Research, Research, Research

Well folks, I have to say that so far, getting this book written is coming together better than I thought. With the unfortunate exception of my partner having to drop out, things are sailing along quite smoothly. With the addition of a Lesser Aresia, I’ve found at least two more festivals to reconstruct for my book: The Areia, an Athenian festival near the end of Metageitnion/beginning of Boedromion (about mid August) celebrates Ares and Athene Areia, possibly as founder gods and supporters of the Ephebes, and probably involves choral contests, among others; the second is the Enyalia, a celebration re-enacting the victory of the Athenians over Salamis, and involves a running procession to a promontory. I haven’t quite tracked down a date for this, but a review of the history books should suffice. But hey, awesomeness, right?

On another note, I’ve also been reading up on ancient battlefield religion, and how closely tied Ares, Apollon, and Artemis are in those respects. You can expect a few simple rites and prayers to come out honoring those three and others, too. More and more, this book is becoming liturgical more than philosophical, which appeases my inner “priestly” side greatly. It’s one thing to understand Ares through droll discussion and supposition, but it’s greater to follow behind him in practice, prayer, and ritual in my not-so-unbiased opinion.

Thank you all who have helped, are helping, and will help in this endeavor. I received an oracle from Sannion and Dionysos that the effort is well appreciated, which is very motivating. While I may not be blogging as frequently right now, I am thinking about you all! Hail Ares!

Updates and Musing

Well, I’m sorry I don’t have much more for you  today other than promises of better articles to come. I noticed I got a lot of traffic for the post on Hekate and Ares, so you can expect more like those; I’ve already begun drawing up notes for comparisons with Apollon and Dionysos. Folks seemed to like the Vet profiles, but so far I’ve only gotten two. I may have had more, but it seems my Aspis of Ares email is buggy, because I haven’t seen anything come across it yet.

A bit of big news, however, is that I’m almost done reconstructing an ancient festival for Ares based on the binding rituals that took place in several cities across Greece thousands of years ago. Unfortunately, the records I have don’t offer a name for the festival or it’s place on the calendar. I’d like to note that my copy of Matthew Gonzales’ dissertation about the cults of Ares and Enyalios (the most extensive survey of data to date on the subject) is my saving grace here, and even contains the inscription recorded from an oracle directing the establishment of the festival. If anyone wants to help out naming the ritual (I was thinking something like Binding Festival in ancient Hellenic) or placing it on the calendar, please leave a comment with suggestions.

Because this will be my first written ritual, I will be asking a friend to take a look at it to verify its structure and to consider whether it may be a good add to the various fora out there on the interwebs. Needless to say, this won’t be the last ritual/festival I plan on writing. The miasma ritual is still in the works, as well as plans for dedicating weapons (for soldiers, police, and even hunters), victory thanksgivings, and perhaps even stand-up and stand-down rituals for those entering/leaving military service.  I will need some female collaboration at some point, because I wish to include at least one single-sex ritual for each sex as an echo of historic rituals; I’m thinking along the lines of brotherhood/sisterhood things, nothing fancy and certainly nothing meant to put either sex or any gender down. If I’m ever to write a book, it’s important to me to provide a diverse range of ritual material, not just poetry.

That’s all I have for right now. It’s been a stressful week and I’m looking forward to wrapping things up and doing show-and-tell before relaxing for the weekend. Hope everyone enjoys their own! Hail Ares.

 

Thoughts and Thankfulness

Okay, so it’s 4am here in the eastern time zone of the US, and I’m sitting in bed with my dogs reading my blogroll and pondering my writing. I’ve been pretty good about writing lately; I’ve posted six entries since the year began, not including this one. Considering my goal is one post a week with a Friday deadline, I’m doing very well. Ares lit a fire up under my butt, and as I peruse my blogs, I can see I’m spreading that bug to other writers. Seeing my work published (shout out to Neokoroi!) was pretty motivating.

That all being said, thank you all for giving me an audience to write to. I’m not one of those people who can write for the sake of writing; my military training turned me into quite the utilitarian. Not having an audience would be a motivation killer, but it’s only been two weeks and I’ve surpassed the number of views for Oct-Dec. That’s pretty impressive, to me. That wouldn’t happen if not for all of you, my readers. Between the traffic you all provide and the pressure of your critical eyes (Apollodorosh I’m talking about you!), my blog only seems to be getting better. Thank you, again.

Recent successes and the extreme motivation that a 4 week break produces has me considering whether or not I want to write a book on Ares worship, akin to Lykeia’s Crowned with Nine Rays or Laurelei’s Cult of Aphrodite. It’s a big step, and I’m not sure how I’d fill up enough for a book, but considering I ramble a lot that shouldn’t be that hard, right? Besides, I can’t associate with published authors and not publish something myself; my competitive spirit is chomping at the bit here.

That’s all I have today. I hope everyone has a stellar weekend and all that. Hail Ares!