Outside the wind ruffles the trees, gusting across patched brown grass with packed snow. The past few weeks have given us a cold snap, Imbolc like normal acting opposite to the ‘thawing’ often prescribed to it. The west coast is weird, and a prime example that the British created Wheel of the Year dates don’t often work quite how they should outside of those parts of the world.
“Where’s Mighty Aphrodite?” I ask out loud, half to myself and half to my partner. I maneuver over discarded boxes spilling out of the recycle and move aside dishes yet to be clean. “It’s a bag?”
“It’s a tin.” He calls from the couch. I open the drawer with the tea tins and shuffle through them. I shuffle through the tea tins on the counter. I’m half way to giving up until I open the drawer of tea bags and realized I shoved it in there ages ago for some sort of reason. The smell of raspberry and green hits my nose as I open the tin.
This year is about being more connected to my practice and actually, well, practicing it more consistently. In an article from Althaea Sebastiani on creating a practice and practice schedule she mentions on making weekly and monthly obligations to help keep consistency. I tried tackling it last year, with little success as I didn’t actually put things into motion, but knew that some part of this year I would be trying more heavily. My monthly obligations stay the same, Deipnon on the New Moon and Dance on the Full Moon, with trying better each month to incorporate Noumenia and Agathos Daimon. Along with that, inspired by Hellenion, there is the monthly libations.
The point of it is to feel connected to the Hellenic community at large. Similarly how I celebrate the neopagan Wheel of the Year to feel connected to the witch and pagan community, Hellenion created the libation schedule to connect practicing Hellenic pagans together. A new deity is scheduled on the second Saturday of the month to receive libations, making it so multiple people are all doing similar activities at the same time. It works dually as well; my practice often honours Dionysus, Hekate and Hermes on the regular but rarely do I get a chance to connect to the other Theoi for a host of different reasons. This schedule allows me to give each of them separate attention and a chance to connect, and allow for them to put in requests to me if they so wish.
February is, as you may guess, Aphrodite. I’ve written before of my oddly estranged relationship with her before, and my own problems of trying to connect to her. Beauty and love feel a shallow way to describe her to me, and creates the same issues as trying to describe what love is. Words fall short, feelings are experiential and I am not wieldy enough with poetic words to properly express them. Carving out this time for her feels the best way beyond offering haircuts to get better acquainted.
Generally for libations my go to is water. It’s free and available without draining our already low resources, but it doesn’t do justice for the more ‘special’ monthly libations. I try to go with tea, ones that I feel would be the most appreciated and connected. Hekate has always had an inkling with chai and similarly spiced teas, while Dionysus tends to enjoy the more out there teas in our collection. The tea of choice may be a little on the nose in naming, but I’ve offered it to Aphrodite before to great response.
I’m scooping tea into a bag, watching the kale like textured raspberry leaves smush under the spoon when a gasp from the couch catches my attention. My partner presses me to turn around and look. Our older, rounder cat, has climbed up onto his lap to get cuddles, completely ignoring the younger cat leaning against my partner’s leg. The two of them don’t really get along, Piper the younger always wants to play where Cush the older doesn’t really want to and is a sore grouchy loser. Hisses and slaps pepper their relationship and they rarely will sit anywhere near each other without flicking tails and flattened ears. Except tonight, where Piper reaches up during her bathing session to groom Cush’s back.
My eyes bug out at the affectionate scene with no sign of hiss or hostile irritation. More so I watch my partner in the middle of it, petting both cats and looking content. It’s a quiet moment between the three of them, serenaded by two sets of broken up purring and Piper’s over loud bathing. In a week of brain chaos it’s nice to witness.
Libations are not grand rituals for me, as the start of the month is always busy and drains my energy. In a general sense it’s simply sitting at the altar, lighting a candle and saying hymns and praise. Sometimes I purify, others I don’t, it depends on the deity I give offerings to (Apollo in all my times doing altar offerings refuses to take anything unless I use khernips, Dionysus prefers I don’t).
I sit myself down on the pillow in front of my altar, light the candle and pull up the suggested hymns from Hellenion for Aphrodite. I take a moment to collect myself and get ready when I’m hit to burn incense. I remember moments when I turned showers and hygiene care into rituals with Aphrodite in mind and the specific scent of incense tickles at my nose. I rifle through my container of incense, nose against unmarked packages to figure out which one is rose. It sparks against the candle flame and smoke curls around my altar.
I stumble over the words of the hymns to start my libation, frustration slowly creeping up my neck. Like the suggestions for Hera’s libation in January, which focused too much on parts of her anger, the hymns just don’t do it for me. Each one sounds as if Aphrodite is being offhandedly mentioned, each one ending in some variation that another hymn has to be said now. All focus on her beauty than the mess that I’ve come to know, the dangerous goddess I have partially made myself familiar with.The tea of raspberry and new green pours gracelessly into my blue offering cup.
I watch the smoke curl to the image set above the altar. My chest tightens, drawn by the image. I think of Aphrodite, beautiful yet deadly, graceful and messy. The words spill from my lips, love and praise and all things of Aphrodite. Stillness settles, calm and soothing to the buzz in my brain. I get images of art and icons to Aphrodite sitting upon the higher portion of the altar. I snuff the incense and pour the rest of my drink for Aphrodite.
When I leave the study, the cats are inches apart from each other, eyes closed and out cold. I think of the clay figure I’ve already decided to make and look at the mess that is the kitchen table. In something short of a miracle, I clean. The kitchen table, the kitchen, the boxes in the study. The cats enjoy their company as I put the kitchen to something in the state of rights. I stand back, the table back to where it was and cleared of all mess. The dishes dwindle to just a few.
“I want to make brownies.” my partner calls from the couch. My energy doesn’t feel like backing down.
“Send me the recipe I’ll get started.”
Darling Aphrodite,
Goddess of sweet rose,
splendid and adorned with gold.
You who dance on the graves of mortals
and drive both Gods and mortals wild with desire.
Goddess of life,
as dangerous as the dark waves of sea you stepped from.Beautiful
Terrifying
Adored
Messy fearful Goddess of the heart’s yearnings.
Witchus Canadia 