• Monthly Columns

    Good God!

    Meet: Liber   Liber may well have originated as a native Italian god of fertility, vegetation, and wine. He is also associated with intoxication and was known for throwing wicked parties. The Romans later merged his identity with that of the Greek god Dionysus. Like Dionysus, Liber represented uninhibited freedom and the subversion of the powerful. He was a patron deity of Rome’s plebeians – the largest, least powerful class of citizens – who rejected the civil and religious authority of the ruling class elite. Before being adopted as a Roman deity, Liber was a phallic deity and a companion to two different goddesses in two different archaic Italian fertility…

  • Monthly Columns

    GoodGod!

    Meet the Gods: Apollo     As the sun begins shining a bit more each day, let’s turn to Apollo, the Olympian sun god. In Greek mythology, there were twelve original Titans. Helios was god of the sun who was said to drive a chariot pulled by four horses, sometimes winged, across the sky. According to theoi.com, “Helios was depicted as a handsome, usually beardless, man clothed in purple robes and crowned with the shining aureole of the sun.” Slowly over time, Helios became viewed as being Apollo, one of the Twelve Olympians – the sun god who is the son of Zeus.     Most commonly associated as the…