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Skirophoria (Skira)

The summer festival of the three Sacred Ploughing holidays, which focuses on cultivating both the earth and the soul.

Skirophorion

The twelfth and final month in the Athenian calendar. Roughly June - July. Home to the Skira, closing the year before Hekatombaion begins again. 

[The] Sacred Week (Days 3 - 9) 

A gentle framework for daily devotion, reflection, and connection to the divine.

Following the initial three-day cycle of the dark and new moon, ancient Hellenic tradition maps out a beautiful, recurring rhythm for the first week of the lunar month. The third through the ninth days are historically dedicated to specific deities, offering you a structured, ongoing way to rotate your mindful focus throughout the week.

• 3rd Day: Athena

• 4th Day: Aphrodite, Herakles, Hermes, and Eros

• 5th Day: (A natural day of rest with no traditional dedication)

• 6th Day: Artemis

• 7th Day: Apollon

• 8th Day: Poseidon and Theseus

• 9th Day: Helios, the Muses, and Rhea

If you predominantly devote yourself to a specific personal pantheon of just two or three deities, you can easily adapt this framework. We suggest using the days dedicated to your core deities for your deepest, most focused monthly rituals. For the days dedicated to Gods outside your personal practice, you are entirely welcome to treat them as days of rest or use them for quiet study and reading.

Always keep in mind that ancient Hellenic religion involved many more practices than are implied by a single calendar. Because none of us live in a wholly polytheistic city today, attempting to observe every single occasion is all but impossible at present. This weekly schedule is offered simply as a learning tool—take the rhythms that serve your personal path and comfortably leave the rest.

Successionism

Contrast with reconstructionism, revivalism.

The position, held by some modern practitioners, that Hellenic religious practice was never fully extinguished - that it survived in some continuous, if quiet, form since antiquity, rather than needing to be rebuilt from historical sources. 

See also: Reconstructionsm, Revivalism