Ramblings of a Tainted Mind

Look here, Iupiter.
this altar bears your name,
all-seeing, greatest and highest.
Part the clouds for only a moment and look here,
father of all, much honored, lightning maker,
look here and accept this offering and make sacred this place.
If anything is displeasing to you, accept this wine and remove my fault.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I took some liberties with this one, since it isn't officially an altar for the state, but I still washed beforehand and wore my chiton and covered my head with a veil. The Festival of Iupiter was over the weekend, and Corey and I got the stones for this altar, but he really wanted to do the stonework himself, so he did. He is definitely a hands on guy, and I think that even he was set on things being done well because of the lightning strike along the side of this tree. The altar is right beneath it, on the NW axis from the center.


I did not get to do the niches, but that might be best until I decide which statues I want to use. I'm eyeing a really nice one for Neptune, but it's more than I can spend right now.

Gens Galeria at the War Memorial, Nashville:



Gens Galeria + black_whiteboy at the Neptunalia.


(notice that while l_galeria_mira and black_whiteboy are unable to be seen, Aries has managed to have his headshot included!)

I enjoyed the Neptunalia, but I will admit that the ritual was not what I wanted it to be. This is my fault, I should have written it myself and not left it in the hands of others. If I had it to do over again, I would have had mezzanotterose walk the route with me, and said the words with me holding the book between us as we usually do. I would have kept black_whiteboy's oath call and return, because that was the official part, and the part that made me the most nervous. It's amazing how easily I am thrown off track when I am not in control. I often wish that weren't the case, but it just makes me nuts to not be doing the preparing and presenting of things like this.

Everyone seemed to have a good time, and Metellus and Corey worked so hard with me on getting the house into presentable shape. They are the sweetest men I know.

By the way, this shrine is a public one, to the extent that you just need to call first and let me know you are coming out. You can leave offerings here to land spirits, the celestial gods, Neptune, Jupiter or Diana. If you live out of state, and want an offering made, just let me know, that's my job now.

6/18/06

This is the first of a series of entries detailing the establishment of sacred shrine space in the ancient Roman way on my property in Lebanon, TN.

Documentation will follow, but this first entry will explain why I decided to do this and the steps I have taken so far in the many steps involved in this project.

There will actually be two seperate shrines and likely more as time goes on, but of these first two, one is a private shrine to Neptunus, which will be just outside my side door, and the main shrine under the large trees will be dedicated to Iupiter, Neptunus and Diana. The private shrine will be focused more on his oceanus aspects, which, while not favored in Rome, are of personal interest to me.

Deciding on the area for the main shrine was done for me several months ago when lightning struck one of the large trees there. It carved a channel of bark down the side, like a big fingernail scratch. In Roman belief, this means the area was chosen by Iupiter to become sacred space dedicated to him. The Romans, however, often used the same space and put many altars on it, and so in realizing this, we noted that the area is washed by rain runoff regularly, in fact we call the area 'the wash', which puts it in the realm of Neptunus' fresh water aspect, and it is also next to our wooded section, putting it in the realm of Diana Nemorensis. It is possible that we will add more altars later.

The main shrine, which will be used for public and private rites will be erected as close to the ancient way as possible, and this dedication entails many steps. First I have plotted out the land and enlisted my husband to start with fencing it off, mostly because I don't want to take any chances of injury to my horses which run free on the property, and also to make the area more accessible from the back door.

I plan to have this place in usable condition for the upcoming Neptunalia, on July 23rd. Last week I enlisted the help of a friend to help me with water collection, to be done from each of the four surrounding bodies of water. This evening I have also collected rain from a storm. These are all part of the process, which I hope to have broken down to clear steps in my next post.


The first step is the placement of an offering in the west section of the area to the genii loci, or local land spirits, of milk, wine, honey and incense. I will be doing this in the coming week.