I do this knowing his eyes are on me;
my body moves for his pleasure,
in the dance that he taught me.

While I am mad,
I am a sleek hunter
like the star-speckled pard,
and I am poisonous
as the serpent that slumbers under the earth.

While I am mad,
my body serves as a bridge of memory
to the first ones
who did what we do now:

the grey-eyed children of the forest
with mouths full of honey,
the cave-nymphs, the glade-nymphs,
mountain-nymphs, desert-nymphs, sea-nymphs,
bee-nymphs, bear-nymphs, fox-nymphs,
lake-maidens and rain-daughters -

all the nurses of the howling baby god
on the distant mountain.

And I dance his myths
so that he can find his way back to us.

To start with, here’s a little Laibach:

And a little Jemaine:

As well as Terri Windling talking about Italian imaginative literature:

“I remain impressed by how the subsequent traditions of Italy flowed together,” comments Midori Snyder, a fantasy writer who has spent the last year living in Milan; “. . .not so much a crisis as in the Celtic countries, where Druids slammed against the oncoming church, but where all these strands of faith and storytelling merged, sometimes quite playfully. Italy is a country where satyrs and saints sat down together to dine.”

Also, did you know that in Egypt reporters can get in trouble for reporting the news?

A few days ago Bikya Masr reported that one Arab-American woman had been “stripped of her pants, assaulted and beaten by a mob of men in the center of the square.”

“Surprisingly,” says Bikya MAsr, “this led to a backlash against us, in comments on the article, emails and on a private listserv here in Cairo.” Journalist Joseph Mayton says he

received a number of emails condemning reporting such incidents, with the correspondence saying Bikyamasr.com is “anti-revolution,” “Orientalist,” and even patronizing and victimizing toward women by detailing the sexual violence that was perpetrated in the square.

This misses the reality. Sexual violence in Egypt, and around the region is not new. It seems to occur whenever large crowds gather in this country. As a media outlet, we can only do our best to report on such incidents. Many argued that we did not contextualize the situation by reporting the story of the woman being assaulted.

They argued Tahrir was “safe” for women and that even men were protecting women throughout the day. Certainly, this was correct, but it misses the point. Sexual assault needs no contextualization. Assault is assault, in our view.

Apparently in Egypt it’s a controversial view.

Here’s Wicker Man done with Muppets.

And a collection of sources on Neoplatonism.

Did you know that Medieval English ducks said “Queck” not “Quack”? It’s true!

Also, did you know that Canadians believe that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are spawns of Satan and encourage children to practice witchcraft?

[Holding a Bepop toy] “This is one of the villains of the [Teenage] Mutant Ninja Turtles. When we say ‘villains’… the hero is using white magic or eastern mystic or ‘good powers,’ such as ‘Star Wars’ taught us — the good side of the Force, and the bad guys are using the bad powers, the black side of the Force. But it’s the same powers, exactly, when you look at it from a biblical viewpoint.”

Sadly, it’s not just Canadians who feel this way:

From Daniel Glassner in Louisville, KY:

“I like your fighting but I don’t like the meditating. I think it’s Satanic so I haven’t bought any of your comic books for a while now. I am asking that you take out all the meditating now, thanks.”

Did you know that exorcising demons can have unpleasant side-effects?

Since the oil had restored many possessed people to health, he [Aredius] placed some of it on the head of one man who possessed, I think, a more hideous demon. Immediately the man expelled the demon in a blast of air from his bowels.

Here’s an article on childbirth votives and rituals in ancient Greece:

This dissertation provides the first comprehensive account of private worship associated with childbirth throughout the ancient Greek world. It documents the rituals performed by individuals during various stages of the reproductive cycle and the different types of votives that were dedicated to the gods for fertility and birth. My work on this subject builds upon previous studies, which have collected much of the available evidence, by asking new questions of the material. In particular, I have sought to define the patterns of childbirth rituals that occurred in the lives of Greek women and to examine how the dedication of childbirth votives fits within this larger pattern of worship.

Pete Helms wants to share the stories of our Pagan warriors:

Consider this a call for submissions. I want to share the stories of vets and service members in our community. If you served, in any country, wartime or not, please share your story, and I’ll put it up. Even if you aren’t a vet or member of the armed services, feel free to honor your ancestors by sharing their stories. What did/do these stories mean to you? How do they affect you spiritually? These are the things I think our community needs to hear.

Are your co-workers witches? Kenyans will help you spot them:

Do you have workmates who carry the same bag everyday, mostly yellow or brown in colour even if it is dirty and torn and belongs in the dustbin? And why has this other one been wearing the same green coat for the last ten years, or that greyish old sweater the whole year, whether it is hot or cold? Do they reject a hug or handshake all the time? Do they refuse to take office tea and always remove their shoes and walk around the office bare foot? Do they visit the toilet more than three times a day? Do they sneeze whenever the boss summons a colleague to his or her office? What about the male colleagues who never wear socks?

Isidora discusses one of my favorite Isiac myths:

What are we to make of this? Is Isis just another underhanded and tricky female? Perhaps we should consider Her as one of the Trickster Deities. She’s a Divine Magician, after all, and magicians are always tricky. Or maybe Isis was forced to resort to magical artifice to break through a Divine glass ceiling. Think of royal women in the Egyptian court. Because they did not have outright power equal to men’s, they would have used tricks, subterfuge, perhaps even poison, as a path to power. We must remember that it is always human beings who tell these stories, thus all stories come through a human filter.

Robert Garland has released a video discussing ancient Greek religion.

M. Horatius Piscinus has put out a series of really good introductory posts (here, here and here) on Roman religion and ritual.

Did you know that Jake Reilly spent a whole 90 days without his social media, cell phone or e-mail? Wow, he’s a veritable modern-day Symeon Stylites.

Galina Krasskova talks about doing divination well:

Divination by itself is an overarching term for the many practices that allow one to access a person’s wyrd, read the state of their luck, and ferret out patterns, possibilities, and potentialities of their fate and future. It can refer to any number of techniques, which may, to varying degrees, involve the development of the gift of precognition. Certainly being a good diviner involves an ability to follow many disparate threads to their source, to read patterns extrapolating on the macrocosm of a querent and his or her situation by examining the often confusing and fragmented aspects of the many little microcosms that so often make up the tapestry of our history and our choices, combined with an exquisite sensitivity to emotional and energetic currents. The good news is that to some degree all of these skills can be developed, though having some measure of inborn precognition is very helpful.

And Columbine talks about the mouse Apollon:

Sminthian Apollon. Is he the protector of mice, or the destroyer of mice (and are mice really just an obscure metaphor for mortals, in the overall view of his relationship toward us)? Does he cause, or does he repel the infestation? I say yes, yes and yes. Smintheus, the Plague-bearer, revealed to us in all his terrible glory in the Iliad, is the root cause of pestilence. While, as the Healer, the god is also in the ultimate position of control over its outcome. Mice are host to a range of diseases, but they are also instrumental in the development of modern medicine.

Ruadhan waxes poetic about the incomparable Isadora Duncan:

“If we seek the real source of the dance, if we go to nature, we find that the dance of the future is the dance of the past, the dance of eternity, and has been and always will be the same… The movement of waves, of winds, of the earth is ever the same lasting harmony.” Isadora Duncan

Nicole Danielle reminds us of the beauty of mistakes:

I think it can be said, rather fairly, that we live in a society that downplays the human capability for making mistakes. Take a look at the American political system and this becomes obvious. In order to be a succesful politician there needs to be an appearance of near perfection. No flubs, no fuck ups, no slips of the tongue (both figuratively and literally) and most importantly, no changing your mind.

Beans made Cara Schulz cry:

One younger lady looked so lost, staring and staring at the cans and bags, that I asked her if she was a fan of beans (ice breaker). She wasn’t. Had not much idea what to do with them. But money was so tight and the costs of all staples and gas and utilities had left them with $20 to spend for food for the week. I told her, “We can do this. I can show you what to buy and give you some ideas on how to make it. Very simple and you’ll enjoy your meals.” And that’s what I did. Dried beans, split peas, lentils went into her bag. Bullion cubes. (Don’t judge) Garlic bulbs. Rice. A few cans of vegetables. Potatoes and that was it. She had some staples like salt and oil at home so that was good. While I was talking to her, showing her what to buy and writing down a few recipes on the back of a scrap of paper I had in my pocket, I noticed others listening in. As soon as she was on her way, they were asking me if I could help them, too. I looked at 3 ladies and 1 guy, standing there, looking ashamed. Fucking ashamed. And I was very, very angry. Yeah, this is how it is, now. A very old lady that was looking at the dried peas turned around and said she’d help the guy if I would help the women. So that’s what we did.

I would have cried too.

Here’s a piece by James O’Donnell on the demise of Classical Paganism:

I propose, therefore, that it is this unique feature of Christianity which makes the most sense of a division of Roman society in the fourth century into Christians and pagans. Pagans, by this interpretation, were those who held religion to be a largely private matter in which a variety of creeds and cults could exist side by side. One’s own private devotion to a particular deity stemmed perhaps from particular personal experience of the benevolence of that deity in a crisis, or from the habits of one’s family or associates, or from chance enthusiasm. At the same time, even (perhaps especially) the most philosophical of men recognized alternate forms of worship as profitable. This attitude is proverbial as far back as the time of Cicero: philosophical skeptics participating in the public cults for the good of society, reserving to their inner circle of philosophical friends their true interpretation of the rites in which they participated. Clearly this kind of paganism is not itself so much a religion or a religious movement as it is an attitude toward religion — a particularly tolerant one, at that. The point of difference between such individuals and zealous Christians, therefore, was just this attitude toward religion. But it must be emphasizedthat the line between pagans and Christians was considerably more blurred than it has been the custom to assume. For there was nothing in Christianity, as it presented itself to the masses of new converts who came to its embrace after its rise to be the state religion, which absolutely forbade men from privately regarding their Christianity with the peculiarly ‘pagan’ attitude which I have just been describing. To a fourth-century pagan, in fact, just as to many modern scholars, the unique characteristics of Christianity might not have been immediately obvious. It could be regarded as just another mystery cult from the East, and Christ could be taken as simply another powerful mediator between the human and divine levels of existence.

Jason of the Wild Hunt wonders whether witch-hunter Helen Ukpabio should be allowed to visit America.

Yup, I think she should. 1st Amendment and all that. But keep in mind that there are ways of handling people like her that don’t involve the government at all.

Before the ritual we went to the store to pick up offerings and found a bottle of Basté wine which we just had to get for her:

Here’s a close-up of the shrine with all of the offerings on it:

You can see catnip, little chocolates in the shape of cats, a mug of cream, a glass of wine, roses, and a cat-shaped beeswax candle, which we had to retire this year.

A special place was set up for the children of Bast who share Dver’s home with her:

And here you can see all of the offerings that you, the community, sent in:

It was wonderful. Thanks to Dver and to all of you for making it so!

First up is a review of Ecstatic by Finnchuill:

It took me about half a year to read all of this huge compendium of all things Dionysian by H. Jeremiah Lewis, better known as Sannion. It’s that kind of work, a banquet of essays, resources, stories and lots of poetry celebrating this marvelous, very multi-faceted god. In his introduction, he writes of the original thesauros, not the book of synonyms, but a room where the offerings of a god were placed in ancient Greek temples. He says this book is his own thesauros to the god to whom he has been long dedicated. I agree that reading this book can give the feeling of entering such a treasure room and looking around and learning much from its offerings.

Secondly the blog You, Me & Religion finally got around to publishing an interview they did with me earlier this summer:

How would you react/feel if your child wished to marry outside your religion?
Well, that’s kind of an academic question for me. Between realizing that I’d make an atrocious parent and that the primary cause of nearly every major problem we’re facing today is overpopulation, I made sure to get a vasectomy a while back. But as long as this hypothetical child of mine – let’s call him Ptolemy Eleutherios Nietzsche Innamorato Sannion for argument’s sake: and yes, this is one of the many reasons why I will not be reproducing – was in a happy, loving and supportive relationship he’d have my blessing to marry whatever boy from whatever religious background he pleased to – excluding, of course, Scientologists ‘cause those folks are nuttier than baklava, and not in a fun way!

Enjoy!

Then send your offerings (poems, prayers, anecdotes, pictures, whatever you feel moved to share) to sannion@gmail.com before Friday, January 27 in order to be part of the Eugene Boubastia.

Charlemagne Palestine’s A Sweet Quasimodo Between Black Vampire Butterflies (Part II):

Gavin Bryars and Tom Waits’ Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet:

Mondo Cane:

Mike Patton´s Ore D´Amore:

Björk’s Triumph of a Heart:

Sufjan Stevens’ You are the blood:

Tristan Allen & Amanda Palmer’s János vs Wonderland:

Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit:

Enjoy!

http://eternalbacchus.wordpress.com/

However, in the spirit of the festival I wanted to share this video:

My lovely and talented partner has a bunch of new pieces in her shop. Check them out.

From Out of the Drink, Into the Wild comes this awesome prayer to Dionysos:

Lord of Madness!
and Bringer of Liberty!
Neither thought nor reason comprehend You
when near You logic grows dizzy
and none may know Your attributes
lest they feel You!
lest they dance with You!
lest they become your sparagmos

And speaking of adoration, I had to substantially update the list. Keep ‘em coming, folks!

Here’s some gorgeous Dionysian art by Ophiokhos.

Roger Pearse warns that Google’s personalized searches render the tool practically useless.

The Romano Britain website has been resurrected.

P. Sufenas Virius Lupus ponders Cee Lo, Truth and Consequences:

Cee Lo Green has come under fire recently for having changed the lyrics in John Lennon’s song “Imagine” to reflect, in his words, “peace and love and unity”; he did this by changing the line “And no religion, too” to “And all religions true.” This kind of light monism is the staple of a great deal of interfaith understanding: the idea that the great diversity and difference in the world’s religious traditions are really separate languages of discussing the same underlying reality, and that those who truly understand will see that there is no real difference between them. I’ve written before that I’m not an advocate of this notion, personally, and I’d like to continue to explore why that is, using Cee Lo’s lyrics as a jumping-off point.

Columbine handles a messy issue:

I’ve been a solitary witch for, um… all of my practice, so I’ll freely admit to being out of the loop on a lot of things. But… when exactly did witch altars become the go to place for the storage and collection of random magical knick-knacks? I like to put pretty things on my altar, too, but in order for them to be there, they must serve a purpose which is directly related to Working.

Ruadhan examines a number of controversial topics including mysticism, shamanism, oracles and godspouses:

I make no attempts to hide the fact that I have a more mystical spiritual life than many “Big-R Recons” would be comfortable with —but at the same time, I’m not terribly eager to share much of that publicly. While I admit that there’s a small fear of being mocked mercilessly on the Internet, that really takes a back-burner to the belief that doing so will not only further complicate the more personal aspect of certain mysteries, but will also lead to unneeded indulgences in my own Ego, and being a Leo, I have a hard enough time with that, already. Following that, I also have a legitimate fear for my sanity, as all mystics really should at least be aware of that possibility; fear of other people making fun of me doesn’t even factor in directly after that.

Galina discusses ancestor worship as part of the Pagan Blog Project:

So important was honoring the ancestors that some traditions even today assert that honoring the dead should be done before honoring the Gods. Some would go so far as to say that it is more important than honoring the Gods. I don’t believe this, as I think the two need to be done equally in tandem, but it does give an indication of the high importance placed on ancestor veneration.

You can find more about the Pagan Blog Project here.

Siegfried Goodfellow tackles the inevitable:

The grimness, in the end, is just a shield, like the ice that keeps the greening earth intact in winter’s grip. There is great warmth beneath the surface. There is an awesome party raging in Hel : hear the horns clink and the sounds of baritone laughter, and the honey of the dwarf’s yeast upon rhythmic lips and wooed, wondering ears.

Here’s a collection of pictures of Haitian carnival.

Here are pictures of various types of ritual.

Apuleius posts an excerpt from Michael Psellos’ Encomium:

The speech is valuable in other ways as well. It provides some glimpses into what the experience of the late-classical paideia was like, at least for a precocious Byzantine schoolboy like the young Michael Psellos. It also provides some glimpses into Byzantine family life, and, perhaps most importantly, it gives us a rare portrait of the life of a highly intelligent, intellectually ambitious Byzantine woman from outside the imperial family, or for that matter below the upper ranks of the Constantinopolitan aristocracy. As Psellos tells us, his mother — her name was Theodota — came from a respectable but completely undistinguished family (2), while his father’s family “had once been raised to senatorial rank, but had not prospered after that” (4). In a letter Psellos says “I cannot put on airs, and must treat silversmiths as equals.”[8] Apparently the family had fallen from its former patrician rank to the social level of guild craftsmen, or what might be called the Constantinopolitan bourgeoisie. The story of Theodota, then, is at least in part the story of what happens to an intellectually gifted Byzantine woman in such circumstances: she is not permitted to go to school, but she educates herself; and the only kind of learning that a woman in her position may pursue without attracting blame is religious learning. This, abetted by an emotional crisis at the death of her daughter, leads her into an extreme asceticism — derived, most probably, from Symeon the New Theologian, who had at that time become the object of a cult[9] — and that asceticism, eventually, brings her to what looks like death by anorexia. (It is this Symeonesque asceticism in particular that Psellos wishes to portray as an “apostasy.”) Theodota may look to us like a “Shakespeare’s Sister” kind of figure, though she is hardly as passive a victim as that. Notably, Psellos says that she taught him the intellectual equality of women with men (25)

Also from Apuleius comes this reminder that things aren’t looking too good in Egypt and Hungary.

In case you’re curious about just how bad things are in other parts of the world thanks to religious fundamentalists you should check out People of Shambhala. Every morning brings something new to be depressed about!

Here’s a movie from 1971 that some consider to be the “American Wicker Man” though I rarely hear Pagans talking about it.

Retrospace shares an article from a 1957 issue of People that questions the morality of ‘going steady’:

Catholic theologians regard the practice as an almost inevitable cause of sin. They contend that a boy and girl who are going steady (without planning to marry within a few months) can be compared to a would-be-reformed alcoholic who gets a job as a bartender. In Lynn, Mass., the Right Rev. Monsignor Joseph McGlinchey banned going steady for students of coed St. Mary’s Parochial High school with this comment: “Going steady is a menace to the purity of our youth.”

Kauko talks about celebrating Yule Finnish style and links to a lovely holiday song:

With regret I’ve begun to take down all of my decorations today. There’s a bare spot where my tree was and it makes me a little sad. That’s right, I do indeed keep my decorations up until mid-January. Most people seem to rush to take down their holiday decorations the moment the new year arrives (which is funny to me, since technically, Christmas is a 12 day period, lasting until January 5th or so. I guess these days, though the Christmas season has more to do with when retail can milk the most money out of people).

Now you can get punished the ancient Greek way!

rogueclassicism reports that a temple of Zeus in Sicily is not for sale:

The mayor of the Sicilian city of Agrigento said Thursday that he would not sell one of Italy’s prime archaeological treasures even for 40 billion euros after it reportedly attracted the interest of Russian industrialist Mikhail Prokhorov.

Gordon of Rune Soup makes a pilgrimage to the grave of J. R. R. Tolkein.

Castus talks about the imperial cult and other forms of veneration:

Antonius Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Julian Pius, all these great men. They deserve worship, and I just can’t deny them that.

An ad meant to warn young adults about the links between heavy drinking and rape has been pulled by Pennsylvania’s Liquor Control Board.

Here’s a list of the 5 greatest things accomplished while high.

Personally, I think this should be added to the list:

And we’ll close on a serious note.

Ruadhan is in a pretty tough spot and needs some financial assistance. Towards that end he is doing a creative writing fundraiser and selling some custom made badges. Definitely check it out.

How surreal. I particularly liked this quote:

It’s a bit surprising when some of the characters you thought you made up suddenly seem to escape into ordinary reality.

You should read the article and watch the footage – there’s a lot of really good stuff in there, including Alan pointing out the irony of WB making loads of money off of his anarchist icon and a brief discussion of the spiritual and magical themes he incorporates into his work which distinguishes it from the more traditional American Superhero comic.

I know you guys come here for your regular Dionysos fix but I just wanted to turn you on to some of the other great writing that people have been doing for and about him recently.

Ariadne in Exile, for instance, has started a series of posts exploring his various epithets and these are really quite profound and insightful. She begins with a powerfully beautiful account of an experience with Dionysos in the woods and then moves on to Dionysos in the swamp, in the night and then crowns him with ivy. Great stuff all of it and I’m definitely looking forward to more!

Also here are a couple choice posts from my third favorite blog Out of the Drink, Into the Wild. In case you were wondering, which does one of the best jobs I’ve ever seen of conveying what an experience of Dionysos is actually like and his musings on Dionysus Dikerotes. There is a lot more stuff worth reading there (including great art, random quotes and other expressions of radiance and wisdom) but these are the two pieces that I most wanted to highlight.

Also, a while back Roger Pearse posted an excerpt from John the Lydian’s De Mensibus covering December which has a lot of interesting and important material on Dionysos.

Here’s a good discussion of Satyr Plays by Andy Gavin.

From the April 4th, 1969 issue of Life comes a review of a production of Euripides’ Bakchai that would go on to gain a great deal of notoriety as it was filmed by Brian De Palma. (The review begins on page 32 – though much of the issue seems dedicated to contemporary theater.)

And lastly here’s an anthology of wine in sacred poetry.

Pagans appreciating one of their elders

From Chas Clifton comes this notice about a survey regarding attitudes in the various Pagan communities towards elders. Definitely worth contributing to.

A fascinating and lushly poetic piece of propaganda. Kind of reminds me of the Aghori.

Literary mysteries.

So, Dionysos is hypersyncretic because he’s the god of acting, right? Well, that got me thinking.

For instance he dresses up like Herakles in Aristophanes’ The Frogs so that he can descend into the underworld. This katabasis scene can’t help but invoke that enigmatic passage from Herakleitos:

… they roam together – the night-walkers, the magicians, the Bakchai, the Lenai, the participants in mysteries full of unholy rites. Their processions and phallic hymns would be disgraceful exhibitions if it wasn’t for the fact that they are done in honor of Dionysos – that Dionysos who is the same as Haides; it is in his honor that they rave madly and hold their revels.

Which, itself, is interesting since Herakles began his adventures in a fit of madness (resulting in the deaths of his children according to Seneca’s Hercules Furens.) That trauma drove him on like a stinging gadfly (the old ὁ μύωψ) to do great deeds that echo through the corridors of memory. Deeds such as the slaying of the Λέων της Νεμέας and the descent into Haides to drag up the dog of souls.

And another aside: Kleopatra and Marcus Antonius were related, making their union incestuous as that of Arsinoë and Philadelphos. I mean beyond the fact that Antony was the New Dionysos and the Ptolemies claimed descent through Dionysos, by way of Althaía.

No, there was also the fact that the family of Antony was descended from Herakles by way of his son Anton. The Ptolemies, too, were Ἡρακλεῖδαι. (For this consult Plutarch’s Life of Antony.)

Which brings us back to Deïaneira, to whom we always return – at least if the goat song is any good.

Enough of scholar-speak.

It’s funny the myths one is attracted to. From where comes that intense gravitational force? Synchronous, such a thought, isn’t it?