Maenadic Aftermath

sore in strange places, hands shaking, skin raw and spirit pricked,

whole body spent as with lovers exhaustion

lungs fold and unfold like bird wings with whatever you smoked, whatever you confessed.

Io Bakchos, Io Bakchos

you feel like an inspired incident, something that happens to a room or a time --

a storm that, once passed, is only notable in its wreckage.

moments return in infrequent flashes

pantheric pacing

a rumble of music shaking your core

dancing and falling

into some chasm of sorrow

was there a logical progression?  you can’t remember,

but after some strike, you were suddenly weeping, from the deepest part of you,

pleading and begging for the god to take your heart  

JUST TAKE IT!!!

and you kept diving back in,

mumbling maniacally, “I must be crazy…”

and then the hit came where your body fell away,

and you didn’t feel your heart, didn’t feel anything at all --

certainly not afraid,

in spite of being forced without form through teethed corridors

with their guardians and serpents and many-fanged questions.

your voice was clear as a bell, as if your voice was always the most real part of you all along--

(strangely beautiful, the way it rang incorporeal)

“I am a child of earth and starry sky. Bakchos himself has set me free.

Let me drink from the well of memory.”

you didn’t remember until you said it, but yes, you were quite thirsty indeed,

and then you fell--back into the thrust of life

back into the god’s embrace, back to the surface, this time...

That was nothing. There’s so much deeper to go.

I know.

you’re still talking to yourself like this, because it’s all too fresh.

you lick your lips, bitter remembrance

(so that’s what happens when you drink your past)

sometimes your hands seem so old

So did you learn more about yourself, like you wished?

the question hangs like a girl in a tree, mostly motionless

in the dissipating smoke and an inhaled breath.

ghostly memories of strange images and sensations still flicker around your periphery.

Not really, to be honest.  I have a lot more questions.

I’ll drink to that.

exhale.

Evohe.

Katabasia

Semele used to count the stars
Yearning, ever reaching for the sky,
She who unabashedly loved the storm,
ran in the rain, invited catastrophe,
Demanded truth.
Having a bellyful of mystery, one can only beg illumination,
beg to be consumed, to be destroyed by violent brilliance.
Your bull-faced son braved the labyrinthine dark.
He knew not your face, nor did you know his,
but he would know you by your unflinching gaze,
your lightning-struck skin,
the way you throw off all shadow,
and you would know him anywhere -- his father's son,
the child born of earth and sky
He takes your hand,
He bargains the path,
by ivy and vine, fig and cypress, rain and tears,
You see the light again.
Thyone, you see the light again!
You always did love the stars.
Thyone, who knows Her god and Her heart.
Thunder and drum.
Life undone.
We must die to become...

Madness begins in Exile

Since we just observed the Melinoeia, it seems appropriate to post this.  It's one of my favorite poems that I've written.  I wrote it in a particular state of madness, several years ago.  In fact, as you might notice from the title, I'm pretty sure it preceded and spawned the "in Exile" concept of my blog's title.

Isadora in Exile

hair raises

skin crawls

the ghost within is writhing

and she’s wanting nothing  (not)

more                                  (true)

than a drink, or a few

and the sweet sharp symmetry

of skin, broken for ink

(I do)

it well/s (up), it’s fine

she counts on state of mind

--onetwothreefour--

Oh, Isadora! you’ve lied

while you lived and

you burn when you hide –

he replied, “In deed.  And in sanity.”

yes, the soul may divide

it self hope full and hope less,

while it’s daydreams for breakfast

(they taste bitter in the un-

                    rest)

where peace battles numbness

it is, it is this

and it’s

this

and it’s this and it’s

night again, so we meet

where saltwater creeps

and she’s chanting (chant-chant-chanting)

for sleep

      (for a sign)

begging Stars

     to align

she knows, contemplating constellations

is the only (sure) explanation

to keep her (name) from changing

or raging and/orating, and poetry-making

so she can House herself

between liminal

unreliable sunrises

    (and regards)

            little else

she wants nothing more

than her blue, bruised eyes

to be kissed,

one at a time/to be kissed

one, at a time

she wants nothing more

she, Isadora,

(excepting your) wants (is)

nothing

(any) more

On the Melinoeia...

I dressed in black and white.  Silver and black eyeliner.  Fake pearls around my neck, twined with my wedding rings.  I read aloud some hymns and poetry to Melinoe, burned myrrh and peppermint, and offered a plate of foods that were a mix of dark and sweet, pungent and aromatic.  Dates, concord grapes, ginger preserves, dark chocolate, sprigs of fresh herbs, raw cheese, red wine mixed with cardamom syrup.

I also asked Melinoe if there was a devotional activity she would have of me, and drew from my Pithos.  “Write a hymn or poem to today’s spirit”.  Made sense.  Melinoe is one of only two of the Thiasos’ deities/spirits that I have not contributed to the communal hymns for.  (The other being Apollo, because he still escapes my understanding for now.)  With Melinoe, though she is arguably enigmatic, it was more because I was hesitant. I have been through grief-caused madness a couple times, and the worst and most recent felt too fresh, and I wasn’t sure how approaching Melinoe would provoke the sort of rocky equilibrium I currently have.  In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have been worried.

On the way to go dancing, I stopped spontaneously at a grocery store to buy a pomegranate, which I felt would come in handy later.

Once at the club, I used some of The Witch of Forest Grove’s Toad flying ointment and drank pomegranate flavored liquor.

There were some amazing moments on the dance-floor.  Although, I remember little of them now, which is typical.  Such memories are sacrifices to ekstasis.  I do remember actively manipulating energy and dancing in doorways for the dead (like on the Hekatesia). I remember feeling an emotional madness overtake me into a particular frenzy where I was manically pulling on my own hair. How crazy I must have looked?  Not crazy enough that I wasn’t approached towards the end of the night by two women on the dance floor, asking me questions.  They might have been flirting with me, but I’m a little immune to that sort of thing.  But I did have an inkling earlier in the night that if anyone approached me tonight they were going to have some repercussions of what I was doing — so when it happened, I just smiled.  If that smile had words it would have been saying “So you need some of this transformative stuff, do you?  I am somewhat sorry, but then I am just a vessel…”

I can’t recall what prompted it exactly, but one of them said to me, not without playfulness, “Anyone who comes to a club by themselves has issues.”  I smiled even more wickedly and replied “Oh, I’ve got issues- of a whole other variety.”  You have no idea.

When the night was over, I went home and took my pomegranate outside.  It seemed obvious what to do with it.  I tore it into little pieces, with my hands and some with my teeth.  I had no particular grief in mind when I did this, just thought of Melinoe and started tearing it apart – but as soon as I began the tears suddenly came — a real deep almost angry weeping.  My mind was completely blank.  I don’t even know what I needed to cry about, something unnamed or something residual perhaps.  But I didn’t feel the need to name it, I just threw the last bits of seeds and red flesh with particular vehemence as the juice dripped down my arm.  (I noticed later with curiosity that the juice dried in the shape of veins down my forearm to my elbow.)

I paced a little and breathed through it, but the emotion seemed to clear and then disappear completely once I splashed some water on my face.  I tried to watch an episode of my favorite ghost show, but I passed out almost immediately.  I had dreams within dreams.  One of a spider crawling on me while I slept.

I remember you, Melinoe.
You are the violence between Earth and Sky,
your lightning-scream so bright
that the resulting silence is as profound as negative space.
Melinoe, phantom queen, tear down the veil between
what the mind has lost and what the heart cannot forget,
so we may be pure of spirit.

[Cross-posted at the Boukoleon]

The Dionysian Dead - Blood and Other Gifts

I did my second blood offering to the Dionysian Dead.

The first time was a bit clumsy, this time was a little less clumsy.  So I’m not an expert here by any means, just sharing my experience since it seems that others might be a bit hesitant to do this.  Forgive the lack of poetry, but I am anxious to get this down.

Background:  I have done some basic ancestor work in the last year, and have honored the dead at appropriate festivals (Samhain, Anthesteria) but other than this, no special experience in working with the dead.  But my husband died unexpectedly last May, so that experience, both coping with the grief and conceptualizing the afterlife, has brought me close to the edge, so to speak.  And even the Anthesteria before he died there were signs that I should start focusing more on the dead.  I wouldn’t do intense work with just any wandering dead, because that’s more than I’m prepared to deal with, but I feel that when it comes to the Dionysian dead in particular, that Dionysos is going to be the the mediating presence.  I trust him.

What I gathered: paper, pencil, single blade razor, isopropyl alcohol, paper towels, bandaid, pine resin salve, a vessel for burning (like a small cauldron), other usual ritual accoutrements, tobacco and whiskey for offerings, music

Practical side: Cutting yourself on purpose is harder than you think it’s going to be. It just is.  And probably not for everyone for a variety of reasons.  But I feel like for me it’s doable and just something I’m trying to figure out the best method for. A knife was too clumsy and hard to control, and the single razor I used was difficult to get a decent depth of cut with, so I’m not wed to a particular method yet, although the razor was better.  Obviously, be careful and smart about it.  I especially like the idea of using pine resin salve afterwards, though, if you can get or make some.  It’s a good healer and pine is associated with Dionysos, so it’s protective in a spiritual AND antimicrobial way.

I called upon Dionysos first, and asked him to bring his blessed dead and be the intermediary.  Then I called upon the Dionysian dead themselves, praised them and asked them to be present, to dance with me and receive my offerings.

Dancing!

For anyone in the Thiasos of the Starry Bull that read and discussed Philostratus’ On Heroes a little while back, you might remember this bit:

To be cleansed of the body is the beginning of life for divine and thus blessed souls. For the gods, whose attendants they are, they then know, not by worshipping statues and conjectures, but by gaining visible association with them. And free from the body and its diseases, souls observe the affairs of mortals, both when souls are filled with prophetic skill and when the oracular power sends Bacchic frenzy upon them.

The last sentence in particular jumped out at me.  What this says to me is that not only must we be in an altered or frenzied state to interact with the spirits of the dead, but the dead and/or the heroes must be brought into a frenzy as well in order to interact with us.  There is a meeting in between, perhaps.  In other words, we must do some work to alter or raise their spiritual vibrations and our own to similar frequencies.  What does this mean?  From what I can guess… Give them energy, and specifically, energy that is reciprocal and flows between the realms — offerings of food or drink, music, and things that bring you into altered states of consciousness (dance, wine, chanting, etc.) used with intention.  The blood offering itself no doubt does this as well, but since I wanted the blood to be a gift and not the tool (if there’s a difference), I chose to play music and dance first.

Once I felt good about the energy raised, I sat down to do the blood offering.  I took a small piece of paper and wrote a spontaneous prayer to the Dionysian dead.  I read it aloud.  And I took the razor and made a couple cuts on my left thumb.  I pressed the blood into the paper.  I hand-rolled a cigarette of organic tobacco and blew tobacco smoke onto it.  And then I burned the paper. Sprinkled some alcohol into the flames.  Blood and breath, earth and fire and spirit.




And then I danced some more.  I had this mix of music that went from Hellblinki to the Doors.  After I settled down, I decided to use the Oracle of the Doors to see how my offering was received.  Which is where things got interesting.  The first response I got was:

You’re lost little girl.

Um, okay. That could be negative.  Am I totally on the wrong track?  But then, that particular Doors lyrics just played so maybe it’s a playful acknowledgement.  To further clarify:

Don’t worry, the operation won’t take long and you’ll feel much better in the morning.

Hmmm, enigmatic, but positive hints toward the future and possibly the operation being the blood offering itself.  One more:
 
Go out and buy a brand new pair of shoes.

Okay, this one REALLY got my attention. Bizarrely, I had been shoe shopping all day, trying to find a pair of shoes to go with a particular dress, and did not have any luck.  In fact, just before I did this ritual I had a long rant to my mom about how I couldn’t find the right shoes and didn’t even know what the right shoes would even look like, because my qualifications and the dress itself are so particular.  So are they saying they were with me, watching me, while I was shopping today….?
Being tipsy and feeling like I was being played with, I said “No, really!  How was my offering received?”  And got:

it’s how it has to be

Okay.  I could deal with that.

The next day, I went to an appointment and then found myself with some free time before I had to get ready for dinner with a friend.  So I hit a Goodwill and looked for shoes again, bought a pair that pinched my toes but probably wouldn’t look awful.  I gave up and started to head home.  On my way, I missed a turn I would have taken if I’d been paying more attention, but then the next turn I took I saw another Goodwill where I didn’t know there had been one.  Well, why not?  It wasn’t until that moment where I had pretty much given up again that I saw them.  THE PERFECT PAIR OF SHOES.  Even just seeing them on the shelf I’m sure I said, “No way!” under my breath and then, “But I bet they don’t have the sort of heel I want.”  But, they did.  The particular shade of brown, the pattern on the shoes that would offset the pattern on the dress, it was so fucking unlikely that my heart was pounding when I checked the size and tried them on.  Just a tad too big, but that would be a piece of cake to deal with!

Shoes may seem like a really silly thing to get excited about, there is more to it… The dress that they needed to go with?  Belonged to my husband.  (And yes, he looked really great in it.)  And I have been planning for months to wear it in remembrance of him, to the concert of a musician we both love, whom he never got a chance to see.  So even in this girly, silly detail was this really special significance to me, and to the dead.  There is no doubt in my mind that they were an unexpected gift to acknowledge my gift.  I am overwhelmed at this, and the immediacy and reality of it.
I don’t think pictures do them justice, but here it is…

[Cross-posted at the Boukoleon]

Some beautiful words from my eternal lover...

My path is forever just beginning, and my feet are always soft and sensitive to
the earth's new caress, this Moon is always my first cycle, and this sunrise always
my first communion. Speak to me, and you speak not to my flesh, but to my spirit,
whom I have set at the feet [of] a great soul, a god of friendship and epiphanies, a
parlay with Myth itself and one who peeks in Destiny's mirror, and sees not himself,
but his brothers and sisters.

 
I dream for who we are, and I dream for who we are not, for in between is truly
what we shall become.
/crazy

-- from one of my husband's many journals

Hekatesia

8/12-8/13

I began my observance of the Hekatesia a day early.  Was slow waking up, getting around, with little to do in the early part of the day except to get ready for the night.  Felt distracted.  Even the weather was restless, with a storm kicking up.  It intensified into a frenzy for just minutes, but long enough; the wind seemed so brutal that I went out to check on my plants, only to find this…



It is hard to explain the significance of this in a few words. My dearest san pedro.  A gift, a teacher, who has become a symbol of my deepest love, my deepest grief, even my current struggle with meaning, and my journey of the last 4 years.  She will be all right.  In a slightly different form, perhaps, not unlike me.  But I still cried for her.  (Again. But our history is a whole other story…)

I went dancing, alone.  I remember feeling like my dancing was taking on new purpose. Certainly it’s changed it’s tone.  (Are my ballroom days over? I’m still working that out.)  But it was more like I was making doorways for the dead and the spirits.  Stomping ethereal ghost tunnels into the dance floor.  (Oops?)  Let it be said, wise or no, I did it with gusto.

I was drawn into being social with strangers.  The conversation quickly turned to entheogens.  Not my doing, though no doubt I encouraged it.

More dancing. Waltz of the light fish.

When that was over and I was home again, I packed up some offerings and took a walk (umbrella in hand for the drizzle of rain), keeping an eye out for whatever crossroads looked best.  I found one and knelt down at a tree. Lit a candle, a stick of incense.  Left a plum, a fig, wine, sweets.  Called upon Hekate.  In my spontaneity, in my tired and tipsiness, I didn’t quite know what I was going to say, so my words were clumsy.  “My fear is… nothingness. My fear is… meaningless.”  Hearing my own words I chuckled.  “Well, that’s true. Everything has a double meaning, doesn’t it?  Or a triple one.”

Not looking back was difficult, but I did not.

The next day I had to work, but I didn’t feel quite finished.  I went to my pithos, finally.  For I had done an elaborate ritual to bless it long ago but for some reason had held myself back in using it. Other fears, here, perhaps?  So now, I said a prayer to Hekate and drew a devotional activity.  “Take a meditational walk and look for omens.”  Yes, I could do this.

On my break, I went walking around the outside grounds of my work at night.  I’d never quite explored it, but turns out it’s pretty damn spooky and full of little crossroads.  I saw at least 10 lizards, and heard others I couldn’t see.  And each time I reached a crossroads I’d watch the lizards’ movement and go the direction it indicated.  If I was unsure there was often another to reinforce it.  The uneasiness I felt in some of the darker areas came as a surprise to me, because I didn’t think there was much left in me that was afraid of the dark, or the unknown.  On one of my last passes before I had to head back, I passed a streetlight which suddenly went out as soon as I walked up to it.  I turned towards the now darkened streetlight and my breath caught as a realized I could see not one, but 3 shadows of myself before me.  I pondered these and turned around to see that I had stopped (without realizing) at the top of a T of another crossroads.

Once I continued, another streetlight went out.  I acknowledged, with an odd sort of appreciation, that I have more fears that I have still to uncover, though I may not be able to name them yet.  I saw a stone that almost looked like a toad.  I picked it up and left it at the the point where I started, before going back inside.

[Cross-posted at the Boukoleon.]

Feast of the Dionysian Kings

Late start to the evening, but went out dancing.  My old club, where I’d always felt most comfortable, most ecstatic, had since closed and re-opened and changed format.  So I dress, not goth per-se, but more or less to blend.  Say some prayers before going in, to dedicate my dancing to Dionysos and the Dionysian Kings.  

The fact that it’s a gay club on most nights means little to me since I’m only there to dance.  The music, however, fluctuates from some pretty hideous pop to some nearly decent stuff.  I nearly regret my impetuous promise to dance for the spirits and god, given the environment.

Yet I do.  And I don’t trance out so much, as I think about the idea of feeling like an outsider in a space that I had previously claimed.  

And I think, is this part of the lesson of the Kings? Always outsider in their own territory, always alone while surrounded?  Or am I reading too much into this?  And yet, what madness and what bravery to rule with a lonely heart, knowing that even the greatest empires are bound to crumble.

I think, too, about previous ecstatic experiences here.  And about whether the promises that the gods make to us are out of time.  In retrospect, what Dionysos has given me, what he has promised me, seems suddenly disproportionate.  I didn’t understand the gravity of it.  No doubt the gravity is just barely tumbling down the full significance like so many stones.  Yet the gods are not linear.  Do we negotiate with the gods, pray to the gods, in our limited perspective while the gods themselves laugh and say, “Yes, my love. You can have this now, because I know you will earn it later…”  So in a way, I may always be catching up with my past.

I had made the mistake of going back and reading my old blog posts the night before, and the dissonance of the me-of-years-past with the me-now seriously disturbed me.  I’m not sure why.  My blog is only four years old.  

That’s part of what makes me break down into tears as I drive home. The madness I keep close, crashing in.  The full reality of life, that it may truly be all as connected as I hope and fear, every single detail and moment like a grand spiderweb.  Seeing the connections but not the meaning.  So many synchronicities lately.  The life and the inevitability of death.  Like I’m a piece of ocean put into a tea kettle.  It’s all heat and stress and steam, and my primal source and fate and the why’s of it all are distance concepts I can only try to grasp while I bubble over.

At home, I set out a colorful feast of fresh fruits and cheese and wine.  Dragonfruit, figs, grapes, apricots.  Ginger preserves and graham crackers.  Dance a bit more.  Songs on shuffle.  Those are always telling.

There will be more.  I think this is a good month for the dead.

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.

Herbfolk Gathering

I figured I'd throw it out there that I plan to attend the HerbFolk Gathering in my home state in September.  I attended last year's event and enjoyed it immensely, and this year's looks to be shaping up to be even better, with longer classes and two nights of dancing and music.  Obviously the focus is on herbalism, but it has a pagan- and animist-friendly feel to it, so if anyone else reading this plans to attend, drop me a line! 

A Song to Walk Through

I had the pleasure of seeing "Only Lovers Left Alive" at my favorite bar slash movie theater, and I found it incredibly moving, not the least reason being the music.  This one particular song has been taking me elsewhere.  I love when music becomes doorways, even if it's to something uncomfortable.  I can see pretty much the whole soundtrack finding a place for itself in my devotional playlists.

A Storm for Prophets

The Feast of the Dionysian Prophets last Thursday coincided with a surprise blessing - the first monsoon of the season!

I live in the southwest in Arizona, where monsoon season begins sometime after the summer solstice. This is when we get the bulk of our rainfall, although even that has been very little the last few years, as we are in the midst of a drought like other parts of the country.  These storms can come with almost no warning.  And sometimes they have a unpredictable frenzy to them -  coming in bursts that can tear off doors or roofs, knock down light or traffic poles, kick up dust and throw down lightning.  Yeah, unpredictable!

I love it!

I was working graveyard shift that night, and we were only a couple hours in when it started to hit.  My coworkers know SOME measure of my eccentricities, so they were forgiving (if still a bit surprised) when I dropped everything I was doing and ran out into the rain.  I was surrounded by the smell of heat and wet and chaparral and dust as I raised my face to the pelting rain and breathed it all in.  The pure energy of it is indescribable.

My lunch break was fairly early and by that time the rain had stopped but the lightning had not.  I walked further out to get a full view of the sky.  I thought, fuck the fireworks - this is so much better.  And it was!  The lightning was coming from every direction - close, far, sideways and longways.  I don’t think I’ve ever been in the midst of a lightning storm so beautiful and prolific. I was so moved and exhilarated that my prayers were clumsy repetitions.  I poured out the only libation I had, kombucha tea I had made at home.  To Dionysos, to the nymphs, to the heroes.

The energy stayed with me, so after the sun came up and I started for home, I bought a bottle of honey whiskey for offerings and did a short round of The Oracle of the Doors (as created by Sannion) whilst listening to The Doors on shuffle.  (Lyrics that jumped out at me included “whiskey” and “king snake”.)  These were my questions and answers, which seem quite powerful, and I am still pondering.  Comments/interpretations welcome.

What does Dionysos wish me to know?

466 Life goes on absorbing war

341 A wrong gesture. Too long and curious a glance.

442 Your ballroom days are over.

What do my ancestors wish me to know?

543 But can you still recall the time we cried

643 Break on through to the other side

365 Hordes crawl and seep inside

Where do I go next?

555 “Alive!” she cried

343 Blood is the rose of mysterious union

252 river flow, on and on it goes

[To learn more about the Dionysian Prophets honored by The Thiasos of the Starry Bull, of which Jim Morrison is only one, visit The Boukoleon. The thiasos chat on 7/3 on this topic was really good!] 

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.