Arachneia the First: Plants, Dreams, Stars

[The Arachneia is a festival in the Bacchic Orphic tradition I am involved with called The Thiasos of the Starry Bull.  The festival celebrates the weaver Arachne, who is considered a Dionysian heroine, and her transformation into a spider.  You might notice this cross-posted at The Boukoloen, which you should definitely check out for more about the tradition, our deities, and writings from others!]

On Friday night before the Arachneia (being our devotional day for the Dionysian Heroines), I braided/wove some purple yarn into a long bracelet while saying an impromptu prayer to Arachne under the stars. I had initially planned to hang this in a tree once I finished, but instead I was compelled to wear it as a bracelet as a reminder of her throughout the weekend.

Saturday was a bit of a wash.  I got very little sleep that morning in order to transition from my usual graveyard schedule.  I needed to be able to manage a 3 hour drive very early on Sunday morning to attend an herbal festival up north.  I don't know if that's why I ended up dreaming so vividly.  Is it better to dream at night, to receive messages from spirits and gods?  I had honestly never thought of this until now, but I've been doing the better part of my sleeping and dreaming during the day for the last ten years.  For the first time, I'm seriously considering the ramifications of this.  On the flip side, always being awake at night may be a boon for ritual/divinatory work and cultivating altered states of consciousness.  Regardless, on Saturday night, I had a very significant, vivid and lucid dream, which I shall type up just as I journaled it that day:

Dream of [my husband]. Heard him talking and his voice was so resonant and beautiful and familiar that it snapped me into being lucid in the dream. And when I knew, he knew that I knew. I reached for him, touched him, took him all in. I wanted to absorb every bit of him to fill in all the deepest holes of my grief, but the moment was both timeless and exquisitely not-enough at the same time. He was SO present, SO vivid, impossibly so!  How is it that it could be so hard to conjure his image, laugh and voice in waking moments, but here he was perfect?  I can’t remember everything we said, as I write this later in the day and after additional sleep, but if I’d woken right after I think I would have remembered every word. I know that he apologized, and without thinking, I told him it was okay, it’s all okay. I was desperate to reassure him so he could reassure me. (And how could it not be okay in THAT moment? It's the moments without him that are not.) I asked him, “You’re okay, right?” It seemed a silly question (self-evident) as I asked it, but then his lack of answer made it seem more ominous. “Please tell me you’re okay.”  I can’t possibly describe everything in his expression, the way his eyes looked away for the briefest instant as if trying to insinuate a thousand things he wanted to say but could not, a soft desperation and compassion mixed with peaceful resolve.  Yet I knew without being told that I didn’t have to worry about the dream disappearing within seconds (as my lucid dreams usually do.) I knew that this time was given to us. I know he said more, I know we had some time together, maybe even a kiss, but the details are lost -- there’s only the sense of a space of time and basking in his presence. Too soon, he was standing to leave. I asked him to stay, to do something more with me, and he made as if to do so, but then he said he could not - with a strain as if he was being physically pulled elsewhere. I walked with him only a few steps, and I realized as the distance between us grew that he followed two guides whom I hadn’t noticed before. Even in that moment I was grateful for our time but it could never be enough. I called after him, “I will see you again, right? Please tell me I will see you again!” This plea, like the other, went unanswered, and I realized with a pang that as much as this moment was a gift it was probably also a goodbye. 

In my next dream, I looked into a sink and saw what I thought were baby king snakes, although they were too thick and too short. I picked one up to show someone, wondering if it would bite. I looked down and saw a spider crawling on my hand, then fall to the ground and walk away.  The snake bit my finger, but I kept holding it even though it hurt, and starting walking down a flight of stairs...

As you might imagine, the first dream especially colored my entire day and added a bittersweet quality to my solitude.  (The round-trip was a good six hours of driving with only myself and my ipod for company.)  Yet, if someone had offered to go with me I probably would have declined their company.  The bone tablet words which I have been least familiar with seemed an appropriate phrase to focus on today.  "Peace. War. Truth. Lie. Dionysos."  To me, this one is the most stark, because it includes words that we tend to classify as negative - war and lie.  And since I use them as mantras of sorts, a part of me cringes at the inclusion of these words. But I started exploring it anyway.

The Native Herb Festival I attended was nice. It was all held outdoors, and the weather was very pleasant in the shade, unlike the 110 degree weather we've had at home.  The first class I attended was about incense-making.  Much was not new to me, but I did take some inspiration out of it, especially regarding making kyphi.  I used to think of this as overly difficult, but when she made a simple version on the spot, I felt inspired, and had an idea of making a version with wine soaked figs instead of wine soaked raisins (or both) with some pine resin and honey.  And also, using creosote (chaparral) for incense.  As much as I've used that plant for other sacred purposes, and recognized its resinous leaves, I don't know why I haven't done this yet.

The 2nd class was on kitchen witchery. There was less witchery involved, and more about mixing about what we think of us spices versus medicinal herbs in the kitchen.  I took some notes about herbal-infused honeys and simple syrups.  The 3rd class had caught my eye because it mentioned connecting with our ancestors, and it involved a sort of weaving.  It was a workshop for making rope and cord out of yucca leaves, the way that native peoples in this region would have.  It was completely hands on. We started by pounding out a yucca leaf (that had been soaked for several days) with a large smooth rock until all the fibers started to separate, then separating the fibers by hand, and then we were taught a basic weave and how to splice more fibers in so you could make it as long as you like.  It was a lot of work, but at the same time simple and remarkable that we could all end up with at least one strand of cord -- which was insanely strong, by the way!  I'm still delighted by acquiring this random bit of knowledge.  A few people I've mentioned it to have asked if I plan to use this and what for.  Honestly, I have no idea, but I'll figure out something.  It's a scratchy fiber, not unlike hemp, but a friend of mine suggested treating it with beeswax and I think that's a great idea.

At the festival there were a handful of vendors, and the arboretum itself was selling native plants in pots.  I went a little nuts and bought 6.  These were: coyote tobacco (nicotania attenuata), sacred datura, comfrey, Canyon grape (Vitus Arizonica), New Mexico Vervain (verbena mcdougalli), fringed sagebrush (artemesia frigida).

I had no idea there was an Arizona grape, or that you could cultivate datura (usually I see them die off every season in the desert). And how could I resist a nicotania that is named after Coyote?  I fully admit that my patio is getting a bit ridiculous at this point, with all the cactuses and plants.  Everything is in pots because I don't want to plant in the yard of the rental house I'm in.

On my way home, I stopped in Sedona to have dinner. I really wanted to see the stars while I was there, so I killed some time before sunset and then found a good spot to lay some blankets out on a slope, meditate and enjoy the view of Cathedral Rock.  The spot I picked had a spider web next to it, so I figured that was a good sign.  There is also a dead tree there -- a good hanging tree, I think.  I smoked an herbal cigarette and drank a kombucha beer (an actual 7% alcohol kombucha -- brilliant), pouring out a good portion for libations, of course. The edginess I had felt all day had brought me here, to an edge, literally.  In this quiet, numinous place-time, I could let it come to a head. 

A hyperreal state settled in, the sort where my mind rebels at the absurdity of life (absurd! absurd! absurd!) like a knock on the door, one that the things on the periphery start answering to with restless movements.

The stars are slow in their reveal.  But the first sense I make of them is the corona borealis directly overhead.  I had had trouble spotting it this last year, but there it was.  I remember how when I had planned my own version of an Ariadne festival that this was my one confirming marker for placing Her festival sometime just after midsummer, because that is when the crown was highest.  I still feel that Her energy is the strongest in the summer - specifically, the height of summer and the descent into the autumn.

As it got darker, I heard a pack of coyotes yipping in the distance.  I realize my state is a bit more altered than I thought, when I feel that instead of having a sky suspended above me, that I am myself suspended above the sky.  Strapped to the earth for now, I hang, but when the earth lets me go I will fall into the heavens like a pool of water.  I see a shooting star just below the corona, and it seems to last forever.

Peace. War. Truth. Lie. Dionysos.  Eirene. Polemos. Aletheia. Pseudos. Dionysos.  εἰρήνη. πόλεμος. ἀλήθεια. ψεῦδος. Διόνυσος.  In Greek, all strung together, you'll find it actually sounds harmonious.

I had an epiphany a couple months back, and I think I was reading Rhyd Wildermuth's blog at the time, where I realized that even though during much of the last year I have prayed for peace, I am actually not even sure if that's what I want.  I find myself bouncing back and forth between extremes, peaceful and emotional wreck, grounded and then ecstatic, depressed and then inexplicably happy.  Do I want peace?  No, not always.  In the thrill of these extremes, and in-between them, as difficult as the transition can be, is where I find myself, and the god...

The god who is the tension between opposites, the god who is behind the mask and is the mask.

When I eventually go to leave, I almost forget but then remember, to take off the purple bracelet and hang in on a tree with whispered thanks.  I don’t know if my dreams are true, and I still don’t know Arachne too well, and it’s a long drive home alone.  But there are innumerable stars for company.

She rambles

In time. all time, I hate my Bakkhos, love my Bakkhos. I am lost in the counting of his moments, and report in slow detail to him that which happens in a flash. I see a love before me, not mine, though, for I have found no life in this body. Body? Dare I call it such? Lashed to the god by his word, his lips forming his pain and play like a song, and I spit it back at him, loving my Bakkhos, my god.

                                                     -- Frenzy by Percival Everett

Late night bath after Persephone's devotional day.  I throw in a handful of dittany of crete, some florida water, some floral bpal perfume.  Smear honey on my face, because why not?  Sip ale and read the first half of Frenzy by Percival Everett.  An incredible book, thus far, and no doubt my favorite Dionysian novel.  I stop now and then to ice my the tendons of my arm. The simplest remedies always take me the longest to get around to, for some reason.  Though it makes me writhe, I don't take it off my skin until it stops hurting.  It's all brain signals anyway. I have bruises on my leg that I'm not sure where they came from.

I imagine that I stay in the bath until dawn.  I do.

It's the eve of the anniversary of my husband's death.  Sometimes I worry, more than I care to admit, that death is like a drug trip.  Yet this doesn't stop me from tripping.  I imagine that similar fears of life and death have not stop me from being reborn.   I once, on the last solstice we had together, asked my husband about this after dancing the delta mary tango and forgetting the meaning of words. "Dionysos."  "Sunrise."  "Solstice."  They had shape and significance but my own loss of self could not reconcile their amorphousness.  I came back and said, "Are you still here?"  He said, "Yes, I'm here."  I said, "I wonder if that's what death is like."  He thought about that for a moment and said, "I don't think so."  We talked about it a little more, as I marvelled at glowing webs of energetic thread and color still pulsing around the room.  

In the bath, I take very deep breaths and it makes my heart beat abnormally hard and fast, in series of five.  I repeat this a few times with the same results.  No pain though, just a heart like a drumbeat and a penchant for unlucky numbers.  Maybe I'll die of a broken heart.  Or bad puns?

I think about Dionysos and whether all who love him are bound in some way, needing to be free.  Or sharing some other commonality of person or pattern that fits to His own.  I mean, everyone needs freedom from something, but for us... is it the willingness to forsake boundaries, the realization that such chains are there, an abnormal awakeness, a divine contract?  My given name actually means "bound".  I suppose it figures.  Such clues are everywhere if you look.

I found myself thinking a moon cycle or more back, about certain way I thought I might hold myself back.  (a la "I don't think I could ever...") Which isn't always wrong, I mean sometimes there are taboos and I thought perhaps I had found one.  Dionysos disabused me of that notion pretty quick, with a loud "I'm sending you a dream." And he did, and he made his point.  I think the point was the point, so far.  At least, in other words, actual circumstances have not tested me... I think he just wished me to drop that idea pretty quick.

If you want to go mad, you need to give yourself more time with your own thoughts.  Truth.  

I have been chanting a lot lately, the Greek words from the bone tablets.  Particularly...

Bios Thanatos Bios Alethaia Zagreus Dionysos

Sometimes when I'm walking outside, sometimes at odd moments when I'm alone.  I'm quite enamored with the way they flow off the tongue.

Bios Thanatos Bios Alethaia Zagreus Dionysos

Sleep overtakes me.  I shan't apologize for being strange.  

The Lenaia begins...

Last night I dreamt that I was walking through the jungle of weeds in my backyard at night when I suddenly sank waste deep into the wet ground. I tried to call to my mom, but could not.  I felt a bit absurd, as I couldn't move an inch.  I felt a vague sense of panic start to well up.  Suddenly the ground gave a tremor, I sank a few more inches, and then a few more feet as a chasm started to form.  On the other side of it, was my electric organ and piano.  For a second, I feared that they would fall in and be broken. Then I realized if they did, they would probably fall on me.  Then the earth gaped even wider and I realized I was certainly about to die. Is this not what I wanted?  The musical instruments fell in and we all started to fall.  With a mixture of fear and anticipation, I surrendered.

More to come...

Devotions to Ariadne

I've been a bit negligent on observing devotional days and I've been trying to change that this month.  I realized that part of my problem is that I feel as if I should be able to devote a whole *day* to each one, and so when that seemed impossible, I would try to move it around, but inevitably other obstacles, and you know, life, gets in the way.  So I'm telling myself that "the day is the day is the day".  Whole days set aside for festivals are wonderful, but there's no need to be separating the spiritual from the mundane completely all the time, and in fact probably a lot of arguments FOR blending them.  I've revised my lists of possible activities for each devotional day, to include small activities as well as more time consuming ones.  And most importantly, just keeping the god/dess in mind during the day, and being present, paying attention... which doesn't take any time, simply effort!  This small change in perspective seems to be working well for me this month.

When I first started observing devotional days, the 4th was for Aphrodite.  I had a small shrine for Her as well.  Though I never had any direct experiences with Her, I felt like I couldn't NOT honor the blessings of love in my life somehow.  Aphrodite is a grand and complex goddess, with plenty of association with Dionysos.  And while I didn't feel like my offerings and prayers fell flat exactly, something just didn't click. 

Something had stuck with me that I had read in Otto's Dionysos: Myth and Cult, which was that on Cyprus Ariadne was worshipped as Ariadne Aphrodite (which to me brings to mind Ariadne as deified by Dionysos).  So with this in mind, I made some changes to my shrine intending to focus on this syncretized aspect.  I used red and black cloths, I added a snake goddess statue I'd acquired many years ago, and a round mirror for Ariadne's lunar aspects.  Admittedly now I've just come to think of it as "Ariadne's shrine", for I feel she's more complex than this particular aspect  (and likely was a Minoan deity in her own right). So I hope Aphrodite takes no offense... But it feels less as if I'm "changing deities" than that I am adjusting my practice to reflect the goddess that my heart was already resonating with, if that makes sense.  I'm not sure why I was hesitant to do this in the first place... but my experience with Ariadne has been a bit like the labyrinth itself.  She actually led me to Dionysos to begin with, in Her roundabout way, and since then I danced around Her for a quite a while before getting to this point.

I wasn't sure at first where to place a devotional day for Her... The full moon seemed appropriate considering Her lunar aspects, although it falls awful close to Dionysos', so I settled on keeping it on the 4th for now.  I realized when the day came that this is when the waxing moon looks very much like bull horns!

All that being said!  I spent some time communing with Ariadne on Her devotional day.  Offered up milk and honey, and some white wine, as well as some lotus-scented incense.  I put on some music, and sat down with pen and paper hoping to gel together some of my haphazard ideas for an Ariadne festival into something more concrete and organized.  And indeed, I wrote out a very long invocation for her and everything fell into place for the festival, which is both encouraging and exciting.  I've feel that this will be one of two yearly festivals for her.  (This one in midsummer, the second in the fall.)  But since this is my first attempt at creating a new festival, we shall see how it all turns out!  At the time of posting this, the festival is actually tomorrow! Or today after I've slept, however you wish to look at it.)

One last thing to note -- dreams have been something I've been thinking about off and on lately (including dream incubation, lucid dream states, how one might induce oracular dreams, that sort of thing).  It was not something I was thinking about while I was brainstorming for Ariadne's festival, but nevertheless, the message came through suddenly that She could be a dream guide.  And I thought, Lady of the Labyrinth, holder of the thread... well that makes sense!  I'll blog more about this as it develops.

Current Reading List

I’ve really been digging not only my library’s interlibrary loan system (especially now that the requests are all online instead of in writing), but also their digital library system.  I love listening to audiobooks when I’m cooking or doing chores.

Recently, I was listening to the audiobook of The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, and was pleasantly surprised at how often he brought up Dionysos.  He makes a rather good argument for Johnny Appleseed being an American Dionysos.  Did you know that apples from trees planted by seed are pretty much inedible, but they were great for making alcoholic cider?  That was NOT in the Disney cartoon I saw when I was a kid.  There is more to it than that, including his being an outsider, a wanderer, very close to nature, and having some pretty radical spiritual views for the time, but I recommend reading the whole chapter at least - but the whole book is excellent.  He also discusses Dionysian vs Apollonian principles in his discussion of our human ideals of beauty on the chapter on the tulip, and unsurprisingly, Dionysos comes up again on the chapter about Cannabis and intoxication.

I recently tracked down a science fiction short story written in the 70’s called The Feast of St Dionysus.  In the story, a man who is having trouble dealing with traumatic memories of his mission to Mars, goes off into the desert of Earth to be alone (and one senses, possibly to end his life).  Instead of the solitude and starkness he was hoping for, he finds a cult community in the middle of the desert that worships Dionysus, somewhat as a saint and somewhat as an equivalent to Jesus.  The main character then gets convinced to join the community and participate in the mysterious festival they have planned.  It was worth tracking down, I enjoyed it.

It’s worth mentioning that I found a reference to the above short story in The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants, one of the first books I got through interlibrary loan . (And really didn’t want to give back.  One day, I’ll buy a copy.)  The encylopedia mentions Dionysos in connection with the fly agaric mushroom, which seems to be speculation, although it’s something to think about. I think it’s interesting that both Dionysos and fly agaric mushrooms share an association with pine trees.

I’m also rereading The Science of the Craft, which is very thought provoking as far as seeing mystical and magickal phenomenon in a framework of quantum physics.  I’ve been pondering the concept of our consciousness as being a metapattern in the quantum sea (or Zero Point Field) and the idea of gods as also being intelligent metapatterns (though presumably greater or more complex). It gives a new perspective to the idea of invoking or evoking gods.  Is it simply a matter of aligning yourself with a particular god-pattern?

Currently on loan:  Kerenyi’s Dionysos.  (Finally!! Been meaning to read this for a long time.)  And an interesting find from a used bookstore:  Healing Dream and Ritual: Ancient Incubation and Modern Psychotherapy by C.A. Meier.  Not quite sure what to expect from it, but I’ve been feeling drawn to creating a dream incubation ritual focused on Dionysos, since that’s how he’s often communicated with me, so I’m hoping it will give me some inspiration for that.

Dream on the Full Moon of the Lenaia

Dreamed that my husband and I had just had a baby.  It was an infant girl, who didn't cry and who smiled every time I looked at her.  Her face (and the whole dream) were very vivid, and in the dream I breast-fed her twice, once from each breast.  The baby had come as a surprise - we didn't know we were going to have her until 2 weeks beforehand. (There was no memory of her actual birth in my dream, she was just there.)  My parents were there, and there was still a touch of a sense of conflict between the two of them that has dominated my dreams for the last week or two. (Even though in real life they divorced years ago.)  I was aware that we hadn't named the baby, and if anyone asked, I was going to tell them "I am going to get to know her before I name her."  But a name popped into my head, "Vintnelle", and I remember typing it into a computer to see what it meant (which is probably the only reason I remember the strange name, I remember seeing it typed on the screen exactly.) The first part of the name seemed Dionysian, and I briefly pondered looking for other Dionysian names, although it didn't seem immediately important.  The dream got stranger... I put the baby on a wooden frame/thin shadowbox and covered her with glass.  I turned the frame to someone else in the room to show them, we were all smiling.  As soon as I turned the frame/shadowbox away from me, the baby disappeared and it was as if I was showing someone a piece of art...  This all seemed very natural.

 

 

I didn't think too much of this dream at first, besides noting its strange clarity, but it stayed with me.  And after reading Dver's blog on festivals, and the subsequent article linked where she mentions using a liknon during the Lenaia, I went back and wrote the dream down.  And now, all the symbolism that I can see is kind of blowing my mind.

 

 

The gods are real and they send you dreams...

Things have been a bit hectic, but not uneventful!  First of all, my epithet project of sorts was very illuminating.  Even though it didn't quite come out to one epithet per day.  One of our cats got very sick (but pulled through, thank Bast!), not to mention that sometimes I simply felt I needed more time with one.  Even then, such a short time devoted to an epithet is by no means enough to explore all the sources, significance, aspects and nuances for each one.  I mainly trusted on the tarot card and what chanced to comes up in the resources available to me as far as what focus to take.  It was almost eerie how well some of the cards related to the epithets, even if it didn't seem that way at first glance.  I enjoyed it, and expect I'll be doing it again sometime.

In the midst of that devotional project, something else significant happened.

 

Somewhere between Dionysos Agrios and Dionysos Bromios, my husband and I were talking of gods, tricksters, archetypes, god consciousness... At the same time, he's drawing tarot cards as I work on blogging about epithets.  He draws the 7 of Cups as I'm trying to research it, so we share thoughts about it.  He mentions being an incidental Dionysian, which makes me smile.  The topic changes and meanders.

 

That night we both woke up at the same time from dreams that seemed very significant, and became all the more significant when we shared the similarities later that morning.  In mine, I was in a dry creek bed at night.  There was a lot of foliage, and the sense that we were staying there, my husband and I.  We were planning and preparing for a Dionysian ritual.  But when I tried to speak to him, there was an emotional distance between us, the kind that I was uncertain how to breach.  A group of women charged through the foliage, to join us perhaps.  I remember thinking I would rather it would be just the two of us.

 

In his dream, I was putting on and starring in a Dionysian play.  He was there with me the whole time, but not a part of the play itself, and felt distant and sad that he was not included... yet he wasn't sure how to ask since it was my "thing".  Dionysos himself was present as the play was going on, weaving among and watching the performers.

 

After thinking about the two dreams, I asked, hesitantly, "Do you think its a message that we should be doing things together, spiritually, as far as Dionysos goes?"

 

This question was even hard for me to say.  I'm not sure why, exactly.  I think part of it is that I feel so damn lucky to have this person who I love so much, who loves me in return, share a spiritual belief system with me, that I would never presume that he would want to worship the same god.  It is such a personal thing, after all.  Which is another reason, I suppose... It is so close to my heart, that I'm a bit self-conscious about it sometimes.  (Not for any good reason, just stupidly so.)  

 

But when I asked, he agreed, and admitted that he has wanted to but did not wish to intrude.

 

So it seems we got a couple gentle smacks upside the head from the god for something we have both wanted but were afraid to ask each other.

 

The idea is still so novel, though, that I still feel baffled.  I told my husband, I really don't know what I'm doing most of the time, so I'm not sure where to start trying to cultivate a concurrent practice...

 

And a deep part of me is still scared, even when all evidence points to the contrary, that he is just doing this for my benefit.  Although I don't know why that's so frightening, because that isn't a BAD thing, even though it isn't something I'd want or expect.  It's really hit me, consciously anyway, that my relationship to Dionysos feels intimate.  Talking about him, specifically how I feel about him, or my experiences with him is as difficult (if not more difficult) than talking about how I orgasm or what I like during sex.  Intimacy equals vulnerability.  Which follows that my deepest, irrational fear is that if I let someone in to those experiences, then they can, hypothetically, try to discredit what is meaningful to me.

 

I have a specific memory of the first time I opened Otto's book, Dionysos: Myth and Cult.  I was intrepidly, shyly beginning to explore Dionysos and my attraction to him.  The prospect was new and a little scary, and my life was not quite ready for it (which is to say it needed it.)  I mentioned a section in the book to the person I was with at the time, now my ex, wanting to share something that intrigued me, that seemed mysterious and promising, to see if we could have a discussion about it.  But instead, he said something critical and dismissive.  (Though that was often his way of "discussing", he loved to argue for the sake of argument.  He was also a very cerebral couch-pagan, who occasionally practiced, seemingly for my sake.)  But I just shut down and moved on.  For whatever reasons at the time, I put down the book and didn't pick it up again for a couple years.

 

My husband has only ever been sensitive, interested, open-minded, and on the same page as me regarding the spiritual and mystical.  So my hang-ups are all my own.  And to some extent, it's also just hard to speak of what's hard to put into words.  But I must work on unsticking my tongue, releasing old fears, and opening myself up to whatever the god and the future has in store for us.  It's not an entirely new concept - he celebrated Anthesteria with me last year and the occasional devotional day - but now it feels as if it will be more together, hand in hand.

 

 

 

For the Haloa, we did a simple feast in honor of Demeter and Dionysos.  We got local produce and locally made foods from a nearby farmer's market, as well as a bottle of sparkling blackberry mead and a bottle of "Dionysos" wine.  The beverages were from Total Wine - the Dionysos wine was even from Greece.  It was very good!  I expect to be getting it again for devotional activities. (The same label also has a "Hermes" wine that I want to try.)  The food was all wonderful, although the carrot and acorn squash soup I made was a little spicy!  We shared the food with the gods on a temporary altar... Dionysos was represented with the statue usually on my shrine, Demeter with some sheafs of wheat.  We played a variety of music, including some of the early (especially otherworldly) songs by múm, and selections from Stereolab's Not Music and Wisp's We Miss You .  It was quite lovely.

 

I have so more to blog about, including a devotional day to Dionysos we had last week, the dream I had last night, the Lenaia that we're celebrating tomorrow... not to mention other things I've been meaning to talk about, including ecstatic postures and Ariadne.  Things are buzzing... 

 

 

 

Dream

Last night I dreamt that I was supposed to be leading a Dionysian ritual.  Like most dreams where I'm supposed to perform in some way, I felt unprepared.  There was a small group of people slowly gathering (people that are strangers to me in real life).  The indoor circle space was beautiful and prepped, but I still felt like I wasn't sure what I was going to do or how I was going to make this a special ritual.  I was delaying and telling myself I needed last minute supplies (my flying ointment was one of them).  And somehow in the midst of that the idea of doing a ritual seemed to fade... And then I was in a garden at night.  It was absolutely beautiful, a ritual space of its own, and everything seemed to glow.  I looked up to a high stone wall to my right (perhaps 2 or 3 stories high) that was covered in vines.  I was staring at this figure of Dionysos in the vines, admiring how his image had been formed from them and perhaps from the shape of the stones?  I said to a male stranger next to me, "Do you see him?"  And before he even spoke to say he didn't, or to say anything at all, the image of Dionysos faded, as if it was just the matrixing of my own vision that made him so clear to me a moment before.  A message only for me, or a trick of sight?

Life has been rather hectic, but I feel that dream kind of sums up where I am spiritually at the moment, even in its ambiguity.  Will blog more soon.

Dionysos and Dreams

I was drawn to Dionysos long before I had the courage to take any action to really connect with him, even to pray to him.  Ten years ago, in fact, the interest goes back.  And I'd say that I started with some very hesitant prayers only about 4 years ago.  The impetus and reasons are a long story, but suffice it to say that the first ways he answered those prayers were in dreams.

Honestly, I have no idea if he communicates this way with others, or if there's sources to back it up... but I would not be surprised if there were.  Or do all gods communicate this way at some point or another?  It seems the natural way to get someone's attention, particular if they aren't attentive in other ways, spiritually or psychically speaking.

But anyway, I thought I would post this dream.  I was reminded of it while conversing with my partner and went looking in my dream journal for it.  He had a similar dream experience with a guide or divinity - where the message was not able to be translated into the waking world - and it made me think that this is not the fault of the dreamer or one's memory, but simply how it is with these types of messages.  "You can't take it with you."  Either it is for your subconscious only and you do not need to know it consciously, or it simply cannot be translated from the dream world to the waking world, much like an epiphany in a psychedelic experience.  You may remember pieces, or more likely how it made you feel, but the bone deep *knowing*?  It's still in your bones, but there are no words.

He hasn't communicated with me in this way lately, but I feel like it is something I could pursue or request in a ritual fashion, and perhaps I will in the future.

I copied and pasted this directly from my dream journal.  It is from April 29th, 2009.

Dreamed that I was staying with a group of women at a house or spiritual retreat.  It felt like a cross between a coven and a small school or teaching group.  I felt like I was fairly new there, and still getting to know everyone. All of the women were pretty young, including the woman everyone deferred to as the leader or teacher.  I remember all of us gathered in a living room, and the teacher was taking input and requests and just general status of everyone.  (The most I can recall specifically is that one of the girls asked for a firecracker for an outdoor prayer ceremony.)  At one point, the teacher telekinetically drew what looked like a red candle to her.  (It didn't float, but more like a strong burst of energy had tossed it towards her.)  I said that I wanted to learn how to do that.  (Slight sense of feeling like I was "behind", like this was something I could be doing too if I'd been more dedicated.)  At this point, I turned my attention to the closest object, which appeared to be a bag of food (dog food maybe?).  I focused on it and reached out my hand towards it, but sitting several feet away.  I felt focused, feeling energized, on the verge of something.  My first couple attempts didn't work, but I could hear a female (inner?) voice in my head directing me what to do, how to bridge to gap with the energy, and using the motion of my arm as if I was grabbing it (to release the energy), it suddenly lurched off the shelf.  I was absolutely thrilled.  I went up to the bedroom I was staying in, and thought about how I should text _____ and _____ about it.  (With the sense that this was a retreat, and that I was staying here for a certain length of time and would not be seeing them soon.)

I was wandering in a backyard later, and there was an open section of fence where the yard met with the neighbor's.  Laying along this in-between section were three or four black dogs, one particularly smaller than the others.  They were all fast asleep even when I was standing right next to them.  I reached down to touch one of them, and only as I did it did I realize it might not be a great idea.  But although a couple of them startled awake, nothing bad happened.  It seemed that they might be neglected.

In another part of the dream, a group of us from the house were going to a club or event.  We were all dressed up, colorful and mardi gras-ish.  We were standing outside getting ready to go in, and the teacher was talking to everyone.  It was at this point that I realized that they were all transvestites, all actually men dressed as women.  I was not bothered, but did feel a mild sense of surprise ("How did I not notice before?") as I studied their features.  They were all pretty and quite feminine, but still noticeably not women if I looked carefully.

(Upon waking, these parts of the dreams are what I was remembering, and thinking to myself that they seemed rather Dionysian - particular the cross dressing and perhaps the rest as a message to focus more on my spiritual path - at which point I suddenly remembered the last part of the dream.)

We were inside the club and talking and drinking. I remembering seeing an image of myself wearing an elaborate layered skirt - light, maybe cream colored - composed of a multitude of square or rectangular patches of material, and a top that resembled one I own IRL. (sleeveless, low cut - white, cream, lacy with flower designs).  As I type this, I just realized what the skirt reminds me of - the skirt of the Cretan snake goddess!  In the dream, I separate from the rest of the group and go to the restroom.  While there, a boy comes in.  I know he is Dionysos or else he tells me so.  He is wearing all one color, a bright green - he seems young, younger than I would expect, maybe 18 or so.  He is very thin, dark haired.  Other than that, his features elude me.  He went on talking to me animatedly, and I remember being very excited with what he was saying - feeling special perhaps.  But I can not remember any of it upon waking, not a single word.  Our discussion was interrupted by someone else coming into the restroom, and he was gone.  I remember thinking that if the person had overheard, they would assume I was talking to myself, and probably would not have seen the god when he was there.