May Dionysos sustain and comfort
you in all the trials of this present life,
and grant to you at last, in his presence,
fullness of joy, and pleasure for evermore.

May laughter break your walls,
may tears cleanse your sight,
may music carry you beyond
the bounds of yourself,
that you may better know
the God of the Vine,
our Lord Dionysos.

May the wild grace of Dionysos flow through you—
loosening what binds, awakening what sleeps,
making whole what is broken and incomplete.

May the vine of your soul grow untamed, bearing fruit in unexpected places.
May your spirit remain unbroken by the need to conform.
May every heartbreak open a hidden doorway to deeper wisdom and passion.
May you honor the wild within you, even when the world asks you to tame it.
May you befriend your contradictions and wear them as a garland.
May your body be a temple of sensation, alive to pleasure and presence.
May you shed old skins without regret, trusting in your endless becoming.
May you dance with both shadow and light, refusing to exile either.
May your steps follow no path but the one that leads you closer to him.
May music and rhythm guide you when words fall short.
May your voice rise freely—whether in song, cry, or ecstatic shout.
May enthusiastic laughter escape from you at the most unexpected moments.
May your tears be as sacred as your laughter.
May you dare to feel deeply in a world that numbs itself.
May you see divinity in the ecstatic, the strange, and the fiercely unrestrained.
May your life unfold as a living ritual—raw, honest, and unforgettable.
May you lose yourself only to return more wild, whole, and free.
May you find beauty in the unraveling of what you once clung to.

O Dionysos Pankarpos, joyful guardian and protector,
you who dance in the pulse of all living things,
watch over our children with unwavering attention.
Let their laughter be frequent, their spirits free,
their hearts rooted in tradition, and their minds
open to all the wonders the world holds.
Shield them from harm, Polemokelados,
nurture their growth into adulthood,
and bless them with abundant joy and courage.

O Dionysos Gamēlios,
let the weight of the world fall away,
as wine falls from the cup,
as laughter fills the night air.
Let there be no shame here—
only honesty, only exploration, only desire
rooted like a pine tree,
rising like sacrificial smoke.
May we be unguarded,
may our attention be undivided,
may we be present with each other,
and discover the sacred in touch,
the divine in intimacy.
Dionysos Panchoreios, guide us
not to excess that blinds,
but to ecstasy that awakens—
where body and spirit move as one.

O Dionysos Polyphēmios,
flame of ecstasy and sacred creation,
you who awaken the soul to song and vision,
breathe your wild spark into my mind and heart.
Let inspiration rise like sweet wine within me,
unbound, fearless, and alive.
Guide my voice, my hands, my spirit—
that I may create beautiful things in your honor.

O Bakcheios, we pray, bull-horned God,
Lord of liberation, bringer of ecstasy,
wielder of the flowering branch,
whose dance-loving feet shake the Earth,
toppling walls and setting free the captives within;
be present as we consummate this union
where desire is celebrated in its myriad forms,
fearlessly and without shame, where fantasy
is manifest through our flesh, and every pleasure
opens wider the doors of our mind until we experience
rapture and love’s boundless grace.
May our coupling bring us closer together,
O blessed Blastēma, renewing our bonds,
and strengthening our union.

Hear me, O Dionysos,
twice-born, ivy-crowned, loud-crying Lord,
you who wander the mountains with your frenzied Retinue,
you who bring the vine’s gift and the loosening of care
to the wearied and suffering all over the world.
I kindle this flame in your honor,
bright as the Stars that witness your sacred revels.
May it be pleasing to you,
O Bromios, shaker of the soul,
O Eleutherios, giver of freedom,
O Phanēs, manifester of impossible things.
Come, Blessed One,
and be present in this fire.
Fill this space with your divine breath,
with joy unbound, and truth unveiled,
driving back the darkness with your luminesce.
Where hearts are burdened, bring release;
where minds are closed, bring holy madness;
where spirits falter, pour out your wine of life.
Accept this light, O Lord of the thyrsos,
as offering and remembrance.
Grant me to walk in your mysteries,
to know the dance, the song, the sacred ecstasy.
Rejoice, Dionysos—
and be gracious.

O Dionysos Aglaodōros, your benefactions never fail
and your mercies are new every morning;
I give you thanks for relief from pain,
and for the hope of health renewed.
Pray continue, Akmaios, the good work
you have begun in me; that I,
daily increasing in bodily strength,
and rejoicing in your goodness, Anikētos,
may so order my life and conduct that I may
always think and do those things that please you.
I am sore in need of your generous assistance,
and will fulfil this pledge if you come again
to my assistance, Dionysos Architechnitēs.

O Dionysos Eleutherios,
Lord of wine, of wild joy, of sweet release—
be present in this moment with us.
Let the walls fall away,
let laughter and breath become one rhythm,
let body and spirit move free of all constraints.
Bless this union with warmth and fire,
with tenderness as deep as the vine’s root,
and ecstasy as bright as a torch
carried in nocturnal procession for you.
May we honor each other as votaries of he who frees,
and lose ourselves, only to find something better.
Come, Dionysos, come—
in joy, in freedom, in shared delight.

O Dionysos, loosener of all bonds,
Leader of the choir of fire-breathing Stars,
Lord of the vine, who brings wild, liberating joy,
I light this flame in your honor, my God, my Savior.
As this candle burns, may its glow awaken
the hidden places within me—
the places that long to dance,
to revel, to hunt, to feel abundantly,
to indulge in every kind of excess,
to be free. God of ecstasy and transformation,
you who dissolve boundaries and awaken truth,
bless this moment with your presence, and be with
us as long as this flame dances in your honor.
Let this flame be a spark of your infinite fire—
a reminder that life is meant to be drunk deeply,
felt fully, and lived without fear.
Where there is restraint, bring release.
Where there is heaviness, bring laughter.
Where there is silence, bring the sacred song.
Io evohe!
Io Bakcheios!
Io Lusios!
Io Asterios!
Io io evohe!
Dionysos, companion of the Wild-hearted Ones,
accept this light as an offering.
Walk with me in joy, in mystery, and in truth.

O Dionysos, liberator and understanding guide,
you who loosen chains and reveal truth,
turn my craving into clarity,
my excess into balance,
my pain into wholeness.
Walk beside me in this struggle,
and teach me freedom without destruction.
I honor you in both the good
and bad times of my life—
grant me strength to reclaim myself, Lord.

O firstborn Phanēs who handed the scepter of
rulership over to your daughter Nyx so that you
could explore the world that emerged from the Egg
along with you, hungry for experience and knowledge;
O Ancient of Days, Lord of Manifestations, Starry One,
you reveal yourself to the nations in ways that will be
understandable to them; so in Apulia you took on the
appearance of a bull with golden horns, and in Skythia
you showed yourself as a bear who feasts on honey,
while in Judaea you became a ram who frollicks
on the mountain at mid-day, and in many other places
you have been worshiped in many other guises,
and under many different names: so I ask you Mēdus,
Khoršŭ, Dhū-Šarā, Sabai, Petempamenti, Mekal,
‘Almaqah or however it pleases you to be called,
wise and wandering God, guide my steps
through confusion and change, you who walk
so easily between order and turbulence.
Let me see clearly what is hidden,
and trust the path unfolding before me.
Lead me with your wild wisdom,
toward truth, balance, and becoming,
and each day help me to be
the best version of myself I can.

I was going to liveblog 4/20, but I got too high and had to log off. Another day, my dearies. 

Today I am reading devotional and liturgical writings from a multitude of religions (from Zoroastrianism to Rodnovery) to get in the mood to work on the Prayer section of the Hymnōdai Hieros Logos; currently I am reading a Catholic missal from 1910. The archaic language is charming and inspiring by turns — and then there are the jarring moments.

For instance, there’s a section of brief, fervent declamations, the technical name of which are “ejaculations.”

Then there’s this line from Saint Gerard Majella’s Resolutions:

O my God, my only love, to-day and every day I give myself up to Thy good pleasure. In all temptations and trials I will say always: Thy will be done. All that Thou mayest ordain for me I will embrace with my whole heart, never ceasing to raise my eyes to heaven there to adore the divine hands which cast towards me the precious pearls of Thy most holy will. My supreme resolution is to give myself unreservedly to God. For this reason I will have continually before my eyes this motto: Be thou deaf, blind, and mute. Only one thing do I desire — Thy good pleasure, O my God, and not mine own. I will have all possible veneration for priests, beholding in them Jesus Christ Himself, and striving to be penetrated with the greatness of their dignity.

Oh, you Catholics.

But seriously, Saint Gerard Majella sounds like a godatheow, hieródoulos, or qadeš of Christ.

Odes of Solomon 3:3
For I should not have known how to love the Lord, if he had not continuously loved me.

Sotah 17a:13
What is to be gained by writing the blessings if one cannot infer the curses from them?

Good advice for the Maskil, who is responsible for the well-being of his or her Yaḥad. (Basically the Starry Ram equivalent of an Orpheotelest overseeing a Starry Bull thiasos.)

Also, this is apparently what AI thinks “Jewish Dionysos” looks like. (Which is better than this one, which reminds me of an Israeli hipster barista not Bâkûth, the bull-horned Lord of Bethēl.)

As you guys know, years and years ago, well before any of this Starry Ram stuff started, I got a tattoo of the 21st Hebrew letter שׁ on my shin. Although I do appreciate a good pun, I actually got it because of the symbolic associations the letter possesses, some of which can be found at the Chabad site. It has become more significant to me than I could have anticipated when I initially got the ink, though I am not going to go into that here today. 

I am currently reading an interesting (albeit speculative at times) article which argues that the Hebrew alef-bet is ultimately derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs and that the name of Yahweh predates its revelation to Moses on Mount Sinai/Horeb. Russell Jacquet-Acea has this to say regarding the origin of the letter שׁ:

New kingdom texts tell us that the Egyptian term sa-na-ni was for “archer, warrior”. The ancient Semitic name for the “composite bow” was the tann also written as šann in the syllabic alphabet text from Ugarit which would have sounded like “shananu” or “sananu”. This evolved into the proto-Sinaitic Shīn. LeBlanc also points out that the related Egyptian word for brother and sister was a hieroglyphic double-sided arrow that had the phonetic value of “sn” and voiced as “sen”.

Although I have used the name Sannion for as long as I have been online, there was a brief period when I was practicing Kemetic polytheism and had a second name — Sennefer, after the 18th Dynasty Mayor of Thebes and Overseer of the Granaries and Fields, Gardens and Cattle of Amun (as opposed to one of the other Sennefers, all from the 18th Dynasty too) who was laid to rest in the famed Tomb of the Vines. (Which inspired the naming of this blog.) 

Speaking of שׁ here’s something beautiful from Sotah 17a:15:

Rabbi Akiva taught: If a man [ish] and woman [isha] merit reward through a faithful marriage, the Divine Presence rests between them. The words ish and isha are almost identical; the difference between them is the middle letter yod in ish, and the final letter heh in isha. These two letters can be joined to form the name of God spelled yod, heh. But if due to licentiousness they do not merit reward, the Divine Presence departs, leaving in each word only the letters alef and shin, which spell esh, fire. Therefore, fire consumes them.

And another from Menachot 29b:

Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: When Moses ascended on High, he found the Holy One, Blessed be He, sitting and tying crowns on the letters of the Torah. Moses said before God: Master of the Universe, who is preventing You from giving the Torah without these additions? God said to him: There is a man who is destined to be born after several generations, and Akiva ben Yosef is his name; he is destined to derive from each and every thorn of these crowns mounds upon mounds of halakhot. It is for his sake that the crowns must be added to the letters of the Torah.

Moses said before God: Master of the Universe, show him to me. God said to him: Return behind you. Moses went and sat at the end of the eighth row in Rabbi Akiva’s study hall and did not understand what they were saying. Moses’ strength waned, as he thought his Torah knowledge was deficient. When Rabbi Akiva arrived at the discussion of one matter, his students said to him: My teacher, from where do you derive this? Rabbi Akiva said to them: It is a halakha transmitted to Moses from Sinai. When Moses heard this, his mind was put at ease, as this too was part of the Torah that he was to receive.

Moses returned and came before the Holy One, Blessed be He, and said before Him: Master of the Universe, You have a man as great as this and yet You still choose to give the Torah through me. Why? God said to him: Be silent; this intention arose before Me. Moses said before God: Master of the Universe, You have shown me Rabbi Akiva’s Torah, now show me his reward. God said to him: Return to where you were. Moses went back and saw that they were weighing Rabbi Akiva’s flesh in a butcher shop [bemakkulin], as Rabbi Akiva was tortured to death by the Romans. Moses said before Him: Master of the Universe, this is Torah and this is its reward? God said to him: Be silent; this intention arose before Me.

Rava says: Seven letters require three crowns [ziyyunin], and they are the letters shin, ayin, tet, nun, zayin; gimmel and tzadi.

That is Starry as fuck.

This is the best thing right now. David Bowie, in Latin. (Though my favorite will always remain the German, Helden.)