He fell asleep as Osiris and woke up as Serapis – that’s bound to take some getting used to. (King Ptolemaios I of Makedon was a high priest of the artists of Dionysos and a powerful magician, spinning enchantments like a spider that hunts in the night, all for the good of his people. He [...]
Posts Tagged ‘alexandria’
The reverie of Arlecchino
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexander the great, alexandria, christianity, dionysos, egypt, greco-egyptian, greece, harlequin, heroes, holy fool, italy, magic, marcus antonius, mythology, osiris, ptolemies, serapis, spider on 05/25/2012 | Leave a Comment »
Rex mortis est
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexandria, festivals, julius caesar, marcus antonius, rome on 02/15/2012 | 6 Comments »
The haunting strains of the aulos fill the empty spaces in the room between the clouds of sweet incense and pools of dim lamplight, revealing the still forms of the dinner guests caught in the musician’s spell mid-revel, words dead in their mouths, bowls of wine forgot, Demetrios’ hand hovers over the olives, and all [...]
Eniatos marches in the train of Dionysos
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexandria, dionysos, egypt, eugene, festivals, greco-egyptian, greece, hellenismos, local focus polytheism, oregon, ptolemies, religious practice on 10/26/2011 | 3 Comments »
For a while now I have been unhappy with my religious calendar. The problem isn’t the festivals, which I find immensely satisfying (especially once I modified them so that they better reflected my shifting spiritual focus by removing a few that were no longer relevant, adding some others and tweaking a detail here or there.) [...]
Thinking about ink
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexandria, apis, dionysos, hermes, marcus antonius, spider on 08/25/2011 | 16 Comments »
I stopped off this afternoon at my partner’s work for lunch and we talked a little about tattoos. Since leaving, that’s pretty much all I’ve been able to think about. It’s been a year and change since I got my last one and I’m starting to feel the itch. At present I have four tattoos [...]
Wedding-night jitters
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexandria, egypt, julius caesar, kleopatra, marcus antonius, ptolemies, rome on 08/12/2011 | 1 Comment »
So this is to be my husband, she thinks as she watches him approach from the scented sheets of her bed – now their bed, by official decree of the Roman people and the conqueror, Julius Caesar. He looks ridiculous in the double-crown, perched precariously on his boyish brow. She hopes he has the sense [...]
A month of Antony and Kleopatra
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexandria, festivals, kleopatra, marcus antonius, oracles, religious practice, writing on 07/25/2011 | 9 Comments »
Although there will be no festivals, no regular devotional days and no oracular session during the month which the vulgar insist on calling “August” it is not entirely true that this will be a time completely devoid of religious significance for me. I plan to spend each of its 31 days intensely focused on my [...]
The New Wine we were promised: I
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexander the great, alexandria, apollon, creative writing pledge drive, dionysos, egypt, festivals, gods, greece, hellenismos, herakles, heroes, jim morrison, kleopatra, marcus antonius, music, philosophy, ptolemies, religious practice, rome on 07/20/2011 | 8 Comments »
For Castus. Act One: Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin. I was recently asked to say a few words on a topic that is near and dear to my heart – hero cultus within contemporary polytheism. My literary patron (whose generosity is exceeded only by his wisdom) had some specific criteria in mind [...]
Artemis: a goddess for today’s woman
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexandria, apollon, artemis, christianity, creative writing pledge drive, gods, greco-egyptian, hellenismos, hera, hypatia, paganism, politics, zeus on 07/14/2011 | 1 Comment »
For Balladeer. A proper woman should have no interests outside the home. Her whole life is defined by her relationships to others. As a child she is to be chaste and obedient to her parents, dutifully performing her chores and learning the skills she’ll need to be a good wife and mother. After marriage she [...]
It’s all connected
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexander the great, alexandria, dionysos, festivals, hermes, holy fool, italy, oracles, religious practice, spider on 07/07/2011 | 4 Comments »
Though I don’t think I realized just how connected the threads of my spiritual life were until a couple of days ago. You see, there are basically two major reasons why I’ve begun this whole shift to Italy thing. There are a lot of minor ones, too, but they’re mostly extensions of either the Holy [...]
This video is epic
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexandria, magic, music, mythology on 06/28/2011 | 4 Comments »
That word gets thrown around far too often, but really there’s no other way to describe what Yoann Lemoine has done here. So much these days is derivative – and I say that as a proud proponent of Alexandrianism in the arts – but this feels very different, very original, with its own self-contained, consistent [...]
The Annotated Dinner Guests
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexandria, aphrodite, christianity, dionysos, greece, holy fool, italy, marcus antonius, oracles, pagan values blogging month, philosophy, spider, writing on 06/23/2011 | 2 Comments »
I had intended to explain some of the more obscure references and puns in my “Satyr play” The Dinner Guests which I wrote for Pagan Values Blogging Month 2011 and since I’ve got some time to kill before I go out and set up my street-corner oracle stand as part of my ongoing observance of [...]
More on my devotional activities for the Greater Feast of Spider
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexandria, dionysos, eugene, festivals, hellenismos, holy fool, italy, marcus antonius, music, religious practice, rome, spider on 06/23/2011 | 7 Comments »
I seem to have incredible luck with this festival, in that every year the city has decided to provide me with appropriately themed activities. Back in 2009, for instance, the Eugene Public Library put on a shadow-puppet show involving the West African trickster spirit Anansi just in time for my observance and the year before [...]
Too good not to share
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexandria, dionysos, greco-egyptian, holy fool, italy, kleopatra, marcus antonius on 06/16/2011 | 2 Comments »
There is a bon mot in The Dinner Guests that I don’t really expect anyone to catch. It’s part of the ἀναγνώρισις scene where Sannio shows that he recognizes Antony: and besides, I’d recognize you anywhere you zany Marco Antonio. That is not a spelling error – it’s actually the later Italian form of his name. But [...]
The Dinner Guests
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexandria, aphrodite, dionysos, hera, herakles, holy fool, kleopatra, marcus antonius, pagan values blogging month, philosophy, poseidon on 06/16/2011 | 14 Comments »
I wanted to talk about what I consider to be one of the most important of all Pagan Values: hunger. But I didn’t want to write yet another essay, so instead I decided to compose a Satyr Play on this noble theme. Granted, it doesn’t conform to the stylistic requirements of the genre but it’s [...]
Amanda Blake interviews me about Ecstatic
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexandria, christianity, dionysos, ecstatic, egypt, greco-egyptian, greece, interviews, nysa press, oracles, ptolemies, religious practice, writing on 06/08/2011 | 7 Comments »
Greco-Egyptian author and the founder of the temple of Athena the Savior Amanda Sioux Blake has posted an interview she recently did with me coinciding with the release of Ecstatic which I am reproducing here. You can find the original at http://templeofathena.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/interview-with-sannion-about-his-new-book-ecstatic/ You recently published what is, I believe, your fifth book, Ecstatic. Can you tell us a [...]
On a more pleasant topic …
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexandria, egypt, greco-egyptian, maria nilsson on 05/28/2011 | 2 Comments »
The good folks over at The Sirius Project have made a series of posts exploring the topography and symbolism of ancient and contemporary Alexandria, with a strong focus on the necropolis. You can find them here, here, and here. The gorgeous photographs are worth a visit alone, but the commentary is insightful and fascinating to [...]
My intense debate comments taken out of context.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexandria, christianity, dionysos, egypt, funny, gods, greco-egyptian, greece, italy, local focus polytheism, magic, paganism, philosophy, politics, ptolemies, religious practice, rome on 03/25/2011 | 10 Comments »
4 hours ago @ The Wild Hunt – Did Missionaries Trigg… · 0 replies · +3 points I think it’s very telling to compare the treatment of Jews under Pagans and Christians. Even though the Jews were opposed to traditional polytheistic worship they suffered no ill-treatment at the hands of the Ptolemies. (Minus Soter’s exploiting [...]
Birds of a feather
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexander the great, alexandria, arsinoe, creative writing pledge drive, dionysos, egypt, gods, greco-egyptian, hathor, horus, isis, mythology, osiris, philosophy, ptolemies, seth on 03/25/2011 | 2 Comments »
For Amanda. A lot of people when starting off on a Kemetic or Greco-Egyptian path have a difficult time making sense of the proliferation of Horus gods. Even if one ignores the abundance of regional manifestations and just focuses on the two most important and commonly encountered versions – Horus the Elder and Horus the [...]
Bookgasm
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexandria, christianity, dionysos, ecstatic, eugene, greco-egyptian, greece, hellenismos, judaism, magic, philosophy, rome, writing on 03/14/2011 | 21 Comments »
I wasn’t anywhere near the University Library today, so I decided to stop by and just explore random sections on a whim. Yeah, I have a problem. No, I won’t be seeking help for it. And, anyway, I totally hit paydirt. Right off the bat I found Paradise Earned: The Bacchic-Orphic Gold Lamellae of Crete [...]
The Hunter and The Swan Discuss Their Meeting
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexandria, greco-egyptian, greece, mythology, nysa press, writing on 03/06/2011 | 7 Comments »
I’ve been meaning to discuss this short film for a while now. It’s clever and funny and poignant and says some important things about myth. And although the story itself comes from Celtic and Germanic folk-literature, the way that it’s told strikes me as very Hellenistic. Hellenistic poetry is, unfortunately, highly under-appreciated these days. Most [...]
