About Me - Eclectic

"French Masked Ball 1894" by Granger

I have been asked to share a little about myself – to be honest this is not something I am altogether comfortable with, for I am intensely private. I love the anonymity of the internet; it is like a virtual masked ball where one can reveal and conceal as much of oneself as one likes. Consider this post like a short walk down a darkened alley where I will expose a little more of myself than usual, only to clutch my mask and cloak and go running back to the main festivities and lose myself in the crowd.

Devotional Practice – Meditation

Sometimes when we feel a strong pull towards a particular deity we may be unsure as to how to connect with that God or Goddess – making suitable offerings is obviously the first thing we can and should do. If we want to do more, and we are inspired by devotional practices common within the most well established polytheistic religions of our own time (Hinduism and Buddhism), we might consider meditating on the deity for whom we feel a particular pull. We can do this by resting the mind lightly and mindfully on an object, image or place associated with the God or Goddess with whom we wish to connect.

When we invoke a deity by meditating on his or her image, such as a picture, or on an object, scene or place associated with a deity, it is said that we make a greater connection with that deity, which may in turn bring the qualities associated with that God or Goddess into our lives. We can meditate directly on an image of a deity or we can meditate on an object, or an image of an object, or a scene or place associated with the deity – for example, we might focus on a rose, for roses are sacred to Venus.

Greco-Roman Pagan Tattoos

A little while ago I was at a pub and noticed an amazing tattoo of the Egypto-Roman Goddess Isis underneath the shirt of the man across from me – I was super impressed and we got talking … turned out he got the tattoo because he just thought it was a cool design; wasn’t a Pagan at all. Although, strangely, he did claim to have been a gigolo when he was younger. I have no idea if this was true but I did later hear a story (apparently true) that he fell in love with a woman who lived overseas and he packed a suitcase full of lube, condoms and Viagra when he went to visit her – an old trick of the trade perhaps?

That story is a diversion, but it was his tattoo that got me thinking about Pagan tattoos and how cool they can (potentially) be. There are some awesome tattoos dealing with the Greco-Roman pantheon out there – here are some of the best that I was able to find online (note that some of them were perhaps not originally intended to pertain to a particular deity but I think are evocative of certain Gods nonetheless). 

Apollo / Sol / Helios / Apollon / Apolo

Source: tattoopaulski.com

Source: pics5.this-pic.com