A Hymn to Dionysus

All hail Dionysus

lord of the vine

Liber Pater

source and surcease of madness

 

It is you whom I honor

as I prepare my cups

and when I empty them

in vino veritas

 

You are Zagreus

to whom Zeus bequeathed the throne

You are the bringer of wine,

the liberator and savior of mortals

 

It is you to whom I pray

when my mind betrays me

when I weep for no reason

when I lay shaking from passions

which even I cannot name

 

All hail Dionysus

lord of the vine

Liber Pater

source and surcease of madness

ξένια: The Ethical Implications of Hospitality and Witchcraft

Behold, ξένια (xenia):

“… There you have my lineage.  That is the blood I claim, my royal birth.”

When he heard that, Diomedes spirits lifted.  Raising his spear, the lord of the war cry drove it home, planting it deep down in the earth that feds us all and with winning words he called out to Glaucus, the young captain, “Splendid–you are my friend, my guest from the days of our grandfathers long ago!  Noble Oeneus hosted your brave Bellerophon once, he held him there in his halls, twenty whole days, and they gave each other handsome gifts of friendship.

Come, let us keep clear of each other’s spears, even there in the thick of battle.  Look, plenty of Trojans there for me to kill, your famous allies to, any soldier the god will bring n range and I can run to ground.  And plenty of Argives too–kill them if yo can.  The men must know our claim: we are sworn friends from our fathers’ days till now!”

Both agreed.  Both fighters sprang from their chariots, clasped each other’s hands and traded pacts of friendship.

Iliad VI.251-279.  Translated by Robert Fagels.  Penguin (1990).

From ξένος, “stranger” (though, specifically a civilized neighbor, not βαρβαρος ) and often translated as “guest-friendship”, ξένια was the ancient Hellenic practice of hospitality that assured travelers a safe place to stay, on the one hand, and the good behavior of guests on the other.  In a very real sense, the reciprocal obligations obligations of hospitality among mortals mirrored the reciprocity of piety and patronage between mortals and gods: it was a covenant.  Guest and host honored their duties alike, because it was one of the founding ethics of their society; to fail to do so invited chaos.  The central conceit of the Iliad, after all, is that Paris/Alexandris violated the terms of hospitality when he abducted Helen (willingly or unwillingly, the primary text is unclear … and how does being brainjacked by Aphrodite, as Helen implies she was at III.460-5, calculate into discussions of consent?), and the otherwise un-unified whole of Greece went to war for it.  For further examples, the whole Odyssey is basically a treatise on what goes wrong when you violate the terms of hospitality.

This is one of the Hellenistic practices that translates almost directly into my own life: all who come under my roof come under my protection–for the duration of their stay, at the very least.  Those who partake of my hospitality may always expect (at the very least):

  • clean water, and what food and booze I can afford to share (all my friends being as poor as I am, that painful caveat is mutually understood)
  • a safe place to stay at the end of the party and an intervention of they are too intoxicated to travel on their own
  • a safe place to stay when traveling through my territory
  • the use of my shower and laundry facilities
  • that, barring simple accidents, their bodies and property are safe within my territory
  • that they may always request a change of subject, excepting only if an intervention is taking place
  • that, while sexually charged situations may arise, sexually predatory behavior will never be permitted
  • that, should anyone encroach upon them, I will always take their side

But the idea of sacred hospitality also intersects, in my mind and heart, at least, with Hermetic notions of the Kingdom and with my feminist notions of witchcraft.  For those who partake of my hospitality on the regular, the protection follows them home.  And, however problematic it may be, I expect the same of them.   They are allied nations, in a sense, and the standards by which I judge the hospitality they offer are raised considerably.  Although I have never been handed this law as a taboo, it is the only position I can hold given my particular background of neo-Hellenism, Hermetics, and feminist witchcraft.  Simply put, fair or not, I hold the hospitality of others to my own ethical standards as a matter of spiritual obligation.

The thing of it is, though, these are not just words.  Ideas have consequences–ethics in particular.  What does one do, then, as a modern neo-Pagan neo-Hellenistic feminist witch, the divinely-charged manager of one’s own spiritual world, when one learns that a friend–the lord of an allied Kingdom–has grossly violated the laws of hospitality?

Clever readers will have already noted that this is a particularly neo-Pagan spin on one of the fundamental issues in feminism and other social justice movements: how do we police our own spaces?  What is the best way to respond to racist, sexist, and homophobic language when it’s coming out of the mouths of people we love?  What do you do when your friends exhibit sexually predatory behavior?

I don’t have the answers to these questions, unfortunately.  Confronting bigots in the wrong way often leads to them doubling-down on heir biases; socially isolating predators can lead to faster escalation.  Do we bind them then?  Curse them into oblivion?  Feed them to the Furies or to Tartaros, himself?  But I’m tired of seeing these issues blown off in Pagan circles as “divisive”, or being the fault of people who just can’t hack it (whether “it” be the liqour they’re drinking or the permissive atmosphere of festivals or whatever), or dismissed as “politics” and therefore unrelated to spirituality.

I am, however, hereby formally proposing that, at the very least for those of us who see a sacred component to hospitality, these are issues of spiritual consequence.

τούσδε ἡδονάς ἐρω: Because You Asked For a List

I like to be touched

For no reason,

Before we take off our clothes;

Before we are even alone.

A hand on my shoulder or arm,

A brush of your fingers against mine,

Reminds me that, first, we are friends.

 

I like to be kissed

Tenderly, then passionately.

Slowly by turns, and then hard.

My mouth, my cheeks, my eyes and ears.

 

I want your hands

On me:

Everywhere:

My face, and my arms,

Your fingers in my hair.

Play with my nipples,

My back, and my thighs.

 

Let your hair cascade

past your shoulders, falling

over me: silken caresses,

the smell of human and shampoo.

 

Kiss my wrists, my ribs,

My ears, my neck,

My fingers, and behind my knees.

Linger

on your favorite parts.

There is no part of my body

I do not want in your mouth.

 

I like to look at you

Beneath me, smiling;

To see you atop me

Taking your pleasure.

 

I like to be fingered

And fucked in the ass.

Penetrate me.

Claim me.

Leave your mark

for the world to see

or not.

 

I like to take turns,

On top and on bottom:

teasing and talking.

fucking and laughing.

 

I want you to tell me

what you need,

What feels good.

Teach me where

To touch you and how,

What not to do.

How many times can you cum?

 

There should be laughter

And love, whatever the flavor.

Pillow talk about verbs,

And the friends we both lust after.

 

And even if you can’t stay

until morning,

stay for a while, in the quiet,

so my oft-broken heart can believe,

though you’ve given no cause for doubt,

that you will still respect me

when you’ve gone.

Playing the Vessel

Over the course of the last week, I have twice played meatsuit to familiar spirits.  Last Wednesday, as a part of my extended Samhain rites, I allowed my natal daemon, SKM, to ride me through the school day.  Saturday night, I followed this up by offering the same privilege to my natal genius, ZG.  Both experiences, while much less intense than I had anticipated, were equal parts surreal and informative.  I required only one thing of either of them:  that, in riding me, they not undermine any existing alliances and relationships, a restriction which neither found to be a burden that I can tell.

SKM, it turns out, is a huge fan of poetry (I am not): when I went to a performance with several friends Wednesday afternoon, he was moved to tears.  He is very formal in his language and purposeful in his movements.  When he first entered into me, it was a clear and visceral sensation—particularly odd, as I was driving at the time.  He seemed especially fascinated by the experience of having hands.

ZG, I should not have been surprised to learn, is very, very quiet.  She speaks only when there is something to be gained from it, and then in as few words as possible.  I barely noticed when she came into me, perhaps because our ways of thinking were so similar, possibly because the copious amounts of absinthe I had consumed that night (it was my birthday party) served as a sort of lubricant.

Where SKM was content to observe but willing to act, watching from a distance was ZG’s preference.  Both seem to approve of the people I surround myself with.

Tsu, my first familiar spirit, who had never expressed interest in possessing me before that I can recall, reacted jealously that ZG and SKM had had the opportunity before ze had.  So I’ll be reporting on that experience at some point in the future.

Orphic Hymns: Taylor vs. Athanassakis

English: Orpheus
English: Orpheus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Classicist Apostolos Athanassakis recently released a new edition of his English translations of the Orphic hymns—previously released in the 1970s and, to the best of my ability to determine, the first new translation since Thomas Taylor’s in 1792.  I’ve been going over the hymns and notes for the last month, and using the hymns in my rituals for the last two weeks.  I must admit, that I’ve been rather surprised by the results.

Firstly, the Athanassakis translation is every bit as different from the Taylor as I would have imagined: no anachronistic rhyming couplets, no 18th century euphemisms or evasions, no substitutions of Roman names for Greek.  Because Classical scholarship has come a long way in the last two hundred years, I do not hesitate to assert that the translations are more accurate for reasons other than the brutal mangling needed to turn Koine iambic hexameter into English rhyming couplets.  And, to my delight, my own translation of the Hymn to Phanes ends up looking pretty solid.

For worship of the Hellenic gods, the new translation is by far superior: epithets are better preserved, and Athanassakis pointedly maintained what he felt to be the religious feel of the texts.  Dionysus, Phanes/Eros, Hermes, and Aphrodite have all responded well in my private rites.

For in/evocation of the Planetary powers, however, and to my extreme surprise, I have found the Taylor translations to yield much better results.  This is partly because, however I may despise them aesthetically, rhyming couplets make great magic.  This may also be partly because the Taylor translations have been so thoroughly incorporated into the Hermetic tradition, and thus provide better access to that magical current.  Further, the actual textual differences between the texts(coincidentally or otherwise) align the Taylor translation more closely with the Planetary powers than with the divine mythology.

Thus, while I must strongly advocate that any Hellenic-flavored neo-Pagan invest in the Athanassakis translation, as well as anyone with a scholarly interest in the hymns, ceremonial magicians have no need to do so.

On the Formation of Divine Pairs

A while ago, I split my giant altar up into a devotional space and a planetary working space.  It was good for the planetary magic, but it actually made devotional work really difficult, as it greatly reduced my space.  Offerings were spilled, gods were cramped, and it was pretty much less than ideal.  So, shortly after coming back at the beginning of the semester, I started rebuilding again.

The fact is that planetary work is no longer a large enough portion of my practice to justify each planet getting its own mini-altar.  So I’ve replaced that structure with a set of planetary boxes, inspired by Jason Miller’s Jupiterian cash-box, and reincorporated the shelves back into my primary altar, leaving only the end-table as a workbench which I can lift out of its corner and back in as needed.

As a part of that reconstruction, I finally—as I had been considering doing for some time—added Eros/Phanes and Aphrodite to the altar.  You can see them in the box immediately below Dionysus at the apex.

027

It’s somewhat amusing, but it actually didn’t occur to me until more than then days later that I had framed the two as a divine pair: like the Witchmother and Kouros at the heart of the altar, like my natal genius and daemon, even like my familiar Tsu and the Cave Canem construct.  Like I have considered pairing Hephaestus and Athena as gods ruling craft—or, alternatively, Athena and Hermes as gods of the mind.

It’s interesting how ideas linger.  I have never identified as a Wiccan, never really believed in the duotheistic worldview.  But all of my formative literature came from that perspective, and the asymmetrical balance of Wiccan altar construction has always appealed to me.  I have consciously employed that aesthetic to various degrees at various times, but this is the first time I can recall having done so unawares.  Unlike the Witchmother and Kouros, a fairly traditional set of complementary opposites—specifically set up, in fact, so that I might explore my relationship with those archetypes—they form a unified pair: dual expressions of the primal need that moves the world. 

When I pour out my libations, I address them as “Eros/Phanes, Aphrotide: source and expression of desire.”  So far they have been good to me.

 

Dionysiac Sketches

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A pair of sketches from the last few days: a female satyr (unattested in the 5th and 4th centuries Greece, but appearingin the Roman era and rife in later neo-Classical periods) and a Dionysiac phallus.

From Eric Csapo:

The zoomorphic concept of the phallus is pervasive in Greek thought-one has only to think of the many representations of phallus birds in Greek art.  It is also essentially Dionysiac. The phallus icon of Dionysus and the phalli carried in Dionysiac processions are always regarded as independent living organisms, of which the glans is a head, equipped with eyes and sometimes with (phallic, horse-like) ears and other animal attributes (see Plates 1A, 1B, 1C, 3, 4, 8A, 8B).41 The eyes, ears, and the phallus are the essential organs of the Dionysiac creature, but especially the eyes and phallus, because, though one can be possessed by music through one’s ears and possess others through theirs, it is by one’s own eyes and phallus that one is both possessed and takes possession.
— p.260 “Riding the Phallus for Dionysus: Iconology, Ritual, and Gender-Role De/Construction.” Phoenix. 51. no.3/4 (Autumn – Winter, 1997): 253-295. Emphasis mine.

Currently Ongoing Projects

For your amusement and my future reference, here is a list of my currently ongoing projects and magical experiments.

1) Skylights chapbook.  Twenty four pages so far detailing the results of my experiments in planetary magic and outlining a roadmap for other witches without ceremonial backgrounds to recreate them, plus copyright-free line-drawings of the major planetary sigils to make everyone’s life easier, and a few personal-use-only talismanic images produced over the course of my experiments.

2) Planetary Boxes.  Inspired by Jason Miller’s Jupiter Cashbox and the conjure boxes made by RO and Skyllaros, these sort of occupy the intersection of talisman and portable altar.

3) Stele of Jeu adaptation.  Crowley did it, why shouldn’t I?  (Yes, I know the answer to that question.)  “I am Aradia, your daughter, initiate of your Mysteries…”

4) Cave Canem.  Although my lovely guard dog has so far been a technical success, there have been some … oddities which require further observation and documentation.

5) Texting Coffee.  Earlier this week, my partner Aradia needed a coffee fix but couldn’t afford (temporally or financially) to go get the quad-mocha she craved.  So I texted her a picture of the espresso I had just produced.  Although done as a joke, it actually worked.  Now the experiments begin.

6) Book Reviews.  I’ve read a lot of books in the last year but have never written about them.  Highlights include Jason Miller’s Sorcerer’s Secrets and Advanced Planetary Magic, Deborah Castellano’s Arte of Glamour, Josephine McCarthy’s Magickal Knowledge: Foundations, and the new edition of Apostolos N. Athanassakis’ translation of The Orphic Hymns.

7) Feminist Sex Magick.  Aradia and I manged to pull off non-creepy, non-dominating, mutually benefiting sex magick.  Now to find a non-creepy way to write about it.

Typhoeus: King of the Earth-born Monsters

Typhoeus: King of the Earth-born Monsters

Inspired by images such as this, combined with the Hesiodic description:

Hesiod, Theogony 820 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.) :
“Typhoeus; the hands and arms of him are mighty, and have work in them, and the feet of the powerful god were tireless, and up from his shoulders there grew a hundred snake heads, those of a dreaded drakon, and the heads licked with dark tongues, and from the eyes on the inhuman heads fire glittered from under the eyelids: from all his heads fire flared from his eyes’ glancing; and inside each one of these horrible heads there were voices that threw out every sort of horrible sound, for sometimes it was speech such as the gods could understand, but at other times, the sound of a bellowing bull, proud-eyed and furious beyond holding, or again like a lion shameless in cruelty, or again it was like the barking of dogs, a wonder to listen to, or again he would whistle so the tall mountains re-echoed to it.”