{"id":1075,"date":"2013-02-18T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-18T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.wordpress.com\/?p=1075"},"modified":"2013-02-18T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-18T13:00:00","slug":"my-urban-dionysia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/2013\/02\/18\/my-urban-dionysia\/","title":{"rendered":"My Liberalia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"English:<\/a>
English: Dionysus is equated with both Bacchus and Liber (also Liber Pater). Liber (“the free one”) was a god of fertility, wine, and growth, married to Libera. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Calendars are a problem.\u00a0 The more of them you have, the harder they are to match up.\u00a0 At this stage in my life, I\u2019m struggling to reconcile four: the Gregorian, the academic, the lunar, and the Wheel of the Year.\u00a0 Sometimes, it can be a fucking mess, especially as I try to splice in ancient festivals AND keep everything relevant to the life I actually live.<\/p>\n

So, it was very much to my delight last year when I learned of an interesting coincidence<\/a>: namely that Saint Patrick\u2019s Day (an \u201cIrish\u201d American drinking festival, for those who don\u2019t live in the USA) and the Liberalia fall at about the same time.\u00a0 Even more fortuitous, both coincide with the beginning of Spring Break (an academic American drinking festival) at my particular institution of higher education.\u00a0 My celebrations last year were impromptu and (mostly) solitary.\u00a0 But I did start a batch of mead with this year in mind.<\/p>\n

Now the date approaches and\u00a0 I watch with some curiosity as Sanion anticipates Anthesteria<\/a>. I am trying to find time to do research into what \u201ctraditional\u201d festivities would have included, and then decide \/ beg for divine inspiration as to which elements to maintain, which to adopt from other festivals, and what to make up whole cloth.<\/p>\n

There will be wine, of course, and mead: both drinking the mead I started last year and will bottle in about a week, and the starting of a new batch for next year.\u00a0 And feasting: I never open the Sunrise Temple without providing food.\u00a0 Offerings aplenty to the God, and a special altar erected to him for the occasion.<\/p>\n

But what else?\u00a0 I don\u2019t really have the resources to put on a play of any kind, and playing movies in the background seems \u2026 a weak<\/p>\n

\"Statue<\/a>
Statue of Dionysus of the “Madrid-Varese type”. Roman artwork based on a late Hellenistic original (ca. 125\u2013100 BC). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

substitute at best.\u00a0 (Besides which, all the appropriate movies that I own will be played for the same people three weeks prior at my Midsem party.)\u00a0 Perhaps I can encourage participants to declaim from the various hymns to Dionysus; a lot of them are thespians, they\u2019ll probably get a kick out of it.\u00a0 And should I bring in elements of the Urban Dionysia, which falls about the same time of year (depending on the vagaries of the lunar calendar) but much less fortuitously in terms of free time to devote to worship?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thinking that there may be some ritual (and playful) flogging<\/a>, both to purify and to excite (though, contrary to Pausanius\u2019 Skiereia, it will be everyone getting lashed).\u00a0 Possibly arts-and-crafts, especially the making and donning of masks and thyrsoi.\u00a0 I may encourage cross-dressing, in honor of the god\u2019s youth spent hiding from Hera, and in memory of Tieresias and Cadmus, who donned women\u2019s clothing that they might participate in the rites when the other men of Thebes followed Pentheus\u2019 lead in denying Dionysus.<\/p>\n

Hopefully everyone will have enough fun to get naked, because \u2026 Maenads and Satyrs, duh.\u00a0 Should that happen, face and body paint are great games.<\/p>\n

I have numerous Tarot decks, and it might be an interesting occasion on which to employ the oracular powers of Dionysus.\u00a0 Also, the ouija board.\u00a0 (Of course I have a ouija board.\u00a0 Don\u2019t look at me that way.\u00a0 You have one, too.)<\/p>\n

All this would be just a little easier, of course, if I had a more concrete relationship with the god.\u00a0 When I do my thrice-weekly offering rites, I hail him as I pour the libations: \u201cDionysus, Liber Pater, Lord of the Vine, source and surcease of madness.\u201d\u00a0 But if those things were all that he is to me, then I would not need to have a festival: I would simply meditate on what passes for my sanity whilst drinking until I cry.\u00a0 But Dionysus is more than that.\u00a0 So much more.<\/p>\n

I struggle in my search for how best to honor him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Calendars are a problem.\u00a0 The more of them you have, the harder they are to match up.\u00a0 At this stage in my life, I\u2019m struggling to reconcile four: the Gregorian, the academic, the lunar, and the Wheel of the Year.\u00a0 Sometimes, it can be a fucking mess, especially as I try to splice in ancient … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,4,5],"tags":[65,94,144,194],"class_list":["post-1075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedonism","category-scholarship","category-witchcraft","tag-dionysus","tag-gods","tag-liberalia","tag-personal-practice"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-hl","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}