I apologize if this comes off as a bit of a rant, but I’m frustrated today.
Why am I frustrated and thus whining to you all? I am frustrated because there’s just not enough about Ares out there. I spent about two hours or so searching for any kind of depiction of the statue of Ares at Sparta, where he is shown in chains that his favor would never be able to leave the city. But no, nothing. Nothing but the same thing over and over, that and screen shots from either Xena or God of War. This bothers me. Oh, and half the websites out there about Ares have decayed or shut down (Geocities anyone?). Thus, I am grumpy.
I wish there was a little more interest in Ares. I’ve been trying to drum up interest for an Ares anthology over at NA, but no luck. Ares just isn’t very popular. If he is, it always seems to come from the self-help angle that just seems to rub me the wrong way. What I wouldn’t give to have an active, committed community of Ares worshipers to worship with. Maybe I’m just being impatient. After all, there has been some stirring in the Aresian community as of late.
Maybe, if I want to create that community, I’m going to have to break the biggest taboo of the polytheistic community- I’ll have to evangelize! Scary stuff, right. Advertising like a media whore may also have to be an option. I tell you, drumming up interest isn’t easy, especially when you’re trying to avoid being overly controversial. Who knows though, that could be part of the problem. Am I playing to far to the PC side of Ares? The survey was probably overly-ambitious, and my failure to produce was probably a turn-off to a few folks.
On the positive side of things, my last post, For Ares Enyalios, will be published in the Neokoroi newsletter, He Epistole, in their up-coming winter issue. Maybe that will spark a little interest. I suppose the lack of artwork depicting Ares is simply an opportunity to create some and possibly inject some much-needed variety into the system. That being said, I could even go around and create my own anthology and self-publish.
Here’s to being grumpy! Hail Ares!
I wouldn't be too discouraged about it. I think people who feel particularly drawn to and dedicated to Ares are often ones who, by nature, are a bit of a breed apart of the average citizen of modern Western society. Personally, I always picture the man who follows Ares as one who sits up late at night, sharpening and stacking spears at his door, keeping guard while his family sleeps. (The willingness to do violence promptly when the situation calls for it is different, in my mind, than a proclivity for it.) And while Ares reigns over both, his more important role in the context of society is the former to me, at least. Modern society, while it requires some of these individuals, does not necessarily need a ton of them. You couldn't do much while a whole herd of sheepdogs and no sheep.
ReplyDelete*With a whole herd of sheepdogs. Pardon my typos!
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