Lycaina is here! Recap of winter Holidays

Hi, Lycaina here! 

Happy past Holidays everyone! I hope y'all had very lovely and pleasant holiday season last year. 

I had a delightful season myself, although very filled up, hence my totall absence here. 

With my wife we saw 2 movies in cinemas in December: Five Nights at Freddy's 2 and Silent Night Deadly Night (2025). Both of these were a delight to watch. Silent Night especially surprised me, as, well, I was expecting a stupid killing spree, with logical problems and shitty dialogue and instead I only raged at the very end at the character's behavior. The one killing scene where main character goes to a certain party was especially delightful to watch (you'll immediately understand what I'm talking about after watching it lol). And, for those who did watch it, can you imagine that a pair left the cinema when that scene ended? 

Best way to out yourself to the whole cinema, without saying a word lmao.

We had a lovely Christmas tree this year, with very very delightful gifts for everyone (especially after I have introduced the concept of a Wishlist lol), all the Christmas dishes turned out great and we had a very lovely family Christmas dinner. We did have a pretty big meat mishap, but in together efforts w my wife it was gladly resolved early morning on Christmas Eve. But yikes was it stressful. 

On New Years Eve we were alone with my wife at home. We had a smaller dinner of our own and just chilled. Surprisingly we had snow for New Years! I'm not sure already how much was there at that point, but quite a bit for sure. Right now actually we have good few cm of snow and very winter like temperatures. A good freezing winter kind. 

And we wrapped up the holidays season for our family with a family trip to the mountains. It was very fun, snowy, places dangerous, bc we definitely were not equipped with the right gear for a stroll on a mountain path, but in general we had a very lovely time with a mix of okay food, beautiful, breathtaking nature, and some fun "touristy" activities lol. I definitely want to return to that place for sledging some other time.

I want to take a piece of time to just talk about the nature. We had a beautiful moment of when we stopped on that mountain passage, just me and my wife, and quietly stood there, looking at the beautiful panorama that opened in front of us. It was quiet and still. Seemingly empty and lifeless. But you realize that it's a trick, forest is never truly lifeless. So you keep listening and looking. We heard snapping branches somewhere below, most likely an animal we couldn't possibly see. Clouds and fog slowly move through the black and white surroundings almost covering up forest's secrets. I don't have any photos, but even if I did, they wouldn't do the forest and mountains justice. 

Don't forget to listen, look and feel the nature. 

Prayer to Apollonis Musagetes

O, Musagetes Apollo,
Khaire!
Our light to knowledge
Teacher to artistic passion
You're the logic and structure
Of this world.
I hope my offerings
Bring you delight.
Vicious archer!
I pray for your guidance
In studying and art.
So in future I can live
Abundantly,
Praise and pray to you 
Forever more.
Thank you for your love
And ever growing presence!

16 December 2023

Written by me. No AI was used. Shared with Apollo's approval and free for personal use. Please credit me if you'll repost the prayer somewhere.

Heya, Lycaina is back! As promised the prayer to Apollonis (finally, ik). He became especially important for me during my studying periods, although in the beginning I started worshipping him only in tandem with Artemis, for Artemis. I ended up assosiating Apollo with the academic studies (in a lesser form also with bureaucracy, like documents and papers, but that's mostly Zeus'es and Themis'es domain) and started worshipping him more during the entrance exams and it followed through the whole university years. Now, as I'm slowly reconnecting with the Gods after a long pause, I'm still yet to properly rekindle with Apollonis. It's alright though, I know he'll wait for me. 

Back to reading books

Hey, Lycaina here and I've picked up reading again! I was buying books for a Christma gift and I saw the shiny beautiful rows of books in the store. I got painfully reminded that last time when I tried to read a scientific book I have and immediately repeat what I just read, I was struggling heavily. 

So I chatted with a lovely shop lady, confirmed with my wife that we can afford a purchase, and got myself a "Where The Dark Stands Still" by A. B. Poranek. Best way I can describe it - slavic romantic fantasy. More specifically Polish. So far I'm in 2/3 of the book, maybe more, and I highly recommend it. It is also a one shot, so it's perfect imo to get back into reading and not get overwhelmed by a full fantasy series. 

In my personal journal I'll write a small recap of each chapter out of my head, as a measure of conscious reading journey. Daunting, but very needed. Once I finish the book, I'll try to write some sort of a review here too,  to make my brains analyse the material even further. 

Prayer to Artemis

Khaire, Artemis,
Goddess of many names!
You take pride 
In roaming the forests
Rarely visiting divine Olympus.
Your illustrious mother 
And loyal Nymphai
Stand beside you
As you hunt on mountain hills. 
O, bright goddess of the moon,
You push people to nature.
If my offerings were sweet to you,
Pull me closer to divine
And ground me in your domain.
Please keep my mind sharp
Like your deadly arrows.
Thank you, for being with me always.
I shall forever praise you.

16 December 2023

Written by me. No AI was used. Shared with Artemis's approval and free for personal use. Please credit me if you'll repost the prayer somewhere.

Heya, Lycaina here! Here's an old prayer I wrote *checks notes* 2 years ago?? Goddamn time flies. I want to have it here as a part of me slowly moving my most important thoughts and posts from Tumblr. I'll post one the prayer I have for Apollo after some personal post. I feel like I want to try and keep the balance of posting: religious-personal-religious, as much as possible. I feel like it's a good scheme.

My wife power housed us through the highway

Hello, Lycaina here!

Let me preface this by saying that I love my wife Wren so fucking much. She's the best person I could have ever imagined to have by my side and I'm so proud to see her grow every month into a better version of herself and I'm so happy I get to grow near her. 

So as I was sharing in my quick updates, last few days we had quite a bit of a snowfall, which is very unusual for the end of November based on how I remember the last few years. The snow was falling for almost 3 days straight, but it didn't fall in total more than maybe 10-15 cm. It was mostly wet snow, but surprisingly it lasted and only today it started to melt away significantly. Even then there's still quite a bit off it lying around. 

On literally the first day of the snowfall we had a scheduled car cleaning which regrettably so we had to cancel due to the weather. It was a big bummer as we had to cancel literally less than 24h till the reservation and for allegedly AuDHD brain it's a nightmare. I couldn't focus on doing absolutely anything the evening when our relatives recommended us to stay home (it was almost 12AM mind you, I'm a night owl so I was fine, but what was their business writing so late is still unfathomable for me). Aside the mental crash out, logically speaking I was glad we didn't go, because I believe them when they said the roads were a nightmare. We've had a calm weekend and we managed to even build a huge snowman! 

Yesterday though it was The time. There's an important visit we'll be having on a Saturday so we had to have our car cleaned and some things bought. Instead of taking our usual route through villages we decided to take a more straight road, with less altitude differences and turns for, hopefully, a safer drive, and a part of that road was through a road similar to a highway. That was our time on a road so big and fast paste and YIKES that was scary. My phenomenal wife took it as a CHAMP. She did so unbelievably good, despite the shitty weather with rain and fog in the morning, and the stressful night drive. To be fair she did a few mistakes, but fuck we're both alive, car undamaged and we weren't stopped by the police, and in my opinion that means she did fucking great for a first time on a highway-like road.
Besides the highway-like road drives she also drove us through basically the whole city that day, parking in shitty tight parking spaces, walking around the malls almost endlessly trying to find that One specific thing, enduring the endless questions of "Do you think this box will fit there?", "I don't know if this and that or those are a good choice", "Omg can we get *another capitalism mass produced useless toy/trinket*" for almost 12 h straight. We literally started our drive from home at around 7:30 AM and came back at around 8 PM. Oh also we both had doctor visits scheduled that day too.  

My wife is an absolute powerhouse through and through and I absolutely adore her. A year ago she would be terrified of a thought of driving in a city and look where we are today. We started from awkward and scary drives through the villages and now we're doing regular weekend drives to the city she was so terrified of before and even dabbling into highways. We started from her blowing up at every inconvenient driver on the road and now most of the time she calmly brushes it off immediately. 

Wren might not see this the same way as i do, but, if you're reading this, my sweetheart, please know: 

You are truly growing and you're growing really fast. I hope I express my love and pride of you enough, so that one day your achievements will outshine your mistakes in your head. Yesterday was a very lovely day all of which happened only because of you and your efforts. Thank you my dearest and I love you <3

Winter has come

    

   

  

Hya, Lycaina here! There was a big snowstorm yesterday, and apparently it's still snowing outside. We unfortunately had to cancel our plans to drive to the big city due to it, but after our short trip to the nearby village post office, I'm glad that we had not. Our car was really having a bad time in that snow so we had to drive at like 15km/h. And after we returned we had to at least shovel some snow in our yard cause our poor Lada was barely digging though it. Shout out to my lovely wife on the last pics <3 

Prayer to a River Spirit

Ahoj Pán Hornád, (Hello Lord Hornád)

Veľkolepý riečny duch, (Grand river spirit)

Our guardian and judge, 
Strong father, the nurturer.
You wrap around us like a snake
Just as dangerous, but gentle.

Every splash of water,
Is a heartbeat over stones,

Is a wild mountain song, 

With incomprehensible words.

May people treat well
Your banks and beaches.
May they revere your strength 
Not to feel your anger. 

You fuel this land 

And wash the filth away.

I pray you have a fair hand,

Please don't make us your prey.

I humbly pray for you 

Please keep us safe from ill,

So I will get to sing you praises

While living on this sacred land.

 

21 November 2025 

Written by me. No AI was used. Free for personal use. Please credit me if you'll repost the prayer somewhere.

Hii, Lycaina here!

As you can guess by the title, this is a prayer I wrote for a local river spirit that resides in my area. The river spirit here is insanely present, strong and beautiful. Lord of the River, together with Lord of the Railway Bridge, create both a physical and energetical barrier on the path to my house that is impossible to ignore. 

If Hornád desides that today no one gets in or out, he'll just flood his bank and there will literally be NO road to go through with a car. Only other way to reach my home would be on feet through a forest that very awkwardly sits on the hills. It gets very dangerous there during rain or snow, so Gods forbit Hornád becomes moody in winter - then you might be screwed for Gods know how long. I'm very honored that he has let me through the guard as I was a complete stranger to this area (I was preparing and later on moving in with my wife to her cottage). Reminds me I haven't visited him in a long time. I should really do that when the weather clears out here.