Dauntless: A Devotional for Ares and Mars by Rebecca Buchanan

Father of War. Father of Peace. Father of Fear. Father of Courage. Father of Discord and Harmony. Ares and Mars. Though the two Gods are often conflated in popular culture, they manifest to their devotees today as distinct entities. Similar, yes, but not the same - usually. In their respective pantheons, they are Gods of war, violence, virility, and raw passion, but also duty, loyalty, devotion, and fatherhood. They are numinous, yes, but also physical, earthy, tangibly here Deities. They are Gods of the body, who revel in and celebrate all that our physical selves can do. Labor, forcing ourselves to move (martial arts, exercise, the tilling of a field, the planting of crops, the carrying of weapons and shedding of blood in defense of another), is an offering perhaps best suited to these Gods more than any other. Hopefully, the words contained in this devotional - the prayers and poems and new myths and rites and essays - will please them just as much. And hopefully they will inspire you, the reader, to get up and move and celebrate these two Gods, the undaunted, eternal Masters of War and Fathers of Peace.