#hp101

Does living in a atheist family (and therefore having some doupt because of it) would make it impossible? would the gods still help me ?

Do you have to know prayers or epithets by heart ?

Is not experiencing a connections with the gods a problem ?

Hello, dear. Welcome! Your questions aren’t rude at all, and it’s always ok to ask! We were all new at some point.

I can totally understand how living in an atheist family can make the concept of religion seem daunting, but the gods are never going to think less of you because of the religion of your parents. A lot of us come from Christian families and the gods certainly don’t hold that against us. They understand your situation and as long as you approach them with reverence and respect, they won’t refuse to help you just because of your family. As for doubt, that’s a totally valid concern. What helps me is knowing that even if it is all just in my imagination, it’s not hurting anybody and it makes me feel better, so in a way, it doesn’t really matter. It’s also worth remembering that even though paganism is viewed as a sort of “fringe” religion now, these gods were as real to the ancient Greeks as anything else. It’s only been relatively recently that society has changed away from that.

You absolutely don’t have to know prayers and epithets by heart. I only know a few epithets off the top of my head and I’m not sure I know any prayers, and I’ve been practicing for years. It’s a good idea to research both prayers and epithets and write down the ones you particularly like so you can easily reference them, but you don’t have to memorize them. Some people do prefer, if they’re doing a bigger ritual or something in honor of the gods, to have the prayers they’re using for that memorized so they they don’t have to read it, but that’s very much optional and largely a point of personal preference.

Tumblr has a gift of only showing people at their best in their practice, and that can manifest itself as the idea that everyone who’s serious about this religion is constantly in communication with their dieties, is able to godphone (hear the gods and have conversations with them), and has a deep and unbreakable connection with the gods they worship. This is, of course, ridiculous, and there are many practitioners who don’t do any of those things who are still just as valid as those who do. You don’t have to be called by any god to start worshipping them. You can choose when to start honoring a diety, and those chosen relationships can be exactly as fulfilling as those where the god called to you first. Building a relationship with the gods is a deeply individual thing, and regardless of what tumblr may say, there’s no wrong way to join this religion or to worship the gods. It’s about your comfort level and the communication you have with them that’s unique to you.

Hey friend! Your question isn’t stupid or rude at all! It’s an entirely legitimate one that has been cropping up increasingly more often lately in the hp community.

Broadly, yes. Hellenic polytheism is an open religion, and you do not have to be Greek to practice it. Gatekeeping is bad, kids!

That being said, it’s very important to understand that the “Hellenic” part of Hellenic polytheism means something! There will be aspects to the religion that xenoi, people not from Greece, will struggle to understand, or parts that tie very directly to the land of Greece itself. I am not Greek, personally, so I don’t speak with the utmost authority here, but my friend who is Greek made a really lovely post about this exact question a little while ago. I’ve linked it here and it does a far better job of explaining this concept than I could ever do!

Hello! Thanks so much for your sweet words!! Hestia is really wonderful and I’m glad you’ve found her.

I have a bunch of masterlists buried around my blog for stuff for beginners! I’ll slap some links to the bottom of this post to make them easy to find, since my tagging system is basically useless oops. I’m many things and organized is not one of them.

As for hestia specifically, if you haven’t already, check out her theoi.com page! It’s a super useful resource, with a ton of information about the gods individually and a library with things like Homeric and Orphic hymns to various dieties that might be fun to read! And on that vein, my first suggestion to worshipping a god is to learn about them. Read as much as you can, and write things down. Hestia especially is a very fixed goddess. The permanence of writing stuff down alone can be a devotional act to her!

Some fun facts that I can pull off of the top of my head (I don’t worship Hestia as much as I should), she was very highly revered in Ancient Greece. She was honored first and last during festivals, and each city had a big central hearth on her behalf where they conducted various important civic things. This hearth was kept perpetually burning as a reminder of Hestia’s unquenchability if that’s even a word. Some ways that modern worshippers have incorporated these ideas are to keep a “hearth” lit for her. I have a mini doll house lamp that I never turn off. Some people use Himalayan salt lamps for the same purpose (careful if you have pets!), or even just running a YouTube video of a fire in the background as you do work. Similarly with offerings: wishing her a good morning first thing when you wake up and a good night as you go to bed, and allowing her either the first, last, or both bite of something you’re eating.

Those are just some quick ideas! There are endless opportunities to get creative with ancient worship, or to completely invent your own ways to honor her. Worship is personal, so whatever feels right to you, probably is. There should be a hestia tag on my blog you can comb through for the ideas of people better qualified than I! Good luck!

https://sunshineandsisyphus.tumblr.com/post/190885167230/advice-for-the-baby-hellenic-polytheists

https://sunshineandsisyphus.tumblr.com/post/612988607645515776/hellenic-polytheism-free-and-reliable

https://sunshineandsisyphus.tumblr.com/post/185590051315/m%C3%A1s-consejos-para-nuevos-polite%C3%ADstas-hel%C3%A9nicos (this one is in spanish I apologize but there’s a link to the original right at the top and if you speak Spanish then you have that too)

https://sunshineandsisyphus.tumblr.com/post/185476983905/masterpost-of-resources-for-hellenic-polytheism

https://sunshineandsisyphus.tumblr.com/post/185251737450/epithets-masterlist

https://sunshineandsisyphus.tumblr.com/post/184992971365/offerings-for-deities

Not a problem!!! My favorite resource is theoi.com - it’s super comprehensive, has a ton of information, and there’s a library with hymns to the gods and translations of different texts!

This website has a lot of very concise and digestible information about the gods. I love theoi.com, but it can be a little overwhelming, so this might be a better place to start, depending on how deep you want to go.

Baring the Aegis is a great blog with lots of information. They have a page with introductory information here that might be interesting.

You can also check out different blogs on tumblr!* A lot of blogs have some sort of tagging system for different theoi, and it might be good to check out, especially for offering ideas.

On the more physical side, I have the Robert Graves mythology books, The Greek Myths, which is two volumes. They’re comprehensive, but a little dry. I’ve heard Mythology by Edith Hamilton is better, especially for if you don’t have much background in Greek mythology, but I haven’t read it. I have it on good authority that it’s a great book, though. I’d probably start there, but it’s going to focus more on the myths of the gods rather than overviews of them. That being said, a lot of symbols and sacred objects of the gods come from their mythology, so it can never hurt to have a background in it.

Hopefully some of this is useful, and good luck!

Hey anon! This is a pretty good question. I hadn’t necessarily thought about the distinction, since I usually read the stories and translate that to modern day however I see fit. Theoi.com is my usual first recommendation, but it is mostly stories and hymns. Yhst being said, knowing the stories is often how people in Ancient Greece determines worship. Even if you pick up on something that turns out to not be what they actually did, the principle is the same. Demeter was offered barley water during her stay in eleusis in the hymn to Demeter? Drink barley water for her (or beer if it’s legal for you/if barley water isn’t your thing) Cows we’re sacred to Hera after that whole thing with Io? Eat them in offering to her, or don’t eat them at all in honor of her. Things like that.

To more answer your question, Hellenion.org has some good information, especially about festivals. I personally have my own calendar and don’t really follow theirs when it comes to dates, but some of the information on how to celebrate was really useful. They have a section at the end of most of their write ups about the festivals that tells how modern-day worshippers celebrate the festivals. To be honest, I haven’t poked around their website a ton, but I would imagine there’s more on there than just the festivals. I’m also not sure on this one, but the main hellenic polytheism organization in Greece is called YSEE. They might have a website with information on how they worship although it might be in Greek

Hello!

Hi and welcome! To be completely honest, a lot of the terms are used interchangeably and different people may have their own definitions. I’m happy to share mine, which I think are generally pretty standard among the community.

Working with a god does tend to be the most casual interaction, you’re right. An example might be one of those “I have a problem in your domain, so if I offer you enough food as a please and a thank you can you help me out even though we don’t ever really speak?” There’s nothing wrong with these interactions! Not everything has to be profound, and while this is a bit of a divisive topic among worshippers, I personally think it’s perfectly alright to go mostly or only work with a god when something in their domain is affecting you to ask for help, as long as you always show respect.

Worship is a bit more consistent. It can range from “eight is a sacred number of Poseidon, so every eighth day of the month I give him an offering even if we don’t talk much otherwise” to “I say good morning to Apollo every day and pour him a libation out from my morning coffee.” It’s primarily defined by some kind of consistency, although with that said, consistency doesn’t have to mean by day or month. Any time I have cherry coke, I offer some to Hermes as a form of worship. I don’t drink cherry coke overly often, but when I do, I consistently offer it to him. And if you’re bad at routines, that’s completely fine and same tbh. These are all my definitions that can be tweaked for you as an individual.

Devotion is the most involved form of worship. I’m not devoted to any diety, so I’m not the best source to say what it looks like, but it’s essentially a promise of yourself to that diety, sorta like marriage, although not necessarily romantic. Worship can fade in and out: you can choose to stop consistently worshipping a diety really at any point, although you should probably let them know that. Devotion isn’t that way, and once you’ve devoted yourself to a diety, that’s it.

One other quick semantic that I know you didn’t mention and might already know but that I’ll throw out for fun, patron gods or goddesses. There’s some division in the community about that one, too. Some consider it the god to whom you have chosen to devote yourself. Others, including me, consider your patron to just be the god presiding over your occupation. I’m an EMT and a student: my patron could be Apollo, Asklepius, Athena, or any combination thereabove.