Conclusions
Come onto the fields and dream of mighty Gods. Hear them as they speak in your heart, in your mind, in your soul. Come onto the fields where warriors dance and maidens smile beguilingly. Watch them in their glory sometimes forgotten. Come onto the fields of the dead, and relieve yourself of worry.
Speak softly into the wind, and give Zeus your thanks. Let the cares you once held dear go away. Speak loudly at the mountain, and feel the footfalls of the far-shooter in her hunt through the forests. Let the dire feelings be gone. Speak with respect at the light of the sun, and feel his power on your face. Let the light of life engulf you.
Look down upon the Earth, our holy mother. See the flowers growing wildly. Look out toward the horizon, and await the rising Moon. Let her light by night now guide you. Dip your hand in the river and smile. Let the water quench your thirst. Bless the night and her children for all they do. Live your life for the moment and have fun.
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Gods are extremely complicated beings. They are so complex, in fact, that we as mortal beings cannot fully perceive them. Yet perceive them we do, for all cultures no matter how primitive or advanced perceive something of the divine nature of nature and the spirits that move it along its way. To each culture, each nation, and indeed, each person, the divine appears different, either extremely so or in small degrees.
To the Greeks, the visualization of the Gods became an anthropomorphic one, and thus the visual representations of them became idealized human beings of their own race and ethnic stock, in other words, the Greek Gods appeared as Greeks to the Greeks.
Their magnificence and beauty was unsurpassed and unsurpassable, yet for all that, the Greeks gave to their Gods a magnificently human appearance that though beautiful, was still very much human, and in that sense vulnerable, and in this vulnerability was the very seed of their destruction, for when Christianity came, the Gods were swept away, and though much of the culture that was Hellenism survived and fundamentally changed the “monotheistic” new religion just as it was itself changed by it.
Christianity would not go through Greece and Rome unchanged, and in the Catholic religion we still see the echoes of the ancient Gods, in the saints and angels, demons and complex world view, they are there, even if their images changed to almost unrecognizable forms.
Yet this site is about my devotion to them, in those forms granted them by the Ancient Greeks, one might say their true form, but it would be arrogance of the utmost kind to presume one can ever truly know the true form of Gods, for as myth tells us, it is deadly to see a God in all his splendor, as Semele discovered to her own detriment.
In Zeus and Poseidon, Apollo and Hermes, Hephaestos and Ares, we can see the strength and courage of being male, as well as some of the weaknesses. In Hera and Athena, Artemis and Hestia, Demeter and Aphrodite, we see some of the strength and tenderness, some of the sexuality of women, as well as some of their anger and brutality. We can see in Helios and Selene the radiance of those two epiphanies, the sun and moon. We can see in Hades and Persephone the ultimate cruelty of death, and the endless hope man is capable of in the resurrection of life from the ashes of death.
The gods are limitless in their splendor, in their power, and in their love, but they are also limitless in their duties, for have no doubt that if a God feels the need to destroy to do his duty to the universe, destroy he does, and in their hands lies our fate, for though we make our own futures, make our own fates, it is they that make the future and fate of this cosmos we inhabit.
We honor them, we worship them, we love them and ask that they love us and protect us in return. We feel their presence in the world around us and feel awe at their ability to inspire as well as frighten. I honor them, I hope, by giving of my time and what little I know, that others may come to them as well.
Blessed is the light of heaven, and the foundations of earth, where gods walk and utter their secrets to the wind.