My Meeting with Zeus

When I woke up today, I saw a white haired bearded man seated on my table as I walked into the room. I’ve never had this happen before. He sat on my table and I could see him placing cards on the table as if He were dealing out cards.

“Who are you?”

“Zeus.”

I have an Oracle deck for the Hellenic Pantheon so I pulled that out and started pulling cards. I got up at one point to shower and give offerings to the Hellenic deities in my Household. When I was done, I got the inclination that He still wanted me to pull cards.

I got some cards over and over again. Messages I wasn’t getting were beginning to weave together, reading after reading. During the last reading session, He called me a “mantis” (this apparently means diviner in Greek).

A few of the messages I got were:

*fill your life with joy
*fill your life with beauty
*do what you love
*know who you are and act on it; master yourself
*love yourself
*Know why you honor the Gods you do (Thinking they are cool isn’t enough of a good reason.)
*transformation of old habits into new ones
*creation of joy
*creativity and inspiration; new projects and new beginnings

One of the things He wanted to know was the reason why I was doing things. He wanted to know why I was honoring Athena. I told Him that I admired Her and I honored Her because She helped me with my home once. The first time I ever met Her, the Goddess Athena had me write a four (or 7; I can’t remember the exact number) page poem to Her. But I also remembered I was told (by Aset) that honoring the Hellenic deities would teach me how to treat my home like a temple. That I would learn to treat my home as a sacred and holy place. This is something sorely lacking within Kemetic religion.

Household worship is the staple to Hellenic religious practice and that foundation is largely missing within Kemetic religion. So I honored Hestia today and Hera and Zeus along with Athena. I libated to these Gods of Olympos. I always give Them libations as I don’t have a safe way to burn or a practical way to bury the food offerings.

And as I’m writing this I’m remembering something Athena told me to do that I haven’t been doing. So this is a good reminder. Ask Her for help with my home.

And that question of Why do you honor the Gods that you do? is harder to answer than I thought.

There are many reasons to honor certain deities over others:

*affinity with the occupation you have
*They created you and you are Their spiritual child
*They have work for you to do for Them
*They rule over the Household and you (hopefully) live in a house/apartment/condo, etc.
*They showed up since you honor their brother, mother, father, sister, wife, husband etc.
*Some other reason

So why do I honor some of the Olympic deities? Why do I honor Athena?

The obvious answer is that She’s a Goddess and what fool doesn’t give the deities their due?

Just because They deserve honor doesn’t mean we can honor every single god or goddess. Some deities will get along with certain devotees better than others. I tend to honor deities of knowledge, order, magic, death and healing. Someone else may have different threads of influences from their deities.

My other answer to this would be that I’m an independent scholar with a Masters degree, that I bead necklaces and may start to paint. Being an artisan and a scholar are under the domain of Athena.

But that doesn’t really answer the question. Why am I honoring Her?

Athena showed up unexpectedly in my life. I honestly did not see Her coming. But She came and I just started to respond. I honored Her when I could; I try to honor Her on Her monthly festivals on the 3rd, 13th and 23rd day of each month. Sometimes I forgot or I was too lazy or I was sick or on my period or some other reason I didn’t honor Her on that day.

But when I could I’d try to show up and give an offering. And sometimes I made mistakes and did things I know not to do now. And sometimes why you show up isn’t as important as that you took the effort to show up. And sometimes why are you here isn’t a reprimand, but a question. Do you know what you are doing? Do you know what you are building or making? Do you know what it means to become acquainted with a God?

Do you know what you are doing when you honor this God instead of that one? Or you honor this God from this pantheon and this other God from this other pantheon? Do you know the relationships you are building?

Do you understand that when you honor a God and invite Them into your home, then They are a permanent houseguest? And if you need to take down their shrines or altars, you need to ask Their permission? That is not your space anymore. It is Theirs.

Do you know, dear child, do you know that when you honor a God, you are building a relationship between two beings and both have agency? And both have power.

And both of them have the power of choice.

Do you build a shrine and a relationship with a foundation of kharis (holy blessings; reciprocity gift-giving) or do you build it on superficial manners and willful ignorance?

How you build the shrine to Them is what the foundation of your relationship is made of.

Blessings flow where offerings go.

Build it well.