Dionysos in the Woods

 

It was the 30th anniversary of my birth, a new moon, and a solar eclipse (albeit not visible in this part of the world) all in one day.  It seemed like an auspicious time to follow an oracle from Dionysos to "go to the forest."

 

I went alone, to an area whose energy is dear and familiar to me, though finding a place where I might have some solitude without hiking too much was difficult.  I had precious little daylight to work with by the time I reached the place, since this was only a day trip.  I settled on a place not far from the road but out of sight, with a steep hill next to a creek.  Offerings in tow, I hiked down, over the water and then up.  My plan was to get over the hill or to the top of the hill, but this proved impossible.  It was steeper than I thought, and my step was still unsteady from my still-healing foot.  

 

 

 

A little more than halfway up the hill I had to stop.  Left with little choice, I picked the oldest, most impressive looking pine tree in the immediate vicinity and sat with my back to it and the creek so I would not slide down.  The sun and I were in just the right position for me to see all the normally invisible, now illuminated, strands of spider webbing in the trees and brush before me.  On the rising ground in front of me I fashioned an altar from a piece of tree trunk and put forth the various offerings I had been told to bring: eggs, a phallos, wine, flowers. And for my head, a crown that I fashioned of floral lights and ivy for an Ariadne costume a couple years ago, that has since had a permanent place on my shrine.  The sensation of gravity pushing me into the support of the old tree, with the sharply rising ground and the setting sun in front of me, was a strange one.  But I felt secure and secluded.

 

 

 

I called on Dionysos.  I immediately felt the fullness of this place--just how much is going on both visible and invisibly, in constant vibration.  I poured out wine to Him, drank wine, shared wine.  Later that night, I wrote about my experience:

 

Dionysos is the god of nowness, the god of this moment. Nature itself is vibrating, breathing, exploding, ecstatic with energy all the time. He is not just the next time you drink wine or the next time you dance, he is the intense and tragic-wonderful experience of being alive NOW that is simply waiting for your awareness. What is your greatest joy and your greatest sorrow right now?  He is in both.

 

I smoked a little leaf of diviner's sage.  I sensed the vastness behind the nature I knew, the death behind the life.  There was a glimmer of fear, but only a glimmer reserved for the unknown, for the overwhelming idea of "void".  But that only pushed me more into a feeling of deep love.  Somewhere around this time, I realized that I'd been digging my fingers into the soft soil and squeezing it through my fingers, over and over and over, with all this love and sorrow pouring through me.

 

Myself as a priestess of now, of the present moment. Overwhelming love for this earth, its physicality, its dimension and sensations and beauty. This is why I am a Dionysian, why I would be a Bodhisattva -- I would wish always to return to this. 

 

Dionysos' associations with nymphs, with nature, and with death all coalesced into this sudden, half-drunk idea that some nymphs are simply maenads who wished to remain forever connected with the wild places they love, who were granted this by the god they love.  

 

 

 

 

 

I stayed as long as I could, until it started getting dark and shivering cold.  I ate at a raw food restaurant in town to ground myself before heading home.

Worth mentioning is that while I was there, I also had this intuitive tickle that there's something I need to explore more deeply in the future regarding the relationship between Ariadne and Dionysos and their complementary roles.  (I don't like that last phrase but I'm having a hard time putting it better.)  Synchronistically, earlier in the day I had stopped very briefly at a new age shop before heading farther north, picked up a single pagan book, and randomly flipped it open to a section on Ariadne.  I have also recently changed my Aphrodite shrine to be a shrine to Ariadne-Aphrodite--but more on that later.

 

[My thanks to Sannion for being the vessel for the oracle that prompted this trip.]

 

 

 

Dionysia in the Desert

 It was pointed out to me that the First Annual Dionysia in the Desert Street Festival is planned for this December in Tucson, Arizona!  

 

"The goal of the event is to highlight the local Arizona economy through artists, performers, vendors, and sponsors from all over the state of Arizona while as they help raise funds that will support community developed and managed education programs that serve as supplemental alternatives to the current programs whose funds are drastically being depleted by our state leadership."

And from their Facebook event page:  "Come join us in this effort as we re-create the atmosphere of ancient Greece and Rome with a modern day feel and decompress our modern day cares and worries away with four stages, street shows, interactive art, a barter and trading village, beer and wine from our own brewers and vintner, and much much more!"

It is a fundraiser event put on by an organization called The Foundation of L.I.F.E. (Limitless Ideas for a Free Environment).  I'm not familiar with them, but it appears to be a worthwhile organization.  Their website defines them as a "charitable, educational, non-profit foundation...with the purpose of teaching people to love themselves, to love others, and to love the planet.  It represents Arizona citizens who are concerned with the direction that the economic and political structure in the U.S. has taken in terms of limiting the ideas, liberties, and freedoms of individuals, which has resulted in the abuse of human rights throughout the world and in the abuse of global resources."  They also add that they support not only local interests of Arizonans, but also "the interests of 'Gaia'".

Tucson isn't too far from me, and I'd love to go down there to show my support, but due to holiday plans with my family, I won't be able to unless they change their tentative date.  Nevertheless, very cool to see something this big being planned in the name of Dionysos!   Hopefully it will be successful enough to become an annual event.

Heart-joined & Hand-fasted

On September 9th I married my partner, true love and soul-mate.

 

I don't say soul-mate lightly.  I remember well an unexpected, overwhelming feeling of epiphany one day, so strong that I wept, that in my love for him and the subsequent choices I made, I had fulfilled something karmic.  And every day that I wake up next to him or see him smile, I know how incredibly lucky we are.

 

He asked me to marry him in February, on a devotional day to Aphrodite (though he did not know the day's significance at the time). 

 

Our legal marriage on the 9th was a simple affair at the court, but was just the first.  Our wedding is three-fold.  The 2nd was a private ceremony in the woods on the Autumn Equinox, and the 3rd (which was last weekend) was a public rite and reception for friends and family.  Doing it three times wasn't our original plan, but developed over time as we searched for ways to incorporate everything most important to us without compromising anything.  I've come to see it as binding on the physical, spiritual and mental planes, respectively.

 

Because of him, I became and continue to become more spiritual, and a better person, and closer to Dionysos.  These were not his intentions of course, but simply the side-effects -- of falling in love, of learning selflessness, of being torn apart and put back together, of riding the ecstatic highs and devastating lows.  (For our road was not always easy.)  He is Dionysian in his particular beauty, creativity, trickster nature, and all the ways he's liberated me.  Even his last name which I have chosen to share has Dionysian qualities.  Did I come to love Dionysos more because of him or him more because of Dionysos?  Such a question needs no answer.

 

And though I tend to search for definition, his own spirituality defies definition, is fluid and shamanic and highly personal.  I learn much from him though he would probably not call himself a teacher.  Sometimes I still marvel at the depth of conversation we are able to achieve about abstract things, particularly spirituality.  It's as if our similar viewpoints combined with our inherent understanding of each other can bridge the gaps when we reach things that are hard to explain in words.  We have been known to share dreams -- something we are still exploring, and which I have never had with anyone.

 

We both met in the shake up of our Saturn returns, and getting married feels like the resolution to that era.  Together we redefined ourselves, and now the future seems even more full of possibility. 

 

(And I have to add that during our wedding reception this past weekend, I was finally able to dance again - after over 2 months of recovering from a broken foot!)

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.

There Is No "i" in Beltane, Except When There Is

I read an article on Patheos.com by Galina Krasskova about Beltane, where she suggests that Beltane reminds us to honor our physical bodies, to see the sacredness and beauty of our bodies and the experiences they give us.  She asks, "How many of us can look in the mirror and say 'I love my physical form' and mean it?"  That exercise is not new, by any means.  And I was glossing over it a bit at first -- yes yes, self-esteem and self-love and all that -- but the part of me that's been trying to witness my own thought processes and reactions more lately made me stop.  Because somewhere in my glossing over it was this feeling of, "Sure, I can do that exercise.  But I'd rather do it later on, down the road, when I've lost a little weight."

 

Which is, of course, so NOT the point that it's the antithesis of the point. 

 

It made me start thinking of the ways we put conditions on things.  From the "I'll feel sexier when I've lost a few pounds" all the way down to "I'll be happy when [insert your happy thing of choice]".  And for me, there was some initial internal resistance to the idea of letting those conditions go.  As if I wouldn't have control of the things I wish to change anymore, or my sense of the ideal version of me would be lost.  But really, there is no ideal version of me "out there", or in the future or past.  I know I *can* love my physical form now, but in short, I've chosen not to.  And it is a choice even when it's an unconscious one.  Just like choosing to be happy.

 

As pagans, we strive to be close to nature, to earth's cycles, to the physical manifestations of the divine around us.  That manifestation isn't pristine or flawless or homogenized.  The fact is, we are one of many imperfect animals that sweat, rut, consume, defecate, and eventually decay and die.  We are no less sacred in whatever form we currently are.  As Galina says more eloquently:

 

"...each physical vessel of incarnation is intimately connected to one's soul, an integral part of it. We're incarnate for a reason. Our bodies are the tools and conduits by and through which we experience everything, including the Divine. Moreover, they may even be the way the Gods experience us, spirituality being, like so many things, a two-way street. Far from needing to escape from the flesh, Beltane reminds us that there's an awful lot of wisdom inherent in being in the flesh too."

 

So I'm going to make more of an effort to "be" in my own skin, to love this body -- hand tremors, osteoporosis, curves and all other supposed imperfections -- it IS beautiful.  I think a lot of people I know who struggle physically more than I (ie have legitimate pain or health issus) would say that I am lucky, that I'm pretty and don't have major problems, so it should be easy for me.  (The implication that it should be easier for me than it is for them.)  But that's just another condition, and I think that is a tendency we ALL have.  A knee-jerk reaction to the radical surrender of allowing ourselves to be perfect in the now.  I think that when we feel, and more importantly when we *embody* gratitude, that we would actually begin to move easier in our own bodies.  There's no "been there, done that" when it comes to love or self-love because it's both eternal and ongoing.  I'm sure Aphrodite would have much to teach me about all this.

 

Sorry for getting all "Power of Now".  Back to your regularly scheduled internal dialogues... (Dialogues?  Monologues?  How many people are in this head anyway?) 

Greenery & Gifts

Since I haven't written much lately, figured I'd do some general catching up.  (Courtesy of Mercury's backwards dance!)  Hopefully I'll be back on track with some more spiritual musings and experiences soon. 

 

 

 

Here is a small treasure that my lover spotted while we were in an antique store!!  It's most definitely Dionysos, with a male youth on one side and a woman/maenad on the other.  It's handpainted porcelain, made in Greece.  I haven't decided yet what Io keep in it, perhaps loose incense.

 

Here is an ivy plant that I bought for Dionysos!  Isn't it lovely?

 

It will have to stay in its pot since all we've got is a 2nd story patio -- no yard.  Thinking about getting a trellis though.  Today we bought some potted herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage, chocolate mint, lavender).  Eventually I would like to add some more exotic ones like salvia divinorum.  Needless to say, I've definitely got a metaphorical bug for wanting to grow things lately.  I've always wanted to garden and keep plants, but for whatever reason I've always felt like I was inherently bad at it.  But my partner has been encouraging and enthusiastic (and is also much more knowledgeable about such things, which helps!) so I feel like together we'll do just fine.

And here is a cat skull that we found while night-hiking in the river wash!



It was eerie, how it was just suddenly *directly* in our path in the light of our headlamps, eye sockets looking right at us!  Neither of us has every found a skull while walking in the desert, so it seems significant.  It is now sitting in the ivy plant pot until we decide how we want to clean it.

 

It's been a strange spring so far.  One day at the Renaissance festival we were sun-exhausted and sweating from a sudden heat wave, and the very next weekend at the desert botanical gardens it was shiveringly cold and we eventually got rained out!  But the botanical gardens were lovely nonetheless, it was certainly not a wasted trip.  Here are some pictures...

Sorry the last one is blurry, but it was raining by then.  I had to include because it was one of my favorite discoveries there - it's a Boojum tree!!  I <3 any botanist who names a tree after a word in a Lewis Carroll poem.

I got a couple books from the library about desert plants and trees.  I'm interested in the medicinal qualities and identifying things, but also how I might find out the magickal properties of certain plants.  I think I can gather clues from the plant's appearance, behavior and biological qualities, but beyond that it will have to be intuitive and/or communicating with the spirit of the plant itself.  Any plant folklore that might exist would belong to the Native Americans, and that is extremely limited and hard to find given that it's not typically written down.

 

We recently re-arranged our apartment -- added some furniture, made a definite "music" space where other people might see "dining room".  (Not that we have a dining table anyhow -- piano and organ, however, different story!)  One result of all the moving around was finding new places for shrines.  So now Dionysos' shrine is lower to the ground (a plus), and the slightest bit smaller but with more useable wall space.  Aphrodite has a much bigger space, now eye level.  Can't be burning any big candles on it since it's mid-book shelf, but it looks much nicer.  I no longer have a permanent "working" altar, but to be honest that was just getting cluttered most of the time.  There is a potential shrine space on a shelf next to the front door.  I'm still ruminating what I'd like to see there.  Something eclectic, combining our other totems and deities not otherwise represented, perhaps?

 

This Mercury in retrograde has been a nuisance with little delays and things breaking down.  (Even including a major miscommunicaiton with the cats, which was a new one on me!)  But I'm trying not to let the little things get to me, and I've been pretty successful.  The word "try" is misleading, because it's more a feeling of release and acceptance.  But even a coworker commented on my attitude when I admitted I had broken 2 things that day, "Ohh...you're pretty zen about it!"  Which probably means the book I'm reading for my pagan book group, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, is sinking in a bit.  It's something I probably would have passed on as new age fluff had the book group not chosen it, but as a self-admitted "worrier", I've found a few valuable things in it so far.

It seems like a very long time since I've been dancing, which might be why Dionysos feels more distant.  Something to remedy, or else do some other work with him if that is not possible.  I may do a Beltane celebration.  Though I haven't settled on any details, I like the idea of blessing our new plants and such at the least.  That will be closely followed by Alice in Wonderland Day.  (Thank you to Dver for that marvelous idea, which I have been wanting to incorporate into my celebrations for a couple years now but will be doing for the first time this year!)  Since my best friend threw me an Alice-themed tea party for my birthday last year, I already have some nice props and decorations.

I think that's it... I'll end with this rather funny headline I read the other day:  Well-Endowed Apollo Statue to be Re-Erected in France.

Synchronicities

I just finished reading a book called "Living the Magical Life: An Oracular Adventure" by Suzi Gablik.  It's one of those "one woman's spiritual journey" books, yet I was excited to read it based on its promised content... oracle work, embracing daily synchronicities, becoming suddenly drawn to and close to a specific deity (in her case, the Black Madonna.) 

 

Unfortunately, the book didn't have the depth I was hoping for.  The middle-aged author builds an altar to the Black Madonna and visits her statues in foreign places but does not detail any very noteworthy interactions with her as a deity - and almost ignores her entirely for the last half of the book.  She uses I-Ching and bibliomancy which, although certainly valid forms of divination, are not what I'd consider "oracular".  The book is a disjointed account of her doubts and affirmations regarding whether life is meaningfully synchronistic, interconnected and guided by outside forces or simply random.  She describes years of following divination and omens which tell her to hold out hope for a specific romantic relationship, despite all outward evidence that this particular person was entirely disinterested.  The book ends with the romantic interest rebuffing her once and for all and the author ends saying that the outcome does not nullify her experiences.  Basically, "Who knows why things happen the way they do? This is my story, take it or leave it."

 

Urgh.

 

It brings up the whole question of whether or not the gods/spirits/PTB would be intentionally misleading or even blatantly lie in order to further our spiritual development.  The author doesn't tackle this issue, having decided on a tenuous position of blind faith, and certainly seemed to think she emerged a stronger person.  But still, I wonder.  Certainly the gods themselves are ineffable and may mislead for reasons we can't comprehend at the time, but I like to think that divination in general is about revealing patterns.  Was she then not reading a reality pattern but the pattern of her own psyche, which wasn't ready to give up no matter what her divinations revealed?  I think that's why I have a hard time reading tarot for myself -- especially when I'm really emotionally invested.  I feel like I'm reading what I want.  Which is *a* truth, but not the truth I'm usually aiming for.

 

But this book about synchronicities actually seemed to be, well, synchronistic.  It made me stop and take note of omens that have been appearing in my own life.  Oddly, it even referenced a couple very specific things -- including redwood trees, a topic which I just read an entire book about and which seems to keep coming up, and a book by C.S. Lewis that a friend just gave me to borrow.  Even in the ways the book was lacking and irritating me reminded me of my own shortcomings and what I want to strive for in my spiritual practice. 

 

So, time not entirely wasted.  Now I just need to figure out why the trees are trying to get my attention.  Maybe I should just ask them?