More esoteric questions have been on my mind, as I look towards Anthesteria

If dreams can be just as vivid as life, what does that say about death? 

Is experience more important than memory? 

While planning for Anthesteria I was looking back at my first observation of the festival in 2011, where I had mentioned being grateful for having written down what I could of my experience of Khoës. I had totally forgotten the existence of these notes, so I went looking for them and found them. I had not only forgotten the notes themselves, but forgotten the details of the experience as well. I suppose at the time I had it in my head as the experience being too intimate or revealing for a public blog. But what the hell. Life is short, hopefully shorter for me. Lately I've been feeling like a circuit with too much input and no output. So I'm going to try to put out more. (Ha.) 

Khoës Night 2011: 

Dionysos mask. [Intoxication.] I called the god as my lover and husband. I made love to him. Madness and consciousness became a perception of space and proximity. Time slowed to nothing. Sex and death and madness were intertwined. But even as I thought of describing it that way as it happened, I knew that was a pale, pale description for what I was feeling. To say I made love with my death comes close to the feeling but it isn't complete either. I wept, not out of sadness but out of epiphany. In that space there was not "good" or "bad", "happiness" or "sorrow", there was just the knowledge in the vehicle of sensation, caressing my body. The vastness! Being my Self and being with the God in the Vastness was Truer. As I thought of my life, of A------, of my home and work and family, they all seemed so bizarre in their specifics and limitations. Sunbathing in the music. Narcissus in the mirror. Eyes reflecting silver, seeing my own beauty and the stranger within. Dancing, dancing, in and out of space. Tarot cards on the bed. Shuffling chaotically to the music. Queen of Swords flips first... Temperance is there. A King. The Hanged Man, last.

Small Epiphany

I was driving and thinking about Joseph Campbell's maxim of "follow your bliss."  (Since college, I've been very fond of Campbell and his work.)  It was an online conversation that led me to back to it, and I found myself imagining how I'd explain sources of bliss in my life.  I would say, it's twofold: experiencing life, union and communion with my lover/husband/soulmate AND worshipping and experiencing communion with the gods and everything that entails, the mysticism and devotion to Them.  And it hit me.

These things ARE my bliss.

You see, I'd always interpreted a subtext to "follow your bliss".  Namely, that one should be able to turn one's bliss into a vocation, and that is what you should do with your life.  That whatever you love or whatever fulfills you should be able to be transformed into a career.  I've never loved any job that I've had.  I went to college to try and figure it out and got a degree in General Arts because I didn't.  The job I have now I've had for nearly 10 years, because I'm good at it, it pays well and it helps people.  But I don't love it, and some days I don't even like it.  I've long thought myself as a little "lost" because I couldn't figure out how to reconcile what other people seem to be able to.

But in another time, my devotion to the gods COULD have been a vocation.  I could have served in a temple or been a priestess.  I would have done it in a heartbeat.

Like most epiphanies, this probably seems pretty ordinary and obvious to anyone else.  But it was a subtle shift in perception that makes me feel not just less "lost", but just a little more justified in taking what time I need to devote to the gods.  I don't know how to turn mysticism into a career, but I think I can figure out how to make it a priority in my life.