I’ve been working on this off-and-on for a few months. I finished coloring it Thursday as a part of my Dionysia.
His beauty is a major point of iconography in Euripides Bacchae, and his purple robe is similarly emphasized in the first of the Homeric Hymns. The horns are in recognition of his title as Bull-god (and the attendant associations with unfettered lust, especially masculine). The significance of the thyrsus and wine should be obvious.
This post has already taken me too long to compose. I started it almost as soon as I first posted about the Urban Dionysia. The fact is, I find it difficult to write about my personal experiences with the gods. Some of those experiences have been very, very strange—to the point where, even after a decade and a half of living a magical life and talking or reading about other people’s magical lives, I don’t have an adequate cultural framework through which to process them. Other experiences, which may seem downright pedestrian when I reduce them to words or which I may know full well parallel the experiences of many, many others, have simply affected me so deeply that I cannot bear to subject them to public scrutiny. (The events which comprise my previous post include some of both) And, inevitably, part of it is that I spent so much of my life being angry at the very idea of gods that I still feel like something of a chump, sometimes, for honoring them. I’ve alluded to this last point before, and it is from there that I will begin.
Sometimes you have to need to provide context before you can tell a story. Sometimes, it’s best to tell a story first and dig into the context afterward. This is the story of how I came to perform my re-Dedication as a part of my Beltane festivities in 2009 … I’ll get to the context in a little bit.
It was my second Beltane after my failed life in St. Louis, the first with Aradia. It may almost go without saying tat we were at Camp Gaea, with my massive tent set up in Dava Wood. I had big plans for the weekend, aimed at jump-starting my magical career* in preparation for the re-Dedication I intended to perform at some point over the summer, and we were partying with the KU Cauldron. It’s tempting to break this into three different stories which coincidentally took place over the course of a single evening, but … I’m not so sure that they’re unrelated.
April showers bring May flowers. That’s what they taught me as a child, anyway. It’s a gross oversimplification of course, but still …
I took this picture two weeks ago, just before harvesting a few flowers for my Ostara Altar. The flowers—star magnolia, Ginko tells me—have finished blooming and fallen to the ground and been replaced by leaves. Although the middle of last week was seasonably cool—there was even a threat of frost Monday night—the fact is that Spring has come a solid six weeks early.
We’re into April, now, but … I have been bouncing off the fucking walls for a solid month. Fuck, it’s 2.30am as I type this, and I should have been asleep hours ago.
Partly this is just me pinging from stress. I always get frantic in the Spring Semester.
Part of this is the unseasonable warmth, and the off-and-on thunderstorm. A good, solid rain helps me sleep. But this … the tension in the air has me buzzing
A lot of it is the very nature of witchcraft—one of the major purposes of the rituals we do is to attune ourselves to the natural cycles of the land, and part of it may an unanticipated side effect of some of the magic I did to establish myself here in Indiana: I made a point of putting down roots, binding myself to the land.
The land is alive and awake.
And I am alive and awake.
A lot of the time it’s awesome. Right now, though, it kind of sucks.
The Facebook group Prayers to the Gods of Hellas informs me that the Urban Dionysia began at sundown last night, and will continue for the next eight days . The Attic title was Διονύσια τὰ ἐν Ἄστει (Dionusia ta en Astei: lit. “The In City Dionusia”) or Διονύσια τὰ Μεγάλα (Dionusia ta Megala: lit. “Dionusia the Big”). The Wikipedia article can be found here.
It is both interesting and appropriate that Sannafrid and I (unknowingly) chose to spend last night smoking and drinking, while I read aloud from my copy of the Homeric Hymns. First the Hymns to Aphrodite, as we had been discussing goddesses of fucking, and then the Hymns to Dionysus. As the evening went on, I colored an iconographic image of the god I have been working on off-and-on for some time. This afternoon, shortly before penning this post, I poured a libation of mead before the idol on my altar.
It is further interesting that, although we are shifting from Greek drama to Roman in my Greek and Roman Drama class, I have spent the afternoon reading* Euripides Hippolytus in anticipation of reading Phaedra, Seneca’s version of the story, next week. Hippolytus was first performed in 428 BCE, and—like all the Attic dramas which have survived—was a winner of the theatre competitions which were a major part of the festival.
Unfortunately, I do not have the liberty to take eight days off in honor of Dionysos—or even to get ploughed for the next seven nights in his name (and “sacrifice my liver”, as Sannafrid put it). Besides, the original was a state-sponsored festival which (to a casual but cynical reader, at least) looks like it was intended to duplicate, tame, and profit off of the older, Rural, Dionysia … and the Cults of the Olympians are not state-sponsored religion anymore.
What I can do is make a point of taking an hour or two out of each of the next seven days to meditating on the Bacchic One and upon my relationship with him, finishing the one devotional image I have so far, finishing reading Written in Wine (the devotional anthology Aradia gave me so long ago), and working on translating the Homeric hymn I never got to over Spring Break because the Hymn to Phanes took me so long. Hopefully, between these various things, I may develop some sense of how I might celebrate this festival (and the Rural, in the winter) within my own cultural frame work and (still infantile) devotional practice.
* I have read Hippolytus before, of course, for last semester’s mythology class. The roles of the goddesses Aphrodite and Artemis are too prominent to pass up. I could write a whole post about that play alone. Possibly several: one tackling the theme of hubris and failure to treat the altars of the gods; one dealing with Euripides treatment of women in general, and another on the misogyny of Hippolytus in particular. But those are rants for another day.
Herodotus relates a tale in his Histories of how the Persian king Xerxes bridged the Hellespont that he might invade Greece. Initially foiled, he does something that strikes modern historians as very strange:
…[A]fter these bridges had been built, a violent storm descended upon them, broke them up, and tore apart all that work.
Xerxes was infuriated when he learned of this; he ordered that the Hellespont was to receive 300 lashes under the whip and that a pair of shackles was to be dropped into the sea.
–Herodotus, Histories 7.34-35.1
He goes on to send “others to brand the Hellespont” (Ibid. 35.1), and to chastise it:
“Bitter water, your master is imposing a penalty upon you for wronging him even though you had suffered no injustices from him. And King Xerxes will cross you wheter you like it or not. It is for just cause, after all, that no human offers you sacrifice: you are a burbid and briny river!”
–Ibid. 35.2
It’s hard to say, as I’m not up to the original Greek yet, whether Herodotus and his own audience interpreted this scene the way most modern historians I have spoken to interpreted it—that is, as a sign of his barbarous idiocy, or possibly as tyrannical madness. Given Herodotus’s typical Greek disdain for foreigners—which is slightly ironic, given that Herodotus, himself, was from Halicarnassus, which many Athenians would have hardly considered Greek—this interpretation is plausible. But it’s also true that Herodotus, having travelled widely, was well and truly impressed by the works of many “barbarians”, the Persians in particular. And most modern historians wouldn’t know an enchantment from their own assholes.
As I re-read this scene today, after a few years of escalating magical practice and research into the way things were done in the Old Schools…. well, this scene looks like a binding to me. How about y’all?
Herodotus, First. Histories. Landmark Herodotus. Ed. Robert B. Strassler, Trans. Andrea L. Purvis. New York: Anchor Books, 2009. Print.
I disassembled my Yesod Altar last night and built up an altar representing the powers of Mercury in Hod. This, of course, is a part of my ongoing studies in Western Ceremonialism.
I chose last night to do it, in part, because I wanted to upgrade the talisman I’ve been using to help with my studies in Ancient Greek.
Then I remembered (again) that Mercury is still retrograde, and that not only is any magic a bad idea, but that Mercurial magic specifically directed at communication was an exceptionally bad idea.
The results from my last experiment were less than ideal. To say I haven’t slept right since would be an exaggeration, and imply a causal connection that is probably better attributed to a combination of school-stress and the manic side of SAD exacerbated by unseasonable weather. In this wake of this, a friend pointed out that perhaps Mercury Retrograde and the Vernal Equinox (the former in general and the combination in particular) were not the best time to be fucking with shit if I didn’t want to break my brain (again). I decided he was right, and have pretty much set aside all my experiments in favor of some basic aura maintenance and Yoga. This is probably the best decision I could make, because I really do feel a lot better after another rest.
But I’m starting to get antsy. That’s, again, at least party the unseasonable weather and the inevitable energy burst of spring. But I’m hot to get back into the magic. This isn’t βούλομαι—a rational wish or desire. This is ἐπιθυμεω (longing desire) bordering on ἐραω (love+lust).
I have always been drawn to magic; the more I do it, the more I lust after it.
I cant wait for Mercury to turn direct so I can get back to work.
I’ve told the story of how I broke my brain and then spent a year or so hiding in the basement. To say that I quit practicing magic altogether is an exaggeration, but these two meditations made up 90% of my practice at that time. It is to these meditations and that period of seclusion that I attribute my current sanity (such as it is … if that gives you any idea of how crazy I was before hand).
The first exercise, obviously, is rooted in the near-ubiquitous seven-chakra system I was originally trained in. It is not of my own design, but I can’t find my original source—perhaps it’s back with the library in Kansas City—or anything similar on the web. It should be easy to adapt to whatever shape you’ve worked your aura into. The second is of my own design. Suffice to say, I was once obsessed with energetic balance in the form of the Yin-Yang. Still, it was very useful.
Fountain of Light Chakra Meditation
Find somewhere quiet, preferably in front of your altar. Light incense, put on music—do whatever it is what you do. Sit comfortably with your back straight.
Reach down into the Earth, as far as you can. Open your Root chakra and let energy flow up into it. Feel it energize, swirling, building. The traditional color of the Root Chakra is red, and I found it helpful to concentrate on that color. Feel yourself grounded, steady, and rooted.
When you’re ready, let the energy flow up from your Root into your Sacral Center. Feel it energize, swirling, building, orange light. Feel yourself swell with vigor, love, and lust for life … and maybe outright lust.
The light and energy rises further, to the One Point at your solar plexus. Feel it energize, swirling, building, yellow light. Feel your body: feel its strength and precision, your capacity for movement.
The light rises further, to your Heart Center. Feel it energize, swirling, building, green light of primal life. Feel your heart and lungs, feel the blood and breath of life moving through your body.
The light rises further, to your Throat Chakra. Feel it energize, swirling, building, blue light. Feel your voice, your spiritual connection to the world around you.
The light continues to rise to your Third Eye. Feel it energize, swirling, building, violet light. Your Astral Sight grows sharper.
The light reaches your Crown. Feel it energize, swirling, building, and finally pouring out of you and back down into the earth in a fountain of brilliant white light. Your whole body buzzes with power. As the light flows out of your crown, you continue to draw it up from the earth, through each of your chakras, and out of your crown.
Allow the energy, the light, the power to continue cycling through you until you feel clear and bright.
Break the cycle at your Root, and allow the excess energy to drain off.
Yin-Yang Power Meditation
Sit somewhere comfortable where you are unlikely to be interrupted. Visualize yourself floating in a void.
In the void below you, visualize a large Yin-Yang disk floating perpendicular to the axis of your spine. Set it to rotating clockwise, and let its power rise up to fill you, then overflow upwards into infinity.
When you are ready, visualize another Yin-Yang disk floating above you, parallel to the first. Set it rotating counterclockwise and feel its power flowing into you, parallel to the stream from the first, and down into infinity.
Let the perfectly balanced energy fill you to the brim, as much as you can take. When you are ready, slow the rotation of both disks simultaneously, letting the energy flow taper off slowly until you are grounded and centered.
I wasn’t going to repost this at first. Everyone who reads me already reads Rune Soup, right?
On the off chance that some of you don’t: Gordon has just posted the most clear, concise, and exhaustive explanation of sigils, how they work, and how to use them that I have ever seen. Fucking read it.
As an added bonus, it also serves as an index to everything else he’s ever written about sigils, so by the time you’ve read them all you may consider giving up any and all other forms of magic.
Dude is fucking genius.
I can’t find it now, of course, but I was first introduced to the idea of the magical threshold and a monster that guarded it by a ritual I found on Witchvox when I was eighteen. I never did the ritual, of course. I wasn’t really doing magic back then, outside of my energy work and house wards and games of psychic tag. Hell, I don’t even remember anything about it except that it existed.
In the years since, I have encountered a number of variations on the idea, but I can’t really point to many of them because (until I started specifically researching them as I wrote this post) they were always incidental—either to the research I was doing, to the the article I was reading, or some combination of the two. The fact is that I dismissed them—incarnations of the Dweller on the Threshold, that is—believing them to be manifestations of a Christianized anti-magic worldview. The way I articulated that thought became more sophisticated over the years, but I never really re-evaluated that conclusion until recently.
