(Source: tell-me-a-secret-x, via hippie-pagan)
(Source: -mothernorth-, via shakespearwasaflirt)
(via jellybornagain)
Loki Laufeyson is best known as the God of Mischief, but he is much more. He is one of the three Gods who gifted humankind with life. He is the God of the Hearthfire, a place more commonly held by Goddesses in other pantheons. He is the mother of Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged stead. Some of His other children include Fenrir, the World-Eating Wolf; Jörmungandr, the Midgard-Serpent; and Hel, the Giantess-Goddess of the Underworld. Most interesting and least known, however, is that Loki is the patron God of Ergi, or, Unmanly Behavior. Ergi includes a wide array of attributes and activities, from cross-dressing to receiving anal penetration. Also of interest, argr, the adjectival form of ergi, also translates in modern usage as angry or annoyed. In conclusion, Loki is (one of) the patron God(s/esses) of Hard Femme.
(submitted by detectivepunchymchitsthings)
This is everything forever. Also this artist is my new fucking hero.
all of the artgasms
all of them
Akshobhya is a principal transcendental Buddha in the Vajrayana school and also a minor transcedental Buddha within the Sutra (i.e. texts) tradition of Mahayana Buddhism. His Tibetan name is MI KYU PA or SANG RE. Akshobhya arises in the eastern direction, on an elephant with lotus and moon throne. His body colour is blue and his right hand in the bhumisparsha mudra (hand gesture of touching the earth), representing the enlightenment commitment by calling the earth to commemorate Sakyamuni Buddha’s victory over temptation by Mara (God of Delusion and Death). Akshobhya’s left hand placed palm upward in the lap performs the mudra of meditation.
Akshobhya is the embodiment of ‘mirror knowledge’ (Sanskrit: ādarśa-jñāna; refer Panchajnana). A knowledge of what is real, and what is illusion, or a mere reflection of actual reality. The mirror is mind itself - clear like the sky, empty yet luminous. Holding all the images of space and time, yet untouched by them. He represents the eternal mind, and the Vajra family is connected with reason and intellect. Its brilliance illuminates the darkness of ignorance, its sharpness cuts through confusion.
(via paganbuddha)
Greek Giants
Giants symbolize immense primal forces, neither good or bad, but larger than life. While Greek giants could be ‘gentle’ guardians, such as Talos, the gigantic bronze man who defended the island of Crete, others, such as Geryon, were predators, preying on unwary travellers.
Equally, the Cyclopes were originally creative beings, making armour and ornaments in the forge of Hephaistos, and buliding the massive city walls of Tiryns. Later on they were also portrayed as moody, rebellious shephards who ignored divine lawsand preyed on mortals.
The gods themselves are gigantic, especially the older gods, reflecting their primal nature, such as the Titans, and the Giants, who were beings with mighty torsos and snake- like legs. The Titans overthrew their father Ouranos, replacing him with Cronos, who was in his turn dethroned by his son Zeus. Such a cosmic stuggle between older primal gods and a younger generation is a common feature in world mythology.
The Titans (Part 1)
In Greek mythology, the Titans (Greek: Τιτάν - Ti-tan; plural: Τιτᾶνες - Ti-tânes) were a race of powerful deities, descendants of Gaia and Uranus, that ruled during the legendary Golden Age.
In the first generation of twelve Titans, the males were Oceanus, Hyperion, Coeus, Cronus, Crius and Iapetus and the females were Mnemosyne, Tethys, Theia, Phoebe, Rhea and Themis. The second generation of Titans consisted of Hyperion’s children Eos, Helios, and Selene; Coeus’s daughters Leto and Asteria; Iapetus’s sons Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Menoetius; Oceanus’ daughter Metis; and Crius’s sons Astraeus, Pallas, and Perses.
The Titans were overthrown by a race of younger gods, the Olympians, in the Titanomachy (“War of the Titans”). This represented a mythological paradigm shift that the Greeks may have borrowed from the Ancient Near East.
Oceanus
Oceanus (Greek: Ὠκεανός, Ōkeanós) was a pseudo-geographical feature in classical antiquity, believed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to be the World Ocean, an enormous river encircling the world.
Strictly speaking, Oceanus was the ocean-stream at the Equator in which floated the habitable hemisphere.In Greek mythology, this world-ocean was personified as a Titan, a son of Uranus and Gaia. In Hellenistic and Roman mosaics, this Titan was often depicted as having the upper body of a muscular man with a long beard and horns (often represented as the claws of a crab) and the lower body of a serpent . On a fragmentary archaic vessel of circa 580 BC, among the gods arriving at the wedding of Peleus and the sea-nymph Thetis, is a fish-tailed Oceanus, with a fish in one hand and a serpent in the other, gifts of bounty and prophecy.
Some scholars believe that Oceanus originally represented all bodies of salt water, including the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, the two largest bodies known to the ancient Greeks. However, as geography became more accurate, Oceanus came to represent the stranger, more unknown waters of the Atlantic Ocean (also called the “Ocean Sea”), while the newcomer of a later generation, Poseidon, ruled over the Mediterranean.
Oceanus’ consort is his sister Tethys, and from their union came the ocean nymphs, also known as the three-thousand Oceanids, and all the rivers of the world, fountains, and lakes.From Cronus, of the race of Titans, the Olympian gods have their birth, and Hera mentions twice in Iliad book XIV her intended journey “to the ends of the generous earth on a visit to Oceanus, whence the gods have risen, and Tethys our mother who brought me up kindly in their own house.”
In most variations of the war between the Titans and the Olympians, or Titanomachy, Oceanus, along with Prometheus and Themis, did not take the side of his fellow Titans against the Olympians, but instead withdrew from the conflict. In most variations of this myth, Oceanus also refused to side with Cronus in the latter’s revolt against their father, Uranus.
Tethys
Tethys (Greek: Τηθύς), daughter of Uranus and Gaia was an archaic Titaness and aquatic sea goddess, invoked in classical Greek poetry but not venerated in cult. Tethys was both sister and wife of Oceanus. She was mother of the chief rivers of the world known to the Greeks, such as the Nile, the Alpheus, the Maeander, and about three thousand daughters called the Oceanids. Considered as an embodiment of the waters of the world she also may be seen as a counterpart of Thalassa, the embodiment of the sea. Although these vestiges imply a strong role in earlier times, Tethys plays virtually no part in recorded Greek literary texts, or historical records of cults. Walter Burkert notes the presence of Tethys in the episode of Iliad XIV that the Ancients called the “Deception of Zeus”, where Hera, to mislead Zeus, says she wants to go to Oceanus, “origin of the gods” and Tethys “the mother”. Burkert sees in the name a transformation of Akkadian tiamtu or tâmtu, “the sea,” which is recognizable in Tiamat. Alternatively, her name may simply mean “old woman”; certainly it bears some similarity to ἡ τήθη, meaning “grandmother”, and she is often portrayed as being extremely ancient.
One of the few representations of Tethys that is identified securely by an accompanying inscription is the Late Antique (fourth century CE) mosaic from the flooring of a thermae at Antioch. In the Dumbarton Oaks mosaic, the bust of Tethys—surrounded by fishes—is rising, bare-shouldered from the waters. Against her shoulder rests a golden ship’s rudder. Gray wings sprout from her forehead, as in the mosaics illustrated above and below.
During the war against the Titans, Tethys raised Hera as her step-child, but there are no records of active cults for Tethys in historic times.
Tethys has sometimes been confusedwith another sea goddess who became the sea-nymph Thetis, the wife of Peleus and mother of Achilles during Classical times. Some myths imply a second generation relationship between the two, a grandmother and granddaughter.
Indicative of the power exercised by Tethys, one myth relates that the prominent goddess of the Olympians, Hera, was not pleased with the placement of Callisto and Arcas in the sky, as the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, so she asked her nurse Tethys to help. Tethys, a marine goddess, caused the constellations forever to circle the sky and never drop below the horizon, hence explaining why they are circumpolar. Robert Graves interprets the use of the term nursein Classical myths as identifying deities who once were goddesses of central importance in the periods before historical documentation.
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Zeus, the greatest of the Olympian gods, and the father of gods and men, was a son of Cronos and Rhea, a brother of Poseidon, Hades (Pluto), Hestia, Demeter, Hera, and at the same time married to his sister Hera. When Zeus and his brothers distributed among themselves the government of the world by lot, Poseidon obtained the sea, Hades the lower world, and Zeus the heavens and the upper regions, but the earth became common to all.
He was the king of the gods, the god of sky and weather, law, order and fate. He was depicted as a regal man, mature with sturdy figure and dark beard. His usual attributes were a lightning bolt, royal sceptre and eagle.
source: www.theoi.com
image: Polidoro Caldara da Caravaggio
(via purebloodqueen)
The first born of the immortals, who formed the very fabric of the universe, were known in Greek mythology as the Protogenoi (protos meaning “first,” and genos “born”). They were, for the most part, purely elemental beings - Uranus was the literal sky, Gaea the body of the earth, etc. A few of…
(Source: theoi.com)
Ok, so I was asked today about Wicca, Paganism, and Witchcraft and I kind of liked the response that I gave. So I thought I would share my ideas with the rest of you.
These are my definitions and understandings of the topics mentioned below, just know that, even though my…
(Source: the-rite-of-spring)
