#livedpolytheism — Public Fediverse posts

Miscellaneous Updates

Every so often, I like to do these. People often ask me questions like this in email so I figure I’ll try to do one of these monthly. 

What am I reading?: I just finished “Memorial: A Version of Homer’s Iliad” by Alice Oswald. I’ve read this before, but my husband and I were discussing Homer the other day and I shared this with him. It’s an extraordinary retelling …a poem, epic in its way, that catalogues every single death in the Iliad. That’s all it is, a poetic remembrance of the dead. It’s haunting. I highly recommend it. Other than this, I’m reading about 4th century asceticism for my dissertation. 

What am I watching?: I just finished the second season of “House of David” and I highly recommend it. Samuel is awesome from start to finish. It is an incredibly immersive series. There’s going to be one more season. The young man playing David actually learned how to wield a sling, and all the sling work in the show is his own– the writers actually added more scenes in season 1 of him using the sling because he was so adept at it. I thought that was cool. The music, likewise, is quite haunting. 

I’ve also been binge watching this martial artist who specializes in teaching girls to protect themselves. It’s good technique and I think this guy is going really important, maybe even sacred work. His Instagram handle is viswa_viswanath_, and here’s a link. 

I’ve also been enjoying the military videos by “The Fat Electrician” on YouTube. Here’s one of my favorites. I’ve been watching him obsessively the past few days. He’s awesome. 

What am I currently working on?: my dissertation. I’m hoping to finish by next year.

That’s about it these days, except for Summer Sunwait, where we celebrate the six weeks leading into Summer Solstice, just like we do for the Winter Solstice. I’ve also been working on the various prayers that I’ve recently posted. 

I’d love to hear the same from you, my readers. Let’s share cool things. 🙂

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detail of a woman reading from the Ghent altar piece.

A special blessing

https://thehouseofvines.com/2019/12/15/the-essence-of-our-religion-is-beauty/?page_id=44017

I agree with this to a degree…beauty, devotion, sacrifice.

I have a fellowship at my university, the Jewish studies fellowship, and one of the things I learned this year is that it’s considered a special blessing to do your required action, use / wear your required items but *make them beautiful.* I forget what this is called in Hebrew, but to make religious things beautiful instead of just functional adds to the blessing.

Yesterday, I was listening to a lecture on St. Francis (he’s very, very popular amongst my students, even non-Catholic ones!) and while Francis reverenced his “lady Poverty,” he said that, to quote the lecture, “Poverty stops at the altar.” Religious items should be as lush and beautiful as we can make them.

As a Heathen, I also hold this to be particularly sacred. Even if one doesn’t have a lot of money or any disposable income, beauty can take many forms. This doesn’t mean spending a lot of money. It means taking care with one’s shrine, with prayer, with religious garb, with anything we do for our Gods. It’s a Platonic ideal that beauty elevates the soul to the Gods and I believe that 100%. When I see ugliness being elevated as popular or “good” in media, in our culture, I know that there evil moves in many forms. I know to be vigilant; and I know to turn to tradition and the beautiful all the more.