Category: festivals

Khairete!

Today we celebrated the Therapeia, a healing festival to Apollon and, this year, Persephone.

During the Anadikia retreat this year, our divination led to this version of this modern festival.  The underpinnings of this connection between Apollon and Persephone is rooted in the Orphic Poems, which derive from the Derveni Papyrus.  The importance of recognizing the connection between healing and death is a big piece of this (Kingsley, 2013, pp. 91-92).

This required a different structure than we normally use, starting at the main altar and processing to the shrine of the dead to bring Persephone to a third location where we had thusia and the healing ritual, which became very intense.  For theoxenia we shared simple fare of sandwiches and chocolate bourbon balls and a shiraz for libations.

Our next festival will be the Kheimonia on December 22, 2019.  Until then, may the blessings of the Gods be with you.

Kingsley, P. (2013). In the dark places of wisdom. Thomson Shore.

Khairete!

Today we celebrated the Ktesia for the first time, a festival to Zeus Ktesios.  This is the aspect of Zeus who protects the home, protects the larder, protects us from storms.

As part of our ritual, we created a ktesios jar for Temenos Oikidios and offered it to Zeus, something we have previously incorporated into the Diasia.

Hierieus Timotheos did an oracle bones reading during the ritual, which came up as “Damage: You will have no luck.  Why fight a futile battle?  Stay, for you may be injured in your haste.  It is neither wise to rush toward your goal nor to wander like a fool” (Dervenis, 2014, p. 157).

Another roll was done for clarification, which resulted in “Zeus the Thunderer: It is not possible to fulfill your desires, the god judges; Nor will it benefit you to journey far from your home. Nor through payment will you find anything beneficial” (Dervenis, 2014, p. 107).

We spent quite some time discussing how to interpret these readings both as individuals and as a temple.  One theme we kept returning to was one of cleansing, as the theme for this month, as determined during the Anadikia retreat, is cleansing/healing.  The consensus was that these readings are a firm reminder to spend the time to cleanse and heal this month, rather than trying to move too quickly forward.

As we finished up the ritual, and after offering the temple ktesios jar to Zeus, Hierieus Timotheos did one final reading, which came up as “The Shining Month: With courage, you will have the opportunity to achieve your desire. You will succeed by dashing to your goal. Your efforts will be rewarded.  You are bound, however, to strive for the greater good, in a just struggle” (Dervenis, 2014, p. 149).

We spent some time discussing this and the general feeling was that this doesn’t contradict the earlier readings, but rather talks about next steps, once the work of cleansing and healing has been done.  Having cleansed from any miasma or other things that are holding us back, having healed any wounds in need of healing, we will be ready to charge ahead and pursue our goals.  The caveat is the last line, however, that we are “bound to strive for the greater good, in a just struggle” (Dervenis, 2014, p. 149).  So our goals cannot be at the expense of others, and should instead be in service of the greater good.

This sounds like we very quickly all came to the same conclusions, but it’s not really possible to capture the whole discussion in a blog post.  There were definitely varying interpretations!  What are your thoughts when receiving messages like this?

Our next festival will be Fthinoporia, our Fall Festival, on September 22.  Until then, may the blessings of the Gods be with you!

Dervenis, K. (2014). Oracle bones divination: The Greek I Ching. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books.

We’ve had two festivals at Temenos Oikidios since the New Year’s Retreat, the Panathenaia on July 21 and Diogennia today on August 11.

The Panathenaia is a festival for Athena, in which we made Athena a new outfit and played 221B Baker Street in Her honor.

The Diogennia is Zeus’ birthday.

As you can see, part of the offerings for Zeus included coloring pages of Him and of symbols (oak leaves) related to Him.  We also made a good bit of noise with sistrums and tambourine in honor of the warriors who clashed their swords against their shields to cover the cries of the infant Zeus to keep Him hidden from His father.

Our next festival will be the Gamelia (also called Theogamia) or wedding of Zeus and Hera, on August 25.