Apollo

I was reading the blog of one of my competitors today and he came up with a great idea and challenged each of us to tell about our God and or Goddess. Well I have no problem with that. I’ll just have to make a save file in my brain for the topic I planned on doing today and suggest it for the next theme, but I’ll throw that out there later in the blog. Now then since I’m still a little new in my following I don’t know too much about my god but I’ll do what I can.

Apollo is the Greek God of the Sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts, animal welfare, and so on. He is the son of Zeus (boy did HE get around) and Leto, and the twin brother of Artemis (who it seems is not too fond of men). One of his messengers, as I have recently found out, is the hawk. Yeah nothing like driving down your street and looking up to see a hawk staring down at you from the telephone wire he’s sitting on or standing around outside cleaning your BBQ grill and not only seeing a hawk fly overhead but hearing it call out to me. This is actually how I kinda sorta figured out that I should be worshiping Apollo. Although after I thought about it, it made sense. I love music, the arts, and pretty much all entertainment; I love animals; and I must admit I’m pretty fond of the sun. Some other animals that are sacred to Apollo are wolves, dolphins, swans, cicadas, ravens, crows, snakes, and mice.

Now for a story about him, this is difficult since there are so many good ones. Let’s see here, well this story involves Hermes and Zeus as well but it is pretty good and deals with the inventing of one of Apollo’s most famous symbols, the lyre.
Hermes was born on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia. The story is told in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. His mother, Maia, had been secretly impregnated by Zeus. Maia wrapped the infant in blankets but Hermes escaped while she was asleep. Hermes ran to Thessaly, where Apollo was grazing his cattle. The infant Hermes stole a number of his cows and took them to a cave in the woods near Pylos, covering their tracks. In the cave, he found a tortoise and killed it, then removed the insides. He used one of the cow's intestines and the tortoise shell and made the first lyre. Apollo complained to Maia that her son had stolen his cattle, but Hermes had already replaced himself in the blankets she had wrapped him in, so Maia refused to believe Apollo's claim. Zeus intervened and, claiming to have seen the events, sided with Apollo. Hermes then began to play music on the lyre he had invented. Apollo, a god of music, fell in love with the instrument and offered to allow exchange of the cattle for the lyre. Hence, Apollo became a master of the lyre.

Not a bad story I’m sure I could find more but that’ll due for now. So now then since, as far as I know, I’m the first to answer this theme challenge I guess I’ll choose the next theme. Since a lot of us are as close as a family and many of us are close to our own blood-related families my theme is family and what does it mean to you.

Now for the fun part of the blog the random bachelor dare card, if you don’t know what I’m talking about read my previous blog.

Tonight’s random card is (drum roll) … “Convince the oldest guy in the bar to do a Liquid Viagra (Red Bull and Jägermeister).” Wow that’s an interesting one, good luck in trying to figure out the oldest guy in the bar and convincing him to do a shot by that name.

This has been another set of random thoughts from me Spence.

Oh and steelwitch 674 words here.