Temple of Athena the Savior

I’ve been thinking about Antinous, the deified young lover of Emperor Hadrian. His historial cult is interesting, but I’ve been strangely drawn to him lately. There was no concept of sexual orientation back in the day, but He has been in become a symbol of queer spirituality. His Neos Alexandria Temple page is here. I think I feel most attracted to Him in His aspect of Antinous the Liberator, but I think He’s been coming to me as the Navigator at this point.

I didn’t think there was much to Him other than the queer angle, but it appears I was wrong. I celebrated the Stella Antinoi (a day late),a ritual for the festival of the Star of Antinous. It was a completely spontaneous, after reading Phillup’s blog posts on the festival and the one linked to it on the Triad of Antinous (linked above under Antinous the Liberator). I hope He wasn’t offended that it was a day late, but his posts intrigued me. Friday night I had friends over to celebrate the Theogamia. But Antinous is starting to interest me. I will eventually have to write a class on him, as Olympos in Egypt is going through most if not all of the Gods in the NA pantheon. To be entirely honest, my first offering to Antinous was french vanilla latte! it was all I had with me, it was very off-the-cuff, and I figured it would mean something if it really was a sacrifice of something I enjoy a lot. My finances are so tight, and I love fancy coffee but almost never get it. So I decided to offer something that really was a sacrifice for me. If anything, He seemed amused by it, but I think He accepted it.

One of the projects that has been rattling around my brain for a while is something to do with GLBT Gods and myths across cultures and pantheons. I don’t know it’d be an essay, article, or maybe even a book, but it’s something I’d like to try my hand at someday. It’ll be quite a while.

I’m currently working on two books, Journey to Olympos: A Modern Spiritual Odyssey, and Doing Ma’at: A Short Primer on Greco-Egyptian Ethics (which basically just needs editing at this point) as well as the class I’m teaching right now. I’d also like to edit a devotional for Athena at some point, and I have other projects in various stages of completion.