Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Mileth College.
As you might know, last time I spoke about Deoch - most particularly, about the idea of Deoch as a medium, and a message. I asked in particular: “What does Deoch become because of us - and how we explore our own inspiration?”
I spent the next moon reflecting on that class and wondering: could the same idea be applied to every deity in our octagram? After all, the Octave is a path, a journey - beginning with inspiration (Deoch) and ending in release (Sgrios). Could not, say, Glioca - also experience this same experience of seeing herself in our acts? Our deities do not just stand aside and watch us from afar. They are part of our lives - and we travel across each of them in our own cycles.
This lecture is an attempt, then, to speak to Glioca’s compassion - and how it transforms itself.
Let us begin. As always, if you have questions or thoughts, please feel free to whisper me as we go along.
Glioca is often thought to be the goddess of love, but we also understand her to be the avatar of a deeper force: compassion. We might also include here mercy - and tenderness.
It is tempting to believe that compassion is a simple thing: a warm hand, a kind word, a healer casting ioc on an injured comrade.
Instead, let us begin to have a more complex understanding of her than the way a child might understand kindness. Glioca is not merely the urge to comfort, or the instinct to soften blows.
Glioca, similar to Deoch - represents a force folding back onto itself, infinitely. Whereas Deoch’s force creates, Glioca’s remains.
Compassion is not an emotion. Emotions come and go - we may look across a pond and remember a moment with a lover. We may enjoy a moment with friends in our faorite pub. Emotions arrive and depart without any real explanation. Compassion, however, remains - it persists. In its persistence, we see its actions laid bare.
Compassion is a posture towards suffering. It is a stance, a philosophy, a coherent, universal position.
It is deciding to respond to pain not by flinching, or striking back, or explaining it away - but remaining present with it. When compassion encounters suffering, something remarkable happens: compassion cannot eliminate pain, undo wounds, or restore the world to how it was before. Compassion clings to the pain, and refuses to allow it to stand alone.
This is the first inward arc.
If this were only a reaction, however, it would exhaust itself quickly. An act of mercy, followed by withdrawal.
Glioca does not stop. She observes suffering, then observes herself responding to suffering, and then - responds again. This process continues again and again just as it does with her priests and priestesses. Compassion for the wounded. Compassion for those who tend the wounded. Compassion for the one who is exhausted and battered by compassion. Compassion for those who scream that they have no compassion left.
This is Glioca’s nature.
Compassion that notices itself, and chooses not to withdraw, but remains. When this compassion turns inward, it does not shrink: it widens. In this process it transmutes simple acts. Love without agreement, mercy without approval, forgiveness without forgetting.
Although it is tempting to focus on Glioca’s positioning as the goddess of love, it is more important to remember that compassion, first and foremost, is endurance in the presence of pain, and a continual return to compassion.
Let us imagine a single act of kindness. Let us examine it gently, without judgment.
Why did it occur? What need did it answer? What suffering did it not resolve?
Now, as Glioca would - let us extend compassion to both the person extending the compassion and the one receiving it. This produces a strange effect:
A compassion that is no longer satisfied with gestures. A compassion that refuses to end at boundaries (do you deserve this? Are you worthy?) A compassion that expands outwards - indefinitely.
This is why Glioca’s influence feels excessive to some. It spills over, overflows. It may not be welcome. It may not be thanked. It persists, even when exploited.
Infinite compassion really asks the question: is anyone still alone?
This position is inherently destabilizing to hierarchies. Compassion applied infinitely, universally, refuses clean divisions demanded between the innocent and guilty, worthy and unworthy. FFFFFFFF It dissolves divisions demanded by courts, by armies, by churches and even by ourselves. Glioca’s compassion persists regardless of the one causing the harm, the one who cannot stop the harm, and the part of ourselves that cannot forgive - or is tired of forgiving.
Glioca resolves this resistance by persistence - by staying. And that is costly. Compassion that does not know when, or cannot stop, becomes extremely inconvenient to systems that rely on clean, clear outcomes - like the law.
Similarly, then, to Deoch, we might ask: does compassion ever end?
Compassion, similarly to inspiration, only ends when presence ends. When witnessing ends. When we refuse to open ourselves again. This does not mean infinite tolerance of pain - or an absence of boundaries. It means we draw boundaries with compassion.
Leaving can be compassion. Grieving what cannot be saved can be compassion. Refusing, too, can be compassion.
Glioca does not command outcomes. She does not order us to love, to be compassionate. She instead reminds us through her own example to constantly extend a drop of her infinite compassion to others, in every act, in every relationship.
When you pray to Glioca, consider this:
We do not ask her to remove suffering from the world. We ask her instead, for the strength to remain within it - even when doing so causes us pain. We ask her instead for the ability to continually extend compassion - most importantly to ourselves. When we do this, especially when we pay a price - we are not imitating Glioca.
We participate in her ongoing discovery of what compassion is and what it is capable of bringing into the world. We participate within an infinite process of compassion.
Her work continues.
One more act of care, one more refusal to abandon - one more widening of the circle.
Let us end today by asking: Where has your compassion already tried to end, and what might happen if you extended compassion to yourself - and continued?
That is Glioca’s work. And let us remember to have compassion for ourselves, first and foremost. All are suffering as we do, and we change the texture of that instantly by yielding to Her art.
Thank you.