I had planned on having published the second and last post on my pilgrimage to Athens by now, but I have been distracted by other projects. Apart from work and other everyday obligations, finishing my thesis has taken more of my time and energy than expected.
I will be getting around to telling you about the second big lesson of my journey. I don’t know exactly when, but hopefully before the end of October. In the meantime, I would like to share a prayer poem I wrote recently and which has some relevance to the topic of the coming post:
To Hephaestus
Hephaestus, You who was by Athena and by Hera rejected, By Aphrodite betrayed and by Ares deceived, Lord of the broken bones, Lord of the wounded place, You who was thrown out, Injured and disdained, You who fell But limping again stood up, Hephaestus, Great Craftsman, Hear my plea.
Great Maker, I have been broken, Lord, I have been beaten, I have been wronged and deceived And given no justice, Long did I wait and long did I cry, But my tears went unheard, My tormentors felt no guilt, I was left broken, Without an apology; I have ceased waiting for one.
Great Lord of Form, What will I do with these broken pieces? Teach me to build with these shards, And turn pain into beauty, Sorrow into art.
From the wound of memory, Let me create a new future.
Vulcan (Hephaestus) at his forge, by Pompeo Batoni.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I made a pilgrimage to Athens a while back. More specifically, in July of 2024. I was at a point in my life when I finally felt like I could become the man I was meant to be. Like there were possibilities opening that I had long since stopped hoping for. But I was distracted with the stress and worries of the everyday. I needed to get away, far from it, so that I could think through the next steps in my life.
Athens, the city of the Greek Goddess of Wisdom, felt like the place to do that. The trip would also be an act of devotion, part of my practice as a modern Polytheist. So, I booked a solo trip and went to the Greek capital.
Statues of Athena, Plato and Apollo in front of the Academy of Athens
My visit started off pretty badly. Less than 24 hours after arriving in the city, I got robbed. I was now without the 400 euros I’d been carrying in cash. I was also without medication that I very much needed. Discouraged, humiliated and pissed off, I decided that I would leave Greece the same day.
But after calming down a bit, I realised that might be a bit rash. I went looking for a doctor for a prescription for my meds. It turned out to be a lot easier than expected and went smoothly online. Didn’t even need to meet a doc face-to-face and then I could pick up my medication at the nearest pharmacy.
With that taken care of, I could focus on the rest of my journey. With no more cash and little on my bank account, my choices were more limited than before. Luckily, I had pre-bought all the tickets for the activities I wanted to do, so I didn’t have to cancel them. I used the little money I had left to stock up on food at the nearest Lidl and decided to not let a bad start ruin the rest of my trip.
Statue of PoseidonGraves at Kerameikos Face of a statue. Acropolis Museum.Temple of Hephaestus Stele of Athena
I’m glad I didn’t give up, because I had an amazing time the rest of the trip. I visited fascinating historical museums, among them the National Archeological Museum, The Museum of the Ancient Agora, and the Acropolis Museum. I also saw historical sites like Hadrian’s Library, the Ancient Agora, the Temple of Hephaestus, and the Kerameikos. The highlight of the trip was of course seeing the Acropolis and its Parthenon.
The Parthenon View from the Acropolis
The view over Athens from the Acropolis is breathtaking and you can’t see the Parthenon with your own eyes without feeling a sense of awe. I find it hard to fully describe the experience, but standing in front of what was once one of the greatest temples of the Hellenic world is truly a fantastic experience. If you do only one thing when visiting Athens, then go see the Parthenon.
If there is one thing I would do differently, though, is that I would choose a different time of year to come visit. The heat, the blinding sun, the massive crowd of people all around… It was a bit overwhelming.
One place that had a lot less visitors was the Temple of Olympian Zeus. Almost no one was there at the time, despite the temple’s proximity to the Acropolis.
It was there, as I was walking around and admiring the little that’s left of a once great temple, that a sadness came over me. So many temples, all over the world, destroyed or abandoned in the name of ”the only true religion” (which one differs, ironically). Places once held to be sacred spaces are now, to most, only ruins. Perhaps interesting for their historical value, but not a place you come to meet and honour the Divine.
I decided then that I would remember to value sacred space, no matter how small, and that I would do my part, also no matter how small, to help create new ones. As the Polytheist revival takes speed, in places like Greece and Iceland, new temples and shrines are being built up. Maybe one day soon we’ll also have a temple here in Sweden too. I hope to help make that happen, somehow.
Temple of Olympian Zeus
So, this was the first of two big lessons I took from my pilgrimage to Athens. What the other one is, I’ll write about in my next post.
This blog has been on a hiatus for a few years. It wasn’t really something I planned, I’ve just been so busy with other things. First and foremost among them: getting a bachelor’s degree in Library and Information Science. And now, after a 3-year program, I’m almost there! Just need to finish up my thesis and I’ll be getting my certificate very soon.
When it comes to my creative writing, it also has had to take a backseat for a while. I’m about 80% finished with the second novel of my crime series and I have several other projects in the works. A lot of them I plan to publish as free ebooks and short stories, mainly because I’ve grown bored with trying to make any kind of income as an indie author. Maybe I’ll make another attempt at getting published traditionally sometimes in the future, but for now I want to write only for the love of writing itself.
As for the spiritual life – which is still the main focus of this blog – a bit has happened on my personal journey. I felt called towards Athena and made a pilgrimage to Athens, visited the Parthenon and other important historical sites. I felt a certain sadness at seeing places once held to be sacred now without worshippers. It reminded me of the importance of doing what I can to help keep Polytheist traditions alive. Now I’m mostly active in a local Heathen group and my focus are once again the Norse Deities. But more on that in future posts.
I’m just happy to finally restart this blog and post regularly again.
I came today to see the Lady To ask audience before Her Away from all the hustle and bustle of the world.
I came to see the Lady And I found Her dressed in white, In Her most glorious winter dress, Beautiful Bride Eternal Lady of Winter Vetrfreya
I found Her awake And in Her arms lay the Lord Resting His head on Her bossom, Sleeping.
I saw Him there, The Horned One, The Vanir Lord, The Viril Stag who shouts life into Being. He slept with a smile on His face.
They said He had died, And I remember the day the witches wept over their Lord, Their heads covered in ashes, Tears streaming down their faces.
Did they not know the Lord yet lives? I saw Him today and I heard His whispers, I heard Him In the streaming waters, In the calls of the magpies, In the ruffling of the branches, In the hurrying steps of a roebuck, The Lord proclaimed His return!
But for now, He rests. The Lady carries Her twin and Son, She hides Him beneath Her dress, Lets Him rest His weary head, Until His rebirth in spring.
If you know your history of religion, you’ll know that the attitude of monotheists towards polytheists hasn’t always been one of great tolerance. Many monotheists institutions, such as the Catholic Church, have gone to great lengths to remove every trace of Polytheist faiths wherever it expended. To name one of many, many example: the burning of all the Maya civilization’s literature with the exception of 4 books.
Because of this widespread destruction of Polytheist culture, we often have little remaining to learn about them. Sometimes the only sources left are from the very same people who did the destruction, or from people who believed it was the right thing to do.
One example of one such source is the Kitabal-ʾAsnam, or Book of Idols. Written by the Iraqi Muslim historian Hisham ibn al-Kalbi sometimes in the 8th or 9th century, this short book gives an accountant of some of the Deities worshipped in the Arab world in pre-Islamic times. It describes iconography, worship, rituals and traditions associated witht these Deities and also sites relevant pre-Islamic poetry.
The Goddess Al-Lāt riding a camel. Relief from Saudi Arabia, circa 100 BC.
A particularly interesting part is the retelling of the conflict between polytheists and monotheists in the years leading up to the subjugation of polytheists by Muslims. It involves, among other things, the destruction of sacred objects and defecation in a church…
The Book of Idols is not an extensive work, unfortunately, but it is the main source of a lot of what we know about the Polytheism practiced on the Arabian Peninsula prior to the onset of Islam. If you wish to read it, you can find it for free online here.
For a modern perspective on Arabian Polytheism, I can highly recommend Bader Saab’s blog.
Just dropping by to announce I’ll be starting to post more frequently here again. After spending months trying to figure out how to be seen on Instagram with their current algorithm, I’ve decided to take a (perhaps permanent) break from that app. It’ just not what it used to be. Years ago, you could post a random pic of your cat and get over 20 likes despite having near 0 followers. But now, you have to make reels to get any traffic and you’ll be lucky if they pop up on your own followers’ feeds.
Plus, I prefer writing as a means of expression anyway.
I’ll be looking into other means to promote my books and maybe try another social media in the future. But for now, I’d like to focus more on the blog again. And I have some exciting news coming soon!
Long have been the hours and heavy the burden, I have worked and struggled, But for what? All the days of my youth belong to one wealthier than me.
So, merry Dionysos, Beloved of the nymphs, Child of Zeus, Let me forget, Let the sweetness of the wine And the rhythm of the dance Take me away, To Your feast which never ends And eternally comforts the downtrodden.
Joyous Dionysos, Dear Husband to Ariadne And friend to both kings and outcasts, Let me be mad! Let me taste insanity for an hour, Carelessness for a minute, Let my soul soar over the fields of dance For a night.
I’d just like to put a trigger warning that the story explores some of the darkest parts of human nature and so there is quite a bit of violence; including mentions of sexual violence.
But if you can stand these sort of things and enjoy noir crime novels that also treat of philosophical and contemporary issues, this book might just be for you.
I’m planning on eventually publishing a physical book and also improving the cover art a bit. For now, I’ll be focusing on publishing my other book project. This time, the book will be in one of my native tongues: Swedish!.
Just dropping by to announce my crime novel will be published sometimes tomorrow or Saturday. Sunday, at the latest. I was planning on publishing it today but will have to postpone it slightly due to a technical difficulty.
In the meantime, here is a preview of the cover art:
UPDATE 18/08/23: The book has been uploaded to Kindle, but it could take 1-3 days before it becomes available for purchase.
With two books coming out soon, I thought I’d start making social media profiles to have more of an online presence and promote my work. I’m planning on being on more platforms soon, but for now I’ve only made an Instagram account. You can find me under the username @leofreyasonauthor.
I’ll probably use Instagram to make shorter updates and posts from now on and write on the blog when I want to go more in depth on a subject.
So, follow me on Insta for the day to day insight into my writing process and spiritual practice!
