There are depicted Wukong and the pilgrims alongside many other details I'd like if somebody guessed them, either way you can also ask and I'll clarify the things to you.
Image a bit unrelated, but still similar to what i want to express: what are the secrets behind the smurfs as characters? Are they the rapresentation of little intelligences or gods of the forest?
Or are they a more subtle way of representing divinity as for their blue skin akin to Hindu deities and Avatars (& Na'vi as creatures born to be connected with nature and the elements and animals) with the hat featuring a mithraic symbolism about truth and freedom?
Sharks seem always treated like dangerous and chaotic animals in greek culture from history to mythology, and it's more of a thing with polinesian cultures to portray Sharks as sacred animals or even tied to gods.
But i still wanted to know if they would be sacred to Poseidon or other sea gods nevermind.
They indeed look like animals tied to intuition and force, just like Poseidon was connected mainly to the harsh forces of the sea.
I've thought of offering something i deeply care about, drawings, to the gods as burning them and using the wine to kill the fire later on.
But, while i know paintings were too devotional offerings, i don't know which drawings are better/permitted to be burnt.
Ex: is it okay to burn a drawing of a deity to said deity? Or is it better to burn the object of the prayer or something else precious to burn?
So, i've been practicing greek religion but eventually stumbled across this problem regarding daily practices as offering the day and the night libations&incense or little things.
There is to say, i cannot fit myself into this particular concept, not that of the offering, to the god/goddess which i do 10~ times a month usually to different deities, but that of daily offering.
Honestly, i can't really put myself into a condition of every day practice to the gods, because i prefer doing it periodically in certain times. I can read book pages every day, or meditate 20-30 minutes usually, but really cannot call it devotional acts to the gods as i do not do it for them.
Is this problematic if i cannot put myself into offering every day but rather offer in different times with preparation? (Usually 12-24 h without sex/alcohol)
When mortals commit non-pious or evil doings what is the reaction of the gods if they have one about it? And what means for their being to actualize a punishment for the being in question?
Even if the problem of why evil exists does not make it to the ground as the gods are not supposedly tri-omni, i'd like to discuss if they act in response to mortals' wrong doings and what does that mean for them.
The Privation Theory seems a good point for talking about the evil substance, which likely is non-existent as evil for we know it is born from a mix of fear, danger and ignorance, but all concepts from which the gods are distant.
So i'd say it's at least plausible to assume the gods can't be evil or jelaous to human condition, which is far worse than the gods'. But at the same time, how can someone explain daimones or gods accomplishing punishments?
Or, is it truly the gods, or a greater force like the fates which order the life of mortals and their punishments in relation to their being? And if it is that, can we say Zeus was right about the mortals often being the reason of their fall?
When i searched for it the solutions i got from my search were not of my taste and looked incomplete, saying piety in ancient greek religion involved just the traditional offerings to the gods following respect and duty.
But isn't the ancient greek also fascinated by their gods? The feeling the gods are good, highest and rich is not something Plato invented out of nowhere, but was rooted in greek culture and symbols. Because if the same word you use for "cosmos" is later derivative of "cosmetic" then you believe the cosmos is beautiful like the greeks believed.
And if the cosmos is beauty the gods of it must also be beautiful, and something beautiful linguistically is also ordered and good, and what if beauty is so near to the good what is love if not the pursue of the beautiful?
Many don't seem to talk about this, some people maybe even believing civic religion and Plato are two macrocosms away. But this is not to say love wasn't also -following Plato and the mysteries- a form of Mania as for an irrational expression of oneself towards the object of love, meaning love is order but also chaos just like Eros is both uranic and cthonic.
However i think i might miss something, or value Plato too much, about how the greeks viewed their gods, which i still believe it's not like the christians believe in their fundamentally omnibenevolent God but also not like simple civic transactional forces paid with bulls' horns.
Epicurus, despite probably being related with Platonic philosophy in metaphysics and ethics, and despite the problems of the school and the mistranslation of their terms over the centuries, always had a spot in my heart.
Currently i don't know how i identify my practice, it's basically mixed ancient calendar offerings days + offerings and libations and burnt offerings.
I don't want to describe myself as religious or it as religion as with fixed identitary set of practices and dogmas, more like as a devotional way to the gods taking practices from ancient Greece's and possibly other paganisms/philosophies.
Epicurus did "solve" the problem of thinking about practice and fear of the gods, which sometimes -the fear of not having a mature practice- get me being i the only pagan i know around.
So i wanted to know how those who apply to his philosophy and teachings nowadays practice, a bit curious tbh.
I think it's a problem the fact I don't have an altar and do offerings and pour libations outside in the garden, but i can't really put an altar too big if i can't move it anymore. Maybe small altars are my case?
The statues of the gods are on the top of a library, and only a black statue of Zeus is put outside in the garden, so when i do offerings it's most of the times near Zeus' statue than the other gods'.
I don't think the way i do is much traditional, so if you can give me some advice on how to adjust my practice to make it more similar to that of the ancients i'd be grateful.