#also like plenty of religions practiced today are the same age as the ancient greek religion- ex. judaism and hinduism | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ashandboneca · 5 years

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The Gods and UPG

I should start out by saying that this is my own viewpoint, but I know a number of people who see things similarly to me. Theology, religion, and spirituality have always been an interest of mine. I'm drawn to it, because my scientific mind is always trying to make sense of the things I read, see, hear, and experience.

The questions we really need to ask are this: what are gods? Who are they? Why do they differ depending on culture, and why are there similarities in tandem with the differences? How do we define them in our modern age of reason?

To me, the gods can be many things. I have seen them described as an energy force, as living beings, as archetypes, as parts of a giant whole, as venerated ancestors. Depending on the culture and the other permeating beliefs, you see different parts of these more predominantly in some cultures than others. To the Egyptians, the gods represented the natural world - figures melded with animal parts, with recurrent themes of life, death, resurrection. To the Greeks (and Romans), the gods were tempestuous archetypes, mingled with sex and fear and anger, full of vengeance. To the Celtic, Germanic, and Scandinavian people, the gods were living beings, venerated ancestors or great kings and queens who were mortal and flawed but wise and eternal. In some cultures, the gods represented a physical feature - a hill, a mountain, the sea.

The ancient people were superstitious and wary. They did not have the scientific enlightenment we do now, but they had a very deep relationship with the land. Even the ancient kings and queens relied heavily on their farmers and serfs to provide food for their people. Everything that we know now - ph levels of the soil, herbicides to keep pests away - would have been considered magic back then. We have science and reason to explain things (and even so, we cannot explain everything), they had the gods. Whether the gods themselves existed before the people started praying to them, or the prayers brought the gods into being is a chicken/egg question. The people were seeking to please the gods, or work the will of the gods, or curry the favour of the gods. In the case of venerated ancestors, the same clause stands. You have someone who is renown for being brave, wise, and cunning - people admire, honour, and seek to emulate that person. Stories are told, embellished, and gods are born.

The gods, like most deities, are products of their time. Practices that would have been very common 2000 years ago are not something we would necessarily practice today - at least, not in it's original form. We may offer sacrifice, but it is doubtful we would use a human, or even an animal (without consuming the animal, at least). We do not necessarily fear the gods, as most cultures did then - we now seek to work with them and gain their favour, and we relish their attention. We live in an age of advanced science, where it is unlikely we are surrounded with likeminded believers. While we all recognize that each sect of pagan theology is gaining and maintaining followers and celebrants, we are not as populous or plentiful as we once were. To most modern day people, believing in any of the old gods seems silly and superstitious (and to some, outright stupid). It goes against the grain, and we are the minorities.

There are theories that the belief in something somehow makes it’s stronger - many people funnelling their energy and focus to one being gives that being more standing and power. Could it not be said that the opposite is also true? As people converted their belief from the pagan gods to the Christian god, would those beings not wane in power? The centres of power for these gods - the Parthenon, Gamla Uppsala, and Stonehenge, for example - have been christianized, left to ruin, or left to neglect.

Thus, I wholly believe that in order for the gods to survive, they need to adapt. They need to evolve and grow, as people and society have done, in order to remain in tact. I think that recognizing our roots, ancestry, and where we come from is very, very important. I think honouring those things is also important. However, I think that everyone experiences the gods in a different way, and I think these gods are wise enough to be able to choose with whom they cavort. People, especially in North America, are more diverse than we would have been 2000 years ago - how many of us can claim a vast cultural canvas as our genetic makeup? I myself have French, English, Scottish, German, Swedish and Danish (with bits of Dutch, Luxembourger, and Irish), but large parts of my family have been in Canada since the 1600’s. Which parts of our genetics should we tap into? Should the circumstances of our birth force us to turn our backs on what we are drawn to work with? What about those who are adopted, should they just guess, or choose the genetics of their adoptive families?

The gods, if they are as powerful as I believe they are, are not foolish. They know that to survive, they must adapt. It is a very scientific way of thinking - sort of like behavioural modernity. Just as we evolved to start making clothes out of animal hide or how we evolved lactase persistence (which allows modern humans to continue drinking milk past childhood), the gods have had to be less picky and learn new ways in which people worship. It’s not that they are settling or that it’s somehow lesser than it was - it’s more learning to work with new tools. Like moving to a new climate and having to adjust how you dress and travel.

This theory that I hold is why I am so vocal in supporting people working with whichever pantheon they are drawn to, and why I think UPG is so important.

UPG (unverified personal gnosis) is almost essential when you are working with gods or doing any manner of ecstatic practice. Wikipedia states

“…attempts at recreating or restarting ancient religions continue, the difficulty in telling the difference between historically attested sources and modern, personal interpretations grows. All myths and legends started at some point in the human past with one person or group's experience; thus it would be inappropriate to dismiss out-of-hand a new experience. UPG grew out of the need for a shorthand in differentiating the two.”

Dismissing someone’s experience simply because it is not something you experienced is like dismissing someone’s pain experience with a sunburn because you have never had one. All we have as human beings is experienced - we are constantly taking in information, and outputting thoughts and ideas. All of our innovations and inventions came from experiences that the inventors had that others hadn’t.

If someone’s personal experience isn’t the same as yours, it is not a slight. It’s simply something they have experienced that you haven’t that holds significance to them and not you. That is okay and perfectly normal.

I think if we constantly work in a state of historical accuracy, we are missing the mystic, and if constantly work in a state of UPG, we are missing the sage. There is wisdom in the lessons and words of others - we need those to ground us and centre us. There is enlightenment in personal experience - we need to think outside of the box. It is a beautiful marriage of both of these halves that gives us the enriching experience of working with magic, the gods, and the universe. We seek to emulate the gods, and so we should evolve as they do.

#ash and bone #ashandbone.ca #witchcraft #traditional witchcraft #heathenry #the crooked path

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callistolivia · 6 years

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Asteroids; Part 1 - Introduction and The Death of Osiris

Alrighty, so it’s been about 6 months since I’ve read Asteroid Goddesses; The Mythology, Psychology, and Astrology of the Re-emerging Feminine by Demetra George and Douglas Bloch and I think that’s plenty of time to fully reflect on it.

I’ve finally developed an opinion on asteroids and I’m very excited to share with all of you.

Part 2 Part 3

Introduction

The reason for why I got this book was because I finally wanted to get into asteroids and information online didn’t really satisfy me. I personally think books are almost always the best way to go. This book covers four of some of the most major asteroids discovered in the 1800s between Mars and Jupiter; Vesta, Ceres, Juno, and Pallas Athene. George and Bloch mention that these Roman goddesses who share these names were equivalent in rank with Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto which I believe would symbolize their significance to us just as the major planets are. I want to start off by saying that this is a good book for an introduction on these asteroids, but in my opinion the information in this book is a bit outdated and focuses too much on the cults created surrounding the mythology of the names of these asteroids having some sort of significance on their astrological influences. When I read this originally and then again now, my intuition left me feeling like there was pit in my stomach. There was something about the information in this book that will leave people misguided, especially with all the new information we have now about how ancient Earth and our solar system actually is. I say this because this book was first published in 1986 and its only now we’re discovering theories such as Jupiter once being a habitable planet millions of years ago, Venus not actually being from our solar system, and the asteroid belt itself was meant to be/used to be a planet. Scientists say Jupiter prevented the asteroids from ever forming into another planet whereas other theorists say things like Venus was injected into our solar system and actually destroyed the planet on its journey in. Both the scientific theory and the less accepted ones spark interest in me considering the reason why Jupiter is inhibiting another planet from forming is because of its mass, but there are theories that a couple million years ago Jupiter was no where near the size it is now which could indicate that there was a planet orbiting between Mars and Jupiter and perhaps it did get destroyed somehow. I believe the destruction of this planet correlates to Egyptian mythology and the Death of Osiris which I will describe a bit later. Back to the book, Asteroid Goddesses describes these four major asteroids as the common archetypes we see them as versus what we should actually see them as and this process being a transformation. While I do have many critiques to the actual information provided for each asteroid, I do agree that transformation is a major theme for these asteroids. The timeline of these asteroids clearly have always been very dynamic and ever changing. The book correlates this transformative process to the signs, Virgo, Libra, and Scorpio. Personally, based on evidence I’ve collected and experienced and what my intuition tells me, Virgo and Libra have no significant correlation to this process as Scorpio does. There is a very important section of the book that talks about the distortion of mythology which without the reader knowing is what makes information like this so misguiding. The book quotes Carl Jung’s definition of myth which is “archetypes of the collective unconscious.” We are universally connected by archetypes/mythology because we all experience its primal vibrations (its no coincidence that almost all religions connect to one another). While the book stresses the distortion of the mythologies we know today, it seems to be still too dependant on them and the rituals that took place for these goddesses. The book even says “distorted images of the feminine deities have unfortunately become imprinted in the modern psyche” and yet the interpretations given will also manifest and imprint itself onto our psyche’s and understanding of these asteroids. My problem with this is that the asteroids were only discovered and named in the modern world as of the early 1800s. While I believe the ancient world was very aware of astronomy and astrology and maybe even had the technology to see some of these asteroids, I don’t think the mythology behind the names given in the 1800s accurately describe their influence, at least, how they’re described in this book. Only bits and pieces I believe fit these asteroids, the rest isn’t primal enough. To get to the core, we need to go further back, further than I even know at this point. To my current knowledge, we need to go back to Egyptian mythology and take a look at Osiris. The ancient civilizations that lived in Egypt were very aware of the powers of the cosmos and looked to Osiris as a life supporter in the same way the Sun supports all life. He has been described as a bringer of light (knowledge) as well as a nurturer (said to have been born either under the sign Cancer or Leo, both energies resonate strongly to Osiris).

The Death of Osiris

With the sun in Scorpio, the story of Osiris’ death is his brother, Typhon plotted against him. In the book, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, it is mentioned that according to Plutarch, a Greek biographer, the name Typhon means insolence and pride... “Egotism, self-centeredness, and pride are the deadly enemies of understanding and truth” [124, Manly P. Hall]. This is an important piece of symbolism towards Osiris’ death. In that same book, the way the story goes is Typhon gathered seventy-two fellow conspirators to end Osiris. Now, the number seventy-two probably has greater significance than I can interpret, but it’s a number that 360 is divisible by (numbers that 360 can divide into is a repeated pattern of importance to all ancient civilizations such as the Sumerians, the Mayans, the Egyptians, and so on) and as astrologers we are familiar with aspect patterns correlating to numbers 360 can divide into... Such as 72 degrees between two bodies is a quintile... Numbers also symbolize code in the practice of gematria... The possibilities of what the significance behind seventy-two accomplices is endless and I am not skilled enough to accurately interpret it. Continuing on with the story, Typhon came up with a beautiful ornamented box that was made perfectly to Osiris’ body and during a feast with all of the gods and goddesses he made a promise that whoever could lay and fit perfectly in the box would be given it. When it came to Osiris’ turn to lay down in the box in which he fit perfectly in, Typhon and his seventy-two accomplices nailed the cover down and sealed the cracks with molten lead. Afterwards they threw the box down the Nile which it floated into the sea. Upon hearing the murder of her husband, Isis set forth to find him in which she did only to have his body stolen again by Typhon, but this time cut up into fourteen parts. Isis was only able to gather thirteen of the pieces; the fourteenth piece, which was the phallus, fell down the Nile and was consumed by a fish. Isis reconstructs the phallus with gold. [124-125, Manly P. Hall) I think the symbolism is quite clear there, as we can easily associate genitalia to the sign Scorpio, its purpose of creation to Leo, and being reconstructed with gold to Leo.

The mythological story of the death of Osiris describes the scattered remains of a body(planet) which is now the asteroid belt that orbits between Mars and Jupiter. Among the remains is Ceres (a mythological parallel to Isis), Juno (another mythological parallel to Isis), Vesta (very likely another parallel to Isis as they are both described as “the Virgin”), Pallas Athene, and many more. The astrological signs that correlate the strongest to the asteroid belt are Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius with their corresponding themes of fertility, creation, transformation, and transcending knowledge.

Part 2 to come... I will discuss the importance of the goddess Isis in my asteroid study next.

#astrology #asteroids #death of osirius #ceres #juno #pallas athene #vesta #mythology #ancient civilization

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newcatwords · 3 years

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notes on "islands of the mind" by john gillis (Ch. 1)

5: "Any history of islomania must begin with The Odyssey. We know little about Homer or the world he inhabited, but we can be reasonably sure he was not a man of the sea or of the islands."

"Still today islands provide more scope to the Western imagination than any other land form. Half the entries in The Dictionary of Imaginary Places are islands. In addition to being our favorite fictions, islands are the master metaphors that permit us to navigate a world to which we apply another of our favorite tropes, the vast and unpredictable sea. From beginning, water has constituted Western culture's most formidable and telling boundary. For the Greeks the distinction between earth and water was elemental. They saw themselves as inhabiting an earth island completely surrounded by watery chaos. As mainlanders, they regarded land as familiar and comforting, the sea as strange and corrupting."

6: "The notion of an earth island surrounded entirely by water is common to many civilizations, but it has been foundational to the West's way of thinking about itself as being at the center of things. Classical Greeks of the fifth century B.C. held a concentric view of the world, which places order at the center and projected all that was strange, supernatural, and mysterious on the periphery. This geocentrism was passed on to the Romans and ultimately to medieval Europe, where it would prevail unti lthe Age of Discovery and beyond."

"Mythical geographies always exist beyond the edge of everyday existence. They are frequently located in remote and isolated places about which we have little practical information. In the Western world, the sea has been a favored location because Europeans were late in mastering it."

"In our own day, when the continents have been fully explored, mythical geographies have shifted again, this time to outer space. But wherever they may be located, mythical geographies serve us in the same ways they have always done, providing meaning and direction. Like the cardinal points of a compass, they tell us not only where we are but who we are--westerners or easterners, northerners or southerners, earthlings as opposed to space aliens."

9: "For the Greeks, the sea was a non-place, a void...For them, it was boundless space (aperion), representing everything they feared: "vast extent, impassability, atavism, and monstrous disorder." Earth, by contrast, represented order (cosmos). By constructing their mythical geography in this dichotomous way, the Greeks managed to project all they found disturbing beyond their shores, thus reinforcing their own unshakeable sense of earthly order. Greek city-states have been described as "islands on dry land," and Greece itself as a "pattern of islands." This preference for insularity would be one of Greece's legacies to Western civilization.

Water frightened the Greeks, rivers as much as the sea. They located their cities back from the shores and built few bridges out of fear of invasion. Unlike those seafaring peoples of the Pacific who learned to understand the sea as having its own topography, neither the Greeks nor the Romans were ever able to see it as anything but a mirror reflecting back their own land-based perceptions. It was this notion of the sea as a kind of blank slate, as a space to inscribe all kinds of landlubberly fantasies of monsters and mermaids, that was to be the inheritance of later European civilizations.

There are peoples, perhaps the Phoenicians but most notably the Polynesians, for whom the sea was very much a place with its own landscapes, complete with known features providing orientation as well as direction. But this was not the view that has been handed down to mainstream Western culture."

10: "The mythical geography of the West is a legacy not only of the Greeks and Romans. It also owes much to Jewish cosmologies, which were given universal significance by Christianity when it became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth Century."

12: speaking about christianity: "Homeless mankind was doomed to be a traveler (homo viator) on a constantly changing earth until the end of time; to be in this world but not in possession of it. After the Fall, true home awaited either in heaven above or at the end of time, when both mankind and the earth itself would be redeemed by divine will."

ancient greeks & romans envisioned the whole world as an island (orbis terrarum) surrounded by a river (oceanus).

13: "The Greek and Romans held the view that somewhere to the west lay places of plenty and tranquility, reserved for dead heroes. They called these Elysium or the Garden of Hesperides, and they located them i nthe near Atlantic on what were known as the Isles of Blest or the Fortunate Isles."

14-15: "Europe's internal colonizers brought with them notions of shape and scale that no natural features, whether it be a dense forest or swamp, was allowed to interfere with. In a manner that was to be repeated in overseas colonization in later centuries, the first acts of the settlers was to mark out an island of space with clearly defined boundaries. Only then could the business of settling begin in earnest."

20: "Whereas the modern map plots everything on a prescribed (though invisible) Euclidian grid, careful to quantify distance maintain scale, medieval cartography assigned location and scale on the basis of religious significance."

"Projecting chaos beyond the edges of earth island, medieval people felt, as had the ancients, safe in their imagined insularity."

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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Troy’s battles feel a tad dry, but its mythology is fascinating • Eurogamer.net

The Bronze Age, it turns out, is not an easy period to turn into a historically accurate, highly detailed video game like Total War. But it does sound fascinating. There are huge gaps in important places, unusual changes to how armies are proportioned, and the small matter of Homer’s Iliad sprinkling myth and magic over everything.

Playing it, I think there’s room for a little more of the mythical stuff – but talking to Total War Saga: Troy’s game director Maya Georgieva and senior game designer Milcho Vasilev, I’m also confident there’s a good deal more to come.

“We wanted to take a direction that has not been taken by any Total War before,” Georgieva told me, “this period of history, which is ancient history, the Bronze Age… I mean no Total War has gone there before us, and there’s a good reason for that! It’s not been missed by accident, it’s really tough for a Total War game to go into this era because the sources that we need to make an on-par experience with the titles that you love are missing, or are scarce in that period.

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“So for example, we don’t have a lot of historical records. We have a lot of archaeological evidence, but we don’t have, for example, the names of rulers of countries – the specifics that breathe soul into the historical narrative.” This is where the Iliad comes in: providing detail and inspiration for nation-states, rulers, “the leaders or the heroes or the personas and characters of the military,” as Georgieva puts it. “This basically makes the whole project possible”.

“The way we are presenting them is basically threading this very narrow path between reality and the narrative. Because, well, what we found out is that the narrative of the Iliad is very powerful. It has its own gravity, it draws us always towards it. So, from the beginning, we decided that one of the key points of the project will be: we are going to make a sandbox Total War game, but the events of the Iliad will be a plausible playthrough in that sandbox.” (Worth noting here is that there’s definitely no two-campaign option like the Romance and Records versions of Total War: Three Kingdoms, although it’s not something Georgieva ruled out for something post-launch. “That would have been a very nice option, but the scope of the Saga really doesn’t allow us to do that. I mean, we don’t have the luxury of making two games in one. But still, there are possibilities, probably after release. We’ll see.”)

Hero units, like Achilles and Hector here, can face off in duels very similar to those introduced in Total War: Three Kingdoms.

As for how those gaps are filled by the more fantastical parts of sources like the Iliad, Creative Assembly has opted for a “truth behind the myth” approach, effectively looking to make as factually accurate a Total War as possible and using the most probable explanations for the myths and legends to complete the history – a fascinating approach, philosophically, but one that can make you feel slightly underwhelmed when, say, the Minotour turns out to just be a big, tanky bandit dude in silly armour.

“We knew that we were going to have a difficulty with the unit variety in the game because of the Bronze Age and the way that warfare was conducted at the time,” Vasilev explained, and this is where mythological units, or mythologically inspired units, come in. The Cyclops, for instance, is a giant that sounds like more or less a properly mythical being in the game, and works to supplement the units of the era. “The Cyclops can be really good at sieges, because he is a unit that is able to destroy even huge gates, he’s able to throw a boulder over the siege walls to damage units behind it, and so on.” Others like the Centaurs, meanwhile, are more easily explained by the available facts, and so in-game they’re effectively just cavalry. As Vasilev put it, “we believe that the myth that has inspired the half-human half-horse centaurs is rooted in that period where people were not using horses much, but they would see some other tribe, not being very adept at that horse riding [themselves], or even fighting for horseback, and they would probably say that they are ‘one with their horse’.” They won’t be readily available though. To get these kinds of units players need to go “a bit out of their way” to recruit them on the campaign map first, and they sound either very limited or completely unique in their supply.

You might have clocked those ships in the background, but note there are no sea battles in Troy – if two ships end up fighting, then a land battle plays out with the armies disembarked on a nearby island.

When it comes to the battles themselves, this truth-seeking approach can make things feel a little flat. I played a single, fairly standard land battle in control of the Greeks, and their hero Achilles, against the Trojan army and hero Hector, with a decent amount of units on either side, including Centaurs for me and the “Minotaur” for Hector. In other words, I have lots of infantry and archers and one cavalry unit (plus a unit of slow chariots), and the enemy has an entire infantry force with one big man.

That slightly underwhelming impression aside, the immediate thing you’ll notice as a returning Total War player is that lack of cavalry. Total War’s real-time battles are, more often than not, about using speed, positioning, and flanking, and taking almost all cavalry out of the game completely disrupts the balance of that, and so Creative Assembly has had to quite noticeably shuffle some other things around. A big change is light infantry are faster, heavy infantry are slower, and there are more infantry types that have special bonuses like increased flanking strength, increased resistance to flanking, or outright immunity to it.

There’s also a big change to the landscape of the battle maps themselves: light cover, in the form of long grass, has been introduced, as have sand and mud. Light infantry can move into long grass to be hidden, like units traditionally would be in forests. Heavy infantry are severely slowed in mud, while light infantry are unaffected and medium only slightly slowed – similarly with sand. Basically, flanking-specialised light infantry units become your traditional light cavalry, and micro-managing unit positioning around different types of battlefield terrain becomes more important than ever.

There are several biomes for battles depending on where you are on the campaign map, and day-night cycles too. There was also mention of a Divine Will religion resource and five-resource economy in the campaign, but expect more elaboration on that down the line.

In practice, it can be a little finickity. If you’re a frequent pauser, expect to pause even more frequently. If you’re not, expect even more emphasis on your actions-per-minute and attention to detail (which is especially important, given the dusty biome of this battle meant it was often a little hard to tell between long grass and just slightly-longer-than-usual grass that doesn’t have the same effect). There’s also not a huge amount of visual distinction between units, especially the more elite ones, like Achilles’ Myrmidons say, that in other Total Wars you’d expect to be more instantly identifiable in the fray.

That said, it’s still interesting to have to rethink your tried-and-tested strategies – in fact, Warhammer games aside, this is probably the most impactful change to Total War’s battles I can remember. It’s something plenty of history nerds will find stimulating, as much as others might find it slightly dry. That’s the nature of the Bronze Age, really, but thankfully for the less fustily-inclined like me we have the other half of the narrative to do some making up. The big thing that’s got me excited is the siege of Troy.

“The siege of Troy needs to be a spectacular event, or at least a special event in a Bronze Age game. Because of the power of the narrative,” Georgieva said. That means – rejoice! – there is a Trojan Horse in the game, despite some suggestions that it would just be implemented as an earthquake for the sake of historical accuracy. “I think that’s a little bit of a misconception,” Georgieva explained. “There are actually three horses, three Trojan horses in Total War Saga: Troy… the way we’ve implemented the horse is we took the three most plausible, most possible options and implemented them.

The Centaurs in action.

“The far fetched one is the allegory of the earthquake. Earthquakes are quite common in the area even today, and we have archeological evidence that Troy’s walls were destroyed by an earthquake at the appropriate period of history in that time. So that was one of the interpretations, which is modelled into the game as a window of opportunity where you can attack Troy well after an earthquake because the walls are down, the garrison is weakened and you can just approach the city in a much more favourable way.

“The other ways to approach Troy with a Trojan horse are with a siege tower that is shaped like a horse. We know that a couple of centuries later the Assyrians fielded such siege machinery, which is sometimes referred to by the animal names. So we see that probably in the Trojan War, this is like a prototype, a ‘beast of war’, we call it in the game. It’s unlockable through a technology. And the other, the third one, is probably the closest to the narrative, because it involves the same tactic: a wooden structure filled with treasure, and also hidden units.

“This though, again has a historical tint to it because we realised that in that period of time Phoenician ships were horse-headed vessels, and also all ships would have been used for devoting things to the divine, to the gods. So we are basically replaying this sort of scenario where a ship with a horse’s head is filled with goods, and also hidden soldiers. And when you get to do that strategy, you play on a specific map that doesn’t exist outside of the strategic map. It’s during the night, the gates of Troy are open, and you start with several units inside the city. So it’s a completely new scenario. And those three ways exist in the game and give you the opportunity to choose your own Trojan horse.”

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Vasilev also explained that there are at least three separate versions of the battle map for the siege of Troy itself, including the standard 360-view one you’ll know from usual Total War sieges. “It’s not just an earthquake that we’ve implemented as a Trojan horse.” Finally, although Creative Assembly was at pains to make clear there’d be little talk of the campaign just yet, there’s an intriguing tease of a proper rework for agents, the units like spies and heroes that roam around providing support and intel on the campaign map.

Here’s what Georgieva told me about those: “after Thrones of Britannia, the previous saga, we were looking a lot at the feedback that we received and several systems that didn’t make the cut for Thrones. So for example, agents… they have a good and a bad side, let’s say. So we were trying everything to alleviate, for example, agent spamming on the map, but [in doing so] we were also having a lot of new interesting takes on the agent archetypes. We’re also implementing Epic Agents, which are mythologically inspired. And they are quite unique. I mean, we haven’t had anything like this in a previous title before.”

That little tease, plus the promise of a little more invention and bombast with the big siege of Troy, the suggestion that the campaign will offer some interesting scripted moments that line up with Homer’s epic, and the opportunity to relearn some habits in the battles themselves is enough to keep me excited. Translating this era into something like Total War sounds extremely challenging – the slight flatness of that battle I tried a few times being evidence of the fact – but the novelty of it, the magic of the period, and just the magnetic quirkiness of the actual required historical process itself, is still undeniable.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/06/troys-battles-feel-a-tad-dry-but-its-mythology-is-fascinating-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=troys-battles-feel-a-tad-dry-but-its-mythology-is-fascinating-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

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acolinfirth-blog · 7 years

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Christmas

in Christmas me and my family attend to our church to listen about the pastors wally and after that my father bought some fireworks and lit them one by one in case if you don’t christmas .. Christmas is is both a sacred religious holiday and a worldwide cultural and commercial phenomenon. For two millennia, people around the world have been observing it with traditions and practices that are both religious and secular in nature. Christians celebrate Christmas Day as the anniversary of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, a spiritual leader whose teachings form the basis of their religion. Popular customs include exchanging gifts, decorating Christmas trees, attending church, sharing meals with family and friends and, of course, waiting for Santa Claus to arrive. December 25–Christmas Day–has been a federal holiday in the United States since 1870. and A Christian holiday honoring the birth of Jesus Christ, Christmas evolved over two millennia into a worldwide religious and secular celebration, incorporating many pre-Christian, pagan traditions into the festivities along the way. Today, Christmas is a time for family and friends to get together and exchange gifts.

AN ANCIENT HOLIDAY

The middle of winter has long been a time of celebration around the world. Centuries before the arrival of the man called Jesus, early Europeans celebrated light and birth in the darkest days of winter. Many peoples rejoiced during the winter solstice, when the worst of the winter was behind them and they could look forward to longer days and extended hours of sunlight.

In Scandinavia, the Norse celebrated Yule from December 21, the winter solstice, through January. In recognition of the return of the sun, fathers and sons would bring home large logs, which they would set on fire. The people would feast until the log burned out, which could take as many as 12 days. The Norse believed that each spark from the fire represented a new pig or calf that would be born during the coming year.

The end of December was a perfect time for celebration in most areas of Europe. At that time of year, most cattle were slaughtered so they would not have to be fed during the winter. For many, it was the only time of year when they had a supply of fresh meat. In addition, most wine and beer made during the year was finally fermented and ready for drinking.

In Germany, people honored the pagan god Oden during the mid-winter holiday. Germans were terrified of Oden, as they believed he made nocturnal flights through the sky to observe his people, and then decide who would prosper or perish. Because of his presence, many people chose to stay inside.

SATURNALIA

In Rome, where winters were not as harsh as those in the far north, Saturnalia—a holiday in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture—was celebrated. Beginning in the week leading up to the winter solstice and continuing for a full month, Saturnalia was a hedonistic time, when food and drink were plentiful and the normal Roman social order was turned upside down. For a month, slaves would become masters. Peasants were in command of the city. Business and schools were closed so that everyone could join in the fun.

Also around the time of the winter solstice, Romans observed Juvenalia, a feast honoring the children of Rome. In addition, members of the upper classes often celebrated the birthday of Mithra, the god of the unconquerable sun, on December 25. It was believed that Mithra, an infant god, was born of a rock. For some Romans, Mithra’s birthday was the most sacred day of the year.

In the early years of Christianity, Easter was the main holiday; the birth of Jesus was not celebrated. In the fourth century, church officials decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday. Unfortunately, the Bible does not mention date for his birth (a fact Puritans later pointed out in order to deny the legitimacy of the celebration). Although some evidence suggests that his birth may have occurred in the spring (why would shepherds be herding in the middle of winter?), Pope Julius I chose December 25. It is commonly believed that the church chose this date in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival. First called the Feast of the Nativity, the custom spread to Egypt by 432 and to England by the end of the sixth century. By the end of the eighth century, the celebration of Christmas had spread all the way to Scandinavia. Today, in the Greek and Russian orthodox churches, Christmas is celebrated 13 days after the 25th, which is also referred to as the Epiphany or Three Kings Day. This is the day it is believed that the three wise men finally found Jesus in the manger.

By holding Christmas at the same time as traditional winter solstice festivals, church leaders increased the chances that Christmas would be popularly embraced, but gave up the ability to dictate how it was celebrated. By the Middle Ages, Christianity had, for the most part, replaced pagan religion. On Christmas, believers attended church, then celebrated raucously in a drunken, carnival-like atmosphere similar to today’s Mardi Gras. Each year, a beggar or student would be crowned the “lord of misrule” and eager celebrants played the part of his subjects. The poor would go to the houses of the rich and demand their best food and drink. If owners failed to comply, their visitors would most likely terrorize them with mischief. Christmas became the time of year when the upper classes could repay their real or imagined “debt” to society by entertaining less fortunate citizens.

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