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Aevie β Patron Deity Altar
Published: 2010-07-09 22:17:38 +0000 UTC; Views: 617; Favourites: 4; Downloads: 0
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Description
This is the working portion of my primary altar for my patron deity, Aidoneus. You'll notice the overall altar is primarily purple and black; that's because these are the two colors I associate with him.Everything except the candle, candle holder, and mortar and pestle are handmade by artisans. I find handmade goods extremely appealing; I get to help support someone whose work inspires me, as well as receive something unique and well crafted. Here's what you're actually looking at, from left to right:
Altar Cloth
From Resonant Energies on Etsy; it's very soft, delicate, and beautiful, with citrine chips on the corners.
Black and Purple Bowl
This bowl is handcrafted ceramics by someone who goes to my school, and is used for both offerings (such as fresh flowers or foods), and scrying (a divination method of gazing into a reflective surface).
Athame (Knife and Sheath)
This knife is a beautiful original creation by lupagreenwolf. It's made out of water buffalo horn, deer bone, fox fur, and leather. I have yet to have a chance to use it.
This, along with the skull, are items I keep tucked away and hidden so as not to upset/freak out family who are squeamish.
Cast Glass Platform
This is the object sitting underneath the candle, but above the skull. It's a beautiful piece of cast glass, that was cast in sand. It reminds me of caves, which I tend to associate with my deity.
Candle
Just a purple taper candle in glass candle holder.
Dragon
To the right of the candle is my dragon, which I purchased at a renaissance faire. He's the guardian of my altar when I'm away, plus he's just so darn cute!
Cast Fox Skull
No, the skull isn't real. It's actually a cast from a real skull, done in resin. The benefit of this over a real skull? It glows in the dark. It's on my altar as a reminder of death and mortality.
Pendulum
This is a pendulum created by the wonderful azhuresjewels. I use it for basic divination related to workings dealing with my deity.
Candle Snuffer
You can't really see it; it's the bronze stick going at a diagonal from the dragon, pretty basic.
Mortar and Pestle
Way in the back is my mortar and pestle, which is used for grinding and mixing herbs. I'm not sure what kind of stone this is (marble?) so if anyone knows, I'd be super appreciative if you told me!
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Comments: 23
who is your patron Deity? I haven't fixed on one yet
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How beautiful ! Really harmonious and serene ...
I love your explanation 
just curious ; I'm not at all familiar with greek myths, so ... Who is Aidoneus ?
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Thank you! You can see a close-up of the pendulum from its creator's DeviantART account, right here: [link]
Aidoneus is just another name for Aides, or Hades, the Greek god of the Underworld. I like using Aidoneus because it's a bit more honorific, and it helps me avoid scaring people away.
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Oh ! It's really beautiful !
Oh, yes, I understand ! (I'm devoted to Hel (norse Goddess of the Underworld), and it always creates quite a mess when I'm around some asatruar. =_= Tolerance for other views is not really common in AsatrΓΉ, or, at least, I did not experienced it >_<')
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Oh, awesome! That actually makes me really, really happy, ha ha. I love finding others who understand this type of thing. <3
Yeah, ever since I had someone tell me "You're not in love with a serial killer like most women; you love Hades which is much, much worse," I've been super cautious and tend to brace myself. Anything I can do to lessen the impact is a major help.
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It's always really hard to be dedicated to a chaos or a death deity ... and I don't understand why there is such bad light on those gods.
I'm norse oriented, dedicated to shadow gods (to put it in a box : at first I was attracted to three Gods, but my patron deity, Hel wins over my heart because She was always there with me), and even if the shadow side of the Aesir are well accepted ... the rest ? Eck. Hel is not even considered as a deity in some community. I was seen as a sick young girl, stupid goth wannabe. I'm perfectly healthy, I've this relation with Her for more than four years now.
Tolerance on the subject of dark deities is too sensible in the community :s
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Oh, man, I'm sorry you were treated that way! I've been fortunate in that my friends, at least, are understanding. A few of them also work with shadow deities, just not the same one I do.
I never quite understood why some people in the pagan community can't accept it, or aren't tolerant of it. It seems the community as a whole tries to reject "fluffy" subjects, and doesn't like things to be "new age", which is primarily light-centric. And yet they have issues with people whose patrons are more chaos or death centric. Weird.
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also death centric is good, because you can learn the powers and forces behind and within death, you can even discover once and for all, what is the underworld like?
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interesting... i work with dark deities as well! lucifer, lilith, hekate, hades, and regular ones too like pan and diana and Gaia ( pan and a tie between gaia and hekate are my patrons)
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My pagan friends are all outside the norse community, and very, very tolerant, and I decided to never have to do with those guys again. They put the Lore (the texts about the norse myths) above personal experience, and, well, that's not my view of things u_u
I think it's because they don't want to deal with young persons who choose to deal with dark gods and sometimes ... well. Totally go out of control.
Or it's the order / good, chaos / evil scheme (I've encountered it more than once :s), and they think you will just go nuts because of that.
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Yeah, maybe that's it. I also think partially it's the whole you fear what you don't know thing, so those people that explore the unknown scare them a bit.
I don't do well when people put the texts above the personal gnosis. I do a LOT of dealings with angels, too, and a lot of it's not in the textbooks.
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Well, it's not really a choice that we made (or at least it was not really a choice on my part. I seem to only attract chaos and / or death gods in my path.), it's an acceptance of a link. Or at least it's how I see it.
The "funny" thing is that, in the french pagan community, working with Kali or Persephone is perfectly acceptable, but working with Hades, Hel or Seth is seen as plain freaky. Γ΄__o. (and, well, the dianics I met who think Hades is just an overly machist god ... uh. Hm ? Γ΄_o)
Personal gnosis is what made us advande in spirituality, I think. OK, sometimes, texts are important for not doing too much stupid things, but when your experience is different, it's not a reason to deny it. It's different. Period. It's not like all is in the text. I learned a lot about HΓΆder (He's my ... Father. I could put it like that. He's really, really fatherly with me. Sweet God
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Yeah, it definitely wasn't a choice for me, either. And it's the same here...it's okay if you work with Kali or Persephone, but Hades or Hel? It's seen as very odd and rare. (Don't Dianics think all male gods are that way? Now I'm just being mean...)
I agree, about the personal gnosis. If I went solely based on the texts, I'd be nowhere right now. The myths out there about Hades are few, and paint him in a pretty harsh light. He didn't have many followers back in the day, either. And it makes sense to me that Odin would have ordered what you're describing. I've only run into him (Odin) once, but it seems fitting.
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Odd and rare is bad, he ? Community is a strange thing >.> (ah-ah ^^ But He kidnapped poor persephone ! ... I don't work with Her, but She seems to get along pretty well with Her Husband, no ?)
Oh, yeah, that's, maybe, another reason. Gods with not many followers, or without a cult, in ancient times, it can be strange if, now, people worship them. Well, it's not because we don't have proof that heir cult didn't exist, but well.
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I think Hades did have two cults. I think. But I could be wrong.
And he and Persephone seem to get along just fine. Really well, actually. There are so many different variations of that myth; some say she was kidnapped, some say she went willingly. I'm not sure what the "truth" is.
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Only Gods know the truth on this matter ^_^ Maybe once, you will ear this tale from Them ...
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Wow, gorgeous alter.
Did you know your dragon kind of looks like Toothless from hoe to train your dragon? lol
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Thank you! <3 And yes, it looks like Toothless because the couple who makes these designed it after him.
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