OK I FOUND THIS WHILE SCROLLING PINTEREST AND I KNOW ITS SUPPOSED TO WORK FOR SOME SUPPOSED HOT ANIME DUDE PFP BUT THIS IS LITERALLY MY PROFILE ON THAT GOD FORSAKEN APP
I AM CACKLING
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Nonbinary Moon in Ancient Greek religion and magic
Despite being associated in Ancient Greek culture mostly with femininity, in some primary sources the Moon and lunar deities are depicted as female and male at once. The Orphic Hymn to Selene describes the Moon Herself thus:
Female and Male with borrow’d rays you shine, and now full-orb’d, now tending to decline.
Mother of ages, fruit-producing Moon [Mene], whose amber orb makes Night’s reflected noon
(trans. Thomas Taylor)
Androgyny is a common theme in Orphicism, whether for deities such as Phanes - for whom being both male and female is one of the main attributes - or those usually depicted as one, binary gender. However, the nonbinary lunar doesn’t end with Orphicism.
[picture: a relief of Selene]
If you’ve been at least lurking in Hellenic Pagan side of Tumblr, you have possibly already learnt about Aphroditus, who became sort of trans icon here. What you might not know is that he was a lunar deity as well. The Roman writer Macrobius, who identifies her with Venus, describes him thus in Saturnalia:
There’s also a statue of Venus on Cyprus, that’s bearded, shaped and dressed like a woman, with scepter and male genitals, and they conceive her as both male and female. Aristophanes calls her Aphroditus, and Laevius says: Worshiping, then, the nurturing god Venus, whether she is male or female, just as the Moon is a nurturing goddess. In his Atthis Philochorus, too, states that she is the Moon and that men sacrifice to her in women’s dress, women in men’s, because she is held to be both male and female.
At last, the nonbinary Moon can be found in Greek Magical Papyri as well. The fragment below comes from a spell calling upon a syncretic goddess identified with Hekate, Selene and many others.
I call you, triple-faced goddess
Mene, O light-beloved
Hermes / and Hekate at once
Male-female child together
- PGM IV. 2608-2611
The word Mene means the same as Selene - the Moon, and was often used as an alternate name for the goddess. Possibly this fragment - syncretizing Hermes and Hekate, two closely connected but almost never equated deities - can be also linked to the mysterious Hermekate appearing elsewhere in the PGM.
Those are examples I know - if any of you know more, I’d love to hear about it. What we can see even now is that the nonbinary lunar, despite the obscurity, was a recurring motif that could appear in very different traditions of Ancient Greece.
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