Orphic Hymns Devotional Project

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.)

All the incenses...

                                                          ... plus other offerings

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.

Where the Edge of the World Meets the Stars

Go forth, find and fix your gaze upon the Corona Borealis in the summer sky.  Think on what it means that Dionysos placed it there for Ariadne. Not as a story, but as truth. And then, speak aloud these words into the starry heavens: “I am going to die.”

I journeyed to my sacred forests and cliffs for the weekend to celebrate a festival for Ariadne as Lady of the Labyrinth.  Within and surrounding the festival, I also intended to experiment with some potential trance postures and dances whose depictions I’d been studying in the Minoan epiphany scenes.  Here I must again credit Bruce Rimell, whose essay and collection of images turned me onto this idea. Unfortunately, I still haven’t been able to track down the article he references about the visionary potential of these particular postures, but I’m familiar with the concept within the work of Felicitas Goodman, a different anthropologist (although Goodman never experimented with Minoan postures that I know of).  On the bright side, I didn’t have too many preconceived notions.

Although it wasn’t the first site I was shooting for, I ended up in the exact same place where my husband and I had privately exchanged vows nearly 3 years ago, and where last year in the worst throes of my grief I experienced one of the most profound omens of my life. The funny thing is that all three times I’ve gotten here it has been sort-of-by-accident, one way or another, which probably says something about the otherness of it.  If this place was a target, I’ve had to shoot sideways to hit it!  And I was grateful I did, especially by the end of this trip,  when I could feel all my accumulated experiences there like so many personal ley-lines, creating a particular affinity with the place and spirits.  It’s hard to put into words, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt a place-relationship so profoundly.  Just thinking about it makes me want to get up and drive back and leave more offerings.  When I was resting there it came to mind what I knew, had already known, but was interesting to think about while I was THERE — that if I have my way, this is where my ashes will end up when I die.  It was a peaceful thought.





The first night I just focused on setting up camp (in the dark, as usual–the pictures were taken later in the trip) and making myself a rustic dinner on the campfire. Some food and wine offered up to the fire with thanks to the gods and spirits.  Some past visitor had even hung prayer flags high above the fire pit.



The following morning had me feeling a little lonely, emotional and restless.   I’ll elaborate briefly since it’s relevant for what occurred in the ritual later. I felt a temptation to distract myself with something innocuous, and underlying that, I sensed a bubbling up of something terrifying. I had to sit with it and journal to get to something even close to describing it… a fear of meaninglessness, and a subsequent despair.  This fear is multifaceted–affecting the past and future (could all I’ve been through be for nothing? does what comes next in life matter?), and especially to the present, where I no longer have my soul-mate here to give me purpose and reality. That last bit might sound strange, but the loss of the comforting validation offered by such deep companionship sometimes makes me feel like I’m dissolving, or that my actions don’t echo, whether they are menial or ambitious.  Fears are not logical. I didn’t sit with this for too long — I named the fear and then left it for later, because anything else at the moment would have turned into some serious wallowing.

I did some hiking, and found a ton of wild black raspberry bushes.  They seem to adore fallen trees, sloped ground, and plenty of sun.  Once, my husband and I had discovered some maybe a couple miles away from this spot, with the whimsical delight of explorers discovering something entirely novel and new, and we named them “rimberries” and made a pie out of them when we got home.  Every other subsequent time we’d gone camping in the area we had been either too early or too late for them, so this was a neat find, even considering that over 80% of them were not ripe.  So it was, with my husband and ancestors especially in mind, that I spent a good couple hours getting up close and personal with the very thorny, berry-laden whips.  Luckily, I had gloves, though the thorns would still sometimes bite through the leather and constantly snagged my clothes.  I’m nothing if not stubborn.  (I did make a pie with these berries after going back home, and even made my first homemade pie crust to do them justice. I never considered that making something from scratch actually meant the scratches you get from wild-harvesting the ingredients! Hardest I’ve ever worked for a pie, ever.)




Along with the rimberry bushes, there were mullein plants everywhere, and even a sprig or two of blossoming yarrow poking out unobtrusively here and there. There were multiple varieties of pine, of course, and some oak as well. There was a small prickly weed with purple blossoms that caught my attention, maybe because it had a fuzzy bumblebee on it.  I had no idea what it was, but felt compelled to take a picture to see if I could find out later.  

I tried a couple of the postures during the day — the first one in the afternoon and second one at sunset. The first one, described as a “Tense Salute”, involved standing straight with the chest pushed out to create a forward arch to the back, the right hand in a fist or circle with the thumb/index finger side of the fist held up to the forehead, and right elbow pointed out to the right.  The left arm is held down stiffly straight down with the hand next to the thigh, held so the palm curls upward as if holding a ball. The feet stand just a few inches apart, and the head is straight forward.  (Usual method employed with trance postures — grounding and meditation, then invitation & offerings to the spirits, followed by the posture itself for 15 minutes while listening to a recording of drumming or rattling.)  There were some vague impressions to this one, but all in all I feel like I’m missing some context for it, yet I feel pretty certain it’s not a divinatory posture.  More experimentation needed.  More strenuous than expected.  




The second one was the baetyl posture.  To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if this one could be considered a trance posture, because there is some movement implied and the inclusion of the stone makes it quite unlike any others I have seen.  But what made me try it anyway was the similarities across different epiphany images.  One leg is slightly forward from the other, the person is always kneeling with one elbow or forearm anchored to the top of the stone, and usually the toes are down on the ground while the heels are pointed up.  Most images show the the person turned to something behind them with the other arm not grounded on the baetyl held out in a “beholding” or beckoning manner, with the palm flat and the forearm at a 45 degree angle (a significant angle in trance postures, for some reason.)  There was also an image with the person still facing and holding onto the baetyl with both hands, which is where the implied movement comes in.  Presumably one begins with both arms on the baetyl and the head  bowed towards it, then moving to look behind and stretching out one arm.  That’s how I tried it.  


I moved back and forth a couple times, switching sides as well.  There were less visuals than sensation (but then again I’m not particularly visual), and I will say that I think the first position of bowing at the baetyl should be the bulk of the posture until one feels moved to stretch behind.  I’ll say that this one was pretty compelling, but I’m not going to go too much into it now, because I want to experiment further. I should add that I blessed the baetyl stone first, with water and floral water, which only seemed right.  Obviously these stones had a religious significance we can only guess at and can’t completely duplicate (especially by picking a stone at random.)  But from what I’ve read and experienced with ecstatic postures, they are like keys or bridges to the spirit world, whether that key is inherent in the body-position itself or the tapping into the cumulative experience of the ancestors who might have used them. So while the full context of the postures and their significance to the ancient cultures who used them may not be recoverable, there’s still plenty of wisdom to be gained from them.

*                              *                              *

As the stars began to come out, I began an ecstatic ritual for Ariadne.

I changed into a skirt, anointed myself with a perfume I only use for Dionysian rituals… I had drawn a 7-circuit labyrinth on a flat stone to use as an altar. I burned honey-rose kyphi… I called upon Ariadne and Dionysos… Used my rattle and my bull horn…  poured out the mead and offered up honey.

The starry crown was directly overhead.  It was my anchor.

I might have wished for a whole crowd of worshippers with me, with some to play music for the dance.  But at least this lone worshipper had headphones.

I don’t ever want to forget that feeling as I began to dance on the edge of the world, bare-breasted under the stars, with the endless sky all around me.  I raised my arms to mimic the Minoan dances, arms staggered up with palms out, as if I was mediating the heavens and earth.  What is stationary and puzzling in art translated itself into movement with surprising effortlessness.  And in that moment, the questions which plagued me before, the questions of meaninglessness, were not provided any grand answers — instead, the questions were simply dissolved.  

I thought, “Absurdity is just truth looking for context.”

The wind and the bats flew around me.  The darker the earth got the brighter the sky became, so the pine trees turned into negative space, while the whole sky exploded into a glittering kaleidoscope.

More mead.  More dance.  Where swinging my head around meant turning the stars on their axis.  Where I somehow never tripped in spite of the darkness, in spite of the rocks and uneven ground.  (“The gods will always catch me, the gods are greater than gravity.”)  I remember screaming once, a strangled sound I doubt I’ve ever made before. Then howling.

Things get a bit fuzzy.  I barely remember tree-pulling, that was fun.  I broke from the dance a couple times then returned to it.  I started a fire to have a feast.  At some point I laid down on the ground so I could better see the milky way and stars in their entirety.  Occasionally I came back to the altar and traced the labyrinth with my finger. I honestly don’t even remember deciding to go to bed whenever I finally did.

I do remember that the challenge I put at the beginning was one I felt I was supposed to share, as I experienced it:

Go forth, find and fix your gaze upon the Corona Borealis in the summer sky.  Think on what it means that Dionysos placed it there for Ariadne. Not as a story, but as truth. And then, speak aloud these words into the starry heavens: “I am going to die.”

And then dance…

P.S. Remember that mysterious little thorny plant I mentioned?  It was a bull-thistle.  With a bee.

Elevation & Rumination

I wanted to write a little bit about the elevation ritual I performed for my husband between Feb 1st and 9th. I wanted it to be during a waxing moon which is one reason it nestled up so close to Anthesteria and I haven't had a chance to write about it until now.

This is just one of the things I learned about while taking Galina Krasskova's course on ancestor work.  The lessons were a big help for me in getting started honoring the dead and I highly recommend the class if that is something you are interested in. Ancestor elevation is something you can do if you think a particular soul is troubled or distressed, but can also just be done to send them love and energy for peace and well-being. 

My desire to do this came after my birthday in November, when I'd had an incredibly vivid, lucid dream of my husband telling me, among other things, that he was sad and lonely. Whether this was a projection of my fears or not, I felt compelled to do this for him. At best, it would help his soul heal. At worst, it would just be an big showy display of how much I care about him, and there's certainly no harm in that.
 
Because the altar needed to be left out on the floor for 9 days in a row I actually set it up in a walk-in closet.  My brother's cat has been an absolute terror lately and I didn't trust him to not desecrate it.  Although this was done for practical reasons, I rather liked "opening the door" at the start of each night's ritual. Sitting on one side of a doorway and having his altar be on the "other side" later struck me as very symbolic.  This is what it looked like:

 

I can't really describe how soothing it was to me to look at this altar with all the white and the flowers.  I hope he found it as comforting as I did.  More than once, I would open that door and sit down to perform the ritual and I felt a very profound timelessness, a feeling as if I had been doing this same ritual not just for a few days, but for months... or always.

I said prayers to Dionysos, Ariadne and Arianrhod, each ending this prayer with "I entreat you to open the ways of blessings between myself and my beloved... Protect Him and keep him in your realm, and if he becomes lost or sorrowful, remind him of your mysteries, and your love, and the love of those who still remember him." I modified the prayers for the elevation very slightly, and called to spirits, ancestors and guardians who were special to him or watched over him, both particular ones I knew and any in general who wished to help.

I also added a prayer that was a blend of several of the prayers and instructions in the Orphic gold tablets.  (I've been reading a book about them - Ritual Texts for the Afterlife by Fritz Graf & Sarah Iles Johnston -- and I find them to be powerful and beautiful.)

Every day I tried to have a special food or drink offering.  The first night it was a specialty beer that I'd bought before he died and wanted to share with him.  Another night it was special chocolates I'd found, one with honeycomb and the other with mushrooms.  On another it would be a donut and Dr. Pepper (favorites of his).  Twice, it was a full meal.

Another offering, perhaps the most significant, was music.  I played all the records of our favorite band.  And yes, actual records, most of which are rare and were painstakingly acquired by us during the time we were together. This act of offering the music was actually really really hard for me.  We used to lay down together and just bask in these songs, and even in those most exquisite moments, the beauty of it would threaten to overwhelm us.  In fact it is so personal, so deeply and achingly *resonant* to the beauty of our relationship, that I almost don't even wish to share the name of the band.  Like I wrote during Anthesteria, music is a pathway, and this pathway happens to wind through the most intimate and precious parts of my soul and memory.  That we both adored this music, could find the eternity in it, was a metaphor for our love of each other, for the miraculousness of finding one another.

Each day I did the ritual it felt a little different.  Some days were more emotional than others. I can't say there was exactly a progression that I felt.  In fact, if I had to make such a judgment, I'd say that things sort of culminated somewhere in the middle -- at a point where I could actually feel myself being a conduit of the blessings bestowed by the spirits around me.  The energy flowed into me and then through my heart chakra and towards my husband, or at least my focal point on the altar for him.

Although I didn't consciously plan for it to happen this way, the urn that I had had custom painted for him arrived on the 6th or 7th day. So as part of the last night's ritual I transferred his ashes into the urn. I was glad to have this gift for him.

I had asked for certain specifications with the urn but how it turned out was a total surprise.  I burst into tears when I first saw it because it was so perfect.

Some footnotes to this... There have been a lot of things before and since the elevation ritual that have been significant to my grief process and mourning.  I don't know if I could possibly list them all.  Major ones include getting a couple tattoos with his ashes last month, which didn't involve as much physical pain as I feared and hoped for.  Anthesteria was somehow both a blessing and a trial.  There were loud and clear messages of hope from Dionysos, but I felt my husband's absence more than ever.  I put my whole heart into the festival, and my heart felt the stress of it.  A friend's divination told me it's time to come out of mourning, so of course I rebelled and fell into another pit of despair, or a "spiritual temper tantrum" as I've taken to calling them (since I know better than to despair and it's really just the same emotional riffs to the key of I can't/I won't/I don't want/I will never...)  But I came out of that dark place quicker than usual. I found a book I was obviously meant to find that put things into perspective while at the same time one of my best friends had a vision that reiterated the same perspective/message for me.


In short, I have to move forward.  That was another thing given to me during the Aiora, while walking the labyrinth.  We have this idea in life of an infinite number of paths to take and sometimes that freezes us into a state of panic and indecision.  But there's only one choice of action in the labyrinth.  You walk or you stand still.  The path is already there, whether you perceive the pattern or not, whether you have faith in it or not.  And I think that's truer to life than we know.