Leo's Library

🏛️The Olympians🏛️

13. Hestia / Εστία

People love to be loud and wrong, so please make sure to also do your own unbiased research!

One of my goals with the Temple is to make it as accessible as possible and having 5+ festivals every month doesn’t seem the *most* accessible?

I’m thinking a simplified calendar, that allows for more individualized festivals as opposed to larger group ones, might be easier? Not only for others but also for myself 😅

Since our world is no longer centered around / designed to accommodate the same level of festivities as the ancients, I personally struggle to keep up with the calendar (which is wild because I created it).

I really really adore the current calendar as it is; personally I find seeing how multiple different people format their calendars helps me a lot in my own practice in seeing where different calendars place festivals, how they choose to honor different deities, etc; there's massive overlap in all of them so I would 100% understand simplifying it to make yours stand out more as a more reasonable modern alternative to the historical accuracy-focused ones; however, that does make me wonder, why not both (assuming it isn't too much work to do so)? Having one calendar set up to show off the holidays that are seen more modernly on an individual scale and one to include the larger scale gatherings for those who do try to celebrate them in some way or another?

That being said, I totally get that might just be a me thing... I love calendars and even if my holidays generally consist of just thinking about the holiday the day of way too late and going "oh f" and pouring a libation lmao. However, like I said, there's a bunch of options to see every historical holiday placed modernly; and there's not many easier to digest calendars or actual "working" calendars. I would absolutely love to see a more simplified and achievable calendar to strive for!!

This is your annual reminder that “The 7 Pillars of Hellenic Polytheism” were not made in antiquity. They hold no true binding to Hellenic Polytheism as a religion as these Pillars were not followed in Ancient Greece—Or at any time until the last decade or so

They are, of course, nice to have in mind, and everyone should be kind and humble when necessary, but I’m honestly kind of tired of hearing that these Pillars are “foundational” to the religion or included in “Helpol basics” posts

A man named Timothy Jay Alexander initially created these Pillars, and while he took inspiration from Ancient Greek philosophers, he very much was not one himself

He’s known to be intolerant of Revivalist views of Hellenic Polytheism, and because of his strict Recon perspective, believes that queer, ill and disabled people cannot or should not be allowed to hold the title of Priestx (link)

You are allowed to hold yourself to standards like the Pillars, but acting as though they are actual rules of Hellenic Polytheism, or, Gods forbid, pushing them on others, is so disheartening to see

Just because something has a Greek name, doesn’t automatically make it authentically Helpol or from antiquity

The closest thing from antiquity that we have like the Pillars are the Delphic Maxims, honestly

Anyway. Do you what you like, but this is just some information for those of you who are unaware

this is your daily reminder that water is NOT a lazy offering! the gods appreciate anything you can give to them, and it's more about the intention than the physical offering anyway.

So here's my advice

- check if there's legislation around litter picking in your area [yes sometimes that's a thing] especially if you're planning to do more then just a trash bag a go or doing this as a group!

- make sure there's a place to dispose of the trash you picked up before you start!

- set a rule to yourself to not touch anything duiring litter picking with your hands get a litter picker or some really good gloves [if using gloves don't touch yourself w those]

- duiring litter picking i adhear to the idea that there is only trash and nature there is no shiny things you want to take home even if thst thing you found is really cool.

- fruit cores, fruit peels ect that do not appear naturally in the area you're cleaning are considered trash as well.

-i like to stick to places where i know a lot of people come and go, major paths the enterence of a park ect litter picking for me is spent inna different part of nature then when i go into nature for my own walks. I want to prevent the trash that gets discarded here from finding it's way further into the forest where it will be harder to clean later.

- stick to it! Stick to it in the same area and slowly expand that area it took me 20 minutes to fill up my first trash bag now it takes me over an hour in that same area!

Yes i'm aware most of this is probably considered common sense by a lot of people , but i want to see it be spoken about more so here i am screaming into the well