A Miscellany for Dies Solis

While there’s always a whole pile of things I could write 800-4500 words on in a given day here at the good ol’ Aedicula Antinoi–your primary source for things that impact a sliver within a niche of a small portion of a minor section of the overall modern pagan community–some days I just don’t quite feel up to producing such a thing, particularly when there are other writing projects that are impending and that may require 4500 or more words to be produced in a few hours.

Thus, on this particular day of the week, when such things as outlined above are the case for me, I must fill the vacuum with something else. And, I have a small selection of “something else”s on hand today, so problem solved! The great Sol Invictus in the sky shines on all of these things equally, and thus in his honor for the day, let’s talk about a few of them…

First of all, remember the Polydeukion oracle? Well, the day he’s next set to make some pronouncements is this coming Saturday, June 9th. So, if you’re interested in asking any questions, make sure you do so in the next few days! Refer to this post for further information on how to do that. (That also means I have less than six days to get together the first thing I’ve written myself in ancient Greek–eeesh!)

Next, I wanted to share this beautiful picture with you, showing many of the queer Marvel Comics characters all having a nice time on the beach together! Check it out at Arzeno’s DeviantArt pages! I’m so not up on who all of these characters are, so a friend elucidated it for me as follows: from left to right, Anole, Shatterstar, Richter, Karma (possibly), Mystique, Dakkan (on knees), Northstar, Karolina Dean, Xavin, Hulkling (green and laying down) and Wiccan. An interesting line-up, to be sure! But, in any case, a beautiful rendering! (Given that DC Comics has yet to have an “official” non-heterosexual superhero, though that will be changing soon, it’s good to know Marvel was so ahead of the game on this particular matter.)

Next, courtesy of some folks on the Neos Alexandria list, here’s an article on how the Cairo Calendar (c. 13th-12th c. BCE) from ancient Egypt might be the earliest record of the “Demon-Star” Algol. The Cairo Calendar has been a source I’ve used for certain matters in relation to Antinous and the Ekklesía Antínoou since my earliest days with this practice, so this interests me a great deal; however, I do have some niggling questions about the whole thing, which perhaps someone who knows that particular source better than I do might be able to illuminate. Nonetheless, there it is!

Side-note: June of 2002 was the time when I first got involved with Antinous as a deity, so I’m coming up on my 10-year anniversary with that. While I had known of Antinous’ existence since around late 1997/early 1998, and could have learned of it had I been slightly more perceptive as early as 1992, I first got involved with Antinous as a god in June of 2002 after having returned to Ireland from a several-weeks-long visit home to Washington State. I learned this as a result of reading a message that was sent on the ANDROGYNE Yahoo!Group, which I had been a member of since early 2000. However, I have never been able to remember the exact date of when all this happened…it was probably in the middle of that month. Unfortunately, I’ve relied on “electronic memory” far too much to preserve the exact date of that moment when I became totally enthralled with Antinous…and now, having just gone to look in the archives of “electronic memory” for an indication of the exact date, I’ve found that all such records are now lost. The ANDROGYNE Yahoo!Group no longer exists, and must have been deleted with little or no notice recently. (Literally, I mourn for this loss, for a variety of reasons, now being aware of it…) The guestbook at the original site where I did a great deal of reading on Antinous that first day, and where I signed a message, has also been deleted. And, in my own e-mail accounts (though I have saved a great deal of correspondence from those days…on some 3×5 floppy disks!), since all this took place in the times before huge allowances for inbox storage space and the saving of outgoing messages, all messages from that time period that have relevance to this question are long gone, unfortunately. I thought it might have been early in the month, but I’ve been able to determine from what e-mails I have been able to recover from that time period that it was sometime after June 4th–and, from further process of elimination looking at 2002′s calendar, probably sometime between the 11th and the 18th. In previous groups, we had “unofficially” celebrated our first steps toward organizing around Antinoan spirituality on June 21st. However, given some occurrences from last year, I’m inclined to re-set that date, for my own purposes, and in absence of any better indications, on June 20th. I don’t know…what do you think? Do you celebrate–or even know–the dates you first became enamored with, or made a connection to, your own most important deities?]

And finally for the moment: I saw this post on Patheos.com’s “Unreasonable Faith” blog, which included the video clip embedded above of part of a speech by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. The blog post’s author asks whether there is a difference between atheism and pantheism, with De Grasse Tyson perhaps exhibiting a pantheistic trend…I don’t know if that’s quite the right term either, though. Well, anyway, watch the video, enjoy his fascinated engagement with and enthusiasm for studying the universe and our place in it, and be thankful that there are some scientists who can enjoy their process as much as he does, get as great results as he has, and meanwhile not waste any time berating anyone for having religious practices or valuing spiritual things.

Enjoy your day, blessed by Sol Invictus’ rays, Antinous’ love, and Polydeukion’s guidance!