The 77 Adorations of Ariadne

I conceived this project over 5 years ago.  I was inspired by Sannion's 99 Adorations of Dionysos, which I am fond of using devotionally, and thought it would be nice to have an accompanying set of adorations for Ariadne.  There's less sources to draw upon for Ariadne's titles and myths, so 77 seemed to be a reasonable and worthy goal.  Most of these lines were written in a couple bursts while contemplating and researching.  Others were revealed later.  The last couple were completed during my most recent celebration of my late summer festival for Ariadne and the Mountain Mother.  During this festival, I camp in a remote place alone in the woods and do ecstatic ritual under the stars.  I took some time to edit and rearrange the lines, and this is the final result.  Many lines reference myth (considering her as both an ancient goddess and also as a mortal princess of Crete), others are more poetic, and a few were revealed either by UPG or by my tradition's understanding and experience of Ariadne, but I don't think any of those latter are too much of a stretch.  

I was asked how I use these...The way I most often use them is repeating the full set as a prayer towards the beginning of a ritual to both praise that divinity and call to mind/focus on their broad nature and various aspects. I love the repetition of "I adore you...", it feels very intimate - naming them as beloved, while also having a rhythm that invites an altered state of consciousness. Sometimes I do it slowly and thoughtfully, sometimes more quickly and theatrically. I have used prayer beads with a set of Adorations, too, sometimes as a daily devotional thing when I'm not feeling spontaneous or don't have something more specific in mind. But one could meditate on one line at a time, if they wished, even using it as a mantra or reciting it a certain number of times.  I have also considered writing them all down on slips of paper or cards and drawing one at random per day for guidance or contemplation.  I'm sure there's other way they could be used. 

1. I adore you most holy one

2. I adore you Lady of the labyrinth

3. I adore you who bids us walk the path

4. I adore you wielding snakes

5. I adore you pure in the underworld

6. I adore you who nurses the chthonic child

7. I adore you who anoints the baetyl stone

8. I adore you priestess of the Mountain Mother

9. I adore you bestower of epiphany

10. I adore you of the ritual sacrifice

11. I adore you swinging among trees

12. I adore you wild and untamed

13. I adore you moon child

14. I adore you daughter of Minos

15. I adore you dwelling in deepest caves

16. I adore you whose voice is like the hum of bees

17. I adore you princess of Crete

18. I adore you light in the dark

19. I adore you leaping over bulls

20. I adore you sister of Asterion and Glaukos

21. I adore you who wields the two-sided axe

22. I adore you alighting on mountain cliffs

23. I adore you with wine dark eyes

24. I adore you muse of Daedalus

25. I adore you who dances gracefully on pavilions

26. I adore you who stands between two worlds

27. I adore you who offers the ball of thread

28. I adore you of the ever-winding wheel

29. I adore you whose lips taste like honey

30. I adore you who guides the hero

31. I adore you of the many-tiered skirt

32. I adore you bare-breasted one

33. I adore you shrouded in dittany smoke

34. I adore you speaking prophecies

35. I adore you who freed the Minotaur

36. I adore you born upon the sea

37. I adore you who surrenders to fate

38. I adore you who is remembered at the center

39. I adore you fractal longing

40. I adore you who delights in roses

41. I adore you who leaves everything safe behind

42. I adore you abandoned on Naxos

43. I adore you who summons the storm

44. I adore you mad with ecstasy

45. I adore you roused by the god who comes

46. I adore you riding a panther

47. I adore you hanging girl

48. I adore you whose nature is untouchable

49. I adore you wife of Dionysos

50. I adore you inviter to bliss

51. I adore you holy vessel

52. I adore you who endures deep sorrow

53. I adore you Ariadne-Aphrodite

54. I adore you wearing a wreath of plany flowers

55. I adore you bound and unbound

56. I adore you mother of paradox

57. I adore you weaver of stories

58. I adore you of the birthing cry

59. I adore you who bears the grape

60. I adore you punished by Artemis

61. I adore you with beautiful braids of hair

62. I adore you who unwinds trauma

63. I adore you who casts a net of dreams

64. I adore you who knows the ways of the spider

65. I adore you queen of the maenads

66. I adore you heart of the Underground

67. I adore you unconditional love

68. I adore you who welcomes the weary initiate

69. I adore you wearing a starry crown

70. I adore you utterly clear in the heavens

71. I adore you protector of tradition

72. I adore you soul of life indestructible

73. I adore you who achieved apotheosis

74. I adore you who meanders through my heart

75. I adore you who holds up a mirror

76. I adore you beloved of Bakkhos

77. I adore you my Goddess

Aletheia in the Well

 I discovered these two captivating pieces of art in the same week.  One is a late 19th century painting by Jean-Léon Gerome, which I found immediately striking.  The other is a recently released song by Esben and the Witch.  So interesting how they seem to pair together well. (No pun intended.) I'm pondering the implications.

      Truth Coming Out of Her Well by Jean-

Léon Gerome

"The Well" by Esben and the Witch

Anthesteria '23 in Medium Format Film

My partner (who has taught himself quite a bit about photography over the years) has been sharing his hobby with me. Happy to rely on his expertise and just point and shoot, I've been admittedly lazy about learning the more technical aspects, but I'm getting there. Recently he gifted me a medium format camera of my own: an old Seagull twin lens reflex camera. Truth be told, I have been a bit enamored of this type of camera since a friend of mine bought a Rolleiflex some years ago. There's something aesthetically and nostalgically alluring about it. I love how you look down into the view finder and you're in a mirror world. It's got weight, and intentionality... which is much the same reason I like vinyl records, I suppose. You think about the media more. You commit to it. And in the process, you treasure it a bit more. This is the first time I've taken this particular camera for a spin, and the result was better than expected. Especially since I was guessing on the aperture and shutter speed settings for the first couple pics, as I was alone and had left my cell phone (with its digital light meter app) in the car by accident. 

 I do hope to blog more about this year's festival in more detail, but in the meantime here's some images.

You were there, in the labyrinth...

Stumbled across this song while stoned on my first batch of bhang that I made using cannabis leaves that my partner and I grew this year.  (For some reason that seems like an important detail.)  Although the song is called "You With Air", and that is the phrase being sampled, all I hear is "You were there, in the labyrinth..."  I'm going with it. 

The music video is very trippy. Esoptron/mirror vibes. 

Holy Dread

I can’t recall this topic being written about elsewhere, but I’m really curious if others have experienced this phenomenon. As far as I know, I made up the term “holy dread”, but given my poor memory I could be wrong - so I hope someone will correct me if I’m mistaken, or let me know if there’s already another term for this out there! 

Holy dread is something that I first remember experiencing in 2014, although it’s possible it happened before that and it just wasn’t as dramatically on my radar. I had gone up to my sacred mountains, the Mogollon Rim in Arizona, to perform a ritual for Ariadne, Dionysos and the Mountain Mother. I wrote about the experience here, and back then I described feeling… “a temptation to distract myself with something innocuous, and underlying that… a bubbling up of something terrifying.” 

At the time, I wrote it off as a sort of grief-fueled existential crisis. But I just journaled about it and went ahead with the ritual as planned. 

The next year I went up again to repeat the observance, as I felt it had been quite powerful, especially doing it in the summer with the Corona Borealis overhead. I added to it a bit, and decided to invite the spirit of my husband to join in. (I also did some other work to connect with him before the main ritual.) 

 This time, the feeling of dread was SO strong leading up to it, that I remember recording a video of myself on my phone “just in case” I didn’t make it through to the other side of the ritual. I knew it was a silly thought, but I couldn’t shake it. That ritual turned out to be incredibly powerful - what I feel was an initiation and blessing from the gods upon me and my husband both. 

I will also usually feel holy dread during Anthesteria before my Khoes rites, and sometimes during other festivals like Lenaia. 

So how would I describe holy dread? It’s like a weighted sense of impending and inexplicable doom that directly precedes an important ritual, trial or spiritual work. The level of holy dread can sometimes be correlated with how powerful the ritual turns out to be, but not necessarily. The weight is lifted at some point once the ritual is started. (Or I would assume, if you chose to not go through with it- although I’ve never done that.) 

I’ve experienced holy dread for rituals both indoor in controlled circumstances and outdoors in nature. But it’s only ever been before rituals that have a strong ecstatic element and involve entheogens or altered states of consciousness. However, I don’t think it’s just the knowledge that I’ll be partaking of entheogens that causes the dread. The feeling is distinct from the sort of nervous butterflies or trepidation I’ve experienced before using psychedelics recreationally. It could be something to do with the ecstatic element - the knowing that I will be giving up some measure of control and putting myself in the hands of the gods and spirits.  

When I experienced it most recently a couple weeks ago, I was by now very acquainted with the feeling, but it STILL completely bowled me over. It was so pronounced, that I was genuinely concerned for my well-being.  That’s how intense it was. I kept thinking, what if this was actual intuition this time, warning me to stop? What if this was in fact a bad idea? Were the gods trying to tell me to stop before I even started? 

So of course, discernment comes in really handy here. In this case, I performed some divination and got the green light. I also recorded a video of myself on my phone again, which is weirdly soothing. It puts a light/mirror to your own fears, and it pacifies the thinking-mind to say things out loud and put it “on record”. 

Note: When I googled “holy dread”, I re-discovered that it’s a phrase in Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan”. It’s a poem I’ve been familiar with since my teenage years so perhaps that’s where my subconscious mind grabbed it from. Apparently it's also the title of an appropriately atmospheric track from The Fountain soundtrack (one of my favorite films) - so I figured I’ll share that here:

2022 Festival Calendar

Historically I've not been great at sticking to a festival calendar, with the exception of Lenaia and Anthesteria (those I've been observing consistently for over 10 years). It's helped in the past when a festival calendar has been shared with a community, but lately I've been wanting to settle on a calendar that only includes things that feel more personally meaningful. And indeed, some of these are ONLY meaningful to me. We'll see how this sticks, but now that I'm currently finishing up the last bit of work to complete my clinical herbalist program, I'm looking forward to having more time and energy for devotional work.

Having mirror festivals in October was based on a conversation with a friend/co-religionist in my tradition. We observed the parallels of Anthesteria with observances like Samhain, and they mentioned the idea of having another festival that mirrors Lenaia. I love this idea, and I'm thinking it might blend well into an Oschophoria-type observance. We'll see... this is not fully fleshed out yet. I suspect I'll be figuring it out as I go along.

2022 Festival Calendar

Jan 14 (sunset) - Jan 18th (sunset) - Lenaia

Feb 11 (sunset) - Feb 14th (sunset) - Anthesteria

March 12 (sunset) - March 20th (sunset) - City Dionysia

• March 20th - Spring equinox: Bacchic Orphic Egg Hunt?

April 28-May 2nd (solar) - Floralia

May 4th - Alice Day

May 6-14th - Elevation Ceremony/Days of Remembrance for Anthony

June 2nd - Khariteia: Festival of the Graces

July 3rd - Dies Mortis of Jim Morrison

Near Full moon in July (13th) - Festival of Ariadne & the Mountain Mothers

Aug 8 - Day of the Beloved Trickster

Sept 21-23 - Festival of Orpheus: Poetry, prophecy, music, and honoring tradition

Oct 3-5 - Oschophoria / Mirror Lenaia:  Fire mysteries, honoring the last harvest, sacrifice, beginning the underworld descent

Oct 31-Nov 2 - Days of the Dead / Mirror Anthesteria

Nov 4th - Looking Glass Day

Nov 24th - Lampteria 

Dec 21st - Winter Solstice/Yule

Dec 22 - 31st - Festival of the Toys

Jan 1st - Kalends

I'm also assigning each month to some deeper work with each of the Toys of Dionysos, with my birth month reserved for the Agathos Daimon and December honoring all the Toys. Funny how Esoptron very naturally falls in October.

Jan: Sphaira

Feb: Astragaloi

Mar: Trochos

Apr: Rhombos

May: Strobilos

Jun: Krotala

Jul: Paignia

Aug: Pokos

Sep: Mela

Oct: Esoptron

Nov: The Agathos Daimon

Dec: All the Toys

When Theater Becomes Worship

I am in absolute awe of this production of The Bacchae performed by the Teatro Oficina in São Paulo, Brazil.  I can't recall if someone recommended it to me, or if I stumbled upon it, but it's been on my list to watch for over a year after watching an hour of it last year, and then I finally watched the whole thing over the most recent Lenaia.  (No mean feat, considering it's an epic 5 hours long - but totally worth it.) 

I can't imagine anything like this being performed in the U.S. It feels like the closest thing we could get to seeing how things might have been performed in Ancient Greece. Not because of the setting (most of it takes place in an building, albeit a really unconventional one), but because of the way it feels like devotional theater, like being part of a huge public ritual. There's nods to Brazil's Carnival tradition in the production, which only adds to it. But I can't imagine that these people were NOT overtaken with Dionysian ecstasy while doing this. And I can't imagine that anyone who wasn't in love with Dionysos would have gone through the effort of putting together something this madly ambitious.

Warning: Extremely NSFW.

I was able to dig up an article about the theater company, in case you were as curious as I was.  Now visiting this theater is a new travel goal of mine.