#hephaestus*

crafter and artisan, you mold your surroundings

as you do your body, my body;

forge through flame and hammer

new limbs and spines and arrows of lightning,

bend old curves to new function.

fill me with embers, O hephaestus,

that I may fan them into fire to follow your lead:

break myself down to beauteous parts

Hail Hephaestus! Hail the gracious smith, the sculptor, the artisan, the spark of innovation, the engineer of civilization!

I offered Orphic Hymn 65 and olive oil we got from our trip in Italy. I thanked him for his influence in our lives and asked him to continue to bless my partner, who works with boats and is a bit of a tinkerer himself.

Divination

Was my offering accepted? 7 of Cups

Generally yes, though the offering may have not been realistic to the god’s actual wants. May want to examine what I give him in the future.

What is your blessing? Page of Wands

A creative energy and/or creative project. Gifts of skill building and apprenticeship, something positive is on the horizon.

What is your charge/What do you ask of me? 6 of Cups

Alright, folks! This month, we’re honoring Hephaestus and His virtues of Creativity and Diligence!

Hephaestus is a really interesting deity, I love His origin and how resilient He is. Of all the Gods He’s the one that really represents courage and strength to me. He had to love Himself and see His own self worth despite what His parents showed Him. His story wasn’t about courage or self worth either, they were just implied and assumed. Hephaestus is incredibly strong and brilliant, so I’m really excited to see how this month goes!

Virtue number one is Creativity! This makes sense considering He’s the god of Blacksmithing (among other things), but I don’t think this is just about being fun and writing more stories. Hephaestus strikes me as pretty practical, so I think this virtue would look more at applying your creativity to work or trying to fix something up. I think I’ll try to combine those ideas this month. Half of it will be working on my fun creativity, maybe I’ll start writing again, and the other half will be working to expand my practical creativity!

hi friends! so i made a bunch of playlists for the theoi and i thought i’d share!

aphrodite

apollo

ares

artemis

athena

demeter

dionysus

hades

hephaestus

hera

hermes

hestia

persephone

poseidon

Hello! I don’t know how long ago you sent this, because tumblr never notifies me of new messages, so I apologize if you’ve been waiting for too long.

I’ll be honest and say I wouldn’t really know how to explain to you how I experience him haha I think it’s something very particular (in the sense that everyone experiences deities a different way), and just very... different from anything. So instead I’ll tell you how I knew he was reaching out to me, I hope it helps. I never really thought I’d be devoted to him, in the beginning, and back when I was learning, I started reading about the gods and goddesses. I know when a deity is reaching out to me or is around because I just start crying. Not from being sad or scared, but I just feel very happy. There was a day where I was going through a short list of the Theoi, with names of gods and goddesses and their domains. As soon as I read Hephaestus’ name, I just started crying. I had no idea why, at first, so I just read more about him (because I only know the basics), and so I started making offerings and building a relationship. I think this is the best way to describe how I experience Hephaestus and the Theoi: pure joy.