Well, that was a rather long hiatus! Things have been busy. Which is no excuse, yet is the truth of it. Today I'm going to talk about offerings to Artemis that I am developing. As with the rest of the 30 Days of Deity Devotion prompts, I'm not interested in regurgitating information that is already easily available.
But first, let's get a handle on what we're talking about. What is the difference between a prayer, a devotional practice and an offering?
Prayer=Prayer covers all communication between the physical world and the spiritual realm.
Devotion=Devotion is a gift of oneself or one’s activities to the Divine, and one’s willingness to offer oneself to the Divine.
Offering=Similar to devotion in that you are offering a gift to the Deity in question, which could be yourself or an action you take, but what I have read indicates that this is specific to a temple setting. Most of us don't have a temple, so I would say we can expand the definition to include offerings made at an altar specific to the Deity or a ritual specific to the Deity. There is also a tie between offerings and sacrifices. Click through to the link to read more about contemporary sacrificial practices.
So then. We are talking about making an offering to a specific Deity, in my case, Artemis. I hope to one day build a temple to Artemis. Until that day, I'll be making offerings to Her during ritual, during hunts and at my personal altar.
Let's start with the fruits of the hunt. In ancient times, animal offerings were often the carcass. The clergy and worshippers would share the meat while the skin, blood, bones and such were left on the altar for the gods. Often the offering was burnt.In general, what I have done so far is to dedicate the hunt to Artemis. I have not performed a formal ritual using any physical part of the animal for Her. Perhaps in the future I will do so, and it seems to me that the heart would be an appropriate offering. Practicality is a factor for me - I don't have a way to put a carcass on the altar without things getting messy.
I'm really interested in developing movement-based offerings to Artemis. I have already worked with a devotional Yoga practice for Her. That has been rich and rewarding, and I plan to continue and expand this practice.
For other offerings, what I have in mind is to use the lunisol pattern. For non-food offerings like flowers and incense, we'll wave the item in the lunisol pattern a set number of times before putting it on the altar. My other idea is to inscribe the lunisol shape on the floor or ground, then walk or dance in the pattern a set number of times.
I'm also looking into making two types of ancient cakes as offerings to Artemis. Elaphos were a stag-shaped honey and sesame cake offered at the festival of Elaphebolia. Honey and sesame? Sounds tasty to me! This seems to me to be a good all-purpose food item. The second is the amphiphon, about which I have read conflicting information. Some sources say it was a cheese cake, which I do like. Others talk of it being a cake decorated with torches on both sides. This was used at the full moon in the Greek month of Mounikos. I'm thinking of either making cupcakes with candles, or maybe individual portions of cheesecake. For special occasions, of course. I can't eat cheesecake very often!
Sidebar: it seems to be close to impossible to figure out how the Greek calendar translates to our modern calendar. Anyone who knows the secret, please comment on this post!
Aside from wild game, movement and cakes, we can also offer more general items. Every Deity seems to have a list of sacred plants and whatnot. I'll have to work on this. This is actually an aspect of worship with which I have not yet worked very much. I suppose I ought to ask Her what she wants.
Generally, I feel pushed to offer up my most excellent efforts to Artemis. Normally I feel like being the best person, priestess, hunter, explorer, archer and all-around badass is what she really wants. I've never yet gotten the impression that Artemis is interested in a bunch of frou-frou on an altar somewhere. But you never know, I suppose. I haven't asked!
What say you, internets? What do you offer to Artemis?
The Greek calendar is difficult because different areas used different calendars, so there isn't a single unified calendar (and sometimes the same area had different calendars for different things). The Attic calendar, which would have been used in Athens, would have started with the sighting of the first new crescent moon after the summer solstice. The months were lunar based, so the new month would begin with the next new crescent. So, say you wanted to celebrate the Elaphebolia, it was held on the 6th day of the 9th lunar cycle... which doesn't correspond to a particular date on our current calendar, since the solstice and new crescents would have moved around each year, it would fall on a different date of our fixed calendar. So you could need to follow along the lunar cycles and calculate the different months/days each year if you wanted to keep it in line with the ancient dates.
ReplyDeleteHopefully that makes some sense, it's a topic I'm still working through a bit myself.
Hi Siona, I knew that there were different calendars, but I did not realize that I could just use lunar reckoning. That's easy! Thank you for posting!!
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