Noctivague

Spiritual Imposters

Before committing yourself to a deity or spirit one must communicate by learning about the entity in question, making certain they are who they say they are. Discovery of a spirit you thought you were working with is something else that leaves one feeling betrayed, upset, and oftentimes empty. Knowing the signs can really help discern things.

Mental Sock Puppets

A mental sock puppet is the result of talking to yourself and concluding self-talks as something else. The ego talks, you listen to yourself. Not a spirit. Or you establish contact but are incredibly biased hearing your thoughts. Not theirs.

It acts in accordance to your expectations.

You received no new information.

It’s only as knowledgeable as you are.

It only abides by your will. No one else.

It gives no signs unless you’re looking for them.

These are easy to get rid of if you identify the problem, recognize the problem, and let the narrative and ego go. No one needs to hear it. No one wants too either. You only end up hurting yourself and other people if things get too out of hand.

Lying Spirits

Some spirits are opportunists. They can portray an illusion pretending to be someone they’re not in order to gain loyalty and trust. They can take the form of a deity, guide, companion, or anything else that you would be most receptive to. This is why it’s good to know the basics to energy work and magick. Remember to learn different energies and how they feel to you. Remember to analyze the situation, yourself, the spirit, the environment, and working before proceeding forward. A lot of these malevolent entities like to feed off you or cause more drama that’s not necessarily needed.

Spirit Work and Continued Relationships

Veneration and Practice

This is about worshipping the deities or spirits you work with and highly depends on your practices and influences you choose to use and construct.

Most times there will be an altar setup or shrine dedicated to these spirits. Offerings of food, drink, incense, and trinkets would be a way of showing your dedication and interests of the spirits. There are other forms of interaction I have seen before.

Connection through art, music, nature, and meditation are just some of these other mediums. You don’t have to make this complex, and sometimes people have busy schedules making veneration hard to come by.

Try to keep things simple and remember it’s always okay to take a break due to circumstances. Spirits understand life comes first.

Patrons and Matrons

A Patron and Matron are deities that a devotee has a connection to. Its beyond standard devotional relations and is the main contact point for guidance and protection. It’s important to recognize that these types of relationships are built. They are not assigned.

Wicca is known for the patron and matron concept where duo theistic practices entail encouraging practitioners to seek out two divinities. The patron and matron would represent the divine masculine and divine feminine.

This is not a requirement in most practices, but in Wicca it is recognized in many circles.

Fallow Times

There are times where communication between you and the spirits can be difficult, and that’s okay. It happens with everyone. It doesn’t mean a spirit has left or that you’ve lost your ability to communicate. This feeling is temporary, and it’s a reminder that whenever this does happen, you need to take care of yourself first. Get the rest you deserve and try again later. Remember, this is normal due to circumstances – including stress, environmental factors, and any sort of disturbances one may have.

Oaths and Vows

There are many reasons why an individual would take an oath and vow. That’s between the practitioner and the spirit. This promise can come about for many different reasons, and even sometimes at the request of the spirit. However, this isn’t required if you are just working with them. It doesn’t mean control or status either. You can’t parade this around to get your way in certain situations. It doesn’t look good or help. Be aware of that. Remember why you did this, and what does it mean for you. That’s the most important part.

Displeasing Spirits

Those that are new to Spirit Work sometimes worry about displeasing the spirits. Repeat after me, deities and spirits who choose to work with you won’t get mad at you for being a human.

They will know there will be shortcomings, quirks, and variations.

You have NO obligation to listen to ANY person on this subject otherwise.

IF you do upset a spirit or make it angry question yourself as to why. Remember, communication is the key, and sometimes frictions can happen.

Why fearing a deity keeps me from developing a genuine relationship with that same deity.

I grew up Catholic and one of the first things my mother taught me was the concept of Heaven and Hell. Essentially after death one gets judged based on the actions they took while they were still living and is either rewarded with heaven or punished with hell. It was a simple concept to understand but it brought up a question that ultimately made me leave the religion.

Do I genuinely love God or am I afraid of his wrath? (Like a held hostage who is coerced into choosing options that won't upset my captor out of fear of his retaliation)

Even the reward of eternal bliss felt like it was designed to lessen the threat of eternal damnation as a consolation prize for all those years of panic attacks and anxiety over the thought of being sent to Hell. I always hoped for a third milder option that allowed me the freedom to develop a genuine relationship with God without said god having to rely on coercion. I wanted to experience an honest relationship without a weapon pressed against my back in case I made the wrong move or asked the wrong question.

Due to this looming threat, the relationship I had with God felt transactional and lacked genuine affection because I knew God's love for me was conditional and depended on me following arbitrary rules from a book written by a lot of different people (each author having their own agenda different from the rest so they were constantly contradicting each other because the different entries were written in different time periods and places with vastly different political movements specific to their locations and situations but were combined together, like a mass Tumblr post with over 50 blogs that don't all agree on what the rules should be).

The many rules always made me feel like Alice playing a game with the Queen of Hearts with rules that were unclear and no one was interested in explaining them to me until I did something they didn't like and were able to find something in the book that condemned me for it.

Having to adhere to these rules in order for me to be rewarded and not punished felt like a relationship between a gay child and homophobic parents that expected said child to act a certain way. If that child obeyed, they were rewarded with affection and approval, but if said child didn't, they were kicked out and forced to fend for themselves against a world that wasn't built to protect and help gay children. Being Christian felt like I had a leash around my neck being held by an entity that constantly told me he loved so long as I did what I was told.

I didn't think it was possible to love a deity without fearing them until I met my gods.

According to the ancient Greeks: Once a human dies they go to Hades. Unless they make some kind of undeniable mark in the world everyone goes to Hades.

If you were a famous and exceptional human that changed the world in a positive way you'd go to Elysium but you purposefully had to do something so extraordinary your legacy and name became well known because according to the Elysium wiki, in the beginning "only mortals related to the gods and other heroes could be admitted past the river Styx. Later, the conception of who could enter was expanded to include those chosen by the gods, the righteous, and the heroic." (LINK) The ancient Greeks believed the gods were in charge of giving people fame because those who were famous were often related to the gods (for example: people believed Pythagoras (the one that the Pythagorean theorem is named after) was either the son of Apollo, or Apollo himself: (LINK)

Tartarus is strictly for gods and humans can't go there but the worst humans are still punished by Hades as shown in the myths of Sisyphus (LINK) and Tantalus (LINK) but you have to royally eff up. You have to do it on purpose like enacting laws that target vulnerable people (both Sisyphus and Tantalus were kings and politically involved) or commiting mass genocide as examples of the severity I'm talking about. These are crimes against humanity you cannot accidentally do, they involve terrible deeds that are premeditated with the intent of destroying the lives of innocent people.

But if my main problem is the concept of Heaven/Hell, why am I bringing up Elysium, Hades and Tartarus, concepts that influenced how Heaven and Hell work? (LINK)

Because unless you choose to dedicate your life, time and energy and become famous for making an undeniable mark in history (an effort that isn't just you doing normal good deeds or making mistakes you later regret but actually dedicating your life and becoming well known for your efforts like activist Greta Thunberg, or purposefully hurting innocent people like serial killer Ted Bundy) everyone else goes to Hades and I love that because when I work with my gods I may not get automatic access to Elysium but there is no threat of eternal punishment either.

Which means I interact with my gods because I want to!

Not because I'll be rewarded or punished but because I want to interact with them and develop a genuine connection with them! There's no condition of me needing to convert others, in fact I don't even have to tell people I believe in them! (the gods understand the world can be a dangerous place for their followers due to the many religious wars and religious politicians in power).

I'm not required to talk about them! I'm not even required to keep this blog but I do it because I genuinely love them and I love talking about them! I've even changed majors mid semester in order to dedicate my life to learning about them. I'm studying to become an archeologist who specializes in the ancient Greek religion in order to make that information more accessible to Hellenic Polytheists and anyone else interested in the gods. I don't do it so the gods will reward me because I don't need them to, they will be just as happy if I delete this blog, quit my career and go about my day living my life. I do it because I love learning about the gods and I want to share the information I learned in case it helps those that are interested learn more about their gods too!

I've even made it my mission on Tumblr to share what I've learned about the gods to hopefully help others connect with their gods more easily especially for those who are having trouble connecting with them. And this was all unprompted. The gods literally had nothing to do with this. It was my own choice because there is a specific god I sometimes have trouble connecting with due to varying factors and it makes me feel awful when I can't connect with him, especially when I need his guidance the most so I want to help others avoid experiencing that feeling by letting them know they're not alone and helping them figure out what's blocking their connection because it can be a miserable experience.

My favorite part about a lack of reward and punishment is having the confidence to say I seek the gods because I want to seek the gods.

I walk with the gods because I want to walk with the gods. This is my will, my choice, and mine alone. No one is forcing me to do it and there isn't some big prize at the end if I do, I can stop anytime I want and nothing will happen. I have made an independent choice to seek the gods, meet them and got to know them and I can genuinely say I love them more than I ever thought was possible. I do.

I love my gods.

This post is going to be a bit different. I could stick to writing about the customs we know of from a purely historical perspective, and while it would be informative, it wouldn’t reflect what I’ve actually been up to. Some of you might already know, but I’m getting married, so I approached this topic with the intent of seeing what I could do (and get away with).

So this post is going to be more about method and the practical challenges that come with doing the groundwork of adapting very old (and often outdated) traditions in a way that makes sense for our modern times.

I do have some disclaimers to make before I get started:

Most (if not all) of the literature around ancient Greek marriage is hetero-normative. However, this does NOT mean that marriage rites shouldn’t be adapted for queer marriages or that queer marriages can’t be done within Hellenic paganism. It’s our job as reconstructionists and revivalists to rework and adapt to our needs.

Similarly, this post is bound to mention or detail cult practices that are no longer in line with our modern sensibilities. I also want to make it clear that this post is not a tutorial. I’m not saying how things should be done, I’m only exposing elements that I consider reworkable and propose suggestions so that it can help others make their own research and decisions, with the level of historicity that they deem fit.

While the wedding customs from fifth century BC Athens are decently known, the ones from other cities and regions of Greece are much more obscure outside of anecdotal and fragmentary details (with the exception of Sparta). For this reason, the Athenian example is what I’ll be using as foundation. If you reconstruct practices from other areas of the Greek World, you might find something valuable in this article: The Greek Wedding Outside of Athens and Sparta: The Evidence from Ancient Texts by Katia Margariti.

Basic/simplified structure

The typical Athenian wedding would spread over three days, and be marked by several steps, some of which are listed below. Note that the order of these steps is not precisely known and might have been flexible:

Pre-wedding:

Decorating: korythale at the door, decoration of the nuptial bedroom

The Proteleia

Filling of the loutrophoros

Wedding day

Nuptial bath

Adornment of the bride

Wedding Feast

Hymenaios

Anakalypteria

Nymphagogia

Katachysmata

Day after

Epaulia

Gamelia

Final sacrifices

Some of these steps included specific customs and traditions, not all of which are reconstructible for various reasons.

Decorations

The korythale: the korythale was a sprig, usually from an olive tree (or laurel), which was placed at the groom’s door (and perhaps the bride’s too). The word in interpreted as deriving from “koros” and “thallein”, which would translate “youth-blossom”.

The korythale is very reminiscent of the eiresione, which was a similar kind of branch of laurel used during the Thargelia and/or the Pyanepsia that had apotropaic purposes. Athenian weddings included a procession from the bride’s home to the groom’s house, so the presence of the korythale at the doors would indicate that a wedding was taking place involving the decorated homes.

While I haven’t seen any one make this interpretation, I would still be tempted to argue that decorating the thresholds of houses has a similar protective and luck-bringing purpose than the eiresione, which was also hung above the door of Athenian houses.

The thalamos (nuptial bedroom): While there is no doubt the houses were properly decorated for the occasion, we have mention of special care given to the nuptial bedroom.

It’s important to understand that the procession from the bride’s house to the groom’s went up to the bedroom door, it was generally an important location and its preparation is seen represented on ancient pottery. Euripides mentions the adornment of the bed with fine fabrics, while Theocritus mentions the smell of myrrh (sacred to Aphrodite). There is also evidence that, in the Imperial period, the practice of hanging curtains to create a canopy above the bed was adopted, very likely from Egypt.

When it comes to adapting this today, it is pretty straightforward and there is plenty of room for personalization. The korythale could be challenging depending on how easily available olive or laurel are in your area. I would also argue that the custom could be more loosely adapted so that instead of being at the houses’ doors, it could take the form of a floral arrangement at the door of whatever venue you are using.

Proteleia

In short, the proteleia refers to sacrifices and offerings that would be made to various gods before the wedding. The exact timing of these is more or less unknown, but we have reasons to believe they could be done a day or a few days before the wedding, and perhaps also on the day of the wedding. These offerings were made independently by each family.

It is in this context that the offering of a lock of hair and of childhood items is best known for brides. The recipients of the offerings are varied: In Athens the most mentioned are the Nymphs and Artemis, but various sacrifices to Aphrodite, Hera, Athena and Zeus were also performed. In other parts of Greece, pre-nuptial customs often included sacrifices to local heroines. Plutarch, in the 2nd century AD (and therefore way after the focus of this post) mentions the main five nuptial deities to be Zeus Teleios, Hera Teleia, Aphrodite, Peitho and Artemis.

Today, I believe the exact choice of who to offer to and what to offer very much comes down to personal preferences and circumstances. While we assume that both families made prenuptial sacrifices, we know very little of the groom’s side of things, since the focus was on the bride, and the rite of passage aspect was not present for the groom in Ancient times. This is a gap that leaves room for modern innovation eg. including Apollon to either replace or accompany Artemis or choosing a group of deities that is more couple-centric rather than family-centric.

Personally, I have settled on Aphrodite, Hera and Artemis and have integrated a Spartan custom that includes the mother of the bride in the sacrifice to Aphrodite. Hera Teleia will receive a lock of my current hair, while Artemis will receive a lock of hair from my first haircut as a child (that my mother has kept all these years), alongside some other trinkets. The groom will honour Zeus Teleios in a passive way. And I will honour the Nymphs through the the rite I will explain next.

Nuptial baths

Both bride and groom had a ritual bath before the wedding. Its purpose was of cleansing and purificatory nature, and is consistent with other water-based pre-sacrifice purifications. What made the bride and groom's baths distinctive was their preparation. The bath water used to be drawn at a specific spring or river. At Athens, the water for bridal baths came from the Enneakrounos, the fountain house for the spring Kallirrhoe, but each city had its dedicated source. The water was carried in a special vase named the loutrophoros (bathcarrier) and the act of fetching the water and bringing it back to the homes constituted a procession. The loutrophoros was often given as offering to the altar of the Nymphs after the wedding. It was an important symbol of marriage, to the point that, if a woman died before being married, she would often be buried with a loutrophoros.

This will be more or less difficult to adapt depending on circumstances and environment, but the logic of a purifying bath (or shower even) can be kept (though I would discourage bathing in water you are not sure of the cleanliness of). The idea of having a specific vessel can also be kept. Personally, I plan to have a special vessel for some type of purified water, and while I may not bathe in it, I plan to sprinkle it and/or wash my hands with it.

Adornment of the bride (and groom)

Traditionally, the bride would have a nympheutria (which we could equate as a bridesmaid, but seems to have often been a female relative) charged of helping the bride get ready. I won’t get into the details of the clothing we know about, mostly because there seems to be a lot of variation, and because I consider this to be a very personal choice. However, we can note that both groom and bride were adorned with a wreath or a garland of plants that were considered to have powers appropriate for the occasion (sesame, mint, plants that were generally considered fertile or aphrodisiac). Perfume is also something attested for both bride and groom, especially the scent of myrrh. The bride would wear a crown, the stephane, which could be made out of metal or be vegetal (the stephane is now the object of its own crowning ceremony in Greek Orthodox weddings). The bride’s shoes were also particular for the event, and named nymphides. The bride’s veil was placed above the crown.

Hymenaios and Feast

I am grouping these two since they are linked. The feast was more or less the peak of the wedding ceremony and lively with music and dances, as Plutarch indicates (Moralia, [Quaest. conv.] 666f-67a):

But a wedding feast is given away by the loud cries of the Hymenaios and the torch and the pipes, things that Homer says are admired and watched even by women who stand at their doors.

The hymenaios was a sung hymn in honour of the couple and the wedding, and there were other songs that were specifically sung at weddings. However the hymenaios wasn’t only for the feast, these songs would be sung also during the processions. The hymenaios also had the purpose of ritually blessing the couple, a ritual that bore the name of makarismos.

As for the feast, it was obviously abundant with food and the prenuptial sacrifices provided the meat that would be served. There is otherwise very little difference with what a modern wedding feast would be like: food, drink, music and dance around which gathered friends and relatives of the couple. Like today, the wedding cake(s) was an important part of the celebration. It was called sesame and consisted of sesame seeds, ground and mixed with honey and formed into cakes to be shared with the guests.

Anakalypteria

Note that there is a bit of a debate around this step, which is the unveiling of the bride. Some believe the bride kept her face veiled until this part of the wedding, where her face would be uncovered for the groom to see. Others interpret this step the other way around, where the bride is then veiled as a result of being now married. The timing of the unveiling is also up for the debate. It might have been during the feast (at nightfall), or after once the couple was escorted to the bridal chamber. There doesn’t seem to be a clear consensus.

The concept of unveiling the bride is otherwise something that isn’t unknown to us as a modern audience. As with everything else, how to interpret and modernize it is up to personal preference.

Nymphagogia and Katachysmata

The nymphagogia aka the act of “leading the bride to her new home” took place at night, likely after the feast. It is at this point that the groom ritually led the bride to his home by taking her by the wrist in a ritual gesture known as χεῖρ’ ἐπὶ καρπῷ (cheir’ epi karpo). The relatives and friends of the couple formed a festive procession that accompanied them to their new home accompanied by music and songs. The mother of the bride led the procession carrying lit torches, while the groom’s mother awaited for the new couple in their home, also bearing lit torches.

Once there, the rite of the katachysmata would happen. The couple would be sat near the hearth and the guests would pour dried fruits, figs and nuts over the bride and groom as a way to incorporate them into the household and bless the union with prosperity and fertility. As part of this rite, the bride ate a fruit (either an apple, quince or pomegranate). It is only after this step that the couple would be escorted to the bridal chamber.

These two rites are tricky to adapt in a modern context because of how location-specific they are (and that’s not even taking into account the implications of having family escort you to your bedroom etc). My take would be that the katachysmata is not too far off from the custom of throwing rice/flowers at the couple after the ceremony, and could probably be incorporated as such. The torches could also be replaced by any source of light placed in a meaningful location, depending on the where the wedding is being held. The nymphagogia could also do with an update, the easiest of which could simply be holding hands while leaving the wedding ceremony.

The day after (Epaulia, Gamelia & sacrifice)

The epaulia refers to wedding gifts to the couple, which would be given the day following the ceremony. At this point, it is implied that the couple has consummated their marriage and are officially newly-weds. Pausanias informs us that the term “epaulia” (also?) refers to the gifts brought by the bride’s father in particular and included the dowry.

After the epaulia, the bride's incorporation into her husband's house was complete. This might have been when the groom held a feast for his phratria (aka direct family), as a way to conclude the wedding.

As for final sacrifices, the bride herself may have marked the end of her wedding by dedicating her loutrophoros at the sanctuary of Nymphe, south of the Acropolis.

The epaulia could be adapted, in modern terms, with having a registry. Should someone choose to have a specific vessel linked to the ritual bath today, it could very well be kept, dedicated to the Nymphs and used as a small shrine. Considering how symbolic the object is, there is also room for it to become a piece of family heirloom.

Final words

This is really only a small summary of what a wedding could have looked like, sprinkled with a few ideas of how to manage the gaps, discrepancies and limitations. As I said in my introductions, there are details I haven’t mentioned. Some of the customs detailed here have clear modern counterparts, but others don’t. I’d like to conclude by addressing these.

First, the ancient Greek (Athenian) wedding is completely devoid of priestly participation. It was entirely planned, organized and led by the two families. Religious responsibilities were entirely self-managed. I find this point important to remember because it makes it much more accessible than if modern Hellenic pagans had to seek out an external authority.

Some of you might have noticed the absence of wedding vows, at least in a formal form like the one we are used to in our modern days (derived from Christian and Jewish traditions), this is not an oversight, there simply were none that we know of. As a sidenote, I would also advise against turning a wedding vow into a formal oath. I’m still debating on what to do myself, but I’m leaning towards a religiously non-binding vow that won’t curse me should things go wrong.

Today I wanted to make an uplifting personality reading focusing on the positive things you personally bring to the world as well as your strengths and qualities.

I will also finish with an advice on how to share it or share it better with the world, depending on the pile.

Note: I always write down the cards I draw. a "+" indicates that these cards go together; a "/" shows as change of row/question.

Focus on the 4 pictures, pick the one that draws you in the most and go to your pile. It's possible that more than one pile resonates. This is a general reading meant for multiple people so not everything will resonates.

Always open to feedback :)

I have a friend I've known for over ten years who is going through hell right now. She has struggled with severe depression since young childhood, but she has always done what she can to soldier on and find meaning. Then, not too long ago, when she was finally beginning to find some happiness, her sister (who was her dearest friend and closest ally) passed away in a very traumatic way due to a brain tumor that greatly affected her cognition and personality. Then, while trying to pick up the pieces again following her sister's death, my friend was in a car accident that caused her eye socket to shatter and her eye to collapse. She was rushed to the hospital where they barely saved the eye itself, but she lost her retina and has major scarring down her face now. The partial blindness and scarring are hard enough on their own, but they're especially awful for her, as she was working as a model and visual artist before all this. Needless to say, this has been the worst time of her life, and I feel beyond heartbroken for her.

The contest I'm sharing is actually one that my friend's cousin is entered in, but the winner gets $25K, which she wants to use to help pay off their family's mounting medical bills. I've been trying to keep up with the contest, since it's the least I can do beyond donating meagerly to their gofundme, but it's getting towards the end now and so the contest has become very close. It gives you the option to pay certain amounts to give that same number of votes, but it also has a way to cast a free vote that involves signing in with Facebook info or entering your Card information (though, it wont be charged unless you actively purchase votes.)

I hate to ask this sort of thing, but I also hate that people the U.S. are forced to seek financial support of this sort for medical attention in the first place. I don't have many people I can ask to support something like this, so I thought I would give posting it here a shot. Please consider checking in daily to cast your vote, so that this family can get some semblance of relief. Additionally, sharing this post would be helpful as well, and if you'd rather donate directly to my friend's gofundme, I will include a link that as well. And please, pray for my friend if you are so inclined; she needs all the help she can get right now.

Contest Link: X

Medical gofundme: X

I'm actually a bit floored because i was not expecting something like this. like, i'm learning so much from doing these readings, i was not expecting that.

it's beautiful, just as much as it is tragic. in those moments, i can feel my heart breaking and yet being tenderly placed back together in divine hands. they have every power within them to shatter you again,