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How to Offer to the Theoi- a guide

The Kylix of Apollo, where the god is depicted pouring libations from a phiale onto the ground. (A kylix is a type of phiale, so this is a particularly meta piece) Delphi, Greece, 460BC

The most historical offering to any of the Theoi are  θυμιάειν thymiaein (smoke), σπονδή sponde (libations of alcohol) and νηφάλια nefalia “calm” libations meaning non-alcoholic (such as milk, honey, water, etc).

How do I do smoke offerings?

There’s three ways, generally speaking. The gods take the smoke of any offering, so this could be:

A actual burnt offering, such as a piece of paper you wrote a poem on, burnt herbs (which this is where we get the English word THYME from because this was a popular herb to burn for incense), or food as it was cooking, because the smell of the cooking fire rises. It’s not mandatory today that you do burnt offerings because our houses are not built like the ancient’s were; fully ventilated. 

The smoke of incense Historically this would have been done in a special incense burner called a thymiateria which are still used today in the Greek Orthodox church, but today any incense burner will do!

The steam from your food. The gods allow us to eat the physical food, and they take the non-physical aromas and steams, which is why aromatic spices are so important in ritual. 

It’s important to wash your hands before offering; this is the god’s food, don’t make it germy please. 

How do I do sponde and nefalia?

As before, you should have clean hands before you come to worship. 

Pour your liquid out of its original container into a bowl. The container was historically called an oenokheo  οἰνοχόη “I pour wine”, and what you would pour it into was called a fiale or phiale φιάλη which we still have today in the archaic word for a vial, a phial. 

Either before or after you pour, say a prayer, poem, hymn, or just greet your deity. Here’s a short example I’ll do now for Artemis Tykhe: Khaire oh great Tykhe! I pour this water for you, oh goddess of luck and fortune. Watch over us at this rite. 

If you like, you can pour a cup of drink for yourself, but pour the one for the god(s) first. If you are worshipping multiple gods at the same time for the ritual, you only need one phiale. 

When your ritual is done, you can say something to conclude; I use γένοιτό Genoito (pronounced Yen-ee-tu) meaning “may it be” or “it is so”, but conclude however you like. If I’m leading a rite in English I will say something like, “and this rite is ended.”

You may now drink from your cup if you poured yourself one, and dispose of the offerings in the phiale as you see fit. Its up to you and your god(s) whether you drink their share or not; some worshippers do, some don’t. A lot of people, including me, do sponde at the dinner table before they eat.

What’s the difference between sponde and nefalia? What’s the purpose? 

Sponde is alcoholic usually, while nefalia never is! Nefalia is conducted the exact same way, but certain festivals and gods strictly forbid wine at their ceremony; Demeter’s mysteries is probably the best known example, but there’s many others. 

Some historical options for Nefalia are water, honey, and milk, but if you can pour it, you can offer it!

What do I do for a Khthonic god? 

Because Kthnonic (literally “of/below the earth”) gods are below ground, incense is useless to them. Smoke rises, and doesn’t reach them below the earth. Physical Kthonic offerings should be buried in a hole called a bothros  βόθρος (literally “pit”), or they should be burnt to cinders and the ash spread on the soil. I’ve seen some worshippers compost Kthonic offerings, which I think is a really cool idea. 

If you offer food or drinks to the Khthonic gods, they don’t share! They get the entire sum of whatever you offer. Zeus will share a glass of wine with you, Pluton wants the entire glass. 

Kthonic gods and heroes get a special type of libation called χεῦμα Khoe, “that which is poured.” Unlike sponde and nefalia, you absolutely do NOT drink this. It’s poured on the ground. Khoe is usually milk, honey, water, or sometimes very dark red wine. 

a bothros to Demeter  at the Temple to Demeter in the Valle dei Templi near Agrigento, off the coast of Italy

How do I know which gods are Ouranic or Kthonic?

Generally speaking if they’re not agricultural, related to death and disease, sleep, blood, or the soil itself, they’re seen as Ouranic or “heavenly”. 

This distinction isn’t always black and white; because there are many among the Theoi that straddle the line and have aspects of both; Apollo for example is related to every criterion for a Khthonic god, but the majority of his worship is Ouranic. In cases like this, it comes down to the epithet (aspect or title) of the god that you’re worshipping. Apollo Soranus, a Roman underworld god, is Khthonic, but Paean Apollo the healer is Ouranic. You’ll have to do research on your own for what to do because there are thousands of epithets. Also note that Pluton (H@des) is often referred to with epithets like Zeus Below, Zeus Euboleus etc because it’s unlucky to speak his name outloud, so special care should be taken for research for either Zeus or Pluton.  With time you’ll have a pretty good sense of what to do, but to avoid overwhelming yourself, pick one or two gods and do research on one or two epithets and how they were worshipped. 

it got a bit long but I think this about covers it, holler at me if you have questions, happy worshipping!

eh no. stop it

going to center my human experience around female experience. befriend and build deep relationships with women. enjoy women’s art and writings. listen to female artists, speakers, and role models. read books about women, watch movies about women, and donate to charities for women. work with women, study with women, plan trips and outings with female friends and colleagues. support female creators and buy artworks of women. i am going to enjoy my life so much by caring for and being cared by women.

THISS!! You can't tell me they weren't like this 🤞

childhood friends

Can we talk about the fact that Nooro and Duusu have been missing for like a good hundred years. Like Tikki and Plagg being really chill about Nooro and Duusu being held captive, like mate, you haven't seen them in 100 years!

This has really changed the way I see master Fu and ladybug. Like, Master Fu has done presumably nothing for years on end about trying to get Nooro and Duusu back. I know Ladybug is trying to defeat Hawkmoth, but it just feels like battling "monster of the week" then actually trying to free these poor kwamis. And can we get a bit of sympathy for Nooro. My poor guy is STILL being tortured and enslaved. This baby hasn't seen his friends or his master for a CENTURY. I suppose they are all reunited at the end of season 4 but like still. They get trapped in these wee compartments and can't even move or like speak to each other. How unbelievably sad.

Things I did last semester that boosted my average:

I don’t really like to toot my own horn but I see these posts a lot and I thought I’d share what really worked for me personally :)

•took both handwritten and typed notes (minimized hand fatigue so my notes were actually good lol) (also it’s far easier to take extensive notes and delete them later than to take minimal notes and be stuck trying to remember what was said)

•before an exam: created flashcards, diagrams, and rewrote or fleshed out notes on a word doc in a simulated exam atmosphere to enhance later recall

•planned a month at a time so I knew in advance when I could socialize and when I had to Grind™️ to prevent burnout

•made friends in my classes!! genuinely makes a big difference

•annotated the hell out of everything (pencil or post in textbooks to resell, pen and highlighters in books I knew I’d keep, all online readings were converted to PDFS and I scribbled all over them)

•annotated with jokes this is maybe unorthodox but I swear it worked for me- I’d laugh at the wording, draw emojis, reference memes, and crack jokes in the margins of my books and it made it so much easier to remember key points of the readings later on

•cut off toxic friends. self explanatory lol but stress impacts your grades!

i hate male entitlement, i hate male violence, i hate male aggression, i hate male weaponised incompetence, i hate male binary thinking, i hate male militarised thinking, i hate male arrogance, i hate male possessiveness, i hate male behaviour, i hate males but above all i hate the fact that i have to interact with males regularly, even when i make every attempt not to.

Can we just talk about how traumatising it must have been for Marinette to face Monarch. Like, not only is the supervillain you have been fighting for almost a year now your boyfriend's dad (who btw is a world famous very influential fashion designer), but he's also got your boyfriend's dead mother, who is believed to be missing, in the basement of their house; his assistant (a hero turned supervillain) who is literally dying in the other room AND when you try and reason with the villain to find a solution that will benefit all of you, he paralyses you and commits suicide? After your boyfriend has momentarily lost everyone in his life, the revived assistant takes you to the room where your kwamis are held captive and you find footage of your boyfriend imprisoned in a cell. You then take it upon yourself to lie to the whole world including your boyfriend, who shouted at you for not saving his dad, about the fact that the villain was actually a hero.

All of this happened in the span of a few hours and without the help of your partner, who, as far as you're concerned, just didn't show up.

Absolutely fucking traumatising

Im so fucking tired of women being made fun of or hated in social media. Like, a woman could post a simple video just exaggerating a little something (example: a video of a woman in a bar or wtv saying “no one talks about how annoying is to get an ugly glass instead of a fancy one w ur drink”) and EVERY SINGLE comment is like “this is such a non issue” “and the world kept spinning” “this pmo” “stfu”… like, SHE KNOWS. She obviously knows it’s not a big issue, but its just a simple post oh my god 😒. God forbid a woman make a silly post about something she dislikes or wtv.

(Btw that example I gave is a real video I found on instagram)

— excerpt from invisible women by caroline criado perez