancient temple practise, only on a smaller scale for your house. If you have a backyard and you know another Hellenist who does not, you can also feel free to invite them to use your “Divine composting heap” for food sacrifices; they can accumulate food offerings in a large snap-locking container (Rubbermaid or Tupperware are familiar brands) that they can keep in the fridge or under the sink. This will also help in aiding the development of an Hellenic community in your area, and community was very important in ancient practises, and is something that can be maintained today, with people who wish to cultivate it. Also keep in mind that, if you rent your house rather than own it, composting may be something restricted by your landlord, so be sure to read your lease or call them, first.

If you’re all alone, or neither you nor anyone else in your local Hellenic community can volunteer a backyard compost, another idea is to compost indoors. Some places sell composting containers for people in apartments or houses with small backyards, but anything conceivably large enough, like a 30lb bucket the previously held kitty-litter, can work. You’ll need both a container of appropriate sie, a few red composting worms, and (optionally to some, required to others) a base of potting soil. If you garden indoors or out, the resultant compost can be used for that — or if you don’t do that, this can get you started — after all, there is absolutely no shortage of plant-life sacred to the Theoi, and much of it can be grown indoors.

Other options I’ve seen from others include:

• Have a separate trash receptacle for food sacrifices. I don’t like this, but I can understand it’s practicality for one who doesn’t have the time, patience, or skills for indoor gardening.
• If you have a gas cooker, but no fireplace, burn your sacrifice under the broiler. I’ve done this on rare occasion. It can take forever, and if you’re not careful, it may set off your smoke-alarms. If you have non-Hellenic room-mates, be sure to make sure to use basic courtesies before burning a sacrifice under a communal broiler.
• Some suggest eating it oneself, citing references to Egyptian priests doing such. This may not be appropriate if you do not wish to incorporate Kemetic worship or practises into your own.
• Some state that they just leave the food sacrifices outside, bury it, or place it in trees. This may not be practical or even possible for many urban-dwellers. It may also be grounds for eviction in some apartment complexes.
• Some have even suggested placing a serving of a meal in a plain paper lunch sack and leaving it at a city crossroads for Hekate or some One else. Others have suggested giving the meal to a homeless person as an offering to her.

If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to comment with them.

Or if you have a funny story about leaving or otherwise making a food sacrifice to the Theoi, then by all means, let me know! I’m still fighting off this awful cold for another day, so maybe a laugh will help that out.

Praise to Hermes

So, my room-mate was driving me to an appointment in Detroit earlier when, due to the snow and slush on the roads, we ended up spinning out on I-94 whilst trying to make a turn. The car, a silver Saturn Ion, did a complete 180° turn and ended up with the passenger-side tires over the edge of the asphalt and the whole car facing the opposite direction of traffic.

First thing out of my mouth “well, that could have been a whole lot worse” and then I immediately light a cigarette.

Less than a minute passes and in that short amount of time, my room-mate, who I shall call Scott (cos that’s his name) for the sake of simplicity, and I assess the situation and decide that he, being in the range of six-and-a-half feet tall and built like a cross between The Undertaker of WWF fame and a farmhand (compared to my own diminutive 5′2″ and being built like Bilbo Baggins), shall push the car while I move over to the driver’s seat, put the car in Neutral, and steer it back onto the road. After this minute-range of time passes, a car of two people, a young man and his lady friend, pull over to see what they can do to help. Another minute, at most, passes, and another car, this time a largeish SUV containing another young man, this one with a chain and a towing hook, stops to help out.

I then toss a couple of coins pulled out indiscriminately from my change purse, and toss then into the snow, under the car, as a minor offering to Hermes as thanks for this help, and then whisper a short prayer of praise, as I steer the car being towed out. Thankfully, there is nobody oncoming by the time we get out, so we’re able to turn the car back around the proper way, and make our way back onto the surface streets — where it’s discovered that we only made it as far as Romulus, Michigan, before I call my surgeon’s office to reschedule. (Thankfully, his receptionist was very nice about it and even asked to make sure that we were OK.)

And now, if nobody minds, I’m off to go burn some incense.

Kala Noumenia!

Blog Mission for 2009

I just read Blog Mission and Goals in the New Year on KALLISTI: An Apple in Pandemonium (probably my favourite Hellenismos blog, yes, even preferred over my own; add it to your blogroll if you haven’t, already) and figured that, in the midst of various New Year’s Resolutions for myself, it would be a good idea to make a similar post for this blog.

While I share many of Annyikha’s sentiments (especially the underlined portion of her post), my goal and mission for Urban Hellenistos is to be as unique a voice for Hellenismos as practical. I don’t want UH to basically regurgitate the sake dissections and commentaries of other Hellenismos and Hellenismos-related blogs. Blogs such as KALLISTI, Ramblings of a Mad Sannion [from a Graeco-Egyptian blogger], and others listed in my sidebar already provide content that I enjoy reading, so unless I have something wholly different to say about an item, I will trust my readers to go read other blogs and assume that I generally agree with what’s already been said perfectly well by somebody else in the English-language Hellenic blogosphere.

While UH (and Of Thespiae) is predominantly anecdotal and based on my personal practises and beliefs, I aim to maintain my focus on cities, urban life, and topics related to urban people and urban-focused paganism. One goal I hope to meet this year is to finally get around to reviews and critiques of a few books on my “Things to Read” list, and relate how their content applies to Hellenismos or at least could be applied to Hellenismos by people living in modern cities — after all, current census counts seem to be stating that more people (by ratio) are living in cities now than ever before, making the current (albeit, still currently small) attention paid to the topic of urban-based spirituality seem long-overdue. Who better to sing the praises of urban Hellenic spirituality than somebody who actually enjoys prefers living in cities? (Unlike certain authors of books on “urban paganism” who outright prefer rural living.) I will welcome attempts of those who feel they can do better than I can when speaking of urban-based spirituality; though I shall leave it up to the readers of this and other sources to determine who puts urban-based (and urban-biased) spirituality best; I have no interest in a “pagan blogger pissing contest”, but I do feel that, at this time, I can do the urban population of the Hellenismos community some degree of justice by saying what I can, in the best way that I can.

To meet this goal, I intend to at least touch on certain topics related to urban spirituality:

• utilising the benefits of living in cities to best serve Hellenistai
• make the hindrances of urban living work in favour of Hellenistai
• further discuss the urban aspects of the Theoi, Daimones and Heroes of the Hellenic pantheon
• stress the historical importance of urban life in ancient Hellas and making comparisons and contrasts with modern Hellenic practise

Nothing too lofty, you see, but goals I feel that, if and when made, can prove to be of further benefit to the Hellenismos community. After all, among the few things I have had a life-long love-affair with, I think that bringing together both urban living and the Hellenic religion is something that definitely seems to be working for me so far (and in the event that I may be proved wrong, may the Theoi give me the strength to acknowledge that I’ve been bested by another).

Messenger Bag

I was actually inspired to make this post after reading this post from the LJ community Pimp My Altar. My messenger bag began life as, well, and ordinary messenger/Israeli paratrooper bag that I purchased at Harry’s Army Surplus before their Ann Arbor location went out-of-business (due largely to gentrification and the sudden raise in rent for businesses on that block):

Mine was purchased for under $10 on a 50% off clearance, and I also got a fishtail parka for just under $20, on a 75% off clearance, and an extra-tall “walking stick”-sized umbrella for about $10 even (the latter is no longer a usable umbrella, due in part to Chicago winds, and in part to living with three cats).

This is how mine looks today:

It wasn’t a huge task to transform the paratrooper symbol into a Caduceus, which has been historically used as a printer’s mark. Regardless, as a symbol of Hermes, it seems an entirely appropriate thing to paint onto a bag that I primarily use for carrying notebooks, my agenda, important papers, my chequebook (which has the simpler Caduceus [sans wings] painted on the front), and a few other things that I’m in the habit of carrying with me, including my lyrics book, sheet music, drawing pencils and sketch diary, mp3 player or Walkman, personal phone book, cigarette tin and lighter, and gum. It reminds me of one of my favourite quotes from Derek Jarman’s film Caravaggio: “It was through an act of theft that Mercury created the Arts.” I recall that quote not because of theft (though I am frequently reminded of how the push for gentrification has essentially robbed this poor town of its culture before it could truly come into its own, and how the closing of Harry’s and several other down-town stores really solidified Ann Arbor’s gentrification in my mind), but because of Hermes’ long-held associations with the Arts and how I carry in this bag my simplest means of creativity.

All the pin-back buttons on the bag (with the exception of “The Amino Acids – Warning: Tangy Reverb” one) are also one’s that I’ve created. I had a few more on there before I took these two photos just now, but they either fell off or were removed by me at some time or another. [Well, except for a Dionysos button that I'm pretty sure some kid on the Amtrak stole while I was in the on-train restroom; it's one of those things that I just know, even though I couldn't prove it. Of course, I didn't even notice it was gone until I had already reached Chicago. There was just something about the way that kid kept looking at the button when he and his mother boarded the bus, kept looking at me after I came back from the restroom, and the fact that his mother was dead-asleep before and after I went to the restroom.]

Here’s a close-up (albeit, a dark one) of the buttons. I took it without flash to eliminate glare that would have made them unviewable:

left-to-right are: Top – Satyr & Nymphe (from a Roman mosaic), Narkissos (19thC CE illustration)
Bottom – Apollon & Muse, Hyakinthos & Zephyros, Apollon & laurel branch
(gone missing or out-of-commission: Dionysos, Hermes, Adonis, Eros, Caravaggio’s Narcissus, Hermaphroditos, Neokoroi flame, Hellenion flame)