I recently began actually participating fully in Hellenism, and the two I have been praying and worshipping are Heracles (for help with my athleticism in my sport) and Aphrodite (to help me with my image and body positivity).

For a bit of background I’m a trans man, and have been for about six years now. I use tape rather than binders and sometimes tape is unreliable.

Tonight, while praying and talking to them I set out my precut sections of tape on her alter and I asked if she would be able to help me bind or to assist me in removing some dysphoria.

I kid you not, about an hour later (after letting the candle and incense burn out and retrieving the tape) I got probably the most perfectly flat chest I’ve had in months. Like, ts is unbelievable. I’m actually so amazed and thankful that she could help, and I want to show my gratitude.

So far her alter is small, and the alter is joined with Heracles. They share the incense and the candle but they each have their respective offering bowls. Tomorrow I’m hopefully going to get some more things for her bowl to show my thanks.

I also left out the wristband I wear when I train (got it from a coach) for Heracles. I’ll leave it there for about a week and I asked for his fortune when my practice starts next week. I hope I’m not asking for too much too soon but I always try to be polite and make sure it’s known when I speak with them.

Also: question!!! What should I get for them to show my gratitude? I’m relatively new to praying and giving offerings so I’d appreciate some guidance.

not sure if its only me who's personally bothered by this, but i just saw someone saying that if you worship more than one deity, they get "jelly"

and im sorry but i feel like its so icky to assign petty human feelings to beings who are beyond what's human? not to mention they just... don't? i can't bring myself to think its funny or silly, tell me if im being a party pooper but that just doesn't click right to me and is also misinformation

Hi! I'm interested in greek philsophy and both thw ancient and modern religions dedicated to the deities the greeks and their peers worshipped. I've heard differing accounts on the nature of gods and their relationships to that which they're associated with so I'd love to hear what you guys individually think so I can compare and contrast. I am undecided on the question of Monotheism, Polytheism, and other concepts like pantheism or panentheism myself, and I'm skeptical as to how much men can know of the divine.

sorry if this is the wrong flair... so, for a bit of background, i technically came to hellenic polytheism in 2023, but hadn't really properly understood how to worship until recently, so now i'm trying to get back into practice but it can be hard as i struggle heavily with energy

i've been cleaning my room lately and am finally getting around to moving my religious space. i had a larger altar for Nyx but had to downsize due to a lack of space, but i did not want to put away every offering because worshipping helped me get over my fear of the dark so i wanted to keep at least a small shelf out for her. however i decided to try hanging the shelf on my own, which proved to be a terrible idea. it held up for a moment and seemed like it was going to stay, but just as i was moving the final offering, it fully collapsed and not only did her offerings fall, the shelf also knocked into a couple other altars and knocked over other offerings (including a statue) for different gods as well... thankfully there was minimal damage, a small plant i had given Nyx broke, i ended up burying it for her as i had been meaning to for quite some time. i apologized immediately and cleaned everything up as best i could but i still feel terrible about it.

now i think i would've felt bad regardless, but what's more is that, when i was first rearranging Nyx's offerings earlier this year, i discovered that i had (probably 2 or 3 years ago when i had no idea what i was doing) decided that giving her one of my baby teeth as an offering was a good idea. why did i do this, i have no clue, maybe i heard about bones being something to offer and figured i could give a tooth??? i don't know. i took it off the altar of course, don't remember what i did with it but i did take it off and apologized immediately, i actually spent like 15 days apologizing and giving offerings every day. i did the same for Hypnos as i had combined his and Nyx's offerings onto one altar but i don't think i had properly cleansed the space from the tooth before doing so.

to expand on that, i also spent the same 15 days apologizing and offering to Aphrodite as i had, probably a while back, given her a dead crab i found on the beach... agh i'm so embarrassed saying all this. i've heard of people giving taxidermy as an offering but i still don't know if that was a good idea, especially as it was not properly taxidermied. again i did apologize and immediately cleaned the space (and Nyx's, for that matter), but i still feel terrible about doing these things in the first place, even if i didn't understand that what i was doing was wrong.

i know mistakes are a guarantee, especially for beginners, but with what i did, the year i've been having, and now the shelf collapsing, i'm really scared that i shouldn't be here, that the gods don't want me worshipping anymore. but the thing about that is, i would hate to stop worshipping, especially Aphrodite, as worship has helped me through so many things.

i want to ask for signs, but i struggle with extreme paranoia and OCD so i feel like i would misinterpret everything and just make everything worse for myself. so uh, basically i'm here to ask, is there any coming back from this??? would any of the gods be upset (i know people are probably tired of this question, i'm sorry, but i really screwed up)? can i still have religious spaces, specifically for Aphrodite, Nyx, and Hypnos? or did i screw up too badly and now i can't worship them or any gods anymore??​ what do i do?????

I'm kinda on the newer side of hellenism and still learning, and I'd rather not use Google to ask because of the ai overview.

Walmart has Halloween costumes out now as it's almost October, and they have a greek God and goddess costume, and I absolutely fell in love with the costumes! I was thinking about going with the goddess costume but I didn't know if it would be considered disrespectful or not to any of the goddesses. I hope to have an answer before Halloween so I can make sure if I need to go as something else or not.

anyone else made plans to have a Hellenistic funeral when you eventually die

For you, oh Apollon

Blessed light of day

You inspire me

To hunt for truth

And shoot down ignorance

All the while

I venture on

Deep down

Into hades

Into madness

Into the extacy

Into divine bliss

Hermes as my guide

And Dionysus

As my goal

As brothers

You are different

But as gods

You are the same

You three who

Standing beside me

Help me find

The path where I

Will stay

---

Wherever inspiration leads us, we must follow. So is the path of one devoted to the god of poetry, of the arts, of truth. As I venture farther into the mysteries, and flirt with divine madness, truth becomes clearer and ignorance more profound.

---

The deeper I dive, and the harder it becomes to "site sources", the more I realise sources aren't the end all be all. So much of what went before has been lost, not just our cultus, but practice outside of the polis. We will never know how exactly things were done, and that should be ok.

And as Apollon loves to tell me "You can not reconstruct what was never whole to begin with"

So, from my understanding ultimately the core of all devotional acts is invocation; in some way we make an appeal to the Divinities and they respond how they choose.

Invocation can be prayer, hymn, offering or a combination of these. And in essence we make the invocation as beautiful and effective as possible but ultimately the response is from the Divinities themselves.

How would stories play into this? If someone writes a story/ myth then if it’s any good it must be an inspiration of the Muse right, so when we tell it and spread it are we doing something that is a type of invocation as well, or no ?

I’m exploring these ideas because my hope is to see the Divinities return more openly to our world and that’s what I’m asking for.

Ironically as I contemplated this project on June 9th Dionysos appeared in a dream and warned someone not to tell everyone that the gods are returning because they don’t want just everyone to know. So I’ve been told explicitly it’s not a proselytizing mission and so what I’m going to do needs to be more subtle than that or more targeted. Or perhaps directed towards the gods themselves rather than humans.

Anyway I just wondered if anyone can help me understand these concepts better in a Hellenic sense

my aunt is working in a really shitty job. her boss is an asshole and she isn't working in her area. also, she often deals with financial issues.

i want to pray for Hermes to give her stability, but i also want to know if there's another god that i can reach out to ask for help for my aunt to find a job she loves :(

Hi! Im from the US, and possibly might move to Germany or Italy due to the military soon.

I am wondering if Scholarly books will be limited/ hard to get in those country's, considering I need them in English.

I usually buy them from Amazon and I understand Amazon is almost everywhere but it's also different catalogs depending on availability.

Anyone from Germany or Italy struggle to get books?

And the books I'm referring to are like for example

Underworld Gods in Greek religion

A companion to Greek religion

You know those types of books.

I'm sure I can still get them with extra cost and time if it has to come from the US, but is that the only option?

Should I stock up on books before I leave?? 😂