Today we celebrated two things: the Kheimonia and the merging of two temples.
Let's take the second first.
The Hellenic Temple of Apollon, Zeus, and Pan has been sharing a portion of its space with the Hellenic Temple of Hera, Dionysos, and Hermes for some time. After much divination and discussion, the two have combined to form Temenos Oikidios (Temple of the Little House).
This has resulted in some changes to the space.
Ultimately, this will also result in a change for our website, blog, and Facebook page. The blog will likely migrate to a different platform, or at the very least to a new URL reflecting the new name. When that happens, we will announce it here.
Related to this, Kheimonia, already an amalgamation of festivals, has some additional elements this year.
For background, since the Greeks didn't have a winter solstice ritual per se, some modern Hellenic Pagans developed a multi-day festival to honor Helios called Heliogenna. HTAZP combined this with the traditional festivals of the Haloa (for Demeter) and the Rural Dionysia, eventually adding in the Pompaia (honoring Zeus Melikhios and Maimaktos) and the modern festival of the Dendraia (for Pan) to form the Kheimonia (which translates to Winter Festival). Over time, we have added the Poseideia and this year we incorporated Hera Chera (Hera the Widow), Aesklepios and Apollon Iatros, and Hermes Taxidios.
If you're wondering how in the world we fit this all into a single festival, the ritual link is here.
We offered olive loaf for thusia. Theoxenia included pulled pork sandwiches, pumpkin soup, salad, cookies in shapes appropriate for the Haloa and Rural Dionysia, and ice cream roll.
Though we did some tree decorating on the Panaia, we did a bit more today.
And for gaming, we opted for Rotten Apples to stay in the mode of offering bawdy humor to Demeter to cheer her up.
That's all for now. Again, an announcement will follow once we have new URLs to share for the website, blog, and Facebook group.
In the meantime, may the blessings of the Gods be with you!
