Tag Archives: hermaphroditos

Fund-raising goal met!

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Wow.

So, who would have thought that a couple sentences at the bottom of a net.friend’s blog post could save my day? And in less than thirty-six hours, if timestamps are to be believed. Thank you so much for this. There’s no greater feeling than being comfortable in one’s own skin, and I’m so grateful that there are people in this community who realise this sort of prosthetic for trans men is no more a toy than glasses are for those with poor vision.

Again, I extend a sincere and hearty THANK YOU to those who donated. I’m brainstorming on how best to use the difference —I’m hoping to at least get a fire pit this year, so I’ll probably set it aside toward that.

As always, my Etsy buttons are up, and I’m willing to arrange a tea or coffee reading via Skype, and I’ll probably make another donations call for Kardia tou Thespiai when it gets closer to planting season.

Eros & Psykhe statue on eBay

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link: Eros & Psyche Forgiven Santini statue

$99. Free shipping.

I think I need this more than the last statue I wanted to get.

This would look excellent as a part of my shrine.

I’m kind of debating whether or not I should paint my blank statuary. On one hand, I rather like the look some painted statuary has (some other paint jobs, honestly, I think looks rather tacky), but on the other, I like the sometimes simple, almost Modernist beauty of the blank white alabaster or resins that my table-top statues tend to be. If I ever found a statue that I liked better (which happened at least once already, with my Hermaphroditos statue to the left on the shrine, it’s a replacement of one that didn’t “match” Narkissos on the right), I can sell a blank statue more easily — unless, of course, this novel makes me famous, and my hand-painted things end up fetching “one-of-a-kind” prices or some shite. Pretty much only another Hellenistos would buy a statue painted an amateur, and only a well-painted statue.

Tough decision, indeed.

When I make little crafty things for shrines, I definitely believe that I put quite a bit of “my own energy” into the work, that the Theoi can feel the love and devotion, and maybe even guide my hands as I work. Still, it’s a tough decision to paint a statue or not.

Messenger Bag

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I was actually inspired to make this post after reading this post from the LJ community pimp_my_altarPimp My Altar. My messenger bag began life as, well, and ordinary messenger/Israeli paratrooper bag that I purchased at Harry’s Army Surplus before their Ann Arbor location went out-of-business (due largely to gentrification and the sudden raise in rent for businesses on that block):

Mine was purchased for under $10 on a 50% off clearance, and I also got a fishtail parka for just under $20, on a 75% off clearance, and an extra-tall “walking stick”-sized umbrella for about $10 even (the latter is no longer a usable umbrella, due in part to Chicago winds, and in part to living with three cats).

This is how mine looks today:

It wasn’t a huge task to transform the paratrooper symbol into a Caduceus, which has been historically used as a printer’s mark. Regardless, as a symbol of Hermes, it seems an entirely appropriate thing to paint onto a bag that I primarily use for carrying notebooks, my agenda, important papers, my chequebook (which has the simpler Caduceus [sans wings] painted on the front), and a few other things that I’m in the habit of carrying with me, including my lyrics book, sheet music, drawing pencils and sketch diary, mp3 player or Walkman, personal phone book, cigarette tin and lighter, and gum. It reminds me of one of my favourite quotes from Derek Jarman’s film Caravaggio: “It was through an act of theft that Mercury created the Arts.” I recall that quote not because of theft (though I am frequently reminded of how the push for gentrification has essentially robbed this poor town of its culture before it could truly come into its own, and how the closing of Harry’s and several other down-town stores really solidified Ann Arbor’s gentrification in my mind), but because of Hermes’ long-held associations with the Arts and how I carry in this bag my simplest means of creativity.

All the pin-back buttons on the bag (with the exception of “The Amino Acids – Warning: Tangy Reverb” one) are also one’s that I’ve created. I had a few more on there before I took these two photos just now, but they either fell off or were removed by me at some time or another. [Well, except for a Dionysos button that I'm pretty sure some kid on the Amtrak stole while I was in the on-train restroom; it's one of those things that I just know, even though I couldn't prove it. Of course, I didn't even notice it was gone until I had already reached Chicago. There was just something about the way that kid kept looking at the button when he and his mother boarded the bus, kept looking at me after I came back from the restroom, and the fact that his mother was dead-asleep before and after I went to the restroom.]

Here’s a close-up (albeit, a dark one) of the buttons. I took it without flash to eliminate glare that would have made them unviewable:


left-to-right are: Top – Satyr & Nymphe (from a Roman mosaic), Narkissos (19thC CE illustration)
Bottom – Apollon & Muse, Hyakinthos & Zephyros, Apollon & laurel branch
(gone missing or out-of-commission: Dionysos, Hermes, Adonis, Eros, Caravaggio’s Narcissus, Hermaphroditos, Neokoroi flame, Hellenion flame)

Transgender Day of Rememberance

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[This was originally cross-posted to the Hellenion_Chat and Neokoroi e-mail lists, and it just occurred to me that I didn't get around to posting this here, like I said that I would, because the latest FireFox update is total crap and keeps freezing up and the only way to fix it is to reboot this eight-years-old eMachines piece of poopie.]

For those not in-the-know, 20 November is the Transgender Day of Rememberance for TS/TG persons who have died as victims of hate-crimes and is an important day for TS/TG persons (MTF and FTM) and their friends, families, and allies.

As one whose gender has often been debated by others (even though it’s been clear to me for the last two decades and some [note: I consider my condition one of many states of being a "biological eunuch", in that I did not go through a normal boy puberty; but just for the record, I'm male-identified and making several hormonal and surgical "corrections"]), I plan to just simply offer libation, a small portion of lavender, and some music by Jayne County (who is awesome), recite my version of the Story of Hermaphroditos [note: to be posted later, currently in Iss#17 of He Epistole, ask me for a PDF or printed copy], and give this small prayer:

O Kybele, O Hermaphroditos,
Theoi of changed forms,
All I ask of you on this sacred day to those of similar fate
And of form andro-gynos by birth or by hand,
Is to seek justice for those whose time was cut short,
And to aid and protect those who remain in a world less understanding.
May Persephone and Adonis lead those passed safely to the Fields of Elysium,
May those who brought them to You too soon be dealt their due justice in this world,
And by Those Who Judge the Dead.
May Athene and Zeus guide the judges of the living to seek mercy on the deceased,
As you, O Andro-Gynos Theoi, give comfort and confidence to the living.

My rituals are usually very simple, consisting of little more than offering of food and/or herb and libation.

From the Dream Journal

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I’m not sure what city I was in, but that’s unimportant.  I start out walking along the pavement with this guy I sort of know in what appears to be one of those older, formerly Middle Class areas of a city like Chicago — the houses are all rather tall and almost all of them have these wrought iron gates.  Then there’s this HUGE house.  Did I say HUGE?  Make that HUGE house.  It’s up on this hill and has this HUGE front garden with fountains.

We stop in front of it to look at this garden and the gates open so, curious, we step in an only after we’ve stepped in, we see all of these “people”, whom neither of us saw as we were just standing out on the pavement looking inward.  Most of them look to be in this ambiguous sort of 25-40 age range, most of them fit, but there are maybe three or four who are really skinny and about the same number who are really fat.  All of them are wearing sparse clothing, like ancient tunics and tropical sarongs, all in really elaborate patterns.  They don’t really seem to be paying us much mind at first, and are just merrily gallivanting about.

I remember this garden rather vividly, even after being up for a few hours.  There are a lot of almond blossom trees that are flowering, several lilacs trees, a few elaborately trimmed evergreen shrubs with the branches sort of woven into spirals.  I recall a bunch of rose bushes, some of them pruned into miniature trees, but most of them not, and I noted a bunch of fuschias.

To get to the house atop the hill, there’s this really elaborate layout of steps.  almost all of the steps have some kind of elaborate mosaic that looks rather Graeco-Roman.  I remember remarking to my companion that a few of the figures in the mosaics included Dionysos, Apollon, Eros, Hermaphroditos, Hyakinthos, Adonis, several zodiac symbols, and some writing that I either couldn’t read or don’t remember right now.

The house itself is also oddly elaborate.  It looks kind of like a cross between a Victorian octagonal house and a sort of ancient Graeco-Roman stadium.  There are grape vines and rose vines growing up around a lot of columns places around the house to create a sort of “hanging garden” appearance; the house is at least three stories high and the columns go up about two and a half stories with connector beams placed at even-spaces heights in about three or four tiers.  Ivy is growing up the house itself.

The doors are just wide open, so we walk right in and on either side of the entry foyer is a reproduction of the Praxiteles Eros, and there’s a really pretty fountain, the base of which appears to be all glass except for some discreet copper piping that you can see through the glass.  A woman rushes over to us and announces frantically that “they” have been expecting us.  In a sort of Rocky Horror kind of fashion, we’re stripped down and redressed in some elaborately embroidered linen tunics, and we’re ushered into this hallway.

In the hallway, the walls and floor and ceiling are decorated in similarly elaborate (gawd, I wish I could think of another word right now) mosaics to the steps outside.  Oil lamp sconces are places pretty high up the walls at even intervals of about a couple yards each; high up enough to keep from getting knocked into, but low enough to provide adequate light.  We seem to be heading rather gradually upward, it’s not very steep, but when we get to the end, there’s this HUGE room; it’s got to be about an acre in area, at least, probably more.  There’s a very shallow pool about a few feet in; very shallow, only about two inches deep itself, but the water doesn’t get more than maybe half an inch deep.  There are steps that water seems to be flowing down.  The steps are about deep enough for an adult to comfortably sit on.

The the top of these steps, twelve or thirteen of them, if this huge sort of”window-box” shrine.  It’s about four feet high and three feet deep into the wall.  People have left all sorts of things there: small statuettes, bouquets of flowers, baskets of fruits, candles, hand-written pieces, and in the wall at the back inside of this “window box” is a stained glass sort of mosaic of Eros, Apollon, Adonis, and Aphrodite, and it’s illuminated in the back.  On the steps are sitting and reclining and laying on their bellies several people (about seven to ten each of men and women), but about twice as many statues.

I crawl up the stairs and sit in front of the shrine, almost exactly in front of the illuminated picture.  I beg my companion to come up and sit with me, as he’s stayed back before the pool.  After much pleading and arm-waving, he starts up.  Just as our fingers are about to touch, I wake up.