September/October 2011

Xairete!

Sorry it's been so long. The time got away from me a bit there. It's been a busy couple of months at HTAZP, and here are the highlights:

The 28^th of August was scheduled to be the Panaphobeia, however, it was not possible to hold a group ritual due to Hurricane-turned-Tropical-Storm Irene. A ritual was still held at the temple space however, and suggestions for private ritual were provided so that the festival could still be observed individually.

On Sunday the 11^th of September, we celebrated Panagon, a day of games devoted to Pan. As the space is not conducive to an actual torch race, a series of board games were dedicated to Pan and the winner received a prize to be placed on their personal shrine at home. At the start of the theoxenia, when we honor the ancestors, we took a moment to also remember those who died on this day ten years ago.

We also discovered that either Pan is not at all fond of battery-operated tea-lights or the batch offered by one temple regular (me, actually) was rather spectacularly defective. Did you know those things could explode? Nope, neither did I.

On the 25^th, we held the Fall Festival honoring Demeter and Persephone and commemorating their cyclical separation with the promise of reunion in the Spring.

October's big festival was the Puanepsia and Oskhophoria, celebrating both Apollon and Dionysos as Gods of the harvest and marking the “changing of the guard” at Delphi as Dionysos takes over until Delphinia while Apollon travels to Hyperboria. Many temple members chose to cross-dress in honor of Dionysos' androgyny.

There were offerings of wine and other forms of alcohol for Dionysos and a lentil-kale soup for Apollon as well as other delicious food offerings. (One temple regular who insists he can't cook invented yet another delicacy, this one involving chocolate rice cakes, Nutella, and strawberries.)

Upcoming festivals will be the Panaia on November 6 and the Pompaia on November 20.

May the Gods' blessings be with you all.

Peace,

Diane

Fall Festival

At the turning of the season from Summer to Autumn, we honor Demeter for the gifts of the harvest and recognize Her sorrow as Persephone rejoins Hades in his realm for the duration of the colder months.  The day begins honoring Mother and Daughter together, then shifts to a focus on Persephone as queen of Hades' realm.

Offerings to Demeter and Kore (Persephone in Her maiden state) can be anything related to grains and harvest foods.  Demeter is partial to pork offerings, but there is a taboo against offering Her eggs.  Altar decorations here are likely to be earthy and autumnal in colors and imagery.

Pomegranates can only be offered to Persephone once she is ritually separated from Her mother and joined with Her husband, Hades.  Depending upon one's interpretation of the myths, it may be appropriate to offer wedding cake.  Altar decorations here should acknowledge that Hades' and Persephone's realm is the underworld, possibly including a black altar cloth and images of skeletons or other representations of death.  If an ancestor shrine is included, it should be kept separate and lower in height (usually on or near the floor), because while they are kthonic Gods, Hades is also an Olympian.

Fall Festival 2011

Fall Festival 2012

Fall Festival 2013

Fall Festival 2014

Fall Festival 2016

Fall Festival 2017

August 2011 News

Actually, this month starts with the end of July, as we spent the Deipnon (which conveniently fell on the 30th) having the Temple's second official naming ceremony, the date having been chosen as the person undergoing the ceremony is dedicated to Hekate.  Again, a very moving experience indeed, followed by fellowship and feasting.

This Sunday, the 14th, we will be celebrating the Therapeia, honoring Apollon, Aesklepios, and Pan as Gods of healing.  If you have specific healing intentions you would like remembered at this ritual, please either comment here or email Hieros Timotheos.

August will wrap up with the Panaphobeia or Feast of Fear on the 28th.  Due to the intensely personal nature of the fear work done at this festival, it is by invitation only.  If you wish to participate or to recommend someone to attend that you feel might benefit from this work, please email Hieros Timotheos first.

Therapeia

7 Therapeion is the HTAZP healing festival. It began centered on Apollon and Aklepios, grew to include Pan as the God who rules over wild herbs, and has recently expanded to include Artemis, who oversees childbirth, Hygeia, Asklepios' daughter and Goddess of health, and Gaia, upon whom we depend for pretty much everything, including healing. Offerings are made to these Deities and healing work is shared amongst the participants and sent out to others in need of healing.


Therapeia 2011

Therapeia 2012

Therapeia 2013

Therapeia 2019

Happy New Year!

Xairete!

From July 1-3, the Hellenic Temple of Apollon, Zeus, and Pan celebrated the Anadikia.   There were five of us present for this amazing retreat.

For those who weren't able to attend, you were remembered throughout the weekend.  Hope you'll be able to come for a festival soon!

As Hieros Timotheos wrote on the top of the weekend's schedule of events, “Anadikia translates to 'renewal of action.' It is based on the ending of the lunar year and the beginning of a new lunar year. HTAZP has developed an annual retreat to celebrate this observance.” The lunar year starts on the first New Moon after the Summer Solstice. Thus the celebration is very similar to the monthly Noumenia (and in fact is sometimes called the “Great Noumenia”) but on a much larger scale. As a three-day retreat, this translates into one day for Hekate's Deipnon, one for Noumenia, and one for the Agathos Daimon.

Friday evening began with us gathering at the temple space and settling in. Then at about 10 pm, we held the Deipnon ceremony to Hekate and the Ancestors. Timotheos taught us a way to cleanse the home for Deipnon, and then we proceeded into the Temple space proper, where there were offerings of food and ribbons for the Ancestors, accompanied by sharing memories of some of those Ancestors. It was incredibly moving and intense. Then offerings were made to Hekate, including canned goods to be given to the homeless over whom She watches as Goddess of the crossroads.

Hekate's shrine, the Agathos Daimon's shrine, and Ancestor shrine.

Once this incredibly intense ritual completed (two minutes before midnight, and finishing before midnight had been an important component), we adjourned to feast and play cards, which is a modern Greek New Year's tradition.

At about 1am, we wrapped that up and did a Diisoteria ritual to dedicate a new Hestia statue and to thank our personal patrons, the Temple patrons, and any other Deities who had bestowed blessings on us over the past year. In the tradition of a side shrine for “foreign Gods,” there was also space set aside for recognition of Deities those of us on dual paths belong to.

After the Diisoteria.

Saturday morning began with ritual purification baths as we got up.  After that and a bit of breakfast, we began cleansing the various statues and icons in the Temple. As Timotheos said, this is when you realize just how many statues and images of various sorts are in the Temple.

After the Temple cleansing.

Once all of the statues, pictures, sculptures, and other images had been cleansed and returned to their places in the Temple (or a reasonable facsimile thereof, some most certainly found slightly new homes), we made libations to the Gods, offered them Greek New Year's cake, and an amazing ham rigatoni bake.

The cake is called Vaselopita, and it is amazingly delicious. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

1 cup butter

2 cups white sugar

3 cups flour

6 eggs

2 tsp baking powder

1 cup warm milk

½ tsp baking soda

1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

¼ cup blanched slivered almonds

1 Tbsp white sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and generously grease 10 inch round baking pan.
2. In a medium bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light.
3. Stir in flour and mix until mixture is mealy.
4. Add eggs one at a time.
5. In a separate bowl, combine baking powder and milk and add to mixture.
6. Combine lemon juice and baking soda and pour into batter.
7. Bake 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Remove and sprinkle nuts over the top.
8. Return to oven for 20-30 minutes until cake springs back to the touch.
9. Gently cut a small hole in the center place a quarter in the hole. Cover it with sugar.
10. Cool on rack for 10 minutes before inverting onto plate.

Whoever gets the quarter, by the way, is supposed to have good luck for the coming year.

Between the emotional and energetic impact of cleansing all the icons, we were all very much in a space of needing to just rest and process. All of us ended up taking naps, even those who'd planned to just quietly read for awhile, and some of us did our processing through rather vivid dreams.

When we regrouped a couple of hours later, we set a plan to finish the Temple cleansing, then have dinner and watch a movie.

Somehow (and I guess that would be this week's edition of "The Hieros of Cranston"), "watching a movie" translated into a mini-marathon of cat videos, including The Cat vs the Cactus, Kitty Is a Very BAD Mystic, and Cat vs Printer - The Translation. In an attempt to, if not be more serious, at least watch something a bit longer, we moved on to John Cleese's How to Irritate People.

Sunday, we made ritual offerings to the Temple's Agathos Daimon as well as our personal Agathos Daimons and any other guiding and guardian spirits in each of our lives.  We shared a brunch with the Agathos Daimon and these other spirits outdoors.  After spending some more time in fellowship, we closed the weekend in the Temple space and dispersed. 

All in all, it was a wonderful and very intense weekend.  Again, those of you who weren't able to attend were remembered throughout, and we hope you'll be able to come sometime in the near future!

May the Gods' blessings be with you all.

Peace,
Diane

Adonia

The Adonia is a festival commemorating the death and resurrection of Adonis.  It may be celebrated on two separate occasions or as a two-part festival.

Adonia 2015

June News

Xairete!

Today, we celebrated the Philokhoria, the time when the days shift and begin to grow shorter once again.  A few days late, but  the Gods seem to understand that we meet when we can.

It was a gorgeous day for it, and so the festival was held outside.  (I forgot to take pictures.  Sorry!)  After the procession and as part of the offerings, we re-enacted the Kallimakhos myth upon which the festival is based by way of the Philokhoria Puppet Show.  We're hoping the Gods found it as amusing to watch as we did to perform.  We also made offerings of dance, both a group choreography that Temple regulars have been learning together over the last couple of months and a solo that I just managed to pull the choreography together for this past week.

Feasting followed, as it does, along with a bit of processing, future planning, and fellowship.

We have a bit of a running joke that started when I went on a binge of watching The Vicar of Dibley, that wouldn't it be cool to have our own show about our various foibles (which, like the original, would ultimately touch on an underlying theme of our strengths as a group), which would just have to be called The Hieros of Cranston.   Sort of the "outtakes" of what we get up to on festival days, the stuff that probably has the Gods either laughing or at least shaking Their heads in bemusement.

So, this week on The Hieros of Cranston, somehow, disposing of festival remnants got turned into us joking about the Vashta Nerada.  (Hey, who turned out the lights?)  Also, once we'd finished making noise and settled down, Corbie the cat made clear her displeasure at having not been the center of attention all day.  Pointedly clear, shall we say.

Next weekend, we'll be holding the Anadikia or Great Noumenia retreat, so there will probably be another update shortly after that.

May the blessings of the Gods be with you!

Peace,
Diane