Drunk on the poetry of the one who promised the new wine, you asked for the gifts of Dionysos and the grace to receive them. It was given to you, an exchange of a life for a life, yours for him ever after. And you invited them in. Now he hunts in the night with [...]
Posts Tagged ‘spider’
A wonderful dithyramb of the land below
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ariadne, christianity, dionysos, harlequin, hermes, heroes, holy fool, italy, jim morrison, magic, nymphai, persephone, pinocchio, poseidon, spider on 05/25/2012 | 3 Comments »
South Italian santeria
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aphrodite, christianity, dionysos, gods, heroes, holy fool, italy, magic, nymphai, paganism, spider on 05/25/2012 | 13 Comments »
Can you really call what I do Pagan anymore, with all of these weird Catholic elements that have crept in? They’re superficial additions, I admit, like grotesque and absurd marginalia suddenly come to life – but they express something essential that lurks deep in my soul, something dark and Dionysian in a way that is [...]
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 »
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 [...]
Great poetry becomes myth
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dionysos, hermes, holy fool, nymphai, religious practice, spider on 05/25/2012 | 1 Comment »
Great poetry becomes myth. You know you’re doing it right when random street graffiti starts making sense, showing signs from the gods like distorted images in a mirror. This is my world: burying a bull’s head in the back yard, running in the woods possessed by dead kings, dancing with depressed spiders and headless saints, [...]
O Muse of Sicily
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aphrodite, ariadne, dionysos, greece, hephaistos, heroes, italy, mousai, mythology, nymphai, persephone, spider, zeus on 05/02/2012 | 2 Comments »
O Muse of Sicily with strong Doric voice sing to me a song of the land of my people, the thrice-holy island of the maid who weaves an image of the world as she waits for the embrace of her serpent-tongued father, the land which saw the gentle one-eyed shepherd go mad for love of [...]
Happy Walpurgisnacht!
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dionysos, festivals, hermes, heroes, holy fool, nysa press, spider, writing on 04/30/2012 | 10 Comments »
I was originally going to hold off on this announcement for a little while longer, but tonight feels like a more appropriate occasion, so here goes … Some of you may recall that I’ve been working on a book. Well, thanks to an observation Dver made some time back, I decided to split it up [...]
The Triple Temptation of the Mother of Life
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged christianity, dionysos, heroes, italy, janus, nymphai, spider on 04/30/2012 | 1 Comment »
Thou who with cleaving fiery lances The stream of my soul from its ice dost free, Till with a rush and a roar it advances To enter with glorious hoping the sea: Brighter to see and purer ever, Free in the bonds of thy sweet constraint, So it praises thy wondrous en deavour, January, thou [...]
Vino nuovo in otre nuovo
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged christianity, dionysos, hermes, heroes, holy fool, italy, magic, nymphai, oracles, oregon, ptolemies, spider, writing on 04/30/2012 | Leave a Comment »
The verse which the taranta-kissed dominus Bacchus of liberty whispers in my ear is orgiastic, triumphal columns of letters marching with elephants, jugglers, actors, mobile shrines, wine-pouring statues and sixty foot phalloi through the city streets. Once you open the door and let them in the poetry runs around wild in your head like Lydian [...]
The domino mask of Arlecchino becomes the Gorgoneion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ariadne, dionysos, hermes, holy fool, italy, magic, spider, writing on 04/30/2012 | Leave a Comment »
The magician is always on the edge of being proven a fraud until he does something spectacular, something fabulously miraculous, the revelation of something which the audience has never seen before, something that defies reasonable expectations and shatters all the rules of the phenomenal world. He makes them dream while awake and wonder if this [...]
Have you ever had the realization
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aphrodite, ariadne, dionysos, gods, hermes, heroes, holy fool, local focus polytheism, nymphai, ptolemies, spider on 04/27/2012 | 6 Comments »
Have you ever had the realization that your religion kind of creeps you out – and that’s why you like it. I mean, consider this: a god who was murdered as a baby and came back as a king bleeding wine prophetic spiders headless saints a vagrant magician who invents his own languages a whore [...]
Search-term poetry
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dionysos, harlequin, holy fool, oregon, spider on 04/22/2012 | 3 Comments »
The search terms that people use to find my blog are an endless source of amusement for me. Today, while going over them, I noted some truly lovely and poetic ones and so decided to stitch together a cento comprised entirely of them. Enjoy – and thank you for the inspiration, wanderers of the world-wide [...]
Adoratio explicatur
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apollon, ariadne, dionysos, egypt, gods, greece, heroes, italy, jim morrison, local focus polytheism, mythology, nymphai, religious practice, spider, writing on 04/13/2012 | 3 Comments »
A while back I wrote the 99 Adorations as a devotional tool to help deepen my connection to Dionysos. I’ve recited it, without fail, every Monday night since then and it’s proven far more effective than I ever could have anticipated. I was also quite pleasantly surprised by the trend it started which, as far [...]
My spirit-song
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alexander the great, christianity, dionysos, egypt, gods, heroes, holy fool, italy, julius caesar, local focus polytheism, magic, marcus antonius, persephone, ptolemies, religious practice, rome, spider on 04/05/2012 | Leave a Comment »
Ever since the onset of puberty our protagonist has lived with unfamiliar voices in his head, voices impossible for him to shut out. It has made him … a little strange. For instance, when the other children were out playing catch or tag or whatever it is children play these days (their iPods, mostly) he [...]
The Agony of Antinous
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged antinous, christianity, dionysos, egypt, heroes, italy, religious practice, rome, spider on 04/02/2012 | 17 Comments »
The annual agon to celebrate the Megala Antinoeia is coming up so I wrote the following. It is not an official entry since you have to join the list to submit material. The Ekklesía Antínoou is a fine and worthy organization but on philosophical grounds I refuse to belong to any group that would have [...]
That is Ariadne
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ariadne, dionysos, spider on 03/26/2012 | 3 Comments »
Ariadne’s name means the holy mystery we’re all searching for, the grail we travel great distances and face great monsters to claim. She is the cup into which the wine is poured, the clever virgin at the loom, weaving stories of gods and worlds we can only dream about, the lover clad in ivy-crown and [...]
The song of Maria of Nardò
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged christianity, dionysos, italy, nymphai, spider on 03/26/2012 | 2 Comments »
There’s a spider at the doorway, waiting for me. He is full of dark secrets, and poison, but I do not fear him. His bite sets me free to dance in the nymph-haunted grotto with swords and brightly colored scarves and my handsome lover, the headless saint, while the local boys play their intoxicating, whirling [...]
Gods I love my religion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dionysos, greece, italy, nymphai, religious practice, spider on 03/17/2012 | 8 Comments »
Here are a pair of quotes I encountered today: We hear of the Agrionia in Argos, however, that they were a festival of the dead. E. Rhode was right when he thought the same was true of the Boeotian Agrionia. Consequently we are again confronted by the fact of a festival which combines elements of [...]
Let it begin
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anthesteria, ariadne, dionysos, italy, spider on 03/04/2012 | Leave a Comment »
What will I be doing when that ship comes for me, that ship which no one alive can see. It’s masts were twined with vines and plump grapes hanging down, like bodies on the scaffolding, hung for their crimes, And everywhere there was a fog, smelling of the vats after the dancing feet, stung into [...]
My whole cosmology is contained in this video
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aphrodite, dionysos, hermes, holy fool, music, ptolemies, religious practice, spider on 01/07/2012 | 5 Comments »
Let me tell you an Eiraphioteion story
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged christianity, dionysos, gods, hermes, holy fool, italy, local focus polytheism, magic, paganism, philosophy, spider, writing on 12/29/2011 | Leave a Comment »
It begins with the realization. It was the Jägermeister that did them all in. Effluvium. He realized that that was all that they were. Effluvium. And that’s when it all went to hell. Or at least when he realized that they were all already there. [Remember, the clown can descend into depths where mortals fear [...]
