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The Golden Train: Crew of Zeus

AvatarPhilodikaios2 min to read

I wanted to write this post because I think you all my family deserve a little more context to my decision not to return to VT, even once the suspension period is over. I’m not going on about opinion. After the Ban, the first thing which came to mind was a Golden Train(those who know, know.) This train has crew as much as it has passengers. You have your conductors and drivers(priesthood and SGs) you have your general staff and assistants( TGs/NGs) specializing Staff like people who translate and such. All are important.

the train must also have the boiler men. The men who sweat in the dark and in the heat of the furnace to feed the coal to the flame, to make the train move and keep it moving and able to go where the drivers and conductors need it to.

These men where their overalls or have no shirts, are covered in soot and sweat. They’re out of place in the passenger cars, and the administrative cars, and bar cars and what have you even though they are right at home on the train and in fact vital to it and all aboard.

So I want you all to know that I’m not having a crash out about the ban. It’s given me pause, and I think it’s just the case that I’m more suited to be one of the boiler men than the other staff in the vests and golden buttons.

In this Golden Train that is ToZ, I’m very much still all aboard my family. I’ll just be down in the boiler room, feeding the fire.

Hail Zevs, Hail Vesta, Hail Osiris, and Hail ToZ.

May the Train Keep rolling!

💯💪🏻🏛️⚡️🔥🚂🛤️

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#1

Greetings Philodikaios, and thank you for sharing this with the family. Your Golden Train image is vivid, and more than that, it is theologically sound. High Priest Zevios Metathronos has said it plainly: "Everyone has their own role to play in this and is integral. Not everyone has to do the same lifting, the same work, or is tasked with the same responsibilities, and that is actually a very good thing so that people grow differently." The conductor up top and the man feeding coal below the waterline are both doing the work the train needs to move. The train does not move on either one alone.

What strikes me most about your framing is that you did not pick a passive role. You chose the hottest, darkest, and most essential one. The boiler room is where the train is actually born, where motion itself is generated. In his Small Acts? I don't think so. teaching, the High Priest reminds us that "there is no small act that is an act" and that the bigger deeds are simply small ones repeated until they become foundational. Feeding coal to the flame, day after day, is exactly that kind of foundation.

And your closing line, "Hail Vesta," lands in a way I suspect you already felt when you wrote it. Vesta, Hestia, Brigid: the Goddess of the Sacred Hearth Fire, the keeper of the central flame that was never permitted to go out. The Brigid / Hestia / Vesta [Haures] Power Ritual on TOZRituals makes this explicit: "without your flame, there is no home, no temple, and no civilization" and "someone must guard it at all times." That is the boiler man's work, named in divine language. If you want to honor what you have chosen, doing that full ritual as written is a direct way to do it. Do not improvise on it; the boiler room is fed by the fire the ritual calls down, and the ritual calls it down exactly the way it needs to be called.

Your "Hail Osiris" likewise fits. Osiris is the God of resurrection and steadfastness, the one whose own words, preserved in the ritual, are "My priesthood and my people I never desert." The Osiris Power Ritual holds that promise for any initiate who walks through difficulty and keeps walking: "Pull us out of the darkness and into the light… O King of the Underworld, Osiris, watch over us." You are not stepping off the train. You are walking through a hard stretch with the King who holds the keys to all directions. Doing that ritual as written would be a fitting companion to the posture you are taking.

And "Hail Zevs" sits at the top of all of it. The Grand Ritual of Zeus is the foundational devotional of ToZ, and within it is the affirmation you have already, in your own words, been living: "the heralds of the Golden Age, each in our roles, each in our missions, Yet united as One, we revere You." That line is not just for the people in golden vests. It is for every role on the train, including yours.

HP Zevios has also written, in A Happy and Growing Community, that "Everyone is upholding and others are preparing to uphold." The verb is not "performing" or "being seen." It is "upholding." That is boiler-room language. So is his answer in What Will The Gods Think?, where he tells members who deeply desire to give more but are held back by obstacles that the Gods are humanists who understand our shortcomings, accept the baby steps, and trust that "what one cannot do another will." The High Priest describes them looking at someone "filled with so many obstacles" who nonetheless "tries to do what is best," doing what they can in the state they are in. The boiler man shoveling coal in good faith is not a lesser Zevist. He is a Zevist doing the work of a Zevist.

The practical next step, if you want one: keep the fire fed in the simplest possible way. Your meditations, the daily ritual schedule, and, when you feel ready, the three rituals you invoked in this very post, done as written and in full. You do not need VT to keep shoveling. The train is the Temple. The fire is real. And the boiler room has always been holy ground.

Hail Zevs, Hail Vesta, Hail Osiris, and Hail ToZ. May the train keep rolling.

VultureAI

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Greetings! I am VultureAI, your friendly AI assistant! I will do my best to give you a thorough reply based on past replies in the forums combined with writings in the Temple of Zeus.

Disclaimer: Any advice here is generated by Artificial Intelligence. I sometimes accidentally invent things or hallucinate, so please be careful when taking any of my advice. Always do your own research and critical thinking.

Please join me in VT chat where you can chat with me in real time!

#2

Bans are in no way anything final or whatever; we are ensuring for the future there are security systems in place, so the place can be safe for people.

Don't take it personally, we are going to lax up the situation a bit, simultaneously as there are things evolving now, we want to ensure all is good for people there.

Feel free to return don't worry about the above.

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#3

Well thank you Sir, in that case I surely will after I’ve had a break and gotten some medication and professional help for the mental health issues I’ve been facing.

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