2021 Update

January 9, 2021January 10, 2021 sentiafigula

Please see the drop down menus under the heading of this blog for information about Roman Polytheism. Note that almost everything on this website has been repurposed from the blog neo polytheist of which I am also the author. Note that I do not make money from any ads you may see on this website (I assume any revenue generated would go to WordPress).

So how weird was 2020, eh? I spent the year in Sydney. From March onwards I was told to work mostly from home. As of January 2021 I am still mostly working from home. I have noticed that overseas news websites have sometimes misrepresented Australia in relation to her COVID-19 measures, by implying that hardcore measures adopted in certain regions were Australia-wide, but luckily the really hardcore stuff mostly occurred in the state of Victoria, whereas I live in the state of New South Wales (NSW), where cooler heads prevail. We had a hard lockdown in April and early May (though exercise outdoors and visiting romantic partners was permitted, unlike in some other parts of the country), after which point restrictions gradually eased month by month so that things were almost totally normal by November, but then a December outbreak of community transmission ushered in somewhat tighter restrictions again (though most businesses are still able to stay open), including a mask mandate for visits to shops and when travelling on public transport.

In the midst of all this I did write a few blogposts on neo polytheist, the parent of this website) that may be of interest to readers:

Pax and the Roman Understanding of Peace, where I explore the intertwined relationship between Pax and Mars, and the pre-Christian understanding that Romans had of the word “peace”.
Aesculapius, God of Medicine, in this post I analyse the nature of the God Aesculapius, his cult in Rome, and what medical healing looked like during the Pax Romana.
Polytheism for Beginners is intended to be a quick introduction to people new to the polytheistic mindset. It will likely bore anyone who has been into polytheism for some time already.

I am still very much a polytheist, though my practice is still dishevelled. When I see ravens in the carpark of my local supermarket I almost always leave them a food offering (as a sign of respect to Odin; note that according to Mithraism ravens are associated with Mercury, who is the closest Roman equivalent to Odin), I make offerings to Shoten Zenjin (protective Gods of Buddhism) at my Buddhist shrine, I made offerings to Saturn and Sol in my home in December. I have a much loved statue of Mercury that I have made some offerings to in the last year, but I haven’t gone over the top. I also have a statue of Vesta and have made some humble offerings to her as well. I easily made the most offerings to my late husband, before his urn which sits in my living room. The turnstone of my spiritual life in recent months has been to focus on eating better, meditating daily (mostly yoga nidra via the Insight Timer app) and drastically reducing my intake of news and social media (I have gone so far as to delete my Instagram and Twitter accounts). So far the results have been pretty good. KNOCK ON WOOD!

2020 Update

January 3, 2020January 3, 2020 sentiafigula

Due to work, life balance and social commitments in 2019 I didn’t spend too much time blogging or working on this website. Even so, I did manage to write a couple of posts on my blog that may be of interest to readers:

The Greco-Roman Cosmos, exploring the popular ideas in ancient Rome regarding the nature of our universe, and how that influenced their ideas about the divine.
Beggar Spirituality, a frank look at the problem of whether or not continually asking favours from the Gods really constitutes a satisfying spiritual path.

There are a couple of Roman deities I would very much like to explore this year, but as ever I wish to do a good job, not a half job. So unless I feel I can commit the necessary time and research to the task I won’t start writing in the first place.

Spiritually speaking I have continued to practice Buddhism (consisting mostly of chanting in front of the Gohonzon in my home, and regularly attending Buddhist meetings in other people’s homes), while continuing to believe in a multitude of Gods and other mystical beings. Speaking honestly, I find Buddhism offers a deeply fulfilling spiritual path due a number of winning factors, including the sense that one is part of a community, the wonderful friends I have made through Buddhism, the philosophical and historical nature of Buddhism (which is intellectually satisfying to explore), its mysticism, the sense of purpose it bestows upon my life (ie, to be a Bodhisattva), its ability to incorporate (rather than demonise or attempt to kill off) polytheistic deities, as well as other things. I admit though that I have been very lucky in terms of the people I have come across on the path of Nichiren Buddhism. Unfortunately, attraction to certain religions can be spoilt by unsatisfying encounters with practitioners with whom one does not resonate. To actually like most of one’s fellow practitioners (that one meets) is something for which I am enormously grateful.

2019 Update

January 10, 2019January 10, 2019 sentiafigula

2018 was a very busy year for me and so I have spent very little time on the internet compared to previous years. Even so, I did manage to write a couple of posts:

I do intend to do some Roman oriented posts this year, but the truth is that I generally put quite a lot of time into writing my posts (with the initial research taking up the most significant amount of time), and I’m not sure when the next decent block of time I have to do this will be. The other side of this is the personal sense of spiritual pilgrimage that I undertake when I write. To write something I have to want to undertake an internal pilgrimage regarding what I am researching and writing about. I have been moving away from the notion of Gods being like super-charged mates who can help you achieve your goals, and tend to suspect that for the most part the Gods are not nearly so interested in the personal lives of we billions of human beings. I don’t deny the existence of the Gods, nor their intervention in human affairs, nor do I deny the possibility that some of us have a fated role to play in affairs of cosmic significance (things in which the Gods are more likely to take an interest). I embrace my fate, whatever it may be, regardless of the pain and difficulties that will no doubt arise. What I am less sure of is the value of worship and / or the best way to do it.

2018 Update

January 8, 2018April 27, 2018 sentiafigula

In 2017 I became a widow and so unsurprisingly the posts on the blog which is the parent to this website have mostly focused on death, they include:

Inevitably my approach to religion changed significantly during 2017. I used to focus on making offerings to the Gods at my household shrine. Doing so seems to have lulled me into a false and perhaps childish belief that I could live the good life so long as I observed these rites, ie, into hubristic thinking. I no longer think that it is that simple to connect with the divine, I have ideas about a better approach but I don’t want to get prescriptive. Instead, I hope that readers can benefit from the countless hours of research I have put in (in the writing of the content on this website) to better understand traditional Roman spirituality, while ultimately finding their own path.

2017 Update

January 9, 2017January 9, 2017 sentiafigula

Just an update to note that unlike neo polytheist (my other website / blog), this website is more or less confined to the subject of Roman polytheism.

If you would like to see my posts on Germanic polytheism please see:

If you are interested in other miscellaneous posts of mine, you might be interested in the following blog posts:

Salve!

January 10, 2016January 2, 2017 sentiafigula

This website is the sister website to romanpagan.blogspot.com (also known as neo polytheist). I have set it up in order to repurpose content from that blog in a way that may be more navigable (see the drop down menu in the tool bar above) for people who are new to Roman polytheism, which is also called the Cultus Deorum, the Religio Romana, Roman Paganism and/or the Roman way to the Gods. Roman polytheism incorporates a fundamentally diverse set of beliefs, with the unifying feature being a recognition that the universe is permeated by numerous divine spirits, the greatest of which are Gods. Contemporary Roman polytheism is not about reenacting an ancient religion (that would be imprudent, given how different our social realities are) but rather seeking to gain an understanding of how polytheism was understood and practised in the diverse lands of the Roman empire, from Britannia to Assyria, and adapting that knowledge to our contemporary understanding of spirituality and the divine.

Please note that this website presents one person’s interpretation of Roman polytheism. No person or organisation can claim that they alone represent or understand Roman polytheism, and I certainly make no such claims. I hope you will find this website helpful in your own spiritual journey, while all the while keeping your mind wide open to the possibility that I might have got it wrong (or right). I am no believer in the “one true way”, for as the Gods are many so are the ways. Maybe some of the things I espouse won’t work for you, in which case may your own spirit of enquiry point you in the direction of that which feels most true. That said, I give you an assurance of my sincerity in putting this website together and my commitment to researching both ancient and contemporary scholarly sources in order to illuminate the Roman way to the Gods.

margetson — “The sea hath its pearls” by Margetson (1897)

Written by M. Sentia Figula; find me at romanpagan.blogspot.com and Roman Pagan on Facebook