Category: blog

Khairete!

Today, we celebrated the Synkomidia, a harvest festival to Demeter and Gaia led by Hiereos Peregrine Ursano.

As you can see by the altar, Pan was also honored as God of the month, Artemis and Heracles as the Goddess and Hero of the year, and Athena as a result of the divination done within the ritual

After we offered bread for thusia, Hiereos Timotheos did an oracle bones reading which gave the following:

“Honor Pallas Athena and all will be yours; All that you desire, and all that you have planned for, will come to you.  She will free you from bondage and relieve the ailing from pain” (Dervenis, 2014, p. 141).

Once Athena had been added to the altar, we then each drew a card from a personalized deck that contains each of the Delphic Maxims.

Theoxenia included pork, as is traditional for Demeter, roasted potatoes, and corn, as well as apple crisp, gingerbread cupcakes, and sparkling apple cider, going for an overall harvest theme with as little overlap with secular feasts scheduled for later this week.

Our upcoming events are:

December 8, 2019 – Therapaia
December 22, 2019 – Kheimonia
January 5, 2020 – Olympia
January 19, 2020 – Kthonion

Dervenis, K. (2014). Oracle Bones Divination. Destiny Books.

Khairete!

Today, we celebrated the Eiarinia, a modern combination of many Greek festivals surrounding the spring.  One of the primary festivals is of the return of Persephone from the realm of the dead to live as Kore with Demeter for part of the year. We also incorporated the Diasia, the Hyakinthia, the Elaphebolia, and the Poimeia, a modern festival to Pan as the God of animals coming out of hibernation.

Because this festival includes Persephone’s return,  we began without Persephone represented on the altar.  After lighting Hestia’s hearth, we processed to the altar She shares with Haides, made offerings to Them, and brought Her to join Her Mother, Demeter, as well as the other Deities of the festival.

After completing the invocation of the Deities of the day, we did an oracle bones divination, which came out as Fruit-Bearing Demeter: “Gather an unripe fruit, and it is not useful. After many contests, the laurels will be yours. But strive with deliberation; do not act in haste and violence” (Dervenis, 2004, p. 101).

Thusia was freshly baked bread and strawberry-cranberry mead, and theoxenia included spring rolls with pork, apple pie, animal crackers, and peanut butter squares.

Our next scheduled festival will be the Hermathlon on April 7.

Until the next time, may the blessings of the Gods be with you!

Dervenis, K. (2004.) Oracle bones divination: The Greek I Ching. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books