I’d been receiving omens, nudges and signs for some time now, about doing some deeper Underworld-related work. After a trip to NYC in August, things suddenly seemed clearer. (The trip was a commemorative one that me and my step-daughters did in honor of my late husband, and ended up having some big Girls Underground themes.) The gods were saying “go deeper”... and I thought about how I’ve been wanting to do more work with Orpheus. And what better way than to start with the Orphic Hymns? In spite of being in a Bacchic Orphic tradition for 10 years, I’m only familiar with a fraction of them.
So I conceived of a devotional project where I would go through the hymns one per day between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice, comparing translations and performing it with the prescribed incense offering in the evening. There are 87 hymns plus the preliminary “Orpheus to Mousaios”, and I added our tradition’s Hymn to Ariadne. I shared my intentions with other Starry Crown mystai and a few others joined in.
On the Autumn Equinox, I met up with a fellow mystes and we took a field trip to a winery (which happened to have some Greek god names for their wines) and Luray Caverns. We performed the “Orpheus to Mousaios” prayer after playing around in the hedge maze and before descending into the caves. How appropriate, too, that these caves just happen to house the largest musical instrument in the world: the Great Stalacpipe Organ. The literal Underworld and its mineral formations, the slow work of so many centuries, being played as an organ of vibrating stones. Orpheus would have loved it.
There were a lot of interesting synchronicities and revealing patterns from the beginning. I realized later that my own primary astrological signs were also nestled exactly in this time frame. I’m a Libra rising, with a Scorpio moon and Sagittarius Sun. And Autumn Equinox begins Libra season, moves into Scorpio season, and then Sagittarius, which ends on Dec 21st. The Autumn equinox this year was also on the Noumenia, giving it extra oomph for new ventures.
Less than a week into the project, a fellow mystes let me know about an Orphic Hymns class that was starting in October and ending on the winter solstice, being taught by Drew Levanti, who specialized in Hellenic Astrology, and classicist and scholar Kristin Mathis. It seemed too synchronous not to follow the thread, so I signed up. The class was a deeper dive into a curated selection of 13 Orphic hymns through a mythic, esoteric and astrological lens. It went incredibly deep, and even with my very basic understanding of astrology, I was astounded at the connections they made.
There’s so much I’ve learned these last 3 months about the hymns and the gods and the Orphics that it would be impossible to go over it all. And somehow, it’s also just scratching the surface? After all, the “day” (really a half hour to an hour of that day) that most of the hymns got isn’t much time at all.
I compared a minimum of 4 translations, and sometimes as many as 6. My primary texts were Athanassakis, Patrick Dunn, Sarah Mastros (Orphic Hymns Grimoire) and R.C. Hogart (The Hymns of Orpheus). I threw out Thomas Taylor entirely (sorry, dude). For most hymns I had translations by Astraea, a fellow mystes and Orpheotelest. And some that Kristin Mathis has translated (although she has not translated all of them yet). I wasn’t being critical so much as curious - how do the translations differ? Which do I prefer and why? Does one translation illuminate a confusing thing in another? How does it sound and feel when I speak them outloud?
As for that last question - yes, I was saying ALL of the translations outloud. At first, I thought I’d just pick my favorite. BUT I didn’t know my favorite yet, so…
It surprised me that I didn’t have a clear favorite. Some impressions… Dunn is generally VERY literal but sometimes you need that. Sarah Mastros sure has that rhyming scheme down - often to excellent effect and other times with some clunky choices. Athanassakis, while leagues better than Taylor, could have been more accurate and was sometimes a little dry. Kristin Mathis is doing incredible work in revealing all the nuance and double meanings and channeling the spirit of the hymns’ true meaning, but of course that comes at the cost of being extra wordy and losing some lyricism. Astraea’s working translations were a great balance between true to text while preserving poetic choices, and had a keen eye for mystery elements. Hogart is more sparse, choosing instead to distill the essence of a hymn into his own short poems.
But that’s all rather academic. (I have a lot of appreciation for translators, though, let me tell you. What a balancing act.)
The hymns are deep. They are rich. They sometimes speak sideways. There’s jokes, there’s word play, there’s a lot of mystic stuff there. The order of the hymns reveal things, and so do the incense offerings.
They are also powerful. I have rarely ever called upon Apollon in the past, but His hymn is incredibly potent. Feeling humbled by his presence, I’m wondering if I should honor Him more. Same for Athene, and many others. The Hymn to Ares has changed how I think about Mars-like energy and anger. The Hymn to Selene illuminated something to me about how I was first led to Dionysos. I was introduced to some I didn’t know, like Prothyraia and Mise, who are really striking.
Taken as a whole, though, there’s a lot that I’ve taken away from the hymns. Kristin Mathis puts it this way: that the Orphics didn’t think the way we did; instead, they had a “fractal view” of the cosmos, and they were deeply animistic. The word “animism” gets thrown around a lot so it gets glossed over sometimes. But really think about it. Not JUST those natural, elemental “forces” and the stones and trees and plants (all of which Orpheus could enchant, by the way!), but also…. Beings like the Stars, the Constellations, Fate, Time, Memory, Justice, Health. These are living beings for the Orphics, ones that we can and should, as initiates, engage with in an intentional way in order to achieve a good life, and a good end.
We see in the hymns, that almost every divinity addressed is called “King” or “Queen”, “Ruler of all”, “Highest of all”, etc. And commonly used phrases are “You alone…”, or “You are most desired.” This sort of language, at first glance, defies our expectations of a hierarchical view of the gods and cosmos. But they didn’t have that hierarchy. The divinity you’re speaking to is the highest because it’s the divinity you’re speaking to. It's the face through which you’re engaging with the rest of the cosmos - each equally important because they need one another - and because they are all interconnected and interdependent, fractals within fractals, you see these repeating titles and names and overlapping domains. So who-is-who becomes muddled, family lines of the gods are shifty, and heroes can also have cosmic elements. It’s confusing until you mentally shift your way of thinking.
Which I think has been the biggest gift of this devotional project: feeling more deeply connected to my Bacchic Orphic ancestors. They are so much more real and alive for me, now, and the more I discover the more resonant it all is, and that seems like such a wonder.
I’ve been thinking of, and we’ve discussed in community, ways to use the hymns in daily life, and there’s so much to explore there. But the way they are written also indicates that these hymns were the backbone of one long overnight ritual, at least conceptually if not in practice. (Also, they were sung and not “recited”, but I digress…) So to end my devotional project, I decided to do a solo overnight ritual on Solstice night.
It would have been simple to pick one book/translator. But I didn’t. I’m too much of a perfectionist. Over a couple weeks, I compiled my preferred translations into one single document (a little from everyone, and sometimes I made my own edits or mixed two translations.) It was many hours of work.
I started my ritual a little after 2am, and ended around 8:30am. (Note to self: next time, start at midnight.)
I added in ritual actions, especially in the first 30 hymns. Sometimes stopping to include one of the Toys, do some breathwork (breath of fire for Aether, Tummo breathing for Pan, deep breathing for Rhea), play the drum or lyre, meditate, dance or move (like spinning in a circle for Protogonos) or drink/pour wine. Sometimes I was seated, sometimes standing. The room filled with more and more Presence, and my own consciousness expanded outward. The hymns build upon each other, starting cosmically and becoming more specialized and granular. Each one a story creating one larger story arc and journey. Simultaneously the story of the cosmos and the journey of the initiate.
I sped up a little as I went on, and those 20 hymns before Dawn were certainly rushed but I still put as much feeling and energy into them as I could. I bundled up and went outside to say the Hymn to Eos, Thetis, the 3 winds, and Okeanos, before going back inside to warm up while praying to Hestia, then winding down with the hymns to Sleep, Dream and Death.
After finishing, I was feeling pleasantly spent, accomplished, and something else that’s harder to describe. Basking in the residual, aromatic haze of over 75 incense offerings that had transformed my small room into a temple, I gazed upon the shrine with all its libations, noticing how the growing light of Eos and Helios made the pomegranate seeds I offered to Persephone shine with mysterious potency. I felt holy, surrounded by holiness, to the point of being moved to tears. I thought, how can one not feel a desire to turn their gaze and their heart to the holy, to the sacred, that is so present all around us? It is awe-inspiring. I have always yearned for it, so I know no other way. I am privileged in this, and in being able to follow in the footsteps of these starry ancestors.
Praise be to Orpheus
Praise be to our Bacchic Orphic ancestors
And praise be to all of the Deathless Gods!
Notes:
If you are a devotee of the Greek Gods, a Bacchic Orphic, a mystic and animist, or at all interested in the hymns for magical or devotional purposes, I HIGHLY recommend you follow and support Kristin Mathis’ ongoing work with the hymns. She regularly has live chats for her subscribers. If you want a taste of her work, you can read this public piece on Prothyraia that convinced me I needed to take the class.
Drew Levanti is awesome. I barely knew Hellenic Astrology was a thing, and the way he’s marrying astrological wisdom with our understanding of the hymns is beautiful and a layer that I never would have known was there. (Which would be a shame, because Bacchic Orphism is all about being Starry!) You can find his work here.
