Λήναια

First Lenaia celebrated.  Not over several days, not how the ancients did it, not scripted or planned. 

After 12 hours of work, in the liminal time between the setting full moon and rising sun, I light the altar candles and kyphi, strip off my clothes, put on a record of whimsical music, grab my thyrsus from the altar, and dance.  Sometimes graceful, sometimes not.  I laugh at myself, I writhe and twirl in the tight spaces of my bedroom.  I throw my head back, reverent and irreverent, touch my tongue to the pine cone, raise the thyrsus high.  Rise and come, Dionysos!  Born from Semele, from Persephone, from the thigh of Zeus!  Light in the dark!  I call in many ways.  I kneel with a bottle of wine, a chalice of water, a mixing bowl.  I accidentally pierced my hand with a wine opener.  Now it knows both of our blood!  Water to wine.  I bask in Your presence, speak of innermost feelings, maenad to god, woman to lover.  I mix my tears in the bowl.  Every sip of wine brings a new eruption of goosebumps on my skin as You wash over and through me.  I thank, I offer, kiss the surface of the wine with my lips, and pour out the libation.  I think, "To love Dionysos is to be in love with life itself."