#vulcanalia

🔥Io Vulcanalia!☄️

On August 23rd the Romans celebrated the 'Vulcanalia', a festival dedicated to Vulcan. Like his Greek counterpart Hephaestus, Vulcan was a blacksmith who forged the weapons of the gods, but in his Roman form, he was mostly associated with fires, especially destructive ones, and volcanoes 🌋

During the Vulcanalia the Romans worshipped him by creating large bonfires and throwing fish and small animals into the flames, hoping to appease him enough to keep wildfire (common at that time of year) away from their settlements. Almost all temples to Vulcan were initially built outside of cities (eventually cities like Rome expanded around them), for fear that they would be originators of fires if the god was displeased.

I've depicted him in a warm orange and red palette, with his blacksmithing tools, a pilos hat, and flames in the background. I like to think he's the most hench of the gods with all his blacksmithing work, so I gave him a cheeky one-clasp chiton to show off the goods 💪

Long live Strekdom and may it always prosper! This week, Emily and V are heading to the original frontier of fannish culture: Star Trek fan clubs of the 1960's. It's super emotional, and the women who created the groundwork of everything we love today deserve our utmost respect for their sheer ballsiness and bananas love of Leonard Nimoy. Join us as we learn about Vulcanalia, discuss ditto machines, and basically write RPF about how much we love the OG fangirls of yore. Have you paid your membership dues? Did you remember your Tupperware of snacks?

Vulcan is a god that I have not really given much attention to in the past and today is Vulcanalia (Aug. 23) so I wanted to take some time to just talk about the great god Vulcan. It's late in the day, I know, but it's still the 23rd.

I can start out bland and say I've always liked fire. It's relaxing. Feeling the heat, smelling the smoke, hearing the crackling. It's mystifying in a way. I enjoy sitting in my backyard staring into my firepit. I'm a little disappointed in myself that I haven't been dedicating the fires i create in my firepit to Vulcan. To me, it feels like each time I go to my firepit, I'm creating something new. Call me crazy but each fire seems to have it's own personality. I get to create it, watch it mature, and watch it die. Just like Vulcan at his forge, he creates. I didn't quite see it in the past but I feel like it's Vulcan that gives me that feeling. I am a believer that Vulcan has a stronger association with fire's destructive capacity than someone like Hephaestus. I don't think it should be limited to all destructive fire though. Vesta and her flame are sacred. It's pure. It's comforting. The flame of Vulcan is destructive. It's raw. His fire is in the forge, it creates and destroys.

This year doesn't seem to be the greatest year when pertaining to conflagration and other destructive fires. Wildfires seem to be constant in many parts of the world. I would imagine the Romans would've thought something was wrong with Vulcan. With as much destruction as wildfires have brought just this year alone, it would be evident that Vulcan is not happy. Do all of these fires need to be pointed directly at Vulcan? No. Sometimes a natural disaster is just a natural disaster. However to the ancients, they probably would've thought that Vulcan is quite unhappy. To them, I imagine that any wildfire would be treated as Vulcans doing. I thought about this for a bit and started to wonder why? I'm going to put myself in the place of the ancients and assume that these wildfires are the doing of Vulcan here. Why is he upset? Why bring these flames of destruction to so many people? What is he trying to achieve? I'm no interpreter of Vulcan or his flames so I cannot say. All I am left with is my opinions. Vulcan is attributed to the destructive as well as the fertilizing powers of fire. Vulcan creates and destroys. If it is the will of Vulcan to destroy, then He will destroy. I can only make offerings to have mercy on us mortals. However again, maybe a natural disaster is just a natural disaster.

All aside, this post was more just putting thoughts onto paper (so to speak) and just thinking about and respecting Vulcan, since I clearly have not done enough of it in the past. I don't even know if writing short posts like this is of any interest to anyone but myself but i'm just going to keep posting stuff like this, idk it's fun for me.

Anyway

"Thee first, O Vulcan, and thy peace, holy dweller in this place, do we entreat: grant final aid to our wearied fortunes, and, if no guilt is here deserving penalty so great, pity these many lives and suffer them, holy one, to attain to thy fountains" te primum, Vulcane, loci, pacemque precamur, incola sancte, tuam: da fessis ultima rebus​ auxilia et, meriti si nulla est noxia tanti,​ tot miserare animas liceatque attingere fontes,​ sancte, tuos

- Grattius Faliscus, Cynegeticon (437-42), translation University of Chicago

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