In League With Athena, Set Your Own Hand To Work

This is a Religious Blog!

I’m Mells and I use they/them pronouns! I’m aroace and 19, and have been a Hellenic Polytheist since 2022. I’m also a classicist finishing my A-Levels right now! My main blog is @navy-nyoom, I follow from there.

At the moment, I am devoted to Athena. I worship Ares, Aphrodite, Hestia, and Melinoë, as well as the heroes Odysseus, Penelope, Helen and Tiresias.

In the past I have worshipped Nemesis and Philotes. Of course it goes without saying that I respect and honour all the other Gods.

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There are many resource posts under the cut!

Omg hiii! I really enjoyed it!

We do Iliad and Aeneid, I felt like the 10 mark comparison question on admirable women was more suited to the Odyssey than the Iliad? More to say on Penelope being admirable than Andromache I think, but either way that question sucked for the Aeneid. I had to argue that Lavinia isn’t admirable to modern audiences because she has no personal qualities, but her not speaking might have made her admirable to men in Ancient Rome…

But overall, I can’t complain! Basically a whole paper on women with a 30 mark question about Achilles? I was truly blessed by the gods and the examiners!

For the Iliad 20 marker on importance of wives in Iliadic society I talked about how wives have important roles in Troy as they handle domestic stuff, but that they have no importance in the Greek camp because they’re entirely absent, and slaves take their roles there. I also argued that sometimes they don’t need women at all because the men get on perfectly fine with things like lamentation. I think I said Achilles mourns Patroclus as if he were a wife. Lmao!

The Aeneid 20 marker was also really fun! Gotta love getting to slander Aeneas. I talked about his awful track record with women, how he succumbs to furor whereas Turnus can be more reasonable, and that Lavinia actually knows and has a relationship with Turnus whereas Aeneas is just a stranger who invaded her home.

As mentioned I picked the Iliad 30 marker. Managed to get my scholars in which was good, I talked about instances throughout where he doesn’t seem to care about anyone, a specific paragraph on him asking Patrcolus to win glory for him instead of Patroclus getting glory for himself, and how he doesn’t seem to care much for Briseis’s feelings and is only concerned for her as his prize.

But then I talked about the care he shows Phoenix during the embassy and the fact he called the assembly in Book 1 as instances that he does show concern for things. I also did a paragraph on his obvious concern for Patroclus after his death through avenging him, the mourning and the funeral games, and said that Aeneas stops having any concern for himself at that point.

So basically, I liked it! I also actually did like the extracts for the 10 markers, I found both of them pretty easy though I think I was losing the plot trying to word my thoughts for the Aeneid one.

I have a question, I hope it hasn't been asked before (I couldn't find anything) - but how do you actually feel right when doing any practices/rituals? When I try to pray or make an offering, I feel like I'm a little kid roleplaying with myself and copying a scene I saw on TV. I can't remember the epithets, I don't always know how to praise, I don't know how to say thank you properly, and I don't know how to end / exit the prayer. I also don't know when to make the offering vs when I can eat the offering after. Sometimes I pull up a page on theoi to recite a prayer, but it feels so wrong to just... stand there with my hands to the sky and my eyes glued on a screen and reading. And interrupting my stance because I have to scroll. It just feels so awkward. I've been trying to convert for a while (from atheism) but at first I was just so lost, I settled for consuming content from others as a way of interacting (not necessarily learning!) with the religion. But now I'm so swamped I don't even have the time to read their myths! I was travelling the other day, and when I got home I realised I had quite a bit of luck on my journey. I was also travelling with my cat who was really well-behaved and didn't give me any trouble. I began to wonder if Lord Hermes had been protecting me as I have a lot of anxiety flying alone and tend to get lost in airports and such, so I quickly read up on some of his epithets and what people usually offer to Him. I did try a prayer to say thank you, and offered up a glass of milk and some blueberries. What feels even more awkward is that I went back to do something else, and when I felt like having milk, I went back to the altar drink it. I know we can eat our offerings, but are there any additional rules around it? It felt kind of wrong to just drink the milk randomly like an hour after pouring it as a libation. Should I always, always, always, wash/cleanse and praise the God/dess who received the offering before I consume it? And what about returning to the altar to clean up? This must be such a newbie question and the answers may be obvious but I just need some sort of confirmation, I really want it to feel meaningful and special, instead of awkward and like I'm playing pretend. I still have His blueberries sitting on the altar. If it were you, how would you approach it now if you wanted to eat some? Thank you <3

Thank you for the kind words! I’m glad my blog is helpful. I can’t give a super detailed answer to this (it’s my exam season!) but I wanted to get to it quickly so I’m going to do my best to answer as quickly as possible!

I have a pinned post which goes over my prayer structure. To end a prayer, I say ‘hear me as I sing your praises, I honour you’ for a god and ‘hear me as I sing your praises, you are inspiring’ for heroes. I use theoi.com to find basic epithets and keep a list of them.

Food offerings/libations can always be eaten if the deity is not an underworld deity. Chthonic (underworld) deities are the only cases where food offerings cannot be consumed. If I’m going to eat an offering, I will usually say that as I’m offering it. My mini prayer for food offerings is ‘With the first and last to Lady Hestia and a portion to Father Zeus, <epithet + deity name>, I offer this to you. Take your fill and I’ll eat the rest’.

Due to the reasons you mentioned (it being awkward to consume things you’ve put on an alter and not knowing when to clean them away), I typically just don’t leave food/libations at the altar, because I make those offerings when I’m eating. In antiquity, food and drink wouldn’t be left on altar, the offered part would be burned at the altar and the person making the offering would eat what was left. But if you don’t have the means to do that (like me) just don’t put them on the altar at all and offer them via prayer as you’re eating.

I personally don’t cleanse before I make offerings and have never run into problems. Obviously I’m not dirty either but I don’t specifically cleanse to offer. This is bad practice but it also hasn’t impacted me negatively.

Hope that helps. Also this reminded me I do want to make an in-depth post about food offerings when I have the time because I learned a lot about those from my Greek Religion unit in Classics.