So...

It seems that the great Goddess of Sex herself chose to focus me in ways different than I had expected, and then Hermes has chosen to lead me there instead. As I have stated, I hope clearly but knowing me, not that clearly, I have hopes that part of what I am teaching myself as I seek to understand my self, my motivations, and my spiritual needs is how to understand my sensual desires. How to accept yet contain that part of me that is decadent in ways that can be harmful to me.

Because I am culturally American, being decadent comes with the territory. We are an empire on decline, a people gone to decadence and, now, seeing the ramifications of that decadence as we move further into the age of discovery, of technology, and as those who are being left behind now fight their way to prominence and, possibly, destroy us from within as has happened in almost every civilization before ours.

But as individuals, there is still much to be said for decadence and what it means to us as people. See, decadence can mean different things to different people, but I boil it down to this, the enjoyment of pleasure at the expense of others. It is selfish decadence. The decadence that can be of use to us as people, however, is that which allows us to explore what it is to be alive, human, and physical beings.

The suppression of our instinctive selves is common in the monotheistic religions, and in some of what are called the philosophical religions of the East, like Buddhism and Hinduism. The idea being that we are physical beings and that to move forward, to go beyond this physicality means relinquishing desire, relinquishing emotions that guide us to excess and debauchery. In essence, living in a way that completely ignores one’s own humanity and what it means to be human.

Breathing, drinking of water, and eating just enough to survive and contemplation are the basics of life, and any action taken should be taken with a view toward the afterlife. I find this to be a most odd way to think. I am not some crazy decadent loon, mind you, I live a rather sedate, calm life, even if I do indulge in some things often enough, but here’s the rub, I don’t believe in an afterlife. I believe that we live, we experience, and we die. Truly die. But this doesn’t mean that life itself is something to be taken to extremes, or that it has no meaning. I have become convinced over the years that what we experience, what we feel, what we desire and how we go about getting it form part of a greater “program”. That when we let our feelings flow and we share them with the Gods and seek their guidance, we share with them something they do not, cannot have in their eternal realm. Things like fear, hunger, true desire the like one feels at the sight of a most beautiful woman, or a truly erotic man. The longings and desires for peace we all feel, and the simple pleasure of physical contact.

Now, I am not saying that the Gods know nothing of these things, rather that their experience of them cannot be like ours. That in their eternal existence that requires nothing, they do not have the needs we do, the desires we do, the sense of urgency we do, and there is the spontaneity of our emotions to contend with. We do not feel or even think things because we want to, we do so because there is a spontaneous event that occurs in our minds that should spur us to action, and that action, the more philosophical minded might say should be to ponder and consider rather than to act upon. But a wise man once said, or if he didn’t he should have, that thinking about doing something is only half of the equation, and that acting upon it is the other half, and that the one without the other is simply either impulsiveness or timidity, and in the end, is that not what being a rational thinking person is about, about melding the two together so that we can experience life in the best way possible without allowing ourselves to fall victim to the sheer drop that is the extreme?

And is not the God of boundaries suspiciously well equipped to help in this?

In honor of Hermes, I am hoping to undertake a journey. Because Plouton has not been as generous with the gold as I would like, however, think I may have to simply undertake a journey of solitude to some place near that can also be new to me. Perhaps one of the nooks and crannies that make up this city to which I have not yet made myself privy. If exploration is the key, than certain parks in the area are certainly open to me, and since Spring will soon be upon us, so too will the vast network of bike paths that lead to such places as state parks, dams, rivers, and farm land.

It is, perhaps even possible I may be able to undertake a bike ride from Dayton to Columbus, but in my current shape that may be more a matter to be discussed with a doctor than a plan.

So, why a journey in honor of Hermes? Well, because while I cannot travel like I once did, I can still explore, and there are always beautiful things to photograph, even in a city like this, which has been left to drown in the decay of the post industrial age.

And Hermes’ urge, that urge to see new things, to explore, to be revitalized by these things, is one that I have almost let die in me since moving out here. Not having a vast metropolis nearby like New York or Boston kind of stripped me of it, but remembering m travels in France, Spain, and Portugal, I have to try and recall how some of the best experiences were quiet ones, in small places that seemed to be cut off from civilization, even if by walls, and that that is a feeling that can be captured almost anywhere.

So, I am hoping that Wintergeddon ends soon so I can get my ass out there to see what it is Hermes wants me to see, and perhaps even why.

Since I seem to have come by Hermes as a god of sexuality, I think I may stick with this aspect of him and explore it a bit. Aphrodite gave me some insight into why I choose to behave as I do as a sexual being, and I am hoping Hermes will give me some insight into what it means to be q sexual man, not just a sexual being. I am making a distinction here because I believe that we often are very distinct beings in our lives. Not that we are suffering from multiple personalities, but that our motivations for behaving or acting out sexually differ from context to context, and one of those contexts is in being a man and what it means to have the sexual drive and desire that all men do, and how to manage that in my life so as to make of myself a better person.

So, before I continue, allow me to make clear that I do not consider sex, be it part of a relationship or some wild sex orgy at a bathhouse, to be immoral. Immorality to me is about harmful or willfully deceitful behavior, so if you are having sex and are doing so in q consensual situation, you are doing nothing wrong in my opinion. What I mean by making myself a better person by examining my sexuality I mean that because I want to enjoy a healthy and dare I say it prolific sex life, I want to know that I am doing it with the proper motivation in mind. I do not want to engage in sex out of a sense of desperation or depression. I want to do it because I simply enjoy it. Because I want to, not because I need it to improve my self image.

So, the god of communication is also a god of sexuality, and yes, I do have to give a shout out to the girls, who have been telling us guys ghat for ages now. But in this case, it is about internal communication. It is about the way we tell ourselves how to handle our own inner turmoils. And we men are really bad a acting out sexually when we are hurting on the inside. Sex can be like q drug to us, and if we're not careful we. An lose sight of what it is we really need out of our connections with others, and just as importantly, lose sight of the needs and humanity of the people we are sexually engaging with, making them into a collection of body parts rather that real people.

This isn't to say that anonymous hot sex is a bad thing, but that to acknowledge the humanity of your partners, no matter the situation, will make you a better lover. A better man, and it will remove from you the guilt we sometimes feel when we have basically used another human being as a masturbatory aid. Even if you have no emotional tie there, treating him or her with due respect will make the experience a good one. And, on the other hand, we must be willing to demand to be treated with respect. If not, we are debasing ourselves in ways we are asked never to do even before the gods, who ask us not to lower ourselves before them, but to stand proud.

Here Hermes comes in to remind us of who we are, and what we are as sexual beings. We are men, capable of thought and communication that can elevate us, use the gift he has given us to raise the bar and make he acceptance of his aspect as a god of energetic sexuality into something divine.

Hermes is the god of pastures and the divisions between them marked with stones of erected boundary markers that bear his name. Along with this, the god also bears a form that is often attributed to other gods, thy of a god of fertility, and no doubt he was often seen this way among the ancients, for whom the fertility of the earth was of paramount importance. But to see Hermes as a god of fertility is to also, by necessity, see him as a god of sexuality.

The imagery of the god is one that would not make this hard to believe, since the Greeks did imagine him as a beautiful, youthful, and dare I say, hot young man. One could even make the argument that our modern image of the hot dude is inspired by these very images that the Greeks left for us so beautifully molded from stone. And the image of Hermes, his naked body so beautiful in it's recent manhood, is one that captures the imagination, the heart, and the loins.

Not many people in the modern Hellenistic community view Hermes this way, the more typical notions of him as Psychopomp, Herald, and even Thief, are looked at, but the idea of Hermes as a god of male sexuality is more often than not overlooked. Perhaps because of our modern taboos about sex, especially here in America where violence and murder is ok on TV, but a bared tit causes congressional investigations.

But think about who Hermes is in the context of a culture that elevated male beauty to amazing heights of adoration, and which did indeed have a long and proud tradition of homosexuality (I am not going to argue with you about it should you choose to challenge me on this, your desire to make the Greeks more Macho by minimizing their love of hot young guys will not impress me) and that he was made father, in myth, to a male/female hybrid with Aphrodite. A melding of two deities whose beauty cannot be questioned, and whose appeal on a visceral sexual level is not to be challenged, is telling.

To me, Hermes is indeed a god of sexuality, male sexuality. A sexuality that is open, free, and ever shifting, ever seeking, ever longing. A sexuality that is not simply youthful and energetic, which it most certainly is, but also lustful and full of power and the expression of emotion through physical contact, not words. An interesting dichotomy for the god of communications. But is it? I mean, physical expression is still expression, is it not? And it is, I think, an aspect of male sexuality and male psychology that our culture, with its often feminizing influences, fails to recognize.

As I sit on this bus and look at the dark sky outside I am reminded of movies and books in which the world becomes over run by dark forces from the underworld. The night scares us, it Always has, and the light of the sun as it begins to light the world in the morning has always been a sacred time. Humanity has always given the light of day special properties, properties that include cleansing the world of the terrors and evils of the night.

It only makes sense that man fears the night and darkness the way he does, for most of our time as a species we have hunted and been hunted by the other animals of the world, and a certain reticence about it is only logical. But as beings capable of logical and abstract thought, where do we place this fear in our relationships with the Gods, especially those Gods that bring to bear the power of the night?

Hellenismos is a religion, like most Pagan religions, in which the Gods, and the aspects they present to us, bear both light and dark aspects. That means that they carry in them, and present to us, aspects that are both bright with the power of hope and love and dark with the reminder of death and the darker emotions we carry with us every day.

Mortal man struggles with these, the Gods are in perfect balance between the two. The dark Gods, like Hades, Nyx, and Dionysos are joined by Gods like Hermes and Hekate who not only straddle both, but travel the roads between these with ease as they bring the light into the dark and the dark into the light.

But the dark Gods are not dark, they are not wholly of that dark world, for they too bear hope and light in their being. The God of the Underworld, the Lord of the Dead, is also the God of Wealth. The Goddess Persephone, Destroyer of Light, Queen of the Underworld, is also the Goddess of Springtime and with her return to the upper world the world is refreshed with new life.

The Bright Lord Apollo, who shines from afar and who heals the sick, can also bring plague and destroy with his mighty arrows. The Lady of Wisdom, who delights in knowledge and who protects cities, is also a Goddess of war, who delights in battle and whose battle cry could send fear through the hearts of man and god alike.

So as I sit and wonder at the way we fear the darkness for all the things it hides from us, do we also fear the daylight for all the horrors it shows us in too glorious an amount of detail?

Is it better to trust that they know better, that they show us what we can handle, or do we do better to walk the lines between their visions, to travel as Hermes does, from one extreme to the other, seeing the things he does in brief flashes, understanding, but never standing still long enough to be dragged down by any of them. Is this the lesson Hermes teaches? Is this what he steals, a chance at hope from the snatched glimpses of everything?

I am questioning a lot about Hermes and his in involvement in my life. On my way to work on Saturday my bike decided it had had enough, though it got me there. I knew, of course that it would be a rough ride back to Vandalia, where the bus stops, since in this gods forsaken land called Dayton the busses don't actually go to the airport where I work. But I had no idea it would be such a comical yet exasperating adventure.

I managed to get the gear system unmangled enough that I could pedal the bitch slowly out to the bus stop, but halfway there the rear tire decided to lose its axle. Allow me to explain what I mean by "lose" because this axle did not break, no, of course not. You see, he axle lost its content. Yes, the axle itself was fine, but everything around it decided to exit and fly across the road.

Now, riddle me this, what is fat, Latin, and desperately pedaling a bile with a rear tire that was wobbling like a weeble? If your answer is Héctor, you win.

You may wonder why I didn't just walk it, well, the answer is that the next bus would have had me waiting two hours, and I was not having that.

But, and this is part of why I do this whole blog, I did not go postal on the bike. I did not curse the day I was born. I. Simply went with the flow. You would have no idea how much progress that is for me, since you don't really know me, but I assure you, it is momentous. I have grown. I have accepted that things go wrong and to accept them when they do, and that makes me happy.

I just want to ask Hermes something. Must you always point things out to me in the most annoying way possible?

So, since I have moved into this phase in which I am making realizations about what my life needs rather than just what my life is, and since Hermes seems to be the Patron of this part of my life, at least in so much as my own focus is now on him, where am I willing to let Hermes take me?

It is one thing to realize that you need something, want something, yearn for something, it is another to actually open yourself up to all the dangers involved in getting those things, even if you actually figure out what they are. If I find that what I need is to start dating more seriously, maybe establish myself in a new relationship, how open am I willing to be to being hurt gain? If I decide what my life really needs is a move to a new city, how willing am I to leave this city behind, dull as it is, with all the people I have come to know and really like here? If what I need is to make physical changes, how much of my will power am I willing to grant to the effort, and are any of these things really going to help me with my inner self?

I don’t know.

What is interesting is that Hermes, as a force that moves, that forces movement, that causes us to stumble that we might learn, doesn’t care one way or the other. There are paths, and Hermes walks them all, and as a result, should I? Walk all the paths of opportunity that come my way, even if I know they might not be good for me so that I can hopefully find myself at a better place, a new plateau, in the future?