[How this relates to The Temple can be found in Section 2]

Section 1: Personal Revelation

When I was between the ages of 13 and 15, during the period of my life when I identified as a Wiccan, I worked with and worshipped the Roman Goddess Diana. This was an extremely positive experience and I have always looked back on my work with her with fondness.

However, many years later when I began my journey into HelPol, I found myself extremely uninterested in working with Artemis. When I tried, it felt like working with a stranger instead of reuniting with an old friend - which was extremely confusing to me for a number of reasons. The main reason being that I syncretize almost all of the Roman counterparts of the Greek deities I worship into said Greek deities (there's more nuance to my syncretizations, but that's a post for another day).

I have been struggling with this for literal years at this point, when finally - finally I found something during a research session that made all the pieces fall into place.

To summarize and simplify the information I found tonight, the Goddess Diana was worshipped in Italy before Greek Polytheism was brought to Rome. She existed as a primordial nature deity associated with the Moon, nature, hunting, as well as crossroads and the underworld (something I found particularly interesting was that her cthonic aspects predate Greek influence and therefore predate Diana being conflated with Hekatê). Once I learned about Diana and not Diana-Artemis - everything made sense.

It is my firm belief that the entity/deity I was working with all those years ago was the ancient Italian goddess, Diana. Specifically the entity or avatar that predates Greek influence. Not only does this explanation just feel *incredibly correct* on it's own, it also feels correct due to my past and my connection with Italy.

My mother's family, on both sides of her family tree, are of Italian descent (mainly from Rome and Sorrento). And while I wasn't raised ethnically Italian, I was raised Roman Catholic - so our Italian heritage and lineage was something that was important and emphasized. I left the Catholic Church at the age of 13, and when I began my journey into paganism around that same time - I did incorporate a lot of my mother's lineage into my practice (primarily through ancestor veneration and ceremonial magic).

Section 2: Temple Teachings

The reason I initially fell down this research rabbit hole is because I am currently working on a large project for The Temple, and part of that involves establishing some forthcoming belief statements and teachings. In this vein, I was working on mythical alignment and interpretation surrounding the primary deities of The Temple and found myself going in circles.

I, as the Temple's Founder, had made the choice to focus much of our spiritual practice and alignment on Lord Apollo - without showing the same focus or attention to Lady Artemis. This was not in any way to disrespect Lady Artemis, but was instead to better align with the alternative revival structure that I had felt called to align The Temple with. However, this alternative revival structure involved reinterpreting the myth of Leto's birth to Apollo in some way to create a literary narrative where Apollo is born AFAB - as a symbolic and mythic exploration of Lord Apollo's transmasculinity. The details of said reinterpretation were what was having me go in circles.

However, following the personal revelation I had, I found the reinterpretation falling into place.

In the myth of their birth, Artemis is said to have been the first born - and even acted as midwife to Leto for the birth of Apollo. However, given the right lens, one could interpret this story as 'Artemis' being the child born of Leto - but that the birth of a second child, a son, at the hands of the first is an allegory or metaphor for Apollo being an AFAB child who transitioned. A child born and given an identity, only to be reborn by his own hands with the support and love of his mother.

Creating this reinterpretation, while also incorporating Ancient Diana into the Temple's Primary Pantheon, allows for Temple patrons and visitors to still have a space for Artemis to exist within ritual and temple literature. Being able to allow space for Artemis to still exist for those who want it was and is incredibly important for me in creating this alternate interpretation of myth - as Lady Artemis is so important for so many people and also extremely important to not ignore or forget.

If anyone has any follow up questions or if any of the above information was not clear please feel free to comment, shoot us an ask, or send us a DM 🕯️