Human-Divine Marriages: What’s That All About?

It’s been quite a while since I have written here…and I should qualify that by saying “have been able to write here,” as my time has been taken up by a variety of activities that are both positive, negative, and necessities in order to deal with some of the nonsense on the negative side that has also been occurring. It’s a long and complicated, and needless to say annoying, story, but let me leave it at that for the moment.

The topic of human/divine marriages, Deity Marriages, God-Spouses, and whatever other terms one may use to describe these types of relationships, is an interesting one, but also a fraught one, and it is or has been fraught for people including myself in the past, and to the present. However, as is so often the case with these kinds of things where Deities are concerned, my own doubts and reservations on the matter have almost ended up functioning like a “dare” to the Deities to challenge, push, and prod me until I come to an understanding of the matter that is not merely intellectual, but experiential…whatever I wasn’t sure about, and sometimes haven’t even been sure if it can truly exist, ends up being something that I become in time. As someone who once strongly identified as a neo-agnostic, the “I won’t believe it until I see/hear/feel it” streak is pretty strong in me, even now when I operate primarily from a non-creedal viewpoint in my religious engagements. But, that’s also the beauty of such non-creedal engagements: belief isn’t necessary, but good practice is, and genuine experience is, and in the latter case, one does not transition from non-belief to belief, but instead from lack of experience to having particular experiences.

I cannot claim to be an expert at this topic, I can only share what I have experienced personally. I am not sure if this general topic is one that is generalizable to others to any great extent, other than that we use similar terms to broadly label or categorize these types of relationship. But, the characteristics and particularities of each such relationship–like the Deities Themselves and the many ways to approach and be devoted to Them–are superlatively varied. So, what can I say in regards to my own experiences on these matters?

I have been in a relationship, characterized from moments after I realized it was occurring/had occurred as a “divine marriage,” with the Hellenic Goddess Thetis since May 30th of 2020. I have alluded to this here, and have outright stated it here, though few seem to have noticed; I have discussed it with a number of people more directly on several occasions as well.

I am in the midst of a series of rituals that will solidify this divine marriage, and the fifth of the six such rituals took place this past Sunday, August 15th; the final one will take place on Sunday, October 10th. The dates of each of these rituals will remain important holy days in my own personal calendar for the foreseeable future, and some of them may also be things that are reckoned more widely in years to come, especially if what results from them becomes more well-known and widespread than only with myself and those closest to me.

We often say in religious studies (and elsewhere!) that most religions begin with the individual experiences of particular people, and the same can certainly be said about many polytheistic cultus, it’s just that generally we don’t know the details of these things. Major Roman festivals for particular Deities were often on the dates that Their temples were founded, and it was individual humans who did so, often as a result of fulfilling a particular vow to the Deity-in-question…but unfortunately, that’s about as close as we can get to these things in most cases of polytheist antiquity in the Mediterranean worlds. (Aretalogies are a little more direct, but they don’t often give dates in most cases, and tend to not be identified with particular individuals either, sadly!) As I began the observances on Sunday, I commented on this with those present, and for the first time that day, there were more people present than myself and one other person (the same person for the second through fourth rituals, who was also there for the fifth; the first ritual also had one other person besides myself present, but she has not been available since then because she now has a child of her own…on which more in a moment!). We do not have records on how certain sorts of ritual took place, even though such rituals undoubtedly did take place, and that is a great shame, and thus many of us modern polytheists find ourselves in the position of having to reinvent the wheel without knowing at all how the wheel-in-question was invented in the first place…we may know something about geometry, to stretch this metaphor to its breaking point, but we don’t even know if we’re using materials suitable to making a wheel at all or if we have any of the right tools to shape such a thing, and yet if it rolls by the time we’re done and can be attached to a vehicle to help it move, then we must call it a success, no matter how much others may object to how it was made in this innovative fashion!

Others have addressed this matter before myself, but I must echo it here: when we think of “marriage,” we think of things that are pretty thoroughly modern, and in many cases post-Christian, when that term is used. In some societies, both traditionally and in the past, and down to the present, “marriage” has little to do with romantic relationships, love, or anything like what our popular Western culture associates with it, though they can have something and in fact everything to do with reproduction and thus sexuality to various extents. Getting into that mindset is something that may be nearly impossible for even some of the most culturally-adjusted-in-appropriate-manners polytheists of the modern period. Certainly, I am far more devoted to Thetis now than I have been in the past, and I would say there is a certain amount of what could be considered “love” in the relationship, at least on my part, and more in the meanings of that term that are platonic and even familial rather than “romantic” and what most people associate with the term when relationships and marriage are concerned these days. But, the entire reason that I think Thetis decided–very much against Her own customs and stated preferences–to give this a try with me is because She had specific designs on what would result. She needed someone to assist in an earthly fashion with what Her own particular designs were, and I am somewhat eminently qualified for the needs She had, since I already have experience with helping to give birth to new Deities successfully in the modern world with the Tetrad++. Thus, in classical understandings of marriage, producing children was essentially the prime matter in question, and that is a large part of what has gone on with Thetis and myself.

So, the ritual on Sunday, August 15th, was one in which the birth of our son, Echidnos, occurred officially (his conception date of November 15th is also to be marked in the future). Not unlike his older brother Achilleus, he will have an interesting fate, which will be revealed more widely on or around October 10th (I already know what it is after post-ritual divinations which divulged it quite unexpectedly!). While I have some images and symbols of him that I am to use in the shrine I am putting together for him, Thetis, Achilleus, Euphorion (Whose current shrines will be transferred to this new one), a future child of Thetis with another parent, and the six children of Thetis and Peleus that did not survive Thetis’ attempts to immortalize them, there are two others on the way, which are based on the following image that will be 3D printed in various ways.

It was fairly soon revealed after our initial relationship began last year that these particular ends were what She had in mind, and some interesting things resulted from it that began to reveal the emerging themes of the myths that would surround these figures. When particular ritual requirements needed to be met in our first ritual in mid-July of last year, the friend who helped me do this soon after became pregnant, which was highly unexpected for both of us, and just gave birth to her child in early May not long after my good friend Mick died. Birth and death are themes that are occurring together with increasing rapidity, and will continue to do so with what is to follow regarding Echidnos, I assure you!

This has been a humbling experience in so many ways, not only because it is a great honor to be a part of something like this, but also because in so many ways “it’s not about me,” it’s about what I am and have been able to do for and with other Deities, and which Thetis wanted to do as well once again…and not because I’m anything special in terms of looks, or other qualities, or virtues of any sort, but simply because of what my track record is of previous divine service and functioning, I was best equipped for the task at hand. It’s not about me in any intrinsic or identity-based or qualitative way, it’s about what I could do. I remember my first girlfriend berating me (incorrectly!), saying that I don’t love her, I only like what she could do for me, and as she was also one of the first other pagans I met and was taking it upon herself to teach me the ways of non-Christian spirituality, it is interesting that she didn’t realize that this functionalism–no matter how foreign it might seem to our culture–is actually much more honest and authentic to what occurred in the past, for good or ill. (And we can accept the parts of it that are bad in the past without recapitulating them, I think…though I must also clarify and qualify that in the relationship with my first girlfriend to which I’m making reference, I did love her for herself, and it was eventually what she did to me which made me break up with her…but that’s an unpleasant topic, so let’s leave it off there, eh?)

In fairness, though, this has probably been in the works for around thirty years. Antinous and Thetis first occurred in my life at almost the exact same moment, during a Joseph Campbell lecture I was watching, though I didn’t know what I was looking at in Antinous’ case until almost a decade later. I quipped to my friends on Sunday, “Thanks to Antinous, Who introduced me to Thetis, and to Thetis, Who introduced me to Antinous,” and that feels about right!

Let me also mention at this stage that the ways in which Thetis is treated in the extant ancient literature, and in scholarship about it, is highly varied. There are some who think She is little more than a Nymph Who got elevated to the status of a Goddess (with the evidence of the folkloric elements of the story of Her wooing by Peleus as why this is the case), but there is also evidence to indicate that She was not simply a Goddess, but was one of the Primordial Deities, the Protogenoi, and was the Creatrix of the cosmos in some places, including in Sparta based on a highly fragmentary poem that exists only in tiny excerpts in a severely fractured initial section of a commentary on said poem that was found at Oxyrhynchus. Though I know that these natures are both a part of Her, the Nymph matter is a relevant one to mention here because that is one area for which we most certainly have ancient precedent in the “nympholepts” who went to live in caves as the husbands of Nymphs in the Greek sphere. Thus, in that regard, there is a record of this, and Thetis is One Who would qualify as potentially someone with Whom to engage in such a relationship!

So, this divine marriage is one part of the many ways in which I have a devotion to a variety of Deities, and is one part of my overall role in relation to Them as both a polytheist, a metagender person, and so much else, including what I have come to understand as my larger place and purpose in this current life, for which I am both grateful and often feel that I am not fulfilling as well as I could. It is hard to know what this is supposed to “look like” when concrete examples are lacking from history, and we do not have elders and very many other community members who are doing these same sorts of things. But, we stumble on, hoping that as these things unfold, we learn how best to do them in the midst of doing them. Divination not only helps, it’s been utterly essential in determining so much of this and if what I am doing is actually on-track or is simply something that “sounds cool” rather than actually being what any given Deity wants to occur in the circumstances given.

Let me end with a triad, then, and say that Divination, Discernment, and Discipline are the Three Things Required of Those Who Wish to Be in a Divine Marriage…and in any devotional relationship, most likely! In this and so many other respects, those of us who do have these type of devotional arrangements with our Deities should remember that we are not any better (or worse!) or more special (or less!) than anyone else, and that all sorts of devotional relationship are good and important to have and to maintain for those who do them, and I would argue more widely. It is this which sustains the cosmos, in my view…so never let that thought leave your minds when you wonder if what you’re doing, without the benefit of human guidance or community support or wider recognition, is “worth it”!

Two New Sancti…

I had hoped to get this post out long before now…perhasps in January, and then the entirety of February seemed to evaporate before my eyes…?!?

We are on the eve of two Tetrad++-specific holy days: the Birth of Panpsyche, Panhyle, and Paneros tomorrow on March the 2nd, and then the Marriage of Paneros and Paneris on March 3rd. Not long after that, the Trophimoi and the Family of Herodes Attikos have their festivals for a week, from March 5th to March 11th.

However, in the meantime, two people have been confirmed via divination to be worthy of adding to the Sancta/e/i of Antinous. While there is no longer an “official” list of these being maintained in the present context, nonetheless many of you may wish to know about these two individuals: one is very specific to Antinous and Hadrian and our modern knowledge of Them, and the other is a spiritual figure that has been profoundly influential for the last fifty years and more.

To start with the one who died first of these two, let us discuss Ram Dass, who was born under the name of Richard Alpert. He was born on April 6, 1931 and died on December 22, 2019. He taught psychology at Harvard when he became involved in the psychedelic experiments of Timothy Leary, and then he went to India and became a devotee of the guru Neem Karoli Baba. Upon returning to the U.S. and gathering a group of people interested in this guru and writing a number of books, he traveled with many of them back to India. Among these was Krishna Das, who has been especially influential in my own life in various ways, and was my introduction to Hanuman, a Deity with Whom I have great respect and devotion, and who Himself teaches all there is to know about devotion. Neem Karoli Baba was a devotee of Hanuman as well, and some even consider him an incarnation of Hanuman. Through Ram Dass’ many writings, including such books as Be Here Now and others, the traditions related to Hanuman have been transmitted to millions worldwide. In addition to his importance for spirituality in many arenas, as well as his contributions to the counterculture of the 1960s and afterwards, Ram Dass also appears in the book Gay Soul, though I would suggest that he is technically what would be called a “historical bisexual” more than, strictly speaking, being gay, as he was married and had children at one stage. In his own practices and those of the people in his circle, love is to be understood as something that extends to all people and all beings, so in a certain sense one might even say he is pansexual to a degree! No matter how you might decide to parse his life or label his affections, however, his influence and importance are undeniable, and thus he qualifies on several different categories for inclusion in the Sancta/e/i of Antinous. (Not to mention, as I noted earlier, divination confirmed he should be included amongst them!) For more information on Ram Dass, see the biography provided on his group, the Love Serve Remember Foundation’s website (from which the above image comes).

Antony Birley, image via the Vindolanda Trust

The second is Anthony Birley, who was a scholar of ancient history and did a lot of work on Roman Britain, Hadrian’s Wall, and Hadrian himself. Most importantly for our purposes, and my introduction to him (before I found his works on Roman Britain) was the book he did in the imperial biography series, Hadrian the Restless Emperor, which has been profoundly useful for my own research into Antinous–almost even more so than Royston Lambert’s Beloved and God: The Story of Hadrian and Antinous in certain ways (mainly to do with how thorough and accurate Birley’s notes are, which is not always true of Lambert, sadly). In that same imperial biographies series, Birley also wrote the volumes on Marcus Aurelius and Septimius Severus, which are also excellent and I recommend them to anyone interested in those particular figures. Birley was born on October 8, 1937, and died on December 19, 2020. There is an excellent profile of him at Following Hadrian, with links to some of his appearances in documentaries, which I suggest you all have a look at to see photos of him, amongst other things. My own engagement with the ancient cultus of Antinous and learning about it from many perspectives would be far less rich and detailed were it not for Birley’s excellent book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the fuller history of Hadrian and his times as well.

So, only a brief note for the moment, and with any luck, more will follow at several other points this month…it’s a full month of holy days, with days for Cú Chulainn, Pancrates, Diva Sabina Augusta, and others along the way as well!

Some Visual Fun!

In my post yesterday, I mentioned that I have been using HeroForge for various purposes, both devotional and recreational. I plan to use its tools for further devotional purposes in the future, but I thought I’d share the most recent physical usage of it I’ve employed thus far.

One divine being, which I usually classify as a Sanctus, whom I have been developing a closer relationship with over the last 8 years is Pancrates or Pachrates of Heliopolis, the Egyptian priet/poet/magician who gave a spell in the PGM corpus to Hadrian, and to whom a poem on Hadrian and Antinous’ Lion Hunt is attributed by various sources. Though I disagree with many on the exact nature of his potential role in the deification of Antinous, I think it highly likely if not utterly certain that he was involved in that process. He also seems to be the basis for Lukian of Samosata’s character of Pancrates in the Philopseudes, and in that role he is the first to play the “Sorcerer” in the folktale version of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” that is most familiar these days in various Disney iterations, and of which Lukian’s version is the first and earliest literary attestation of the folktale.

I was requested in 2012 to make a votive stele to Pachrates/Pancrates, and was able to do that in a modified form this year through an approved replica of an Egyptian stele, which then had Pachrates’ name in hieroglyphs written on papyrus appended to it and it was consecrated in his name. To complete the picture, though, I was asked to get an image that is specifically created to be him and only him to place in my Shrine, and for that purposes I used a HeroForge figure that I designed. Here is the result of that!

So, as you can see, depending on what one is looking for, HeroForge can produce quite nice results!

From Whence Does Morality in Polytheism Derive?

After this, I have one more question on-deck, as it were, and then I’m out once again…so, for those of you who are wondering about anything, or who would like to ask some more common question that you’d be interested in hearing my views on, or that I haven’t yet tackled, please feel free to do so via e-mail or the contact form on this website, or via comments on any of the posts here.

This particular question got asked a little while back, and in the rush of the late December holidays, I never circled back to it.  It’s a question that far too many people outside of polytheism wonder about, and that tells us more about their own religious orientations than it points toward any deficiencies in polytheist thought or culture.  I had an Episcopalian woman priest friend twenty-odd years ago, who said of my polytheism at the time, “Of course that appeals to you:  it has no ethics or moral requirements.”  I think that is a pretty unfair statement to make, especially when she simply said that without knowing what my own views were or inquiring further about them, but that’s neither here nor there.

Thus, perhaps I should begin to form an answer to this question by pointing out something in relation to it and other more “common” notions of religion.

I’ve dealt before in passing with matters of viewing “religion” as merely “misinformed science,” and all of the perils in thinking that its only purpose is to explain things that are mysterious, and thus now that we have science religion (ALL religions) are therefore outdated and as a result useless, pointless, and should be abandoned.  That is a pernicious and poorly-wrought set of arguments, and yet it is the dominant paradigm of many modern atheists, who are the same people that rail against the fact that some people within some religions (who I would argue are as equally misguided in their notions of what religion is and does) insist on ignoring science and instead insist that their own myths and religious narratives must be “the truth” on a variety of subjects due to notions of, for example, “biblical inerrancy/infallibility.”  Whenever anyone tries to mix religion and its aims and claims with science and its aims and claims, there is going to be a problem, and thus whenever anyone suggests that “quantum physics agrees with my religion in…” or anything of the sort, they’re falling into error.  This is the same sort of error as anyone who says that one medium of art is “wrong” in comparison to another, especially when the two media deal with the same story–saying that “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” portion of Disney’s Fantasia invalidates Lukian of Samosata’s literary version because it builds on the musical version of Dukas, which itself was based on Goethe’s version of the story in his poetry, because Goethe is a better and more modern poet than Lukian was, is just as stupid and baseless as trying to argue that any religion’s myths are better than science, or that science is better than any religion’s myths.  They’re doing different things and are intended for different purposes.

The idea that the only other valid purpose of “religion” is to be a “school of ethics” is likewise entirely flawed, and is essentially a Protestant Christian notion.  Once all of the ritual, the mystery, and the elements that are in some sense continuations of Mystery Initiations and such of earlier polytheist religions in Catholicism were stripped away by Protestant reformers, what was left?  They didn’t want to take on board many of the traditions of Catholicism that were non-biblical in basis, nor did they accept many of the theological ideas of Catholicism, and so the only things left were really the ideas that:  1) the biblical narratives were history and science; and 2) they were valuable for the moral teachings they enshrine.  The moral teachings of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, when not stated outright as “commandments” and such, are highly questionable, as the vast cast of characters (including many we’d consider to be “good guys”!) get up to all sorts of things that mainstream Christian morality today would find reprehensible.  In the Catholic Church, readings of the Hebrew Bible and the non-Gospel parts of the New Testament are followed by the phrase “This is the Word of the Lord,” to which everyone responds “Thanks be to God.”  In a Presbyterian church service I once attended, instead of this call-and-response ending, the reading was concluded with the phrase “Here endeth the lesson.”  Uhh…!?!  The feeling one gets in such things is that the sole purpose of attending a church service is essentially supplementary education of a primarily moral sort.

While I hate to quote one authority from another religion that is not polytheism to support my position, nonetheless I’ll do so here.  Catholic political theologian Johann-Baptist Metz said, in his foundational works on political theology, that the Church is not simply “an ethical school,” but instead is a place “for the fostering of eschatological hope.”  While I would not quite say the same for polytheism, I’d agree that its primary aim is not to teach ethics, to instill morals, or to dictate what values one should have.

I do, however, think that if one contemplates these things, one gets a sense of morals, ethics, and values (and I think all of these are different from one another in particular ways!) from what one does learn, and more importantly, what one does, within a polytheistic context.

As a praxis-based religious system, polytheistic religions are inherently–one might say–religions concerned with conduct:  ritual and devotional conduct first and foremost (e.g. there are some ways that are acceptable to, for example, pray in certain contexts, but others that are not, depending on the Deities involves, the occasions, the formality or informality of the observances, the relationships the human devotees have with these Deities, and so forth), and then there is a knock-on effect to how one interacts with other humans and with the wider world as well which flows from these.  Hospitality tends to be important for Deities:  if a Deity shows up, it is good to investigate why They might have come, how long They plan to stay, and so forth, and to do so in a good and courteous fashion rather than with hostility or a sense of being inconvenienced by Their presence.  This then is also reflected in how we deal with most humans–co-religionists especially, but also the wider world, I think.  Reciprocity is also important in human-Deity relationships, with kharis/do ut des and so forth being in operation.  Likewise, when we deal with other people, we have these reciprocities in mind–it isn’t as if we are mentally totting up each time we do a favor for a friend, but we do things for one another and in the relationships we want to nurture and which we would like to endure that are consonant with how much we value them.  A friend who only takes and never gives in any way is often not looked well upon, but likewise if someone else is a constant provider of help and support and one does not feel able to reciprocate, perhaps it indicates that the nature of the relationship is something other than friendship strictly speaking…and that is no bad thing!

The fact that one must be able to make these sorts of distinctions, that one must sharpen one’s skills in discernment, and that one must be very aware of context in all things as a polytheist translates into these same things being valued in our everyday relationships with other people and with the environment in which we exist.  That we as polytheists also tend to highly value diversity and are inherently pluralistic also means that we tend to value these qualities in other people, not only in our circle of friends but also in the wider world generally, up to and including having ideological adversaries with whom we may disagree but whom we do not seek to change in any way other than developing an understanding and respect for one another despite disagreements.

And that, I think, is the most basic and important of polytheist values, ethics, and morals upon which the majority of our practices are built:  respect.  The verb itself comes from Latin, and in a sense one can easily etymologize it in English as “to look again,” namely, to not simply take what things are on the surface, to delve deeper, and to try and understand why other things, people, and relationships are what they are, and then develop ways to not just see them, but to interact in and with them in ways that do justice and cultivate good relationships with all involved.  Sometimes respect means simply leaving something to itself:  I respect a tornado, a poisonous snake, and a raging rhinoceros best by not getting in its way, lest I put myself in a position that the thing involved then might have to disrespect me by hurting me.  Likewise with some humans:  from my perspective, they are best left to themselves, and I am best served by not becoming involved with them, for whatever reason might be in operation in a given situation.  That respect is also part of what I have for myself, in the sense that if I do truly respect myself, I will not put myself in situations in which I am going to be hurt, taken advantage of, or in other ways offended or troubled willingly if I have other options, up to and including leaving the situation or person, changing what is going on by my own actions, or choosing to suffer through whatever mishaps may occur in order to achieve something that might be worth such a sacrifice of my self-respect.

Granted, very little to none of this gets spelled out explicitly in most cases where polytheism is concerned; experience causes one to realize these things, and to infer them from the expected and effective conduct in which one participates or which one observes in others who are one’s teachers, mentors, esteemed colleagues, and elders.  Ours are not religions where all of these things are laid out for everyone in writing to be accessed at all times and that are valid for all eternity, unlike what such ethical maxims and so forth are in other religious contexts.  (It’s not that these sorts of things don’t exist in polytheistic religions–they can and they do!–but rarely are these expected to be binding for all people and at all times.)  Like so much in polytheism, the homework is work that one must do oneself in the privacy and safety of one’s own home, so to speak, meaning in one’s direct relationships with the Deities with and to Whom one is closest.  It is not something that is ready-made when one comes into it in most cases (outside of certain established practices–and if and when these are in operation, they should be followed and respected, especially if one wishes to think of oneself as being within said tradition!), and takes work, even when one does come into a situation in which such things are fairly well delineated.

Contrary, then, to what my Episcopal woman priest friend said:  no, it isn’t that our polytheistic traditions lack ethics, it’s that they are not in textual form that is expected to be forever enduring and entirely binding on all humans.  The lack of universalizing in polytheism, I think, is a feature and not a bug, so to speak. and it only might appear so from the viewpoint of other religions where such textual edifices exist and are thought to be binding on everyone.  As those sorts of religions are creedal in their basis, and thus one must also “believe in” their ethical messages and the texts which support them, so too does the experiential and practical nature of polytheism likewise suggest that ethics will arise from practice and experience–both the experience of one’s practice and the practices which lead one to have further experiences–and thus will be based on these factors primarily, rather than on some external authority placed in text, tradition, or some figure whose teachings are considered infallible in this regard.

A (Friendly!) Winter Holidays Devotional Challenge/Contest…!?!

Being that we’re in the midst of Saturnalia at the moment, and amongst the many functions and meanings of this festival is that it is a cathartic “festival of reversal,” for just this post I’m going to change things up slightly, with potential implications for a future post falling outside of Saturnalia that will follow-up on what is mentioned here in a particular manner.

Without further ado, let me get to it.

Yesterday, my planned multi-part and multi-tradition/pan-polytheist Winter Solstice ritual did not occur, mainly due to lack of participation (i.e. none of the people I invited were able to come), so I was on my own.  When the last of the expected attendees dropped out, I was in the thick of writing one last potential piece to use for the ritual; I finished writing it, and used it in my ritual later, and I actually think it got into the proper spirit of the subject far better than I had expected, for a variety of reasons…

Some of you may remember back to, lo, those days of yore in which I would write a few contrafacta around this time of year, re-purposing various (mostly) traditional Christmas carols and hymns into polytheist versions of such appropriate to my own practices.  The great advantage of this is that people generally know the tunes, even though getting people to sing them correctly with the new words is often a task unto itself (!?!).  As I was looking through some of my old compositions of this type trying to figure out which ones to use in my ritual yesterday and throughout Saturnalia, I realized I had forgotten which tune I had used for one of them, and so had occasion to look back at the old blog and see if there was a clue there.  Alas, there was not, so instead I went to a list of traditional Christmas carols and tried to figure out which one it might have been.  The answer was not difficult to discern, luckily; but as I perused this list, I saw a number of songs that I had not yet used.  Some of them I had considered using before but didn’t because they simply didn’t crystallize with a clear idea for me over the last few years, but others I had not considered using.  Two of these in particular were ones that are a lot more like folk songs, and I suspect they may have had their origins as such at some stage–after all, one of the songs associated with Christmas for many people is “Greensleeves,” which was a love song Henry VIII wrote for one of his mistresses, and even though the lyrics were changed to make it into a Christmas hymn, people still call it “Greensleeves” at this time of year (which may be the root of the “romantic” Christmas song that so plagues the radio airwaves of the last fifty years…who knows?).  To slightly paraphrase a W. B. Yeats poem’s title, these types of composition are often occasions of writing new lyrics “for the sake of the tune.”

The two songs in question were “I Saw Three Ships (Come Sailing In)” and “The Holly and the Ivy.”  Both have such thin connections to Christmas, it seems, that a spider’s web looks like the pillar of the universe in terms of its thickness, but this makes me suspect all the more that they’re originally folk tunes, and they have that sort of sound anyway.  I had only heard the first verse of each of these previously, and once I had the full lyrics in front of me, that thin-ness of connection seemed all the more obvious.  (While I’m not making a scholarly argument for their folk origins, I am certainly claiming that they “feel” like they probably are!)  As such things easily lend themselves to changes in lyric, I went in that direction, and was happy to have done so after a hiatus of at least three years of doing such publicly on my old blog (though I’ve written one or two since then that I have not shared, that will be in a forthcoming publication collecting all of these together which I’ve had in the work for over three years as well!).

The one for “I Saw Three Ships” was fairly obvious to do, and involved a great deal of just “reversing” what was already there.  The result was, well, somewhat obvious, but nonetheless perhaps appropriate to the context and occasion.  I went back-and-forth on “The Holly and the Ivy,” and struggled with it because I was attempting initially to make it connect to Brumalia and therefore Antinous via the ivy, and was trying to make “holly” into “grape-vine,” and it wasn’t really gelling correctly, so I decided to leave it off.

Then, in the course of doing things yesterday, the idea started to germinate once again…

And, I realized that the holly connection is quite obvious to another figure associated with the day involved:  Cú Chulainn!  Just to confirm my suspicion, I went back to Táin Bó Cúailnge‘s first recension and checked to see how often holly appears in it, and it is mentioned by name far more frequently than any other tree I could think of (though some unspecified trees, branches, and types of wood are also mentioned far more frequently than I think all of the individual types of tree/plant combined), which made its usage that much more apt.  From there, it went in the direction it did, and I’m not only pleased with the result, and think that the final composition far outstrips the original thinly-Christmas-based version, but in and of itself it is a good piece, with parts of it even sounding very much like they could have come from at least medieval Irish, if not older, traditional lore.

I will give both songs here before I propose what this post is mostly dedicated to, which you can guess from the title…!

I Saw A Boat

I saw a Boat come sailing in
At Solstice-tide, at Solstice-tide
I saw a Boat come sailing in
At Solstice-tide in the evening.

And of what sort was that fair Boat
At Solstice-tide, at Solstice-tide
And of what sort was that fair Boat
At Solstice-tide in the evening?

It was the Boat of Million-Years
At Solstice-tide, at Solstice-tide
It was the Boat of Million-Years
At Solstice-tide in the evening.

And Who was on that Boat so fair
At Solstice-tide, at Solstice-tide
And Who was on that Boat so fair
At Solstice-tide in the evening?

It was the Boy Antinous
At Solstice-tide, at Solstice-tide
It was the Boy Antinous
At Solstice-tide in the evening.

And Who was with that Boy this eve
At Solstice-tide, at Solstice-tide
And Who was with that Boy this eve
At Solstice-tide in the evening?

It was dear Nyx in Aspects Three
At Solstice-tide, at Solstice-tide
It was dear Nyx in Aspects Three
At Solstice-tide in the evening.

And what to us bring forth did She
At Solstice-tide, at Solstice-tide
And what to us bring forth did She
At Solstice-tide in the evening?

The Sun Unconquered borne did She
At Solstice-tide, at Solstice-tide
The Sun Unconquered borne did She
At Solstice-tide in the evening.

And what the Sun—now born—does see
At Solstice-tide, at Solstice-tide
And what the Sun—now born—does see
At Solstice-tide in the evening?

The Earth in splendrous form He sees
At Solstice-tide, at Solstice-tide
The Earth in splendrous form He sees
At Solstice-tide in the evening.

And what now shall we sing for He
At Solstice-tide, at Solstice-tide
And what now shall we sing for He
At Solstice-tide in the evening?

We sing Him praise and thanks, do we
At Solstice-tide, at Solstice-tide
We sing Him praise and thanks, do we
At Solstice-tide in the evening!

 

The Holly and the Oak-Tree

The Holly and the Oak-Tree,
When they are both full-grown—
Of all the trees that are in the woods,
The holly loves the Hound.

O, the hum of distant battles,
And the barking of the hounds,
The playing of the merry harp:
These three are the best sounds!

The holly bears a blossom
As white as fallen snow,
And Dechtine bore Ulster’s Hound
All the paths for us to show.

O, the hum of distant battles,
And the barking of the hounds,
The playing of the merry harp:
These three are the best sounds!

The holly bears a berry
As red as any blood,
And Dechtine bore Ulster’s Hound
To bring the Cronn to the flood.

O, the hum of distant battles,
And the barking of the hounds,
The playing of the merry harp:
These three are the best sounds!

The holly bears a sharp thorn
That pierces flesh and skin,
And Dechtine bore Ulster’s Hound
So that poet’s words may begin.

O, the hum of distant battles,
And the barking of the hounds,
The playing of the merry harp:
These three are the best sounds!

The holly bears a hard bark
As bitter as the gall,
And Dechtine bore Ulster’s Hound
So that heroes in fear pall.

O, the hum of distant battles,
And the barking of the hounds,
The playing of the merry harp:
These three are the best sounds!

The holly grows in bushes
As thick as any wall,
And Dechtine bore Ulster’s Hound
So that kings may feast in the hall.

O, the hum of distant battles,
And the barking of the hounds,
The playing of the merry harp:
These three are the best sounds!

The holly’s wood burns hottest
So that smiths may swords adorn,
And Dechtine found Ulster’s Hound
On Solstice-tide in the morn.

O, the hum of distant battles,
And the barking of the hounds,
The playing of the merry harp:
These three are the best sounds!

The holly’s barbs were sharpest
When the Hound fought in the Táin,
And Dechtine found Ulster’s Hound
At Newgrange on the Boyne.

O, the hum of distant battles,
And the barking of the hounds,
The playing of the merry harp:
These three are the best sounds!

 

So, there you have those…!

AND NOW (at last!)!

I had so much fun doing this, and was so pleased with the results, that I want to share my joy a bit with all of you in several ways.

1.  First, I want to invite all of you reading this to make your own compositions about the holidays around this time of year, using some Christmas carols as your template, but putting in genuine lore and such related to your own particular tradition’s Deities, the dates involved, the rituals concerned, and so forth!
2. Then, obviously, USE THEM!
3. But, also, SHARE THEM!
4. And in relation to the latter point, share them with me in what will be a little contest between now and Dies Cista Deorum (December 26th), running through midnight of that particular date, which will then be judged by me (and a little divinatory help!), and the top winner will receive a poetic commission by me of up to 50 lines on a polytheism-related topic of your choice!

So, there is my suggestion!  While one should, of course, pour one’s best efforts into this endeavor since it is ultimately for the Deities, this is also intended to be friendly, even though one can have some rivalries in it.  Challenge someone you know to come up with their own, and suggest the song they have to use, for example, and then reciprocally allow them to do the same with you and see who generates the more interesting results–chances are, you’ll both come up with something very intriguing!  (I was going to issue this as a challenge to particular individuals, but I didn’t want to potentially impose on them if they didn’t want to do so from the start…!?!)

And, please, for the love of all the Deities and all that is holy and decent, try to stick to traditional Christmas carols and hymns, not the toxic wasteland of “Christmas songs” that are only such because they have the word “Christmas” in them that are being played endlessly in coffee shops, stores, and other public places these days.  I honestly heard the only Queen song I absolutely cannot stand in this context the other day, which I believe is called “Thank God It’s Christmas,” which was a true low in their illustrious career.  While I have done this type of thing with The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” (which many in Ireland consider the best Christmas song ever, and many Americans consider the worst!), please let us not see any versions of “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” as that might make me vomit so profoundly that you may get sprayed wherever you happen to be reading my responses…

[And I know some of you particularly contrarian individuals will take that in itself as a challenge, so if you do, it better be fuckin’ good!]

There we are!  I await your results with great anticipation!

How Can Deities Pray To Other Deities?

This particular question is one implied by a statement that one of my world religions students made in a paper more than a month ago, which I think bears examination in greater detail.

The specific statement made by this student had to do with the film Hanuman, which I screen with my students, and it never fails to divide the class:  either they’re enthralled with it (and some decide to watch it again with their favorite psychedelics!), or they hate it, but very few just have a “so-so” opinion of it.  In any case, one of my students expressed surprise with it and said that they couldn’t possibly understand Hinduism, because the film showed “gods praying to other gods [sic.],” and that just “doesn’t make sense.”

I’ve heard similar things from other people (including some pagans and polytheists!) in reaction to various different accounts of polytheistic cultures’ myths, but what dumbfounds me about these statements is the following, which is technically “weirder” than this.  There are multiple accounts in the Christian (New) Testament about Jesus praying to God the Father, and since orthodox Christian theology says that these are two persons of one singular godhead, that technically means that Jesus is praying to himself…!?!  What is the “Our Father/Lord’s Prayer” if not such a prayer to one’s own self, by the logic of Christian theology?  While that sort of thing also can and does occur in certain cases in polytheist cultures (on which more in a moment), what one more often finds is a particular Deity being a devotee of another Deity, especially in Hinduism, where there is Hanuman’s devotion to Ram and Sita (and Surya, and Shiva, and various other Deities…and with Shiva, since Hanuman is sometimes understood to be a rudra/avatar of Shiva, that would be a kind of self-worship, too!).  Narad, the divine messenger and son of Brahma, is known as a great devotee of Vishnu; and Shiva and Vishnu likewise have devotional relationships with each other.

Greek myth has Hermes entering the divine scene shortly after His birth by stealing the cattle of Apollon, building the first altar to the Twelve Olympian Gods, and sacrificing the cattle to Them, and including Himself among those to Whom He sacrificed.  In some sense, this is an act of self-apotheosis!

I’ve just learned via a blog post from Galina Krasskova that Freyja is given priestly titles that indicate She would make sacrifices to Deities, and presumably those Deities were not Herself (though She could probably be included among Them, too!); and of course Odin is famous for having sacrificed Himself to Himself when He hung on Yggdrasil and was able through His ordeal to gain the runes.

“To pray” is literally “to ask,” though it is often understood to be “asking, often with accompanying praise, in a religious context” in modern parlance.  Thus, while there is scant evidence for direct devotion between what we’d consider fully-fledged Deities in attested Irish mythological narrative, there is an incident in Cath Maine Tuired in which three of the Tuatha Dé–namely Lug, The Dagda, and Ogma–seek and ask for the assistance of three beings Who are specifically said to have been Gods, i.e. the Three Gods of Skill (Tri Dee Dána), Who might be Goibniu the smith, Luchta the carpenter, and Crédne the brazier, or Who may be the three brothers Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba, and a good case can be made for either of these possibilities based on both internal and external evidence in the text.  (Though I would not go to the length that some scholars have suggested, and therefore conclude that these three sets of Deities are “the same,” or that one set was original and the other was derived from it.)  As the Irish cultural context understands various forms of clientship as applying not only between humans in various relationships (including using such terminology for married couples!), but also between humans and Deities, it would also thus make sense that such expressions would be in effect to indicate inter-divine devotional relationships or even limited contracts and favor-granting occasions as well.

[I’m sure there are examples of this to be found in Shinto as well, but I’m not recalling them off the top of my head currently…]

So, one can only conclude that inter-divine relationships that include the possibility of devotion, on both casual as well as ongoing levels, are attested in many forms of polytheism, and thus must be as natural to a polytheistic mindset as human-divine devotional interactions.  Just as Deities can have enmities with one another, so too can they have many types of alliance with each other, too, from marriages and familial/parental relationships, to fosterage and sibling relationships, to simple friendships, and even devotional relationships.  Why not?

What Is The Purpose of Material Offerings?

For many people, this will appear to be a “Polytheism 101”-sort of question, which they have never thought about and have never questioned.  That is great, and a perfectly good thing to do.

For those who are outside of polytheistic religious practices, have not grown up in such a system, or are new to polytheism and are still finding their feet within it, this is a very important question, and one that gets an awful lot of pushback and misunderstanding from those who don’t really have a context for properly comprehending what is involved.

To put it rather bluntly:  to many people who would otherwise be well-disposed toward polytheism, or are even would-be excellent polytheists and devotees, the idea of giving material offerings to Deities, and particularly of food offerings that may not be consumed by humans, is anathema to them.

And that is literally the problem, right there.

In Ancient Greek, anáthema literally meant “to dedicate” or “to offer something up,” usually to Deities.  But later usage from the Septuagint and in Christianity began to make this into a verb that meant specifically “to dedicate something to evil.”  When the Christianized Roman emperors began to outlaw non-Christian religious practices, they closed temples and prevented people from making anáthemata, and as time went on and the actual meaning of the term was forgotten and eclipsed by this Christian reinterpretation (like so many perfectly good Ancient Greek words, like the roots of “heresy” and also “ekklesia,” etc.), it became associated with the absolute worst thing one could do, i.e. offer food to something other than the Christian Deities.  The only food offerings that were allowed were the bread and wine offered in the eucharistic rite–nothing else.  (This is why some Catholics and polytheists coming from a Catholic background tend to have a better understanding of these matters where polytheistic offerings are concerned; Protestants, not so much!)

There is an awful lot of tendencies, not only in polytheism but also many forms of paganism and which is especially prevalent in New Age circles, of “spiritualizing” as much as possible, of making things as un-literal as possible, and of making so many things that are actually material simply into metaphors in some “spiritual” sense that entirely loses what is meant by the actions or things involved.  This is why there are so many New Age “spiritual warriors” who not only have never held a weapon or done something to defend another person or ideal, but who think the “true essence” of a “spiritual warrior” is someone who has overcome fear.  (Look out for that phrase “true essence” wherever it is used, and how it often gets used to get away from what things often literally mean and in many cases how they best function on material levels, despite the veneer of attempting to argue that what is being asserted is actually “true” and “correct” and “essential” over and against whatever is literal and material and functional!)  Material offerings often fall into this same category for such people.  I have literally heard someone say that all that the people of the Otherworld (this individual called them “fairies”) like in return for all of their help and blessings is that we mentally “bathe them in light” that is an appropriate color for what is involved or the type of fairy being dealt with, and then was looking to me as an expert in Celticism to confirm this nonsense.

Yeah…that and $5 will get you a very small coffee without whipped cream at Starschmucks, and I wouldn’t recommend caffeinating the Áes Sídhe, personally.

But even within polytheism, there can be a tendency to suggest that non-material offerings are better, and particular ancient texts are used to justify this.  I know this to be true because I used to be a person who would suggest that, and would quote the following:

“…every gift of a votive offering or sacrifice lasts only for the immediate moment, and presently perishes, while a written record is an undying deed of gratitude, from time to time renewing its youth in the memory.”

–Asklepios aretalogy from P. Oxy. 1381

It’s a nice thing, and while I think that is true, it also doesn’t say “Don’t ever do material offerings,” does it?  No, not by any means!  While I could wax further on the danger of proof-texting (and what is “proof-texting” in any religious context other than citing something which supports one’s own confirmation bias rather than selecting something that contradicts it, which is likely enough just as possible to find?), I think everyone should understand why this is ill-advised!

To make a sacrifice is to “make [something] holy” and thereafter for it to be dedicated to the Deities and/or other divine beings.  That means it is then holy, and if it doesn’t belong to the Deities (etc.) perpetually, then it is a blessing for humans.  In some cultures, a portion or the majority of food offerings and other votives are given permanently to the Deities, often through burning on an altar, deposition in a ritual offering pit, placed into a well or spring or other water source, or something else which makes it no longer usable or recoverable (at least easily!) by humans; Greek, Roman, and some Germanic and Celtic sacrificial practices fall into this category.  In other cultures, what is offered in terms of food (and sometimes other things as well) is blessed by offering it to the Deities, and then it returns to humans as a blessing to sustain them materially; this is the case with the Egyptian “reversion of offerings,” the Indian prasad, and the Shinto naorae.

If one is not a strict reconstructionist-methodology-following person, one has a choice in how to do this.  If in doubt, do divination and find out either what a particular Deity or group of divine beings prefers on a particular occasion, or more permanently for one’s own regular practices.

What I would ABSOLUTELY NOT recommend, despite some people suggesting this or doing it as their normal practice, is any variation on the following:  offering food/drink/etc. at one’s home or at a restaurant, and then either putting it in a bag and throwing it away (even if one does so with prayers and such) at one’s home or apartment if there isn’t a fire, water, or earth method via which to deposit them easily, or leaving it on a separate plate on the table at the restaurant to be cleared by one’s servers, where it will also make its way to the garbage.  Why?  Because unless one is disposing of food offerings in either a fire or a dedicated ritual offering pit or in a sacred water source, then one is literally taking the things that belong to the Deities now and is throwing them away, or allowing them to be thrown away.  If you are doing that sort of food offering at a restaurant and will be depositing it in fire, water, or the earth later, then TAKE IT HOME WITH YOU AND DO IT!

If you are of the “returned to humans as blessings for their material sustenance” school of thought and practice, then really take whatever it is in and savor it as much as possible, and deeply realize how you are now taking a part of the divine blessing into yourself, and are thereby making a part of yourself, your energy, and your life dedicated to the Deities and other divine beings in doing so.  It changes the experience dramatically to do this!

Material offerings, whether they are temporary ones like incense, food and drink, light from candles, sound and music, dances and dramatic and athletic performances, votive offerings of service and charity (e.g. feeding the homeless, cleaning up a public park, etc.),  and so forth, or they are more permanent like votive tablets and objects, sacred images at shrines, altars, and other material objects that will last longer (e.g. stones, jewelry, and other things that can adorn shrines, etc.), and written texts–as the preface to the aretalogy above states!–are all ways in which we make the presence of the Deities and other divine beings more visible, tangible, and just plain present in the material world.  When understood in this way, offerings in sacrifice are not by any means a “waste,” and are in no way an anathema; they then become a proper anáthema as was always intended, and will bring more blessings, numinosity, and holiness into the material world, which is in deep need of it.

Is There a Teleology to Human Beings in Polytheism?

This is a question that Alex posed, and I think it is a very good one…and, from my viewpoint (such as it is), one that hasn’t received too much attention in modern polytheist discourse.

To make sure we’re all on the same page first:  telos is a Greek term meaning “end, goal,” and often understood to mean “purpose.”  Plato and Aristotle developed some ideas on teleology, so it is something that has been around for a while.

While this has been discussed in philosophy and even in natural sciences over the years, the matter of theological teleology is another thing entirely, and in bringing that question specifically into the realm of human teleology, we are then moving into theological anthropology, i.e. the understanding in a theological context of what constitutes a human being, and ultimately what the place of human beings in the cosmos happens to be…so, teleology is very much a part of theological anthropology.

As is the case with all things polytheism, there is no singular answer to this question, even for one person working within one polytheistic system at one given time.  The reality would have to be polytely, a multiplicity of possible answers/outcomes to the question of the ultimate goal and purpose of human existence.

And if I have to say “I don’t speak for all of polytheism, nor would I even want to try” here, rather than that being understood in everything that I say and write, then consider the previous quote my statement of such, both on this question and for everything on this blog!

So, as with so many things, let me attempt to answer this question in three ways, which need not be contradictory (in fact, I find them quite complimentary!), based on three different viewpoints and three different strands of my own polytheism.

First, I’ll look at what I call the “devotional” strand, and in this I’m taking a specific example from the film Hanuman.  Given the subject of the film, there is a deep basis of it in the Hindu idea of bhakti, the devotional-participatory idea of the devotee participating in the life of a Deity and the Deity participating in the life of the devotee.  At one point in the film, before Hanuman becomes acquainted with Lord Ram in incarnate form, Shiva summons the Monkey God and asks Him, “Son, do you know the purpose of your existence?”  Hanuman replies, “Knowledge and devotion is the meaning of my life.”  In many ways, I cannot think of a better summation of what the life of a human devotee is than this simple statement.  While devotion to one’s own particular Deity is certainly important in polytheism, the idea that knowledge in itself is important adds a further dimension to the issue:  not merely knowledge in general or for its own sake, but the idea that human life is, in essence, a universal heuristic, the manner via which the cosmos itself learns more about itself, not only in the learning and experience of the humans involved, but also in the cosmos understanding how understandings of particular types come about as a result of particular people having particular experiences.  One could go down that rabbit hole for a very long time, but let us leave it there for now!

Second, I’ll try to answer this question from the viewpoint of a Mystery Religion, as I’m involved in various forms of that both practically and theoretically.  I think that what emerges in many of the Mystery Religions we know at least something about from the ancient world, including the Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries (which are related in various ways!), is that the trials of human life, the ordeals of the Mystery Tradition itself, and the eventual post-death experiences of the human which these are preparing one for, are all aimed at bringing about the apotheosis of humans.  While these traditions do not suggest that everyone should become a mystes of their particular tradition, and thus such a teleology is not therefore suggested or imposed upon all humans in a prescriptive fashion, nonetheless because these forms of polytheism aim toward that specific goal, that would be one possible answer for how teleology for humanity is understood in one particular polytheistic context.

The third answer I’ll give is specifically as an Antinoan devotee.  It is not unlike the first and second answers, but I’d add the following.  Knowledge and devotion is important in general, and of Antinous in particular; and the purpose of Mystery initiation is to foster apotheosis…so, no problems there.  I’d say the additional dimension of the life of an Antinoan is to not only find “from whence life comes” in one’s own life amidst these practices, but also to find that element and to affirm one has found it in every situation of life–in the pain and the difficulties as much as in the victories and the ecstasies, and, perhaps the hardest of all, in the drudgery and the mundanity that is tedious and seemingly meaningless.  If even these things can be elevated, can be appreciated, and can be engaged with in a manner that satisfies their necessities while also being able to nourish the spirit of the one doing them, then one has found the key to all things, the source of all life’s energies, and the easiest way to the ends mentioned above.

That would be my very provisional answer for the moment…give me another three years of practice and I’m sure I’ll find other ways to phrase it, perhaps from several different viewpoints within my own polytheistic practice!  I’d be intrigued, though, to hear what other polytheists think on this particular question…if you decide to write about this on your own blogs, please leave a link in the comments below, as I’d love to read them!

If Antinous (and All Polytheistic Deities) Is Not Omnipotent, Omniscient, etc., Then Why Worship Him/Them? What’s the Point?

When a large number of monotheists have learned that I’m a polytheist, they’ve asked questions similar to this.  “Why worship any of those other gods* who are not The Creator?”  (P.S.V.L. implied question:  Who says a creator deity has to be omnipotent?)  “Your gods* seem pretty limited; mine is infinite.”  (P.S.V.L. implied answer to the statement:  according to you, but what do you know?)  Even from some other polytheists, I’ve had objections along the lines of “Antinous is a pretty minor deity*–what’s the point of worshipping him*?”

To this sort of question, I pose the following conceit.

When you are having trouble with your PC and Windows isn’t functioning the way it’s supposed to, cousin Steve who is a whiz with these things can’t seem to make heads nor tails of it, and you’ve exhausted all other possibilities, perhaps you decide to call the Microsoft customer service line.  After waiting the requisite time in the call queue, Rita answers your call courteously and ascertains what your problem is, and nicely walks you through how to fix it.

Time goes by, things seem to be okay, but then a similar thing happens again, cousin Steve is in Reno for a bachelor party, and so because you can’t remember what was done to fix it last time, you get on the Microsoft customer service line once again, the wait time is miraculously short, and Sanjay answers your call very courteously, walks you through what you need to do, and all is well.

Some further duration elapses, and then your Windows setup seems to have hit a wall entirely–a new one you’ve never encountered before.  You try to see if what Sanjay and Rita had suggested (which you now remember!) might work to restore things to the way they were, but nothing; and cousin Steve?  He’s moved to Uruguay because of that wonderful guy he met during the Reno trip, and you hope that he’s happy down there with his new extended family.  So, reluctantly, you call up the Windows help line once more, and Pat answers your call.  You describe your problem, Pat walks you through several different options very ably, but nothing seems to be getting the job done.  After several attempts, Pat says “I’m so sorry I can’t help you, but I think I know someone who may be able to…let me get my manager on the phone with you and see if she can assist you with this, as I know she dealt with something similar recently.”  Pat’s manager Cherise gets on the phone, walks you through several things, and none of it ends up working.  She is all apologies, and says that there is a Microsoft servicer in your area, and she’ll have them notify you via text message when they can come by in the morning to assist you.  You thank Cherise for her help, downtrodden because you can’t finish your project for the night, and the next day Jamal and Edina come by and fix your computer for you.

Now, all of that sounds pretty reasonable, right?  Most people would agree it is.

Go back to the first instance, though, and just make the following change:  when Rita gets on the phone, you throw a tantrum and say “I want to speak with Bill Gates, and only Bill Gates, and if he’s off in Bali right now fighting malaria and giving free computers to schools, I don’t care, you text his super-secret number and get him on the line, dammit!”

And if you state that is the case, and then say you’ll wait until Bill Gates himself calls you…well, you’re probably going to be waiting a very long time, because the likelihood of him doing so is pretty slim.

Point being:  do most of your problems require the “Creator Of All Things” to fix them?  Probably not, unless you’re in the business of tweaking the cosmological constant or something along these lines, which most of us aren’t (!?!).  Who are you to think you’re so special that only the tippity-top personage of a pantheon, or of the entire universe of Deities, is the only one for you?

When we get to the level of certain Deities being potentially omnipotent, omniscient, or omnipresent (and if you really want to throw a spanner into the works, add “omnibenevolent” into that mix!), we begin to run into some theological nuances that most people aren’t prepared to deal with:  an omnipresent and omnipotent Deity most certainly must have heard your prayers, but if They do nothing to fulfill them, then a variety of things begin to emerge.  Is that Deity omnipotent, but uncaring (and therefore not omnibenevolent)?  Oftentimes, the get-out-of-jail-free clause that certain monotheists use is the matter of the transcendence of their Deities, and Their utter remove from the world of humanity.  (Or, the other common case of special pleading in such instances:  “It’s just a mystery and part of the divine plan that humans can’t understand.”  Is it, though?)  That can lead to deism, but it can also lead to a kind of helplessness and pointlessness to the whole matter…a slip into nihilism and even worse.  Or, one can take it in the direction that H.P. Lovecraft did with the Great Old Ones, who are beings so powerful and so above the level of human comprehension that they have utterly no regard for humans at all, even as mere specks, as their multiform eyes are on entirely different matters, and to contemplate the place of humans in such a universe is something that might drive one to insanity.

Or, to put it another way:  what’s more important to you when you’re in a difficult situation, having someone who can’t help but is at least “there for you” to complain to, or having no one at all because you’d prefer to imagine that there is someone out there who can fix everything for you, you just don’t know their name, or how to get in touch with them?  Most people would prefer a good and supportive friend, family member, or partner to a theorized person who can fix everything but with whom one has no contact.

Devotion often works a similar way.  Why do you have the friends you do?  Because they are the absolute best, and have the most money and power and can fix any trouble you might have, or because these are the people you like, warts and all, for whatever reasons that you might not even be able to name because something in you just feels better about the world and yourself when they are around?  (And the same could be said for a partner, and even some members of one’s biological family, etc.!)  One doesn’t have to go to the “highest,” “best,” and “most powerful” of Deities automatically to have valid devotional relationships, or even productive ones.  How many friendships have you discarded because a friend couldn’t fix your problems in a given moment, and has only been able to respond with “I’m very sorry for your troubles…but can I make you some soup?”  Probably not many.  But how many have you given up because when you needed them most, that so-called friend abandoned you, didn’t call you to follow-up on what happened, and before that had been totally unreliable to even engage in mutually-enjoyable social activities?  Hopefully not many, but it’s not something that is entirely uncommon, either!

No, metaphors of how human relationships work, particularly ones that seem transactional, are not ideal in analogizing how devotional relationships with Deities might work; and yet, there is an element of truth to these, especially when considered in terms of the overall evaluation of any given Deity’s characteristics and standing in the wider cosmological scheme of things.  No, a local nymph is not Zeus or Hera, and yet many people in the ancient world were devoted to those local nymphs, and were even in relationships that were similar to marriages with them.  This sort of thing has been around for a very long time, and anyone who would have asked such individuals, “Don’t you feel that your paltry little local nymph is insignificant when compared to Aprhodite or Hermes?” would have probably been met with a walking-stick to the crotch, or something else of that nature!

So, this comparative quality of humans when it comes to anything–who has more money, more boyfriends, more cars, more toys, more shine to their hair, more pairs of Nike shoes, more hair on their chest, more piano-playing ability, or any other possible characteristic in which different people have different amounts of skill, possessions, or qualities–doesn’t really make any kind of sense when evaluating who is and is not in a “proper” relationship with any sort of Deity or divine being, no matter how relatively powerful, non-famous, or other such evaluations a given Deity or divine being may have for some people.

To use a final metaphor:  what’s the point of being married to someone if they are not the most beautiful person in the world, the richest person in the world, or the smartest person in the world?  As W.B. Yeats once said, “Whenever a man says he loves a woman for this or that reason, he lies.  It’s because she has a way of tilting her head.”  A given Deity–Antinous or otherwise–may not be able to answer some of my prayers, but His way of receiving them is something I have never encountered otherwise.

Any comment beyond this about someone else’s choice of Deities ultimately says more about one’s own personal insecurities–that others have made a choice that one has not and are therefore by implication not reinforcing one’s own choice in order to convince the one who made such a choice of the “rightness” of their choice–than it does about the actual divine beings involved and their relative or comparative standing in the world.

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*:  the lack of capitalization on “gods,” “deity,” “him,” and so forth in these quotations is due to the lack of respect that the individuals saying these things have for the Deities/Deity-in-question.  For my own usage, I always try to capitalize Gods, Goddesses, Deities, and the pronouns involved in discussion Them (including relative pronouns like Who, etc.) because in my own usage, it would be disrespectful to do otherwise.  I know that’s a choice that not all polytheists have made, for various reasons that are sensible, but it’s something I endeavor to do as one of many ways of understanding the scale and majesty of the Beings concerned, and of my own meager attempts at manifesting my devotion to Them in as many ways as possible, including everyday linguistic usages.

P.S.V.L.’s Theological Questions

Hello, everyone!

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?  😉

While I haven’t entirely “gone away” since I closed up shop on the Aedicula Antinoi blog (or, rather, closed it to public view), and the present website has existed since that time, I’ve only been able to add much more to it, and begin fleshing it out a bit more, over the last week or so.

I have been “gone,” in the meantime, in a variety of ways that have been both useful and painful.  I’m not here to give an explanation for any of that to anyone who feels that they are owed one, nor a justification, nor to provide any excuses for my absence–none are needed anyway, and while you might disagree with that statement and are free to do so, this matter doesn’t have anything to do with any of you or your own ideas about these things (and that is not meant to offend anyone, it’s simply the truth of the matter!)–but I am here to start sharing some of my less-formal thoughts with a wider audience once again.  Some of those that are larger projects and things-unto-themselves will be manifesting in publications in the near future, and I leave those things to themselves.

But what about this blog, and what is it for, and what is my intention for it?  I’m glad you asked!  😉

I have realized that in my online absence over the past two years and two months (roughly), despite continuing to comment on other blogs, I have been very depressed.  There are lots of good reasons for that depression, including some of the circumstances that were afoot when I stopped blogging, and there have been more than enough other problems that have arisen in the meantime to keep one both occupied and downtrodden.  I was feeling very disillusioned with online activity in general, and online activities in the various polytheist (and also Pagan) communities and outlets as well, and desired to withdraw from them as much as possible.  Part of that meant going cold turkey and simply stopping blogging after November 27th, 2016; and, as Antinous had relieved me from that particular devotional burden Himself, as it was deemed to no longer suit His own desires for how to spend my time well, that was pretty much that.

But, what was the overall cost of that?  While I had written a few books before I began my blog in August of 2010, the fact of the matter is I had written the majority of my books, including two very long ones, while I was writing my blog.  I wrote probably around a million words over those six-plus years, and was generally producing between 200 and 10,000 words a day therein.  That meant that when I would sit down to write something “serious,” I could do it relatively quickly and easily, and would not spend too much time spinning my wheels and getting distracted by other things or daunted by the blank page staring back at me.  While I am still generally not daunted in that way, the fact is I had hoped that all of the time I had spent blogging might instead be spent on getting some devotional projects done, some of my already-existing work reformatted and edited for publication, and so forth.  In reality, I have started a few new books since then, completed a number of articles that were submitted for publication (most of which have been released), but have not been able to complete a full-length book yet.  Some of them are painfully close–within hours of being finished, in some cases–and I just haven’t been able to manage doing it.

So, if something isn’t working, going back to one’s methodology when things were working better is sometimes a good strategy.  I have been contemplating that, figuring out the best way to approach it, and entreating Antinous for advice on the form this would take in the meanwhile, and furthermore ascertaining if I had His permission to do so, because ultimately if He isn’t on board with something done for devotional purposes, there is literally no point in even attempting it or thinking further of it, and I trust His judgement on that sort of thing entirely!

I got the high-sign earlier today on this, and so here I am.

What I intend this blog to be is not a response to the latest scandal in the sector of the religious blogosphere in which I run, nor commentary on current events, media, and political issues (though those things are important and I’m certainly thinking of them frequently, and am sometimes even doing things in relation to them, spiritual-practice-wise as well as otherwise!)…even though those sorts of blog posts that I did tended to get the most views and the most comments, they weren’t the ones that I tended to like the best, and they often lead to the most pointless arguments.  The sorts of posts that I made that I enjoyed the most, and that I would have preferred to have had extended discussions of in the comments (and elsewhere when possible) were the theological questions, the devotional activities, the exegeses of texts and interpretations of points of philosophy and doctrine, and of course the actual expressions of devotion I produced through poetry and other varieties of writing.  More often than not, those posts had very few views, very few comments, and generated the least amount of discussion both online and offline…and yet, those matters were far more important and enjoyable for me, and were ultimately the purpose of the blog itself.

So, whether anyone decides to read any of this or not, I’m hoping that such will be the case with this blog, and that I will post near-daily (or at least several times weekly) entries that are (hopefully!) shorter in nature, not extended discussions but simple and relatively short responses to potential or interesting questions…a kind of imagined theological dialogue with an unknown and perhaps even theoretical interlocutor, who will sometimes state the question openly or will sometimes only imply the question which I will then attempt to answer succinctly.  (We’ll see how successful I am on the matter of succinctness in the months to come!)

But what about the actual reading audience?

I have debated about that as well.  Sure, I’d like to just have my thoughts be there, and to have no one respond to or criticize them, or to just come with something out-of-the-blue that is tangential to what I am trying to address; thus, I was considering not having any comments sections for the blog.  But where’s the fun in that?  Dialogue with actual people is a very good thing (even though dialogue with an imagined audience that tends to reflect one’s own inner demons can also be very useful!), and so in order to create some semblance of that, I am going to allow comments on these blog posts, with the following caveats:

1.  I may not respond to all of them, or even any of them; that will largely be a matter of time and availability, but it also may be a matter of interest.
2. If anyone posts things that are abusive toward anyone, or are abusive toward me, the comments will be deleted and the offenders will be banned from commenting further–no exceptions.  I do believe in freedom of speech as an absolute right, and I also believe in the usefulness of a critique offered considerately and constructively; but if you want to berate me simply for berating’s sake, go and do that elsewhere, in your own space and time.  I will be a hospitable host until a guest, which all of you are in this particular space, acts in ways that are disruptive and deplorable.
3. While tangents are often the essence of a conversation, I’d prefer for a good tangential comment and potential follow-up question to be the subject of its own post rather than being an extended thread in the comments.  So, if that is the case, I may say “Look for my answer in an upcoming post” rather than answering questions directly in the comments.

And, if I think of anything else, I will come back here and add it to the above, or post a revision-of-policies note at some stage in the future.

But I will try and keep it topical to theological questions as often as I can!

If you don’t know me or haven’t heard of me (don’t worry, most people haven’t!), and are not interested in nor have the time to read my full biographical information, I will wrap up the current introductory post with a short introduction of myself in as brief a manner as possible.

My name is P.S.V.L.  I am a human being.  I am a polytheist.  I am a theologian.  I am a Shrine-keeper.  I am a ritualist.  I am a poet and a writer.  I am a performer.  I am a metagendered person.  I am a devotee.  Before all other things, I am these things; in comparison to all other things, these are the most important matters of note in the current context.  I am lots of other things, and on some occasions those other things impact what I may write about here, or how I write about things, because those are parts of my experience, and that is ultimately the font from which flows all that will be produced here; but at the same time, I hope it is my thoughts on particular subjects that will be the focus of this section of my online presence, and not anything else.

I have ideas.  Some of them might be brilliant, while others may be ludicrously idiotic.  Feel free to criticize those, question those, probe those, and investigate those all you like.

I also have personal characteristics that include things like my physical size and health, my political affiliations (or lack thereof), my social statuses, and various other things that can be connected with issues of identity.  These are parts of my personhood, for good or ill, and while some of them can change, develop, or shift, many of them are relatively permanent (at least in my current incarnation!) and will likely remain so.  To criticize, question, probe, and investigate those things can be uncomfortable for me, and to do so is often considered rude or inappropriate in today’s circles, for good reason–and especially to attack me for “being” something rather than for “doing” or “saying” or “thinking” something is the essence of what it means to make an ad hominem argument, which is widely known to be a logical fallacy and an ineffective rhetorical technique (despite remaining extremely popular in political and social circles!).  Thus, such matters as that which become the focus of your own comments will not be given any time nor energy here.

Without further ado, let us get to some burning questions, some freezing questions, and some room temperature questions as well!