Anthesteria 2019

Pithoigia
The Opening of the Wine Jars

This was my 2nd Anthesteria away from my home state and my first Anthesteria in a New England climate. I was blessed to be able to spend some time outdoors each day. Although the weather was not ideal, it was not downright prohibitive or hostile, even though there have been days since then that could be described that way.

I began my Pithoigia just before sunset, at a small riverside park near my home. There’s a lot of snow on the ground still, although the day was unusually warmer (highly 30’s into the 40’s). It would have been smarter to have snowshoes, but I managed fairly well without.

At the riverside, I said some opening prayers and sounded my bullhorn a few times. I opened the first bottle of wine and shared it in libation on the frozen earth. There are no flowers yet, not even a hint of a sprout. But there is the dream of spring, the promise of it in the less-freezing weather, and certainly the desire for it. And of course, Dionysos can be found in every place and time. 

I walked and chanted, and suddenly remembered I had spontaneously altered a chant to Dionysos a couple years back specifically for this day. I can’t recall how that one went, be this one settled into:

“Come with the wine pots,
Come with the flower petals,
Come with the restless dead,
Dionysos, come!

“Come Anthesterios,
Come to us Bakcheios,
Come to us Lusios,
Dionysos, come!”

I did some tree-pulling at the top of a small hill -- something I’ve experimented with here and there, having found it depicted in Minoan art. We can only speculate on what it meant to the Minoans, but I’ve found it to be a nice way to commune with the land and trees, especially while dancing outdoors, but also in more quiet meditative moments. “Tree-pulling” is a weird term yet oddly descriptive. I usually grasp a smaller tree by its trunk and let the rest of my body fall back and sway back and forth, usually switching hands on the upswing. It’s especially thrilling if you do it near a cliff’s edge or on a hill. Tree-pulling is not unlike swinging but without a rope, expressing a natural rhythm that thrums under the surface. The practice invites your consciousness into tree-time, to notice things like the wind or the way the bare branches fractal against the cloudy sky. Old and elemental are these mysteries of the Mountain Mother.

As I walked back, I whispered to the trees (modern maenad to the Nymphae): “Dionysos is here!”

In a stroke of good fortune, I had acquired about $50 worth of fresh flowers for free from my work at the last minute, and it made my shrines at home quite beautiful.








A part of me always hopes to create something lovely on Anthesteria (it’s when I’ve made some treasured devotional pieces in the past). It doesn’t happen every year, though, and I found myself just needing to unwind and let go this time, so I honored that inclination. I played around with watercolors a little but mostly I just spent the evening listening to music and drinking an amazing bottle of Amarone wine I’d been saving for over a year.

My feast foods were wonderful. One of the reasons I got a later start in the day was that I spent time making mostly-homemade baklava (I bought the phyllo dough.) I made it because I adore it, but it’s also a perfectly symbolic dessert for Anthesteria. Layers of dough and chopped nuts akin to layers of the soil and gravel and earth. Then soaked in honey and a bit of rosewater to symbolize the flowers. I also added chopped figs, for even more of a Dionysos association. It’s the first time I made it and it turned out wonderfully; I think I can make it even better next time now that I understand the process better.



Aiora & Khoes
The Swing & the Wine Pitcher

Traditionally, I spend Khoes in silence until my ritual in the evening, so that my words are reserved to exclaim the epiphany of Dionysos. But it has other benefits, too. It releases the pressure of much mundane interaction, and allows me to keep my mind on what’s holy. Throughout the day it’s as if I’m gradually disengaging with the “normal” world and by the time night rolls around I’ve already got a solid foot in the spirit realm. It’s not a bad way to honor the hanging girls for the Aiora either, which is what I spend the first half of the day doing.

I made paper cut outs of the hanging girls this year instead of the stick and yarn figures I’ve made in the past. I also learned to tie a noose-knot with the rough craft twine. I was very happy with how they turned out, and putting them on paper allowed me to write on them, so I wrote poems as well.

Remember Erigone
Beloved of Dionysos
Grief-struck
She swung on the tree
by her graceful throat
suspended like a ripe fruit
between
earth and starry heaven

Remember Ariadne
Beloved wife of Dionysos
Keeper of holy mysteries
She surrendered her mortal body
to her immortal daemon
on the isle of Naxos
So she might wear a crown of stars

Remember Arachne
Beloved of Dionysos
Weaver who knew her worth
She pays penance web by web
The Spider Queen
of primal wisdom.

I went to a park I hadn’t been to before, nestled in a quiet neighborhood. It wasn’t exactly private but probably due to the chilly weather, I had the place to myself and no one bothered me. I poured out wine, listened to music I associate with the hanging girls while swinging between setting sun and rising moon. How is it that this always strikes me anew, every year... This feeling of being in the axis of a lunar/solar seesaw?

I took breaks to hang the girls, one by one, and place a daffodil in the snow at the base of their trees. A bit of sympathetic flower magic, if you will. Some red wine in the snow like spilled blood. I stayed until the bare trees took on that eerie quality of negative space, and the stars started peeking out through the spidery branches. By that time the moon seemed impossibly bright and I was fascinated by the way the moonlight was casting tree shadows on the snow -- not something I had experienced before.

















I prayed to the land spirits for a time, and then returned home to prepare myself for my Khoes ritual.

And what can I say of that, that could possibly do it justice? I am reminded that there is always more levels to ekstasis, and there is always more to surrender. There is the god of many masks, and then there is the god triumphant and manifest - without metaphor - who simply is and is right fucking here.

Alethia meets soma.

I am filled with awe.








Khutroi
The Pots

On my way to the graveyard, I couldn’t help but notice how the light seemed different. It seemed to glow a little brighter, as if I was seeing reality through a different filter.

The cemetery was a large and beautiful lakeside one. New England cemeteries are something else. Older, of course, and more atmospheric, with a lot of unique memorials. Unfortunately there was so much snow I couldn’t wander as freely amongst the tombstones as I normally would have, and it was colder than the previous two days so I didn’t linger overlong. But I did say a prayer to Hermes, poured out wine and left flowers in various places - and of course left the beans and grain panspermia I had cooked for the dead.















In the evening I went to a wine tasting party I had been invited to by a coworker. (Believe it or not, I nearly declined the invitation because I was going to be too busy observing a Dionysian festival… before realizing how ridiculous that was.) It was great fun. It was a group of 8-10 people coming together for the primary purpose of sharing a love of wine for a couple hours. And for me, there’s nothing quite like the giddy buzz you get from tasting a variety of wines. The most unusual was a 10 year old sparkling rosé that smelled like a sweet port but tasted like a dry champagne with strong notes of wild mushrooms!

Back at home I wrapped things up by burning some banishing herbs and bidding the keres to depart. And that was my Anthesteria.

Festivals that have been celebrated over many years tend to invite you reflect on the past and how things have shifted and evolved in life in general. But I've also found that they set the tone for what's to come. That being said, I'm very much looking forward to seeing what the rest of the year has in store.

Elevation & Rumination

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Khoes & Aiora (A True Story In Poetry)

I weave in silence.

Purple string and sticks for the Hanging Girl,

Her sorrow is mine. God, it hurts so… the whole hopeless stretch,

one tragedy after the next, knots and hopes like crushed fruit,

screams to the heavens in the weary winding circle,

around and around, fiber to finger to form,

a head and a torso, a lasso and a name,

Oh Erigone, I never knew, I never knew.

We swing with particular passion, we graveyard girls…

Always towards the moon,

except on the downturn.

I enter the labyrinth again, wine on my lips.

It’s a choice, you see, one path or no--

You walk or you don’t.

My heart skips--

I’m already remembering the future, when I trip

on a snake...

Memory in the lake,

My yearning meets your ache.

In the ivy, oh in the ivy!

we conjure shimmering syllables, coming together

in Your cavernous name.

I am a cup overpouring, wine and blood and tears,

What all Art hopes to hint at, I stare straight in the face.

There are layers in your mask, whiskers on my cheeks,

How pantherine...

petals dilate, my eyes bloom.

You laugh.  I weep.

The music plays for keeps, landscapes and leaps.

I am the metronome of this piece.

The god in the shed. I remember my death.

In these games we play, he lets me win,

just by a breath.

Silly maenad, dear...

You’ve given away your heart to a God beyond time,

Even in your most quiet moments, you are lightning-lost

Even in your motionless moments, you

are already terribly vine-tangling mad,

suckling the sacred at your teat,

blood on your flowering honeypetal hands,

the shadows of the deepest wood in your cradlegrave eyes,

wildness in your wishes, lullabies in your limbs,

all of this, never in stillness,

both heart and heartless.

(you are my favorite braveness.)

My love, you asked for this epiphany.

I did?

This is the work of Memory.

I do.

This is the Truth.

For you.

My life is a single bloom.

I’m back to walking the labyrinth again, the circuits turn at each star,

Of course Ariadne hanged herself -- of course she did!

Surrender. Choice. Surrender. Choice.

To the tree,

to your fate,

and to all its terrible gravity,

You must choose to surrender--

Sorrow is just another sort of ecstasy.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

ETA notes scribbled down in ekstasis:

"I need you to trust that your suffering is important and it's all for a reason."

"I let you see it sometimes - the whole picture. So you remember to dance, so you remember to laugh."

We are amplifying the Gods.

Like a dream

I rediscovered this the night after my husband died... this poem that he had hand-written on a loose piece of paper, tucked away in a notebook by the bed. I didn't remember until now, that he had written it this last Anthesteria on Khoes.  


it is like a dream
you and I
when we are awake
when we are not speaking
when we are just loving
when you come just moments
    from my face
when we line up in arc
and in breaths
when i can hear your dress
kissing the gravel
when I want to climb back
     on the swing with you

Kerenyi and other random thoughts...

I've read more than half of Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life by Kerenyi. Unfortunately, because I got it on inter-library loan I wasn't able to keep it long enough to finish it.  But I plan to buy a copy as it certainly seems to be one I'd like to have in my personal library.  I had many "aha" moments with this book as well as a general broadening of knowledge. Things that really grabbed me included pretty much all the information on Ariadne.  He pointed out evidence that she has an underworld aspect... which is something I've felt intuitively but don't remember coming across anywhere else.  Also, many interesting things about Erigone, the Aiora, and the Anthesteria... things that I'm filing away for next year's festivals. 

Kerenyi has an approach which seems, dare I say, scholarly but reckless?  But maybe it's less reckless than I think, not being overly scholarly myself.  His knowledge certainly seems extremely broad.  But he would say things like, "From the absence of any depiction of such and such, we can assume..." (pardon my vagueness since I no longer have the book with me) or draw conclusions that I was surprised at but at the same time appreciative of, even if they occasionally seem a stretch, at least based on the information presented.  He doesn't have the same loving, almost mystical approach as Otto, but the book is invaluable nonetheless... especially with the generous amount of photographs of relevant art in the back of the book.

Another thing I'm still contemplating, and will be until I get my own copy of the book and can finish this section (and probably long after), is Dionysos Trieterikos, Dionysos of the two-year period.  He describes that Dionysos was in some places worshipped in the context of a two-year period, where He was absent for 12 months (or in the underworld), and then present for the next 12 months.  This is hard for me to wrap my head around, on one hand, and on the other... well, it ALMOST make sense.  I'll try to explain my train of thought... It's probably not surprising, since I come from a Wiccan background, that I've attempted to think of Dionysos seasonally, especially when it comes to the possibility of creating other festivals for him, or even putting his known festivals into a context of a sort of Wheel of the Year.  But that's never quite seemed RIGHT.  Is He born on the Lenaia?  Earlier in the winter?  Later during the Anthesteria, when the flowers blossom?  All three since He was born two or three times?  But the Anthesteria also has associations with marriage and death.  If you're following me at all, it becomes obvious that Dionysos is too many-formed to fit neatly into a seasonal year.  He's constantly dying and being reborn in some way.  The ivy fruits in the spring and the vine in the fall.  He is a god of both light and dark.  So that some people thought you'd need two years to fit around his complex, dual nature.... well I could kind of see that.  

I'm not sure what that means for me yet, if anything.  I'd be curious if any other modern worshipers of Dionysos ever think of him in this way... or notice a shift of any kind from one year to the next.

What else?  I'm currently reading Dver's book Dwelling on the Threshold.  I will review it more appropriately when I'm done, but so far, even though most of it I've read before, I'm very glad I bought it -- I've been flipping to sections that are very synchronous to things that have been on my mind lately. 

I've been feeling like the next step on my path is to cultivate some more disciplined trance techniques.  I am a mystic at heart... ever since I started on my path, I've had that part of me that wants to run away and join a pagan temple and devote myself completely, fully, every day to the gods, if such a thing existed.  But in spite of that inclination, trance has always been difficult for me.  Letting go is difficult for me.  I'm a stubborn beast.  I don't mean to be!

I did a tarot reading for myself recently (using the Voyager Tarot).  It was a spontaneous layout.  It included my Self, my Guide, and my Lesson in the present... and my Self, my Guide, my Lesson in the future.  And in between those cards were 3 more cards connecting them, which I named Keys/Pathways.  These keys included:  Actor (Man of Wands), Fear (7 of Cups), and Delusion (10 of Crystals).  The present Self was Equilibrium (2 of Cups) and the future self was Passion (10 of Cups).  What I took from this, among other things, was that the to get from a place where I'm just sustaining and keeping things in balance to a place where I feel truly passionate and complete, I need to release the masks I identify with, the fears that are holding me back, to get to a place where that's possible.  Seeing these cards didn't worry me... it seemed like a natural progression.  I think I can handle this (she says now before the breakdown!) 

It helps to have a husband and soul-mate, who sees me, TRULY sees me.  Knowing this, I feel like I can peel back the layers and masks without fear of getting lost, because his love and Sight will ground my true self even if I myself am not entirely sure who that is yet.

Anyhow, I'm glad it's June.  It seems like May is always difficult for me.  Is it because it's the fifth month and fives mean conflict? 

I found out there's a labyrinth just a mile away from my home... thanks, World-wide Labyrinth Locator! 

Also, I just finished a bottle of wine and caught up on about 200 posts from ginandjack's tumblr.  I'm happy to report I'm feeling pleasantly less sane than before and ready for sleep...

Khoes & Aiora - Anthesteria Day 2

After waking and showering, I did my opening ritual and meditation in silence.  I was feeling rather anxious and apprehensive about the whole day - not only the prospect of not speaking until my night ritual, but also about the night ritual itself. 

 

Using yarn and some twigs I had gathered the day before, I made 3 little yarn dolls in honor of Erigone -- one black, one red, one white.  Each one turned out quite different.  I would have liked to have made more, but I wanted to get to the park before sundown. 

My partner came with me to the park to go swinging.  I chose to go to the park next to the house where I grew up.  Though only a half hour or so from my current home, it had been a while since I'd been to the area and it always feels odd to see the things that have changed and the things that have stayed the same.  I was happy to see all the familiar trees in the park, and sad to see that all the trees I'd known at the house I grew up were gone. 

When we first got there, there was a large flock of birds swooping around the western sky.  There were a couple groups of teenagers in the park but none on the swings.  We put on some flying ointment and spent some time swinging.  The sky was overcast and although we felt a drop or two of rain, it never rained outright.  I had a hard time focusing, so I just tried to pay attention to the sensation of swinging, particularly with my eyes closed.  I smoked a clove cigarette and we passed the wine back and forth a couple times.  Not speaking started making me feel like I was occupying a slightly different space than everyone else.

We walked around the park so I could look for trees to hang the red and black dolls.  (The white one I kept and later hung in the tree outside my apartment.)  I had left a long string of yarn on each, which came in handy because I wanted to get them to branches above arm's reach.  I had to literally swing them back and forth to get enough momentum to get them over the branch.  This took a few tries for each.  At one point, I dropped one and as a reached down I saw that it had fallen next to a dead bird which I hadn't seen until that point, which was a little disconcerting. 

I wasn't quite ready to leave yet, so we sat in the middle of a field (what felt like "center" to me) and faced west where the last of the sunlight was fading.  We spent some time quietly sensing the energy of each other and the earth beneath us.  I wouldn't have been surprised to see ghosts walking around in the fading light.

Later that evening after dinner, I made preparations for my ritual.  I sequestered myself, I stared into the eyes of the mask I had made, used my voice for the first time that day to call forth the god, and performed my version the hieros gamos.  And without going into more detail or trying to describe or what should only be described in poetry, if anything, for now I'll just say...

Holy fuck.

I was in a daze for a little while afterwards, time and memory playing tricks on me, and even though it was only around midnight, I ended up laying down for about 3 hours of sleep, and then suddenly waking up very alert.  I played a computer game for a while, read and recovered, then went back to sleep at 9:30 or so.  I journaled some notes for myself at some point, too, thank goodness, because even glancing back now it's amazing how easily those truer moments slip away.

Anthesterion

Looking ahead, this is going to be a busy month!!  On top of my regular devotional days, there's two 3 day blocks of events.

 

The first... this week over the Noumenia, I'm taking a camping trip with my two dearest and most spiritual friends.  We have no specific rituals planned, but simply being out in nature for a while will be nice.  For certain, I would like to build a shrine to the nymphs and try to commune with them.  Other than that, and ringing in the Noumenia and reaffirming commitments, I just planning on being open to any spontaneous experiences or encounters.  If we have time we may drive more northward to search for amanitas.  

 

Then there's the Anthesteria... I'm working on the actual dates, so I'm pushing my celebration of those three days back to the full moon and the day before and after.  I haven't really attempted something like this before.  The idea is both exciting and intimidating. 

 

I'm still planning what I'd like to do for Anthesteria - but after reading Otto's Dionysos, I'm suddenly rather taken with the idea of both making a mask for the god and integrating that into my rituals. 

 

The Aiora (swinging festival) really intrigues me.  Even as an adult I would readily admit that I enjoy going swinging.  There was a night perhaps a year and a half ago, where a solo walk ended up with me spontaneously swinging in an empty park.  My life was on the threshold of a lot of change at the time, and the act of it felt very significant, though I didn't know why.  I just remember swinging, looking at the moon, and both crying and feeling inexplicably joyful at the same time.  That people might have once approached the act in a spiritual sense never even occurred to me before, but makes sense.  I'm looking forward to this.

 

So, so far, it looks like the first day will be creative (mask making) and celebratory (flowers and feasting).  Second day, the more intense work including the Aiora and some form of the sacred rite in the evening (trance and mind-altering substances likely).  Third day, offerings to the dead and hymns to Hermes, perhaps a trip to the cemetery.  Smudging and cleansing at the end of the day seems appropriate.

 

I'm working on Valentine's Day, but maybe I'll still try to fit in something extra with Aphrodite.  I know a lot of people who dislike the holiday.  Myself, I've loved ALL holidays since I was a kid.  And one that's dedicated to love?  How can that be bad?  In my opinion, if you let yourself get bogged down by the commercialism then you have no one but yourself to blame.  It's not the responsibility of commercial industries to keep the sacred in our holy days, it's our own.  (End rant.)  I'm sure my parents were an influence here too.  I never saw Valentine's Day as solely for romantic love, partly because they always got my siblings and I our own individual cards (and candy, naturally) expressing their love for each of us as individuals.   

 

There's other projects and miscellany and goals, but those are the big ones!