To the celestial Gods sacrifice an odd number, but to the infernal, an even.

Pythagorean Symbols or Maxims 43 (quoted from Guthrie, Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library)

Sin should be abstained from, not through fear, but for the sake of the becoming.

The Golden Sentences of Democrates 7

"But that complete happiness is some contemplative activity will also be evident from the following considerations. The gods, in fact, we suppose to be the most blessed and happy of all. But what sorts of actions should we assign to them? Just ones? Won't they appear ridiculous if they engage in transactions, return deposits, and so on? Courageous ones, then, enduring what is frightening and facing danger because it is a noble thing to do? Or generous ones? To whom will they give? It will be a strange thing, if they actually have money or anything like that. And their temperate actions, what would they be? Or isn't the praise vulgar, since they do not have base appetites? If we were to go through them all, it would be evident that everything to do with actions is petty and unworthy of gods. Nonetheless, everyone supposes them to be living, at least, and hence in activity, since surely they are not sleeping like Endymion. If, then, living has doing actions taken away from it and still more so producing, what is left except contemplating? So the activity of a god, superior as it is in blessedness, will be contemplative. And so the activity of humans, then, that is most akin to this will most bear the stamp of happiness."

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1178b7-23

Our bodies also change. What we have been,
What we now are, we shall not be tomorrow.
There was a time when we were only seed,
Only the hope of men, housed in the womb,
Where Nature shaped us, brought us forth, exposed us
To the void air, and there in light we lay,
Feeble and infant, and were quadrupeds
Before too long, and after a little wobbled
And pulled ourselves upright, holding a chair,
The side of the crib, and strength grew into us,
And swiftness; youth and middle age went swiftly
Down the long hill toward age, and all our vigor
Came to decline, so Milon, the old wrestler,
Weeps when he sees his arms whose bulging muscles
Were once like Hercules', and Helen weeps
To see her wrinkles in the looking glass:
Could this old woman ever have been ravished,
Taken twice over? Time devours all things
With envious Age, together. The slow gnawing
Consumes all things, and very, very slowly.

Ovid, Metamorphoses 15.217-235

An interesting and thought provoking article exploring some of the post-Christian pagan spiritual heritage of Europe.

"It is even a bit of a misnomer to claim that 'Christianity' is the historical religion of the West, when you start looking at how the sausage of our common religion was actually manufactured, and what sorts of beast were slaughtered to fill its skin."

https://corvuscato.wordpress.com/2020/10/19/continuity/

We should honor each of the dead not with tears or lamentations, but with good remembrance, and with an oblation of annual fruits. For when we grieve immoderately for the dead we are ungrateful to the terrestrial divinities.

The Preface to the Laws of Charondas the Catanean

By god, Socrates, I'll tell you exactly what I think [of getting old]. A number of us, who are more or less the same age, often get together in accordance with the old saying ["God ever draws together like to like"]. When we meet, the majority complain about the lost pleasures they remember from their youth, those of sex, drinking parties, feasts, and the other things that go along with them, and they get angry as if they had been deprived of important things and had lived well then but are now hardly living at all. Some others moan about the abuse heaped on old people by their relatives, and because of this they repeat over and over that old age is the cause of many evils. But I don't think they blame the real cause, Socrates, for if old age were really the cause, I should have suffered in the same way and so should everyone else of my age. But as it is, I've met some who don't feel like that in the least. Indeed, I was once present when someone asked the poet Sophocles: "How are you as far as sex goes, Sophocles? Can you still make love with a woman?" "Quiet, man," the poet replied, "I am very glad to have escaped from all that, like a slave who has escaped from a savage and tyrannical master." I thought at the time that he was right, and I still do, for old age brings peace and freedom from all such things. When the appetites relax and cease to importune us, everything Sophocles said comes to pass, and we escape from many mad masters. In these matters and in those concerning relatives, the real cause isn't old age, Socrates, but the way people live. If they are moderate and contented, old age, too, is only moderately onerous; if they aren't, both old age and youth are hard to bear.

Plato, Republic 329a-d

In this way, then, though soul is a divine being and derives from the places above, it comes to be encased in a body, and though being a god, albeit of low rank, it comes thus into this world by an autonomous inclination and at the bidding of its own power, with the purpose of bringing order to what is inferior to it.

Plotinus, Enneads 4.8.5.25-28

How to overcome bad habits and characteristics

1. Sincerely wish that you will be happy, fulfill your highest purpose, and live in tranquility. Sincerely wish to be beautiful before God. Commit to obtain the purity that lies within you and that comes from divinity.

2. Imitate great men, such as Socrates, or any others you know. Remember how they behaved in difficult situations.

3. When anything happens - a temptation or a problematic situation or anything else - call on the aid and support of God. (By the way, it is perfectly correct to use singular God within the context of polytheism. Of course you can call upon a specific God too.)

4. Tell your thoughts and feelings to wait a moment, so that you can see what they’re all about. Tell them you don’t want to be swept away by their speed and momentum. When they ask you to start imagining all sorts of things that might happen, say no and instead think of something beautiful and noble.

5. Offer a sacrifice and prayer. To whatever extent you committed a wrong, gave into temptation, etc., acknowledge that in your sacrifice and prayer.

6. Consciously note every day that goes by since you were last defeated by your problem. “The last time I lost my temper was yesterday.” “The last time I was overcome by lust was three days ago.” Enjoy your victory each time.

7. If you defeat your problem for thirty days in a row, offer a sacrifice to God.

Source: Epictetus, Discourses 2.18

Today, February 8, is the birthday of Proclus, one of the great philosophers of history and a man we pagans owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to for preserving so much detail about our Gods. Consider giving an offering in his honor.

I recommend this organization.

"If you haven’t found your spiritual home and have found yourself feeling like an outsider in church; If you have tried a foreign religion and felt like a stranger in a strange land; If you feel like most modern spirituality is full of quacks and frauds. Don’t worry, you’re not crazy."

https://www.romanistsociety.org/

Truly Rhea is the source and stream of blessed intellectual (realities). For she, first in power, receives the birth of all these in her inexpressible womb and pours forth (this birth) on the All as it runs its course.

The Chaldean Oracles fr. 56

I beseech you, Lord, father and guide of the reason in us, remind us of our noble origin, which we were deemed worthy to receive from you. Act with us (as we are self-movers) for our purification from the body and its irrational emotions, that we may be superior to them and rule them, and that we may use them as instruments in the fitting way. Act with us also for the precise correction of the reason in us and its unification with the genuinely existent things through the light of the truth. And the third request to the Saviour: I beseech you, completely remove the mist from the eyes of our souls, 'so that we may clearly know,' as Homer says, 'both God and man.'

Simplicius, Commentary on Epictetus' Handbook 454

O you gods, grant good character to our young,
and peace and quiet to the old, and to the race of Romulus
prosperity, posterity,
and every glory

Horace, Secular Hymn 45-48

It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. So it is - the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it.

Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 1

It's Lupercalia. A time for Roman lads to get naked, tear through the streets and whip young girls with goat skin thongs. This will make them fertile and will purify the city so please do it

When you receive an impression of some pleasure, take care not to get carried away by it, as with impressions in general; but rather, make it wait for you, and allow yourself some slight delay. And next, think about these two moments in time, that in which you’ll enjoy the pleasure, and that in which you’ll come to repent after having enjoyed it and will reproach yourself; and set against all of that how you’ll rejoice if you’ve abstained from the pleasure, and will congratulate yourself for having done so. If you think, however, that a suitable occasion has come for you to engage in this task, take care that you’re not overcome by its allure, and by the pleasantness and attraction of it; but set against this the thought of how much better it is to be conscious of having gained a victory over it.

Epictetus, Handbook 34

I call upon you, great, pure,
lovely and sweet Eros,
winged archer who runs
swiftly on a path of fire,
who plays together with gods
and mortal men.
Inventive, two-natured,
you are master of all:
of the sky’s ether, of the sea and the land,
of the all-begetting winds,
which for mortals the goddess
of grass and grain nurtures,
of all that lies in Tartaros,
of all that lies in the roaring sea;
you alone govern
the course of all these.
O blessed one, come to the initiates
with pure thought,
banish from them
vile impulses.

Orphic Hymn to Eros

What is that which always is and has no becoming, and what is that which becomes but never is? The former is grasped by understanding, which involves a reasoned account. It is unchanging. The latter is grasped by opinion, which involves unreasoning sense perception. It comes to be and passes away, but never really is.

Plato, Timaeus 28a

Meditative Reading

A simple but profound technique.

1. Select a short passage to meditate upon, such as a quote from Plato or Homer or the Golden Verses. Remember, the texts of our tradition are not mere historical curios, they are the works that have inspired our greatest minds and continuously refreshed our civilization century after century.
2. Pray for wisdom and guidance. (There is no wrong God to pray to, but Hermes is an example of a God who would be perhaps especially appropriate here.)
3. Carefully read the passage. Take your time. Think about every word. Look at it from every angle. Question it, draw out the implications of it, think of how you can apply it to your life. Try to really get at the timeless essence of the wisdom behind it.
4. Quiet your thoughts, sit in silence, and listen. If any insight comes to you, gaze at it with unthinking intellectual sight.
5. Thank the Gods. You can also give an offering of thanks.

In the highest level of beings, the abundance of power has this additional advantage over all others, in being present to all equally in the same manner without hindrance; according to this principle, then, the primary beings illuminate even the lowest levels, and the immaterial are present immaterially to the material. And let there be no astonishment if in this connection we speak of a pure and divine form of matter; for matter also issues from the father and creator of all, and thus gains its perfection, which is suitable to the reception of gods. ... Observing this, and discovering in general, in accordance with the properties of each of the gods, the receptacles adapted to them, the theurgic art in many cases links together stones, plants, animals, aromatic substances, and other such things that are sacred, perfect and godlike, and then from all these composes an integrated and pure receptacle.

Iamblichus, On the Mysteries 5.23