Tuesday, March 28, 2023

ODE TO THE NARCISSUS MOON
By Antonius Subia




I am Antinous looking down in the mirror
The way that I love myself is the way that I love you
My love is your love and your love is my love
My breathe is a trace of your perfume
As I walk through the world, I walk as you
My steps are your steps and your steps are my steps
I look up into the stars and I see myself 
You have no idea that I am you
And you are me
And that we are in love
I am Antinous looking up in the mirror

(Narcissus Moon)

Monday, March 27, 2023

ANTINOUS IN PESSINUS
HOME OF GENDER-FLUID PRIESTS OF PHRYGIA



IN March of 129 AD Antinous and Hadrian arrived in the ancient city of Pessinus in Phrygia which was the cult center of the Great Mother of the Gods, Cybele.


It was from here that the Cult of Magna Mater, the Great Mother of the Gods, spread out into the world even unto Rome.


Pessinus was ruled by the transgender high priestess known as the Archigallus who together with her transgender galloi priestesses worshipped a black stone that had fallen from the sky and was the embodiment of the Great Mother herself.


During the War with Hannibal, the Senate consulted the Sibilline Book and received an oracle instructing them to bring the Great Mother of Phrygia to Rome.


They sent an emissary to the city of Pessinus and, amazingly, the Phrygian priests freely handed over the black heavenly Stone that was the most sacred emblem of their goddess.


The Black Stone was brought to Rome, and met at the port of Ostia by a large congregation of the matrons of the city. They carried her in their arms, from one lady to another, into the city.


Along with the stone came the transgender priestesses who castrated themselves as an offering to the goddess and served her for the rest of their lives dressed as women, in keeping with the beautiful boy Attis, who sacrificed his manhood to the goddess. They danced wild ecstatic dances to the beat of drums and cymbals drawing their blood as an offering.


The religion of Magna Mater is one of the oldest faiths of mankind, extending far back into prehistory. Evidence has been found of her veneration in one of the oldest human settlements known as Catal Huyuk in modern Turkey.


The image here shows a mother figure on a chariot drawn by two lions, an image always central to the Great Mother. 


She was known under several names, Idea, Dydima, Sipyla, Agdistis, Rhea, Kubaba, Khaba, Khabala, and Cebele, daughter of Uranus and Gaia, wife of Saturn, mother of all the gods. 

It is believed that her religion was spread throughout the Middle East during the conquests of the Hittite Empire, led by eunuch priests headed by the Archigallus, who was the earthly representative of the divine consort Attis. 

The sacred shrines of the goddess were established where a black stone had fallen from heaven, and there a prophetess, known as a Sybil took up residence, speaking oracles from Apollo. The religions of Dionysus, Apollo, Diana and Persephone are deeply and intimately related, through their connection to Magna Mater.


They are the vestiges of a faith and culture that long preceded Greece, yet whose traces remain even now, in the concept of Holy Mother Church, in the black stone embedded in the Khaba at Mecca, and as the spirit of the Holy Tree known as the Kabalah in Jewish mysticism.


Antinous was very probably brought up as a devotee of her religion, since Bithynion had a mountaintop shrine to Attis, and was very near to the center of her worship at Pessinus.


The proximity of Bithynium-Claudiopolis to Pessinus makes it likely that Antinous was familiar with and participated in the Cult of Magna Mater.


And the discovery of an image of Antinous in the sanctuary of Magna Mater in the port city of Ostia outside of Rome suggests that the cult of Antinous was connected to the transgender cult of the Mother Goddess.


The festival of the death and rebirth of Attis, who was transformed into a Pine tree, was celebrated at the March Equinox in Rome and in Pessinus and it was at this time that Hadrian and Antinous attended the festival in its ancient sacred city. We pray for the blessing of Magna Mater and the reborn transgender goddess Attis.

Sunday, March 26, 2023

WALT WHITMAN
SAINT OF ANTINOUS


ON March 26th the Religion of Antinous takes a moment to celebrate the life of one of our most popular Antinoian prophets ... Saint Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, on the West Hills of Long Island, New York. He was lavished with love by his mother, but treated with stern discipline by his carpenter father.

After only a few years of school, Whitman was pulled out to help with the family earnings. He educated himself, reading all that he could, worked in a printing house, and eventually became a schoolteacher who taught with refreshing openness and excitement, allowing his students to call him by his first name. After years of teaching, he went into journalism, and in time was the editor of several publications.

However, Walt Whitman is said to have experienced a life-transforming epiphany. He left New York, and returned to live for a period with his family, then returned from isolation with Leaves of Grass, one of the most powerful collections of poems in American literature and the first to allude heavily to homosexual love.

It is often said that, during his time in isolation, a religious sense of purpose entered his heart, which he revealed in the Calamus poems.

The aromatic, psychotropic calamus plant with its phallic spadix flower pods was his symbol for homosexuality. The calamus has special meaning for us because Kalamos of Greek myth fell in love with the beautiful youth Karpos. 

Like Antinous, Karpos died by drowning. Grief-stricken Kalamos wept among the reeds at the waterside until he was himself transformed into a reed, whose rustling in the wind is his sigh of woe.

When the American civil war broke out, Walt Whitman was 42 years old and served as a hospital nurse, falling in love with all the soldiers, especially those who died in his arms.

Open expressions of love between men were accepted without issue during the war, and it was when the visionary enlightenment of Walt Whitman became clear to him. He saw that the origin of this love, brotherly, or friendly perhaps, if not more, was the salvation of the human race, and certainly able to heal the divide between North and South.

His final years were spent communicating his message to the new torchbearers, such as John Addington Symonds and Edward Carpenter. After his death, and as Gay Liberation took strength, he was called a Prophet, particularly by the George Cecil Ives and the Order of Chaeronea.

We, adherents of the ancient/modern Religion of Antinous, proclaim him to be St. Walt Whitman the Prophet of Homoeros, and we elevate him to his own stratosphere in our devotion.

He died March 26th, 1892 of tuberculosis compounded by pneumonia. Over 1,000 mourners paid their respects. St. Walt told us how he wanted us to remember him, not as a great poet, but as "the tenderest lover":

You bards of ages hence! when you refer to me, mind not so much my poems,
Nor speak of me that I prophesied of The States, and led them the way of their Glories;
But come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior ... I will tell you what to say of me:
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,
The friend, the lover's portrait, of whom his friend, his lover, was fondest,
Who was not proud of his songs, but of measureless ocean of love within him ... and freely poured it forth,
Who often walked lonesome walks, thinking of his dear friends, his lovers,
Who pensive, away from one he loved, often lay sleepless and dissatisfied at night,
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he loved might secretly be indifferent to him,
Whose happiest days were far away, through fields, in woods, on hills, he and another, wandering hand in hand, they twain, apart from other men,
Who oft as he sauntered the streets, curved with his arm the shoulder of his friend  while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.

Saturday, March 25, 2023

ANTINOUS HELPS YOU COMBAT FEAR
DURING THE CURRENT GLOBAL CRISIS



AS worshipers of Antinous, people look to us to see how we Navigate these dark days of war and pandemic and economic crisis amidst a collective consciousness and culture of fear all over the world. 

As worshipers of Antinous we don’t have to contribute to it, nor do we have to be oppressed by it. (Healing Antinous Art above by Miranda Baggins.)

1. First make a list: What all do you have to do? Look at it again – what do you have to do, and what can wait till later? What’s easy and can be cleared out of the way with little effort? What’s most important and deserves the bulk of your time? Start working the list and checking things off. Making a list doesn’t sound very spiritual to you? Haven’t you heard of the 42 Negative Confessions? The 12 Labors of Hercules? The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism? Making lists is a near-universal religious practice – put it to use in your life.

2. You feel in Despair:  Things are bad, and you can’t see how they’re ever going to get better. Intellectually, you know you’ll manage one way or another, but right now you can’t see that far ahead and you’re not in the mood to listen to anyone’s cold hard logic.
Pray and make offerings. You can’t control how you feel, but you can control what you do – and it is always good to worship the Gods. Giving to Them reminds us that there’s something bigger than ourselves. And giving promotes reciprocity: we give to Them and trust that They will give to us.

ANTINOUS PRAYER BEADS

THERE are Catholic rosary beads, Eastern Orthodox beads, Swedish Lutheran Frälserkransen beads, Islamic prayer beads, Buddhist meditation beads, Hindu japa mala beads and even Wiccan prayer beads ... now several adherents of Antinous are designing ANTINOUS PRAYER BEADS.

Look to Your Ancestors

Many of our ancestors have faced situations like this before, but with different diseases. Though it is new to most of us, it is not new to the world. We can draw strength and hope from the wisdom of our ancestors, as well as their compassion and resilience. They adapted, and we are also now adapting. 

Whatever comes, whatever we face, they stand behind us and beside us as our protectors and as our guides, and we ourselves are evidence that life goes on. We can take hope from that.
Give thanks for what you have, even if you don’t feel very thankful right now. Speak the yearnings of your heart, even if they’re clouded with pain. Don’t know what to say? Find an ancient prayer (The Hymns of Orpheus)  to recite, or perhaps a modern one.

Pour libations and make food offerings. Worshippers  of Antinous in ancient times would have given votive offerings to him at his altars; there is evidence that he was given gifts of food and drink in Egypt, with libations and sacrifices probably being common in Greece. Making offerings in a fire is a powerful act at any time. If it’s part of your tradition and appropriate for the deities you’re approaching, make your offerings to Antinous and any other gods you worship, and then after a suitable period of time, revert the offerings and consume the now-sanctified food and drink. As you eat and drink, you ingest the blessings of the Gods.

Cultivate Life & Create

It’s incredibly important to focus on life-giving and life-affirming experiences at times like this. Plant flowers start seeds. Learn the wisdom of the plants. Nurture your connection to the earth.
Make something with your hands. It doesn’t matter what it is but give yourself to the experience without attachment to the result. You’re utilizing your sacral energy when you do so, which is where the joy of living springs from. It’s incredibly important to remember the joy of living at a time like this.

Making list and prayer and offerings and even long walks outside are very helpful but one spiritual practice that is especially suited for difficult situations is:

3. Divination: Whether you use Tarot, Runes, or Scrying. Pick your favorite. Divination can’t make your decisions for you, but it can show you where a particular path will take you and what things will be like when you get there.  If a path displayed is not what you wanted maybe you need to make some changes before it gets too late.

4. Sigil Magic: There may be hard situations you are going through, financial, job, better place to live, etc.  Any magical system can help. The term sigil derives from the Latin sigillum, meaning "seal" Though Sigil Magic is thought to have started in the Medieval period there is no reason you can’t use it in your worship of Antinous.  This link is an easy step by step method that I have used. http://sigildaily.com/activating-rituals/

5. Meditation:  There are several ways to mediate You can use mediation focused on Antinous or other gods and spirits or ideas. There is the Buddhist-style “empty your mind”.  Focus on your breathing or on a candle flame. If thought pop into your head, acknowledge them, let them go, and return to your breathing. Just sit. The physical and psychological benefits of meditation are clear – the spiritual benefits can be every bit as dramatic.

Build a foundation of regular devotion. Do the necessary prep work. Do your rituals in wild places and in dark places.  Be patient but be persistent. Be open to the workings of Antinous and be receptive to his call.

These are the spiritual practices that work for all of us in difficult times. They won’t prevent bad things from happening – nothing will do that. They don’t keep us from getting upset or stressed or stuck. But they help us regain our center faster and they help us respond to difficult times in the ways we want to respond.

And lastly: Saturn is in the sign of Aquarius

Saturn is now in the sign of Aquarius which puts a significant focus on the questions of innovations, technology, and collective progress. The energy is going to be focused on anything new, anything modern, and anything progressive. Saturn is returning to the position it was in between 1991 and 1994, effectively giving people born at that time their “Saturn return.” As much as it can be a difficult time for people to go through their Saturn returns, it’s also a time where people are given a significant chance to grow and take responsibilities.

AVE ANTINOUS
Michaelus, Priest of Antinous.

Sources: Patheos website “7 Spiritual Practices for Difficult Times” and “How to Navigate the Pandemic Pandemonium”. Also, Antinous The Gay God blog.

Friday, March 24, 2023

WE HONOR THE EMPRESS SABINA


THE Empress Sabina Augusta ... Vibia Sabina ... Hadrian's Wife ... died sometime in the year 136, and was deified in the year 138.

The date of her elevation to godliness is not known, but because she was so often compared to the Mother Goddess Ceres-Demeter, we declare her Apotheosis to coincide with the return of spring in Rome, and dedicate our celebration of the Equinox to our mother and Empress, Nova Dea Ceres, Sabina Augusta.

This relief sculpture of her deification, in which she is shown rising up from the cremation flames on the wings of a female Aeon, shows Hadrian enthroned, behind him is a figure that resembles Antoninus Pius.


And reclining on the floor is one who could possibly be Antinous, the resemblance to the youth on the Apotheosis of Antoninus is remarkable.

Thursday, March 23, 2023

ANTINOUS WORSHIPERS IN GLOBAL RITES
TO CELEBRATE THE SACRED BOAR HUNT



TONIGHT, in observance of the Ancient Roman Vernal Equinox, modern-day priests of Antinous around the world conferred via Zoom to carry out rituals commemorating the Sacred Boar Hunt.

The priests from both sides of the Atlantic joyously celebrated the Sacred Boar Hunt of Antinous which was one of the few recorded events in the actual life of Antinous.

This wonderful, mysterious hunt represents the pinnacle of his life ... Antinous at the highest point of his brief mortal existence, full of youth, beauty and vitality ... mounted on horseback in the forest with his lover Hadrian, hunting a boar. 


That night there was sure to have been a big party, Roman style, with delicious boar meat, drinking, music, wild sex, and all the good things in life.

This is what our festival means ... to enjoy life ... to take it all in right now and be glad that we are alive and well.

Take all your pain and disappointment of the past, unfulfilled wishes, regrets, embarrassment, mistakes ... Hopes and dreams that never came true ... Take a moment to set yourself free of their burden, they are of no use to you anymore. 

Instead, look to good things that you have now, the pleasures and beauties that surround you, the friends you hold close, the accomplishments you have earned, enjoy what the gods have given you ... eat, drink, fall in love, indulge in sexual desire ... in all the splendors of being alive, right now at this moment.

For as just like Antinous as he rode, strong, young, beautiful and free, we never know what fate has in store. One year after the Boar Hunting ... Antinous was dead.

I offer my Blessing to All the people who love and believe in Antinous everywhere in the world on this occasion of the Sacred Boar Hunt. 

I ask Antinous to bless us as we begin the transition into this new phase of development. May the Companions of Antinous gather together in great numbers from all over the globe!

May the Meat of the Sacred Boar 
Feed the spirit of Homotheosis
In all our hearts!


Ave Antinous!


~Antonius Nicias Subia


Flamen Antinoalis

ANTINOUS SAINTS BLESS THE MARRIAGE
OF BRAZIL'S FIRST PRIEST OF ANTINOUS


SAINTS Sergius and Bacchus continue to bless gay nuptials in their roles as patrons of Marriage Equality.

Marriage Equality is legal in Brazil ... and those saints were honored along with Antinous the Gay God at this wedding in Campinas, São Paulo, on 23 March 2013! 

See if you can spot an image of Antinous visible in this photo of the wedding of gay educator-journalist Deco Ribeiro (Brazil's first priest of Antinous) and his beloved Chessler Lohren Beauty.

A giant icon of Saints SERGIUS AND BACCHUS is the backdrop for the altar in the background. 

And also THE TWO LOVERS OF ANTINOOPOLIS are invoked. And it is in the upper corner of their round tondo portrait that you see a small golden image of Antinous.

May these Saints of Antinous watch over Chessler and Deco for all eternity: