what the fuck do i put on a religious calendar
how do i do rituals
are rituals necessary
how do i do festivals
how do i decide which festivals should be in which months
how do i decide what festivals are gonna be for (like how gamelia is specifically about hera and zeus’ marriage)
SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT I’M DOING
I HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS
1) Anything you want to celebrate or memorialize on a particular day. I calendar everything, because I am super flighty and compensate by hyper-organizing my life. This includes, like, thank you prayers.
2) Rituals for me include a particular offering and a particular prayer/hymn, as opposed to my usual incense and impromptu prayers. That’s the basic requirement, and anything past that is trappings.
3) Necessary for what? I consider them necessary for me, because they’re kinda … the backbone of my practice? Like, rituals are the main way I keep my religion infused in my life; they’re how I live my religion instead of just paying lip service to it. But others may feel differently!
4) “how do I do festivals” GOOD QUESTION. I am still working on this. One of the things I’m doing is looking at how I celebrate secular holidays and seeing what inspiration I can take from those: special dinners, particular drinks, fireworks, gift exchange, wearing particular colors, throwing a parade, etc.
5) I started with the stuff I already celebrate or that already happens in my community and am building out from there. Also I am doing an absolutely terrible job of adapting/moving ancient festivals rather than making up my own, so my advice may be terrible here.
6) see above actually. Most of mine came already scheduled and with pretty clear/easy to assign significance ^^;;
I HOPE A LITTLE BIT OF THAT IS HELPFUL MAYBE? I can talk about this near infinitely; tell me how I can help you!
1. The Hellenic calendar would be a good place to start- http://www.hellenion.org/calendar/2015/HellenionCalendar2015.html though I’m not sure if this is a good one. Fact checkers? It’s always nice to be up to date with days and festivals that pertain to the gods you in particular worship. Grab what days you want and paste em onto your home calendar. bam.
2. I agree with Winbrightruby. There are some details about rituals (such as approaching the altar singing and casting grain) that are impractical for today’s use. I do however, suggest hand sanitizer to cleanse if you can’t take a whole shower beforehand. There are books on religion and ritual that you can pick up- try your local university library if your local local library doesn’t have any.
3. Merely my opinion, but I believe rituals to be necessary- whether they’re a big thing you take hours for, or it’s slathering on hand sanitizer and reading a prayer with a offering of chocolate between classes. It’s kind of an always pay your debts thing. You pray, you offer, you worship. That’s religion in a nutshell, yeah?
4. What Winebrightruby said
5 and 6. No idea. Is…is math involved? (*dodders off to do more research of her own)
I hope this wasn’t entirely unhelpful parroting
The Carving Witch 