Khernips before coffee
Morning routine on the balcony, now that Melbourne spring is finally behaving. I light a dry bay leaf from the stove, carry it to the sink, and drop it hissing into a bowl of water, then wash my hands and face in it. That's khernips, the purifying water the old Greeks used before approaching the gods. The hiss is my favourite sound of the day.
Then the first flame for Hestia, a small oil lamp on the kitchen shelf, and a splash of watered wine into the potted olive for the household gods. The neighbour's lorikeets judge me loudly. I read ten lines of the Odyssey aloud, badly, and the day can begin.
Small rites done every day beat grand rites done once a year. My yiayia said the same about phone calls.
Sleeping in the god's house, Melbourne edition
In the ancient world, people travelled to the sanctuaries of Asklepios, at Epidaurus, at Kos, purified themselves, made an offering, and slept in a special hall hoping the god would come to them in a dream. It's called enkoimesis, incubation.
I am not at Epidaurus. I am in a one-bedroom flat in Brunswick with a sheepskin rug from IKEA. But I wanted to try a small, honest version.
I wasn't asking about my body. That's what my GP is for, and Asklepios, son of Apollo the healer, would agree. I was asking about my brother. We haven't properly spoken in almost two years, over something stupid that grew into something big.
So: a bath, clean clothes, a honey cake on the shrine and a short hymn read aloud (badly). The lamp was only lit for the prayer and blown out before bed. Then I slept on the rug beside the shrine, which my back has opinions about.
I dreamt of a dog. A big, scruffy, yellow dog, very calm, who walked me down to a harbour that looked like Piraeus and sat beside me on the steps. That was all. We just sat.
Dogs were kept at Epidaurus and were part of the god's sanctuary life. I knew that, but I didn't think of it until I was writing the dream down this morning. What I felt wasn't advice. It was the feeling of not needing to fix everything before sitting down beside someone.
I texted my brother at lunch. Just an old holiday photo of that harbour and 'remember this?' He replied with three laughing faces and a photo of his own dog. It's a start.
Spring in Melbourne, which means the morning libation on the balcony can finally happen without a jacket. The jacarandas are thinking about it.
Same order every day. Wash hands in khernips (water, a pinch of salt). Light the little oil lamp for Hestia in its glass chimney. Pour a splash of watered wine into the libation bowl. Then the Homeric Hymn, read aloud in a terrible accent:
'Hestia, you who tend the holy house... come now into this house, and bestow grace upon my song.'
She gets the first offering and the last, always. Lamp out before I leave for work. A goddess of the hearth would not approve of me burning the flat down.
Hesiod would be very confused in Melbourne
Hesiod says to plough when the Pleiades set at dawn. They're getting there: every morning this month they hang a little lower in the west as the sky goes pale. In Boeotia that meant autumn, mud and wheat.
In Melbourne it's spring. My neighbour is already building tomato cages, because round here everyone plants tomatoes on Cup Day. Same stars, opposite season.
I've stopped trying to force the old calendar onto the southern sky. Now my notebook has two columns: what the stars meant in Greece, and what the land is actually doing here. The gods seem fine with it. Hestia has never once asked which hemisphere her hearth is in.
Asking Hermes with knucklebones
The ancient roadside oracles used knucklebones, astragaloi, and I finally made a set. Four lamb knuckles from the butcher (he didn't ask, I didn't explain), simmered clean, dried on the balcony for a week.
Each bone has four sides that land differently. Throw all four and you get a combination, and the old inscribed tables match each combination to a short oracular saying. I keep a modern translation in my notebook.
My question: should I go to my cousin's wedding in Athens next year, given the cost? The bones gave a line about a traveler who will not regret the road. In fairness, I'd already looked at flights before asking. Hermes, patron of travelers and of excellent excuses, approved.