#hellenistic polytheist

Take what resonates and leave the rest behind, baby. But always be open to new experiences. Decks used are Ethereal Visions Illuminated Tarot Deck, True Black Tarot, believe in your own magic oracle and pure magic oracle.

🌤Tip your Reader🌻

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PILE ONE

Astrology: Libra, Leo, Aquarius

Song: Apollo by Faith Zapata

Vibes: Yellow, red, white, indigo, owl, pidgin, scrunchies, tot bags, forge, swords, renaissance, skulls, poison, dancing, bus rides, public transport, arm tattoos, 333, 8787

Cards: Justice, 3 of Swords, Queen of Swords, 8 of Cups, The Sun, 7 of Wands, Hidden Familiars, Confidence, Belladonna Visions

Welcome to your message from Lord Apollo, pile one! I can see you had to walk away from something that meant a lot to you to gain a dream come true. You do not feel confident about your decision at all. Mostly because you haven't been able to feel the rewards from this huge change yet. You might have moved away from home or left a job that you have been at a long while. You knew you had to do it. The energy from where you were was changing into something that didn't resonate with you anymore. There was a chip on your shoulder where you used to be. You were not being treated with respect. Where you are going is meant to remove that chip and show you how you genuinely deserve to be treated.

Lord Apollo wants me to let you know that the heart break will be worth it. He knows that you are scared about the future and what is to come. He wants me to tell you that you have been guided to this new experience. Good things are coming and you don't need to be scared. The rewards will come with time and practice. Stand firm in your decision and know things will work out for you. You will receive anything and everything you need to help you succeed where you are going. He knows this isn't something you would normally do. You are a very logical person and you always have a plan. This feels like it is something you jumped into without much planning and it feels really anxiety inducing. Trust yourself. Trust that your guides will have your back. Not everyone is going to agree with your decision and you need to know you don't need their approval to make this decision. Things will work out without the approval of others. It is okay to be unsure. It is okay to be scared. Clarity will come to you on why things needed to go the way they need to go.

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PILE TWO

Astrology: Scorpio, Gemini, Cancer

Song: SUNRISE by MICHELLE

Vibes: Yellow, gold, blue, pink, black, squid, octopus, crows, activism, spiral, swirls, fencing, fairies, bubbles, stars, oranges, grapes, peaches, apricots, fruit, 4444, 88, 13

Cards: King of Swords, 4 of Wands, Death, 7 of Swords, 8 of Cups, Page of Swords, Raindrops, Opening Circle, Baraka

Welcome, pile two! Lord Apollo wants me to tell you to take a chance on that person. It could be someone you are romantically interested in but it could also just be someone you want to get to know better. This person you are interested in feels like an air sign (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius). Remember you aren't as naive as you used to be. Broaden your horizons. You don't have to sell yourself short anymore. Change how you think about yourself, my dear. You have changed in nature but you still see yourself in the same light that you used to see yourself. You aren't a victim anymore. I will also say don't throw all caution to the wind. Make sure you have a back up plan and remember to keep yourself safe. Just know you don't have to be as scared as you used to be. You are strong. You are driven. You are powerful. You don't have to hide in fear anymore.

Lord Apollo knows you have been through some scary stuff in the past. What you went through wasn't your fault. You have spent a while mourning and that was important for you to do. You don't have to mourn anymore. You can open your heart up to healing. You can look for love in other people again. He recognizes how much you have grown and wants you to know he is proud of your progress. You have learned what you needed to learn. You are protected from the pain you felt before. It won't happen again. The universe, Lord Apollo and you are looking after you. You are safe. Lord Apollo promises that.

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PILE THREE

Astrology: Aries, Taurus, Capricorn

Song: Under the Sun by TWRP

Vibes: Grey, purple, orange, green, shore line, salamanders, lizards, raven, lion, baby's breath flowers, nest, wedding cake, birthday cake, solar plexus chakra, sacral chakra, 1010, 1111

Cards: The Tower, King of Wands, Queen of Pentacles, 10 of Swords, 10 of Cups, 6 of Wands, Wings, Earth Mother, Mantra Medicine

Hi, pile three. Lord Apollo really wants you to listen to your mentors and friends. There is something you want to do. I don't want to sugar coat it, my dear. It is a bad idea. Your guides have been trying to steer you from this path because it is going to be very hard and it doesn't have to be. He asks you to listen closely to the music you have listening too. Pay attention to the music you hear when you are out in public. The lyrics are trying to tell you something important about this big choice you want to make. There is a reason things have been delayed so much. There is a reason why everything has been going wrong. Your friends and guides are trying to protect you from someone who is hurting you. Why are you letting them hurt you? Why are you letting them control you? Why? I want you to really REALLY think when I ask you this. Is this person hurting you? Do they actually make you feel good? Are they erasing who you are? Do they make you wear a mask when you are around them?

Lord Apollo showed me visions of my ex when I started doing this reading. He showed me how depressed my ex made me feel. He showed me how all my friends told me not to go with my ex, but I did anyway. The song I put in this readings description was a song I listened to when I was with him to cope with the pain he put me through. (I hadn't read the cards yet when I put that song there.) Please hear me. Please hear you friend and please hear Lord Apollo. Do not trust someone who says they love you but then treats you like trash. You are so much better than that. You deserve better than that. I see that there are two paths. You can either deepen you connection and trap yourself with this person who is not treating you right. OR you can leave them and give yourself the freedom you deserve. If you choose to deepen the connection it will prolong your pain. You will still end up leaving this person. You will just leave with darker bruises and no self esteem. I have been with someone like this. My guides told me to leave too. It took me a long time to listen and it hurt more the longer I stayed. Please trust Lord Apollo. Please trust your friends. They truly love you. They want what is best for you.

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PILE FOUR

Astrology: Sagittarius, Virgo, Pisces

Song: baseball by Hippo Campus

Vibes: Light yellow, light blue, light purple, pastels, black, alternative fashion, yoga, smoke cleansing, geckos, flowery patterns, florida water, perfume, white roses, red dress, sunflowers, hyacinths, cats, 333, 4, 22, 111

Cards: Ace of Wands, Queen of Swords, Page of Swords, The Lovers, Queen of Wands, The Well, Tower, Vervain Everlasting, Salamander

Hello, pile four. Welcome to your message from Lord Apollo. Lord Apollo is telling me you lost someone. You think about them a lot even though you are trying to be independent. Your heart longs for this person all the time. I'm so sorry you lost them. I don't mean to be insensitive but you need to let go of them. They aren't yours anymore. You aren't theirs even if you are still under their spell. I'm very sorry. I can hear your crying to love songs you two used to share. It hurts deeply to listen to something that used to give you so much pleasant emotion. Lord Apollo knows how that feels. He know how it feels too long for someone and cry for days at the loss of them. It is hard to move on. I won't doubt that. He apologizes for your pain. Apollo wants to help sooth your heart.

Hello and welcome, fellow mystical explorers. I am Mosaica Stella Styx (she/they); a cosmic chaos witch, Hellenic Polytheist, and tarot and oracle reader currently studying astrology, herbs, and good spellcraft, particularly with regards to manifesting abundance and success. 🔮💫

I’m based in the rainy west coast of Canada, and I have the good fortune of living with a family that is highly respectful of my beliefs. However I choose to keep this blog somewhat separate from my main blog for professional reasons.

Regarding my Beliefs:

My Patron is Hermes, my matron Hekate, and I also deeply honour Hestia, Athena, Apollo, Zeus, Nyx, Asteraios, Asteria, Selene, and Artemis. I have philosophical ties to Metamodernism, Orphism, and Peter J. Carroll’s concept of chaos magick (as spoken of in Liber Null+Psychonaut and Liber Kaos).

Metamodernism is the philosophical understanding that we live in an era that oscillates between modern sincerity and postmodern irony-or else outright combines these modes of feeling. Depending on the school of Metamodern thought, earlier aeons and epochs of thought and philosophical belief also come into play. I am still organizing my thoughts on this subject and how it can impact an up to date understanding of Magick.

Orphism is the belief in the Gods and afterlife told in the hymns of Orpheus, often collected as the Orphic Hymns. Among other things, it implies a belief in a cleansing of the soul after death, allowing for reincarnation. I have some UPG indicating that this belief system is also compatible with veneration of one’s ancestors, which I have started doing privately.

Peter J. Carroll was my introduction to chaos magick and represents a major bedrock of my practice, even if I don’t totally agree with him on everything. If you wish to tailor make your own belief system, read the two books I already cited-they will serve you well.

Housekeeping and Prayer:

Minors should note that topics discussed here may be philosophically dense, however I do aim to keep my Magickal space safe for work. However, this is NOT a safe space for queerphobes, racists, sexists, or bigots of other varieties.

this post has to do specifically with research in Hellenic polytheism since I personally have struggled with it a lot and I think it's something neurotypical people may not think is a problem.

research as a neurodivergent pagan

when a beginner asks what to do, literally all of us probably say "research !" and point them towards some posts, websites, books etc that will give them the information they want/need. i have seen and I personally experienced people telling me I had to research everything beforehand, that it was a very bad idea to start before researching for "safety" reasons and just plain knowing what I was doing.

however, I barely knew anything about Dionysos when I began to worship Him. i literally knew what He was the God of and maybe a few of His myths. I knew the very basic practices of neo-hellenism (like Khernips for example) and that was it. i was running on nothing but excitement and all I wanted was to give Him a space and worship, not read a billion web articles. just sitting down and reading things is very hard for me, so of course I was avoiding it as much as I could. about two weeks after I made His strine, I began to research Him more and more.

I found out that for me personally, learning more about a deity AS I worship Them is definitely better than weeks or months of research before contacting Them. I'm 100% an advocate for research and knowing what you're doing before doing it, but I mean it's a little ableist to just assume that everyone is able to do ALL the research beforehand and then pressure them to do so. even if paganism is a special interest of mine/was an intense hyperfixation, if I had tried to do my research like many people told me to (all beforehand), I would have given up months ago. if you told me Hellenic Polytheism is all research and I believed you, I would have thought "I can't do this then. my ADHD can't handle all that information, time, and pressure.". i would have grown to despise it, my brain would have rebelled against me and what I wanted.

so I compromised. i know myself and I know what task I need to do, so I find a point where they meet and go for it. I learn basic knowledge about a Deity and then learn more about Them with Them as I worship. it feels more personal and it gives me a reason to crave in depth research. being able to gasp and stumble to Dionysos's altar when I learned something I loved about Him was so validating and comforting to me. i bonded with Him over my research and it also allowed me to cope well with an influx of new information so my brain wouldn't fry. i was allowed to info dump and stim and be as undeniably me as I wanted to right at His altar, and it was amazing.

where does the problem lie ?

the problem is in the exact opposite of what I ended up doing for myself: pressure to do it the "usual" way or the way you are told. if you put a book in front of me and told me I HAVE to read the entire thing before even thinking about moving onto worship, I don't think I'd ever be able to do it. i certainly would take much longer than neurotypical people trying to do the task. my brain wouldn't be able to handle it, so I'd give up.

even if I genuinely tried, my brain may not even retain any of the information. i may forget it all the day after I've finished. i may lose the book. i may learn a bunch and then get overloaded and suddenly all the information is just one big indistinguishable blob in my head, i may just look at it and immediately get incredibly overwhelmed at how big the book is. sometimes I can't even look at big responsibilities without getting overloaded. doing it in a way that worked well with my brain allowed me to succeed just like everyone else.

this goes for so many other people as well. some people with disabilities can't look at screens for too long without getting a splitting headache or other symptoms. for some, being on a phone or device can flair things like nerve or muscle disorders. some people may be triggered by words or content in their research and are unable to research a particular myth or custom. some people will end up guilting themselves for not researching when they could be in a mental state that prevents research (depressive episode, manic episodes, stress, etc). it even goes as far as reading in general is just a chore for people like me or with disorders like dyslexia. it can take me a month to even get through one page on Theoi because I just struggle so much with reading comprehension and retaining information.

shoving urgency, strict instructions, and the "right way" onto beginners, even with the best intentions, may be the reason that beginner drops consideration of practicing. especially if that beginner has a disability you are probably unaware of. this also is inflexible and can make neurodivergent or disabled pagans feel pressured to follow abled/neurotypical methods and practices.

so then what do we do?

stop telling beginners they need to know everything before they worship. this flat out isn't true and can be very harmful to anyone, especially disabled and neurodivergent people. active practicing and research can happen at the same time. all you need to know before starting is the information about what you're about to do, like setting up an altar.

stop telling people that Hellenic polytheism is mostly research, it may be for some but it isn't a must. Hellenic polytheism is a religion, not a school. research is not everything, there are things you don't need to research if you don't want to. bonding and effort into worship are more important in the long run, in my opinion.

when asked by a beginner about research, offer them resources on vital information, not information on things that won't help them understand what they're doing/getting involved in. a beginner doesn't need to know about things that aren't immediately useful to their practice until they get a hand on things. a beginner doesn't need to know myths when they're starting. it can de-clutter their workload and make things easier for them to get a grip as they start. as much as knowledge is power, it also can be built up to. there are things more important to learn in the beginning than other things.

never shame people for not knowing something, educate them instead. it's easy for people to miss things or forget them. making mistakes is human.

it's not "if you can't do the research you shouldn't be a Hellenic Polytheist", it's "anyone can be a Hellenic Polytheist and no practice is the same", no exceptions. how about instead of being an asshole to someone who should research more, help them or offer solutions.

when it comes to VITAL information, like cultural information and religious practices, the only thing that matters is that you learn the information. it doesn't matter how you learn it or how long it takes, as long as it's learned. experiment with different learning methods (books, e-books, podcasts, etc) and allow diversity into your research. you can take years to complete your research if you want. there's no time limit and we should eliminate the unspoken idea that there's an "acceptable" time frame.

also a few side points I couldn't put in the post without messing up the flow or making it a billion years long

if we want to build more community, stop making facts and history the priority. we came here to worship, didn't we ? research is a great devotional act, but research isn't why all of us are here. Tumblr seems to prefer historical posts rather than other posts (minus the other big two, memes and aesthetic). i personally think that fueling a more casual community environment along with serious historical posts will let people feel more comfortable and make the community feel more alive. less old dead white men and more supporting each other as content creators.

artists ? just want to say I frickin love you guys and I didn't include you in the part about popular post types because art is exactly the type of post I'm trying to encourage !! I'm in no way discouraging historical posts, only encouraging unique posts other than the Big Three™. some more examples are UPG associations, devotional acts, special items you've devoted to a Deity, altar photos, practice plans and updates, baking/cooking, and POETRY AND WRITING !

tl;dr it's ableist to assume that everyone can research as much as you can or do things the way you did. we offer beginners resources and tell them to learn or leave, which is stupid, ridiculous, and ableist. putting less pressure on beginners to learn everything they can BEFORE practicing will make the community more welcoming and accessable, in my opinion. this doesn't mean we need to cater to beginners and hand them everything on a silver platter, I think this advice could even help long-time pagans. it's easy to get caught up in wanting to know everything, but you don't need to know everything to be a Hellenic Polytheist. Hellenic Polytheism does take research, but it isn't everything. this isn't college, it's our community of people who love and worship the Gods.

I want my religious terms off the LGBTA+ wiki (I'll explain why), and from this point on I do not want anything I coin added to it. I deeply regret coining terms through the wiki and will be recoining Iphisian and Teiresian to remove them from the wiki.

The Dionysian Gender System, including Maedic, Thyrsoan, and Satyrian can remain on the wiki if they are not altered past this point, except for a note visible on the pages. The contents of the note will be at the bottom of this post.

So, for those confused, hi. I'm Crow. I assume you already follow me, but if you don't know, I'm a Hellenic Polytheist and this is my religious blog. I have coined five-six religiogenders through this blog and the LGBTA+ wiki (where I am Localcorvid), all relating to my personal experience of Hellenic Polytheism and worship. All were coined at times I identified with them, though now I only really define myself as Iphisian and Maedic out of the set.

I am not a MOGAI blog. I want to make that clear. The coining of those genders through this blog were because of their specific ties to my religion. That is the main reason I'm so, so angry.

So, let me quickly copy my definition of Iphisian: "Ihpisian is a gender for Hellenic Polytheists who are AFAB transgender. The gender is also oriented towards, but not exclusive to, worship of Aphrodite, Hera, and Isis (Egyptian)." *Note: I have personally modified the definition as the coiner, but in fairness, this is what I originally coined it as. It has evolved into a term for AFAB transgender, transmasculine, and transgender lesbian Hellenists.

What I'm fucking pissed about is the flag they added. Which I'm not showing. Because it's attributed to an agnostic non-polytheist cisgender girl.

And Teiresian? A term that I coined as "a gender for Hellenic Polytheists who are bigender, AMAB transgender, and/or genderfluid ... oriented towards worship of Apollon, Hermes, or Hera"?

They added a flag made by an agnostic catholic. At least he was intramasculine (trans), but still.

These terms are religious. I don't know how to stress that enough. They are religious terms, religious genders. They are tied to my theoi, who I love with my entire heart. They are devoted to my patrons. These are my gods.

And I don't know how to explain that I don't want cis agnostics making flags for my transmasculine lesbian Hellenist terms! I don't know how to explain I don't want agnostic ex-catholics making a flag for a term related to devotion to Hera!

My religion is open, but that doesn't mean this isn't violently disrespectful. The terms were explicitly not open. Those flags weren't for outsiders to make, period.

So I want those terms down, right now. And if I ever coin another religiogender or sexuality, do not put it on the damn wiki. I give consent for @ezgender to put my terms on the Ezgender wiki, and as of right now that is the only one they're allowed to go on.

@official-lgbta-wiki, take my terms down, except for the Dionysian Gender System. My note is as follows:

On October 24, 2021, the coiner koraki-pharmakis posted a statement to faer Tumblr blog stating that fae no longer wanted faer terms on the LGBTA+ wiki due to members disrespecting closed religious terms and the wiki's lack of adequate moderation and respect for coiners. Fae allowed that the Dionysian Gender System, including Maedic, Thyrsoan, and Satyrian, remain on the site with the requirement that this message be attached and that no flags or symbols created by individuals who were not Hellenist Dionysos worshippers be added to the page.

If you don't post the note, I expect my gender system to also be removed.