Aphrodite Art

Yesterday was the 4th of the lunar month, which in the Athenian calender is sacred to Aphrodite, Eros, Hermes, and Herakles. Here’s my devotional collages for the Golden Goddess, the Lady of Love Herself.

Page one, the left side of the binder, with prayers and poems. The hand-written poem is not mine, it was written by Sappho. The last line is cut off. The 2 lines at top, by Her name, was coined by Rebecca Buchanan.

Page two, on the right side of the binder, the collage itself:

Spring EHS and Athena devotional

Oh yes, the spring issue of Eternal Haunted Summer has been out for a few weeks, and it contains a review I wrote about a comic book called Luuna. Check it out here.

Also, Jason has extended the submission deadline for the Athena devotional to April 30th, so you have just over a week to get last- minute work in. More info here.

Collage Art: Athena

Hi all, sorry I have not posted in so long! The semester is almost over, and I have been very busy preparing for finals. I have to give a presentation this week in Philosophy of Science, and that is worth about 50% of the grade for that class. So, of course I have been focusing on that! The news for Intro to Biology is good: my midterm grade was 95%, and so far I have gotten A’s on every exam and project, and every quiz except one.

I have a scanner now, so I thought I would share a few of the collages of the Gods I have been made. These are very personal: some of the iconography is classically attested to, some of it comes from my own personal associations. [EDIT: apparently the pictures are too big to show the entire thing in the blog post. You have to click on the picture to see it all.] Page One, on the left side of the binder:

Page Two: on the right side of the binder.

GMC poetry: Odin 2

Breath-giver

Wish-giver

God of Being

I pray for life

.

Wanderer

Seeker of Truth

Who hung on Yggdrasil

For sake of the Runes

I pray for knowledge

.

Bringer of Fury

Glad of War

Spear-Master

I pray for strength

.

Mighty God

Old Man

All-Father

I honor You

As the Source

Of everything that I hold dear.

GMC poetry game: Odin

To Lord Odin, tempestuous God of the Norsemen, I sing this song

Master of the Spear, Father of Victory

The Undefeated in Battle, Who strikes terror into the heart of His enemies

Awe fills my breast at the thought of You,

Coupled with more than a little fear

But a strange attraction fills me too,

An urge to share in the mystery that surrounds You

A irrepressible curiosity, a desire to know

What it is that You know

For You are not merely the Lord of Battle

But You abound with wisdom overflowing

An insatiable hunger drives You

A hunger for Knowledge drives the one called Greybeard

A hunger which drove Him

To hang Himself from the World Tree

For nine days

And nine nights

The Allfather endured unspeakable agony

To learn the secret of the Runes.

When He became Master of the Rune-Stones,

He became Master of the Ordeal as well.

For pain can be a help to the Warrior

A catalyst for transformation

Of the strongest kind.

And transformation is His realm, too

The changeable Father of the Gods

Is full of guile and tricks.

The Seeker, the Warrior, the Wanderer, the Lover.

Ah, Odin, God of Being,

It would take a lifetime to know You.

GMC poetry: To Prometheus

To Prometheus
by Amanda Sioux Blake

O great Muses who poets doth revere
Lend me Your voices
And attend my songs.
I sing first a hymn of Prometheus, the wise Titan,
First trickster, martyr for man
Who crafted our mortal flesh
From the clay of the River Styx,
Life, from the River of Death.
Before Prometheus intervened on our behalf
We lived as animals do
In caves, huddling together for warmth
And in fear of the larger animals
Naked, eating our meat raw.
Then kindly Prometheus took pity on us,
For He saw our potential.
Cunning Prometheus who processes fore-sight
Taught us the ways of the land
To tell the future from the stars
To hunt, to make warm clothes from fur and skin
And to build houses made of brick.
But still we mortals huddled together
In the cold of night.
Only fire could cure our ills,
Fire, meant only for the Gods.
O Prometheus, You Who tells the future,
You knew the the price You would have to pay.
Still You stole the Divine Fire for our benefit
And arranged the institution
Of sacrifices to the Immortal Gods.
For Your trickery, Zeus sentenced You to a most awful fate
Chained to a great stone
To have Your immortal liver, the seat of feeling
Eaten by an eagle. Every night it grew back
And every day it was eaten again.
And still, You never regretted Your actions.
Eventually, many ages passed,
And lion-hearted Hercules freed You from Your chains.
Friend of man, Who suffered for our sake,
If any of the Immortal Gods deserve to be called Our Father
Surely it is You, O wise Prometheus
Who taught us many useful things
Who gave divine fire to mankind
Who deemed us worthy of the sacrifice.
Kindly Prometheus, Wise teacher,
Grant that I may live up to your esteem
And I will remember You in another song.

GMC poetry: Prometheus

Sorry I have not posted in a few weeks. I’ve been very busy with exams in school. I am disappointed I did not have time to discuss Prometheus as much as I would have liked. I was going to write a ritual to honor Prometheus, and another for Sekhmet, but I never got around to it. I may try to do that this weekend,
even though its late. But my second big exam in Biology is next week, so I will be studying a lot this weekend. If I don’t get to it get weekend, I will on Spring Break, which is coming up quickly. In any case, I’m posting two poems for I’ve written for Prometheus. One was written a couple years ago, one just today. This is the new one (which was written while Carl Sagan’s Cosmos was playing on my computer, lol, I’m sure it influenced what came out).
——-

The True Gift of Prometheus
by Amanda Sioux Blake

O Glorious Titan Prometheus
Who rebelled against the rule of Zeus
And suffered for the sake of man,I sing to You.
Many poets have told the story
Of Your sacrifices, of Your daily pain.
I will not repeat it here.
I honor You for Your gift to mankind, Thief of Heaven,
And instead of Your pain, I will focus on Your teachings
On what You gave to us, the grail of Fire
That flickering flame which sprang from a smoldering fennel stalks
Changed the fate of my race
No longer did we cower in fear of wild creatures
Shivering in the cold black of night
But greater still was the fire You awoke in our minds
A curiosity about the world, a drive to learn, to create
And you did indeed teach us, O Prometheus
You taught us brickwork, metallurgy, star-gazing, the marks of written language,
All that civilized and cultured our primitive ancestors.
When You left us to face Your punishment alone,
We continued in the path You started us on.
Since that time, we have advanced to dominate the planet
We have charted the genetic code and traveled to the moon,
And no one knows what wonders we may yet discover.
O Great Titan Prometheus, it was YOU who catalyzed our growth,
And in Your Honor, I give You a new title:
The Instigator of Evolution.