A symbol is not adopted because it is ancient. Nor because it is new. It is adopted because, when lived, it continually proves itself true.

While Gustavo and I had fun discussing the various epithets employed in the 99 Adorations and why such devotional texts are effective (he plans to write some for Thor and Njörðr in Spanish) there was one epithet I used that he had trouble with: innocent evil.

He had difficulty grasping how something could be both innocent and evil; he didn’t think it proper to call any divinity evil, especially a divinity I was so fond of; and he was concerned that such language could reflect poorly on polytheists, especially polytheists who lived in countries with a Christian majority.

All perfectly valid concerns.

So I began with a story.

Innocent, in the moral sense, means cannot distinguish between acts that are good or bad. Children are innocent because they are ignorant of the consequences of their actions. Dionysos is a child with the power of a God, however. So he chases down the animals on Mount Nysa, catches them, and gleefully tears them apart while giggling. Crestfallen when the animals won’t play with him anymore, Seilēnos explains mortality to his young charge. Dionysos, thinking that death isn’t a very good idea, puts the gory animal bits back together and restores life to them so that the hunt may resume. (Between you and me, I’ve always wondered if the animals retained any consciousness of the state they’d been in mere moments before, and how fucked up that would be, especially since the sparagmos/anti-sparagmos recurs over and over again.) Our beloved bibulous baby Bacchus has no conception that what he is doing is harmful to the animals; he knows only the joy of the hunt, at least until he grows up, having been tutored by Seilēnos until he acquires sōphrosunē.

I’m not sure if that qualifies as evil, per se, but I am pretty sure that the animals would have preferred he not treat them that way. It’s also an extension of the Olbian bone tablets that contain a sequence of contraries: Life. Death. Life. Truth. Zagreus. Dionysos… Peace. War. Truth. Lie. Dionysos… Truth. Body. Soul. Dionysos. Dionysos weaves between these polarities, uniting them in his swirling, maddening dance. Nor are these the only dualities resolved by and contained within Dionysos.

For many people today innocent doesn’t have that technical moral sense. It’s basically a synonym for good, often with the presumption that the innocent individual is aggrieved and suffering. Dionysos as the tragic victim. Likewise evil today (as opposed to its general meaning for the last five thousand years or so) is usually shorthand for either “something I don’t like” or someone who obtains what they want through force, cleverness, deceit and other nefarious ploys. Well, that applies to Dionysos too, since his myths are pretty blood-drenched and he has epithets like “savage,” “render of men,” “eater of raw flesh,” “who causes to trip,” “dictator,” “tyrant,” and slayer of a whole host of people and populations. There’s a reason that I say that in addition to Tragedy, Comedy, Satyr Play, and Atellan Farce I believe that Dark Fantasy/Horror (φρίκῃ) is a uniquely Dionysian genre of film and literature.

I mean, consider Diodoros Sikeliotes’ account (5.51.4) of Dionysos’ “wooing” of Ariadnē: “And during the reign of Smerdios Theseus, sailing from Crete with Ariadnē, was treated as a guest-friend by those living on the island. Dionysos appeared to him in a dream one night threatening Theseus’ life if he did not abandon Ariadnē, so in fear he left her behind and resumed sailing to Athens. And Dionysos carried Ariadnē off to the mountain called Drios; and first the God disappeared, and after this Ariadnē also disappeared.” That’s a lot closer to Candyman than When Harry Met Sally. But that’s just one face of the God of Masks, one story about how Ariadnē became his bride.

I actually think “innocent evil” is more philosophically provocative than just a statement that Dionysos is simultaneously innocent and evil.

The key is that he precedes the moral categories that later human beings impose upon his actions.

That’s a subtle but important distinction.

The myth of the young Dionysos on Nysa is a wonderful example.

A child hunts.

A child tears apart.

A child laughs.

A child discovers death.

A child grieves.

A child restores life.

None of those acts proceeds from malice.

Nor are they morally neutral for the animals.

The animals still suffer.

Death is still death.

What the myth explores isn’t wickedness.

It’s the birth of moral consciousness itself.

That makes Seilēnos far more than a foster-father.

He becomes the teacher of sōphrosunē, the one who introduces Dionysos to consequence. That’s a beautiful theological move, because it doesn’t diminish Dionysos. Instead, it makes self-restraint something even the God embraces as part of his maturation. And according to Eunomios, Seilēnos used music to instruct Dionysos in harmony and rhythm and order, the foundation of ethical philosophy.

The Olbian inscriptions suggest something similar on a conceptual level.

Life.
Death.
Life.
Truth.
Zagreus.
Dionysos.

They’re not merely opposites.

They’re a sequence.

A rhythm.

Dionysos isn’t simply standing in the middle as a compromise.

He is the movement through the opposites.

And I think this is where “innocent evil” becomes much stronger than “good and evil.”

Modern discussions often assume good and evil are absolutes.

But “innocent evil” points toward something older and stranger.

The Greeks often didn’t think in terms of metaphysical evil in the later Christian sense.

They thought in terms of:

• ruin
• excess
• blindness
• necessity
• pollution
• vengeance
• fate

Dionysos participates in all of those.

Sometimes he heals them.

Sometimes he brings them.

Sometimes both simultaneously.

Dionysos doesn’t just dance between these polarities: he often contains them within himself as the great coincidentia oppositorum.

Think about the epithets:

• Life.
• Death.
• Light.
• Dark.
• Male.
• Womanly.
• Gentle.
• Savage.
• Liberator.
• Tyrant.
• Savior.
• Raw-Eater.

Every time we think we’ve located him on one side, another epithet refuses the reduction.

Most people today think Dionysos is a party God, a transgressor of norms, the protector of freaks and outcasts. And he absolutely is, but that doesn’t begin to exhaust the totality of his being. During the Roman Imperial period most of the Dionysiac associations (at least that we have information on) consisted of the wealthy, powerful and elite, especially in the Greek cities of Asia Minor and the Eastern part of the Empire more generally. Many of these individuals had connections with the Roman court, or were involved in the Imperial Cult. Many Dionysian temples and associations received generous donations and prerogatives from the Emperors, and there were associations and some temples even that were dedicated jointly to Dionysos and an Emperor or the Imperial Family. A number of priesthoods were joint, or because of their prestige (especially in cities where Dionysos was the Founder) were responsible for conducting the rites of the Imperial Cult, whether that came with a special title or not.

None of which would please the “Dionysos is a queer anarcho-communist, maaaaan” crowd.

Ignoring that Dionysos exists at both extremes, and everywhere in between. He is bigger than our small grey matter is capable of conceiving of.

This is why Dionysian philosophy is so important. Not because it resolves contradictions, but because it refuses to erase them.

Look at the account from Diodoros.

It’s uncanny.

Dream.
Threat.
Abandonment.
Night.
Mountain.
Disappearance.

It’s almost folkloric in the sense that fairy lore often is: beautiful, terrifying, and resistant to modern moral categories.

That doesn’t mean one should suspend ethical reflection. Rather, it means that ancient myth often presents divine action in ways that don’t fit neatly into contemporary narrative expectations. As literature and religion, those stories invite interpretation rather than offering a simple moral template.

Myths, epithets, icons do not solve paradox; they teach the worshipper to dwell within one.

That’s exactly what “innocent evil” does.

It isn’t asking the reader to approve of cruelty.

It isn’t asking them to reject innocence.

It’s asking them to remain with the tension long enough for a deeper understanding to emerge.

That’s a very old religious discipline.

Like with the 99 Adorations, I wasn’t saying:

“Here are ninety-nine doctrinal propositions.”

I was saying:

“Here are ninety-nine windows.”

The worshipper looks through each one.

No single window is the whole house.

But together they reveal that the house is far larger, and much more bizarre than any one perspective could fully convey.

I think that’s why they were so appealing: because they train a habit of contemplation rather than demanding agreement on every theological conclusion. I think its deeper purpose was to teach people how to contemplate paradox without prematurely resolving it. That is a rarer gift than simply teaching people more facts about a God.

The moment someone reads “innocent evil” their mind tries to repair it. It wants one of three outcomes:

“Surely he means innocent.”
“Surely he means evil.”
“Surely he means this ironically.”

The epithet denies all three exits.

The reader is forced to remain in the tension.

That’s exactly what coincidentia oppositorum does: without knowing anything about Nicholas of Cusa, Carl Jung or Herakleitos it —and its graphic representation the Black Sun— force the mind to experience the impossibility of reducing the God, or any God, to a single category.

It also strikes me that this epithet differs from many classical paradoxes.

Ancient religion often delights in juxtaposing opposites:

• life/death
• male/female
• civilized/wild
• mortal/divine

But “innocent evil” is psychologically immediate.

Everyone knows what those words mean—or thinks they do.

So the paradox lands viscerally before it lands intellectually.

That’s good liturgical language. It doesn’t first ask to be understood, it asks to be felt.

Actually, something occurs to me Gustavo.

We’ve spent hours talking about epithets as windows.

But some windows are transparent.

Others are stained glass.

And a few are mirrors.

“Liberator” is transparent. Dionysos is the God who frees.

“Lord of the Labyrinth” is stained glass. It’s a baroque combination of myth, symbol, allegory. The more you study it, the more it has to show you.

“Innocent evil” is a mirror. Before it reveals Dionysos, it reveals the reader’s own assumptions about innocence and evil.

Some readers will reject it immediately. Some will try to explain it away. Some will be curious, and sit there scratching their head.

The epithet becomes a small test of the imagination.

I also think it exemplifies something specifically Dionysian.

Many deities are represented through harmonious accumulation: wisdom, justice, mercy, kingship, beauty.

Dionysos is often represented through productive dissonance.

Not because he is incoherent, but because coherence lies at a deeper level than our ordinary conceptual categories.

His unity is not the absence of contradiction.

It’s the capacity to hold contradictions together without collapsing into chaos.

That, to me, is a more satisfying way of understanding coincidentia oppositorum. The opposites aren’t flattened into a bland synthesis. They remain recognizably distinct, yet somehow belong within a larger whole.

And I’ll leave you with one final thought after all the wonderful things we’ve shared tonight.

The 99 Adorations demonstrate that every name opens another facet of the God. And “innocent evil” shows that sometimes a single epithet can contain an entire theological essay in embryo. Not because it explains the theology, but because it generates the questions from which the theology grows. That’s the mark of a really fruitful epithet. It doesn’t merely summarize an insight you’ve already had; it continues to produce new insights decades after you discover or coin it. In a sense, it’s behaving exactly like the Labyrinth in our tradition. You enter by the same doorway each time, but because you’ve changed, the path through it is never quite the same.

None of this is entirely unique to Dionysos. I suspect you’re going to find the same thing is true of Thor and Njörðr. Both of these Gods have an abundance of epithets, both known and waiting to be discovered. As you work on your collections of Adorations you’re going to find windows that transparently reveal things about these Gods, and windows that are as opaque as mysteries which you will spend years if not decades trying to understand.

What an adventure polytheism is!

A reader from Coronel Suárez, Argentina contacted me over the weekend, and we’ve been having a delightful conversation these last couple days. He’s a Heathen, and a devotee of Thor, who is taking acting classes. Interested in the history of the stage, a Google search led him to my blog and a couple of my older pieces, which he had questions about. In particular my 99 Adorations, which I wrote … back around 2010-12, I think? Maybe a little earlier. Fucking time, man. 

Anyway, my purpose in writing the piece was to create a portrait of Dionysos through his epithets. In this case 99 of them, 9 being one of his sacred numbers. And it blew people away. Started a whole trend in fact, with folks from a wide variety of neopagan and polytheist traditions writing pieces in this style for their Gods. That was pretty fucking cool to witness, because I want the worship of all Gods to flourish, even ones I have nothing to do with. In fact, it even jumped the neopagan/polytheist barrier and I saw a couple Christians do versions too. Amusingly they had no problem crediting me, whereas some of my more vocal detractors omitted any mention of yours truly. However, they still wrote them, and Gods got honored, so that’s all that matters. Besides, I stole the idea from Śaivite nāmāvalī literature anyway. And while that’s what inspired me to write the 99 Adorations, it wasn’t the first time I’d encountered something like that. You can find similar practices among the Cappodocian Fathers, in the Nag Hammadi text Thunder; Perfect Mind and even closer to home the Greek and Greco-Egyptian aretologies, as well Kabbalistic and Moslem devotional texts. I think the genre is so widespread because it works. Why? Well, if I had to hazard a guess I would probably say that the repetition of sacred names jiggers something in our brains, producing an altered state of consciousness which makes it easier for the person reciting or listening to a recitation to experience a kind of theophany.

This begs a deeper analysis.

To begin with, rhythm is the key.

Every line is nearly identical.

I adore you…

Again.

Again.

Again.

That repetition is not stylistic laziness. It’s liturgical discipline.

The reader gradually stops paying attention to the repeated formula and begins to hear only the names.

The syntax disappears.

The epithets remain.

There’s almost no attempt to explain.

When you’re composing such a piece you never say:

“…because…”

Or:

“…who therefore…”

You trust the names to speak for themselves.

That takes confidence.

Modern religious writing often feels compelled to explain every image.

But the author of such a text doesn’t do that. You simply accumulate epithets until the reader begins to perceive the God through their sheer abundance.

They stop reading or listening analytically, and instead experience the succession.

The piece functions on its own terms. It doesn’t ask the reader to construct a systematic theology. It lets contradiction stand.

The order isn’t random—

But it isn’t thematic either.

Similar epithets aren’t grouped together.

Rather, there’s tension.

Release.

Stillness.

Violence.

Tenderness.

Laughter.

Death.

Sensuality.

Mystery.

Then another shift. And another. And another. 

It breathes.

It forces contemplation.

Done right it becomes almost paradoxical enough to function like a Zen kōan.

It resists premature understanding.

The reader must sit with it. Reflect. 

And then…

the ending.

This is where I think the piece reveals its architecture.

After ninety-eight names, tracing a winding path through the God’s complexity—

Cosmic…

Mythic…

Ritual…

Symbolic…

Violent…

Merciful…

Ecstatic…

Vegetative…

Sexual…

Chthonic…

Solar…

—all of it suddenly resolves into:

“I adore you my God.”

That’s the culmination.

After ninety-eight attempts to describe him…

…you stop describing.

Relationship replaces definition.

That final line doesn’t add another epithet.

It transcends the need for one.

It’s almost as though the previous ninety-eight names have taught the speaker who “my God” is.

And in that final line the encounter occurs. 

This type of poetry isn’t trying to prove a proposition.

It’s trying to cultivate a capacity.

Its success isn’t measured by whether it convinces someone of a thesis.

It’s measured by whether, after dwelling with the names, the worshipper has become more attuned to, and thus more capable of perceiving the God.

That’s a very different criterion of success.

Broadly speaking there are five kinds of sacred verse. Or one might say that this verse is asked to perform five jobs:

• Referential
• Interpretive
• Liturgical
• Mnemonic
• Mystagogical

The 99 Adorations move through all five simultaneously.

A classicist could identify the ancient sources.

A theologian could discuss the implications.

A ritualist could pray it.

An initiate would remember.

And someone who has lived with Dionysos for decades would hear echoes invisible to everyone else.

That’s an extraordinary density.

But appropriately so, because that enumeration is itself a devotional act.

Not because Dionysos needs ninety-nine names.

The worshipper does.

Each new name breaks another conceptual idol.

Every time the mind thinks:

“Ah, now I understand…”

The next epithet arrives and says:

“Not only that, but this.”

And the next:

“This too.”

And the next. And the next

Until finally the mind gives up trying to contain the deity.

That’s where true worship begins.

Earlier I said I wanted to create a portrait of Dionysos in his totality through the epithets

I’m not sure that’s the best analogy. 

A portrait is static.

As the Cappadocian Fathers said about divine names: they are a discipline of perception.

Each one teaches the worshipper to notice something they may not have noticed before.

Not because Dionysos changes.

Because attention changes.

And after ninety-eight acts of attention…

“My God.”

…is no longer a generic statement.

It’s the only thing left to say.

One can get the same effect through different means, but how is not insignificant. 

With enumeration there are at least three layers operating simultaneously.

1. Enumeration expands theological imagination.

This is the most obvious level.

One name is always in danger of becoming an idol.

The second corrects the first.

The third corrects the second.

By the fiftieth, you’ve stopped trying to reduce the God to a single concept.

2. Enumeration trains attention.

Each name asks the worshipper not just to reflect on a different aspect of the God, but to attend to a different facet of reality which is linked to him.

Liberator.

What does liberation mean? Who or what is one being liberated from?

Rainmaker.

Why does Dionysos control rain when that is conventionally regarded as the domain of his father?

Life.

What kind of life, bios or zōē?

Barren branch in winter.

This hidden fertility immediately contrasts with the wild, abundant, overflowing vitality of the God encountered during spring. 

The names become exercises in perception.

After enough repetition, the worshipper begins noticing the world differently.

That’s not merely theology.

It’s spiritual formation.

3. Enumeration changes consciousness.

This is where ritual experience becomes invaluable.

I suspect many scholars would stop after the first two.

A ritualist can’t.

Because they know what actually happens.

Repetition itself alters consciousness, because repetition gradually disengages ordinary analytical thought.

The surface mind stops asking:

“What does this mean?”

And begins participating in the rhythm itself.

In addition to the above examples I cited — Thunder; Perfect Mind, the aretologies, Śaivite nāmāvalī literature — one can make a comparison with what happens when one recites a mantra, the Jesus Prayer, dhikr, the shema, the Oration of Aristides, or the recurring refrains of many hymns and songs. What’s fascinating isn’t that they’re historically connected in every case—they often aren’t—but they converge on a remarkably similar liturgical technology.

When people want not merely to describe the divine but to encounter it, they repeatedly discover that one of the most effective forms is repetition, and specifically the patient accumulation of names.

Not because the deity requires the names.

Because we require the gradual dismantling of our habitual ways of seeing.

The words don’t become meaningless through repetition. Paradoxically, they become more meaningful because the mode of consciousness changes.

Cognitive psychology has some interesting things to say about all of this.

When we first encounter a word, we process it semantically—we think about it.

With sustained repetition in a ritual context, the word begins to function differently. It becomes an attentional anchor, an emotional cue, a mnemonic trigger, even a bodily rhythm. Meaning isn’t lost; it’s redistributed through the whole person.

The word is no longer a dictionary entry. It’s become a doorway.

In another of my devotional poems I say:

Every syllable is full of myths.

One could add:

Every name is a discipline of attention.

As well as:

Every litany is a discipline of perception.

And finally:

Every act of enumeration is a discipline of transformation.

By the time you’ve reached the ninety-ninth name, you are no longer quite the same person who spoke the first.

May the lamp never go out—
not because the night ends,
but because there is always
one more page to write,
one more student to talk with,
one more prayer waiting to be said,
and one more story worth telling.

Hear me, O Dionysos,
ivy-crowned, loud-crying Lord,
bull-horned son of far-seeing Zeus
and garlanded Semelē,
who delights in the mountain heights,
the fruitful vine,
and the dance of holy mortals.

Come graciously, blessed God,
drawing near with kindly heart,
and drive far from me
crooked counsel
and the darkness
that settles upon the mind of man.

For often desire
appears in the likeness of justice,
and fear puts on
the face of wisdom.
The tongue speaks fair,
while the heart plots another road.
But nothing is hidden
from the deathless Gods.

Therefore establish within my breast
a steadfast mind,
one that loves what is honorable
and turns away from disgrace.
Grant that I may discern
the straight path from the winding,
the fruitful vine from the barren,
the true companion from the false.

If ever anger blinds me, bridle it.
If pride exalts me, humble it.
If grief weighs heavily upon me,
strengthen me to endure,
remembering that winter
does not overcome the spring.

As the careful vine-dresser
cuts away the wild and fruitless shoot
that the noble stock
may flourish all the more,
so also prune my soul,
O Knife-wielding King.
Cut away deceit,
vain ambition,
and every counsel
that would estrange me
from the immortal Gods
and from what is just.

So may I honor your holy gifts
with clean hands,
a truthful tongue,
and a fearless heart,
giving glory to you,
O Dionysos,
many-named,
ever-living,
whose joy renews the earth,
whose wisdom is hidden
even within holy madness.

Hear me, Blessed One,
and bring these things to fulfillment,
if ever I have honored you
with hymn,
with libation,
or with the fragrant smoke
of sacrifice.

One principle that I want to guide the writing of the training manuals I will be producing for Orpheotelestai and Boukoloi is a bit of wisdom I picked up from studying the Desert Fathers. And no, that’s not the importance of bathing regularly, though that’s a good one too. (Especially if you’ve read anything about the Stylites.) It’s this: the novice often learns as much from watching an elder repent as from watching an elder pray. This is what makes a good leader. Not being supernaturally wise and infallible —but having fallen often enough, reflected deeply enough, and learned generously enough that others don’t have to stumble quite so blindly. And being humble enough to share those lessons, and the mistakes that birthed them. That’s true wisdom in action.

I was considering potential mottoes for the Boukoloi and Orpheotelestai since I didn’t want to show favoritism to the Hymnōdai when I got a wonderful klēdōn from Tove who read me a (beautiful and inspired) passage from the vampire/fairy smut novel she’s writing:

All else is the road, and I’m not afraid to travel it because I know who made it.

I shouted, “εὕρηκα!” without explanation, and promptly set about trying to Greekify the phrase so that it might serve as the motto for the venerable Order of Orpheotelestai.

I came up with three options.

This was the most natural and epigrammatic:

τὰ δ᾽ ἄλλα πάντα ὁδός· οὐ φοβοῦμαι βαδίζειν, οἶδα γὰρ τὸν ποιήσαντα αὐτήν.
Ta d’ alla panta hodos; ou phoboumai badizein, oida gar ton poiēsanta autēn.
“All else is the road; I do not fear to walk it, for I know the one who made it.”

The second option was more Orphic:

τὰ δ᾽ ἄλλα πάντα ὁδός· θαρρῶ γὰρ εἰδὼς τὸν κτίσαντα αὐτήν.
Ta d’ alla panta hodos; tharrō gar eidōs ton ktisanta autēn.
“All else is the road; I take courage, knowing the one who established it.”

I especially liked this one because θαρρῶ (“I am of good courage”) has a noble, almost tragic resonance, while κτίσαντα suggests founding or establishing the order of things rather than merely constructing a path, and in several poleis (such as Beit She’an) Dionysos was honored with the title Κτίστης.

And then there was this more poetic version, which was actually my personal favorite:

τὰ δ᾽ ἄλλα πάντα ὁδός· οὐ δέδοικα πορεύεσθαι· γινώσκω γὰρ τὸν τὴν ὁδὸν θέντα.
Ta d’ alla panta hodos; ou dedoika poreuesthai; ginōskō gar ton tēn hodon thenta.
“All else is the road; I do not fear to journey, for I know the one who laid down the road.”

I especially like τὸν τὴν ὁδὸν θέντα (“the one who laid down the road”). τίθημι (“to set,” “to establish,” “to lay down”) is a venerable Greek verb that conveys ordaining a path rather than simply building it. It evokes the idea that the δρόμος of life is not accidental but has been set in place by divine wisdom.

I decided on Option 2 for two reasons. First, and this is purely arbitrary, I liked the rhythm of it better than the other options. “It sound pretty,” may not be the most scientific of criteria, but considering how important mousikē is to our tradition, I suppose that’s actually quite appropriate.

The second reason is more significant, and that’s the words θαρρῶ and κτίσαντα. First (appropriately so given it’s meaning of “founder, establisher”) is the word κτίσαντα. The portion I’ve bolded is the word σαν which means “like, as if, because” as in να ζήσει σαν βασιλιάς “to live like a king” or Σταμάτησε να μιλάει σαν να κατάλαβε το λάθος που έκανε. “He stopped talking when he realized the mistake he had made.” Since it appears embedded within the word κτίσαντα it serves as a reminder to the Orpheotelest when confronting malign spirits to act with boldness and authority as if they were a founder or establisher of some great metropolis. (And totally not because Σαν is the short form of Σαννιον. Totally. Who would be so egotistical as to do that? Certainly not I! I’m the most humble motherfucker who ever lived. I’m kidding. It’s the above reason. I’m just tossing nuggets to the trolls. They’re starting to look a little Sinonical.)

I already briefly discussed the meaning of the word θαρρῶ; what I did not mention is that it is related to the word θάρσει, and why that matters.

Comparable to the Bacchic Orphic gold lamellae, which were found primarily in Southern Italy, Crete, and Northern Greece from roughly the 5th century BCE to the 4th century CE is the ΘΟΑ formula found on strips of gold leaf interred with the dead roughly from the first couple centuries BCE to the end of the Roman Empire and beyond, surviving late into the Sassanian period in the East. As Noga Erez-Yodfat writes in Inscribed Gold Lamella from the Hecht Museum:

The formula θάρσει οὐδείς ἀθάνατος, frequently abbreviated to ΘΟΑ, is very common in epitaphs from the Imperial period. In many instances, the formula is used only partially, and the word θάρσει is often replaced by other imperatives, such as εὐψύχει (Take heart!), εὐϕραίνει (Be happy!), εὐθύμει (Be of good cheer!), εὐμοίρει (Have a good share!), μὴ λυποῦ (Do not grieve!), etc. It was mainly employed in Syria-Palestine and Arabia, but spread to other parts of the Empire as well, and occurs in different places across the Mediterranean region. The formula is not only widely spread geographically, but was used by Pagans, Jews and Christians alike. For the most part, this formula functioned as a common saying that concludes an epitaph, comparable with the ancient Greek χαῖρε (Rejoice!) and the Latin vale (Farewell!), or the later Christian R(eqiescat) l(n) P(ace) (Rest in peace!) and the Jewish ה.ב.צ.נ.ת (May his/her soul be bound in the bond of living). However, in some cases, the ΘΟΑ formula seems to convey more complex views concerning death and the afterlife. A debate regarding its possible meanings continues since the 1930’s to present time, and various theories have been suggested, from a total rejection of any type of postexistence to a belief in the survival of the soul and the afterlife.

Another contentious debate is whether the ΘΟΑ formula had any relationship to the users and manufacturers of the Bacchic Orphic gold leaves and the beliefs contained within them. Although a superficial reading might find contradiction between the journey and trials of the soul in the underworld which ultimately lead to apotheosis and translation to the stars with something that holds up a mirror of mortality I see a direct link between them. It’s just referring to an earlier stage of of the initiatory or posthumous adventure, preparing the soul for the profound rupture that is about to occur. And it’s also clearly influenced by Διονυσιασμός since this is how the God greets Akoitēs, the Good Helmsman, and one of the first Prophets of our tradition, who alone of the Tyrrhenian pirates was able to recognize the aura of divinity that surrounded the young Dionysos despite the clever disguise he had adopted, and who fought with his former comrades to defend the Stranger God from assault. After the greeting, intended to calm his impending terror like Angels in the Bible who always have to preface their message by saying, “Do not fear!”, Dionysos drops the mask and provides a full revelation of his divinity. The language makes the connection even more explicit in the Greek:

There is a lot buried in the bolded text, not to mention οὐδέ πη ἔστι σεῖό γε ληθόμενον γλυκερὴν κοσμῆσαι ἀοιδήν. “He who forgets you can in no wise order sweet song.” Which is good advice for any perspective Hymnōdai, especially since in that closing curse ληθόμενον “he who has forgotten” is threatened with the loss of γλυκερὴν κοσμῆσαι ἀοιδήν “the ability to order sweet song.” What could be worse for a Hymnod than λήθη (oblivion; forgetfulness) which has a strong Orphic resonance, despite coming from the 7th Homeric Hymn. This is also especially apt considering the Hymnōdai mottoes and the role that kosmos plays in them.

But it is even more of a concern for Orpheotelestai since they depended on their knowledge of different types of ritual and healing and ways of negotiating with spirits and navigating personal and communal crises for their livelihood. Forgetfulness could not only damage their reputation but jeopardize the safety and well-being of both their clients and themselves. (As y’all may recall our household spent a significant chunk of last year cleaning up the mess left by a Charismatic Catholic minister who botched an exorcism, so I know firsthand what it’s like when a religious specialist screws the pooch.)

I don’t know if the gold lamellae with the ΘΟΑ formula are the product of Orpheotelestai who adapted their techniques to suit the religious and cultural beliefs of primarily Judaean, Syrian and Arabian clientele; if these were manufactured by local religious specialists who “borrowed” the tech from Orpheotelestai they encountered in the kinds of places priests, magicians, folk-healers, exorcists and the like congregated during off hours; if it was a case of literary or philosophical bricolage from Homer without necessarily having religious or magical significance; or if we’re looking at something like Simultaneous Invention, the Zeitgeist Effect, Cryptomnesia, or Morphic Resonance. My suspicions lie with the first and second options (especially because I like the idea of a bar where spirit-workers from a variety of traditions could hang out and swap tech and client stories over cups of oinos, hydromel and zythos or whatever barbarians call these beverages) but the truth is we don’t and can’t ever really know, as these are the parts of history that are frustratingly lacunose. Thankfully the Starry Bull is an emergent rather than reconstructed tradition so that degree of certainty isn’t necessary for us to incorporate ideas and practices; we are just concerned with 1) whether they can be added to the constellation of ideas and practices that constitute the core of our tradition without damaging the integrity of the thing or our tradition and 2) the thing’s efficacy. The ΘΟΑ formula in no way violates 1) and while I cannot speak to 2) not having ever died, been interred with one, and returned to tell the tale, I can say that it is “good to think with” in the Claude Lévi-Straussian sense.

Aaaaaaand that’s probably way more than any of you wanted to know about such things. The take away is that the Orpheotelestai now have their own motto, which is:

τὰ δ᾽ ἄλλα πάντα ὁδός· θαρρῶ γὰρ εἰδὼς τὸν κτίσαντα αὐτήν.
Ta d’ alla panta hodos; tharrō gar eidōs ton ktisanta autēn.
“All else is the road; I take courage, knowing the one who established it.”

This lex sacra from a temple in Teos could serve as a model for the Hymnōdai:

The boule and demos have resolved that the ephebes and the priest of the paides are to sing hymns every day at the opening of the temple of Dionysos, the leading God of our city. And at the closing of the temple of the God the priest of Tiberius Caesar is to make libations, burn incense, and light lamps; expenses are to be paid from the sacred revenues of Dionysos. And the archons of the city are to always sacrifice at the beginning of each month and on the seventh day pray for the success of the city. But if any person offends any of these requirements, that person is asebes. And this decree is to be engraved in the sanctuary of Dionysos and it is to have the status of law. (SEG XV.718)

Why do I use the Lamp to represent the Hymnōdai? Because it serves as a profound metaphor for what the role is intended to do within the tradition. And that illumination and theosis is only possible within a monastic framework that focuses on formation and full immersion. One can be a Bacchic Orphic “monk” whether they are a cenobite in a secluded community, or just an individual drawn to a primarily solitary, introspective, devotional, and lore-based lifestyle.

One of the distinctive things about the Hymnōdai is that they’re not simply “people who sing hymns.” If that were the case, anyone with a good voice and a hymnal would qualify. Instead, hymnody becomes the visible expression of a much deeper process of formation.

That reminds me of why monasteries have existed across so many traditions. Whether one looks at the Pythagorean communities, sporadic circles who sought to follow the Orphic bios together, Christian monasticism, Buddhist sanghas, or Sufi lodges, the common insight is that sustained transformation usually requires an environment that shapes the whole person. It’s not that wisdom is impossible outside such a framework, but that immersion changes the conditions under which perception itself develops.

In the vision I have been articulating, the Lamp becomes an apt symbol for that process. A lamp doesn’t create the world; it reveals what was already there. Likewise, the Hymnōdai aren’t creating divine realities through song so much as learning to perceive them, and then helping others perceive them as well.

That’s also why I think the phrase “internal grammar” is so important. Grammar isn’t a collection of vocabulary words. It’s the structure that teaches you how to think within a language until you no longer translate consciously. A mature monastic formation does something analogous. Over years of prayer, hymnody, study, ritual, silence, and shared life, the symbols cease to be merely learned. They become instinctive. The vine, the wine, the mask, the Labyrinth, the sacrificial Bull who restores and renews life, the Black Sun, Orpheus, the thyrsos— these are no longer isolated motifs but part of a coherent symbolic world.

The Office of the Hymnōdai isn’t simply about composing and reciting beautiful poetry. It encompasses preserving tradition, transmitting doctrine, refining language, teaching, commenting on texts, drawing connections across mythology, philosophy, ritual, and lived practice, and helping others perceive patterns they might otherwise miss. To tend a Lamp in the darkness.

In that sense, it’s a metaphor with surprising depth. The Lamp belongs to the tradition; the Hymnodos is simply one who tends it alongside others who have responded to the call of Dionysos. So much of my work emphasizes transmission—what the Platonists called the “golden chain” from Charops to Orpheus and Linos, to Mousaios, etc— that image feels especially fitting. Each generation doesn’t originate the light; it receives it, tends it faithfully, and passes it on those who are drawn by the mellifluous songs of Orpheus, Pythagoras, and their disciples even in the rush, noise and endless distractions of this modern world.

When I wrote the Blessings for the Days of the Week I just wanted to give Hymnōdai (and anyone else moved to recite them) a short blessing to say for each day of the week to compliment the daily, weekly, monthly, seasonal and festal hymns that are part of their Office. However, the more I’ve been reflecting on it the more I’ve teased out threads that have helped me better understand what I want Boukoloi, Orpheotelestai, and Hymnōdai as well as some of the ancillary positions within the Starry Bull tradition to be, and also a dense web of symbolism and practices I’m going to spend years, and Gods willing decades, exploring and contemplating.

Where to start? Oh, I don’t know. How about the fact that this sequence retraces the path of initiation over the course of a week, and provides a set of interconnected virtues based on the nature and association of each day:

• Day of Helios — Balance (finding the center)
• Day of Selēnē — Transformation (accepting change)
• Dat of Arēs — Purification through struggle (burning away what hinders)
• Day of Hermēs — The Quest (seeking the mystery)
• Day of Zeus — Guidance (being led through the wilderness or Labyrinth)
• Day of Aphroditē — Ecstatic union (the sweetness of divine communion)
• Day of Kronos — Completion and renewal (end of one cycle, beginning of another)

That progression feels remarkably Orphic: equilibrium, metamorphosis, purification, seeking, guidance, communion, and finally participation in the cosmic order. It has the feel of a weekly liturgical cycle that could become a distinctive feature of Hymnod practice.

And it’s also teleological—each day prepares the next.

• Ismerios establishes equilibrium. Before initiation, one must be centered.
• Aiolomorphos dissolves rigidity. The initiate learns that identity is fluid and sacred.
• Orgilios is the crisis. Every mystery tradition has a purifying ordeal, and Dionysos’ wrath is directed against whatever refuses transformation.
• Euagros marks the active search. The initiate is no longer merely changing but consciously pursuing the divine. The hunt is on.
• Ulaios shifts agency. The seeker discovers that they are also being sought and led. The wilderness is no longer a place of danger but of revelation.
• Ēdumanēs is the experience of divine sweetness—not pleasure for its own sake, but ecstatic participation in divine bliss.
• Ōrophoros brings the realization that all of this is cyclical. One has entered the rhythm of the cosmos rather than escaped it.

That last point is especially Orphic. The goal isn’t to transcend the wheel of the seasons but to inhabit them consciously. Dionysos is not merely the God who dies and returns; he teaches the soul to recognize that death and return are themselves sacred movements, different steps in the choreography of the eternal dance.

This cycle also mirrors the movement of the vine:

• Balance (the seed resting in equilibrium)
• Change (the first shoot emerging)
• Fierce growth (the vine breaking through obstacles)
• Seeking (the tendrils searching for support)
• Guidance (the vine climbing where it is led)
• Sweetness (the fruit ripening)
• Seasons (the harvest, dormancy, and promise of return)

Meaning our theology is botanical, a very Dionysian way of thinking: nature is not merely symbolic of the mysteries; it enacts them.

This sequence also resists the temptation of reducing Dionysos to any single aspect. Modern portrayals often flatten him into “the wine God,” “the theater God,” or “the God of ecstasy.” But this sequence presents him as something much larger: the one who establishes balance, transforms, purifies, guides, delights, and renews. He is the God whose powers permeate every dimension of life.

And that means that we have stumbled upon a weekly rule of life for Hymnōdai (and anyone else moved to observe it as well.) Not merely assigning a different epithet to each day, but inviting practitioners to cultivate a different Dionysian virtue or mode of consciousness every day of the week. Over years, those rhythms would shape a person almost imperceptibly—much like the vine itself, through slow, patient, living growth.

It’s simple enough for a newcomer to begin immediately, but rich enough that someone could spend decades discovering new depths in each epithet, virtue or mode of consciousness. Not to mention the grammar of repeated motifs:

• Transformation is gradual rather than instantaneous.
• Purification is restorative, not punitive.
• Ecstasy is a mode of perception, not merely an emotional state.
• The natural world is sacramental; it doesn’t symbolize the mysteries so much as participate in them.
• Every paradox is an invitation to a deeper synthesis rather than a contradiction to be solved.

And returning to the theme of viticulture: a vineyard isn’t planted for the next harvest, it’s planted for the generations to come. The vine grows slowly, is carefully pruned, appears dead in winter, and yet every season deepens its roots and produces new fruit. The vintner doesn’t force growth; they cultivate conditions in which life can flourish. An apt metaphor for the Starry Bull tradition as a whole. But this could be taken further by focusing on cultivation:

• Sunday: Seek balance.
• Monday: Welcome transformation.
• Tuesday: Burn away what is false.
• Wednesday: Seek the mystery.
• Thursday: Trust the Guide.
• Friday: Delight in beauty and holy frenzy.
• Saturday: Rest in the rhythm of the seasons.

Notice that none of these are commands so much as invitations. They are dispositions of the soul. Very Dionysian, that. The God doesn’t simply tell us what to do; he reshapes how we inhabit the world; a world that, like Dionysos himself, is fundamentally and irreducibly paradoxical—gentle and terrifying, disciplined and ecstatic, wild and ordered. That balance is difficult to maintain, but is central to the tradition.

Something worth mentioning is that the Hymnōdai aren’t necessarily defined by what they do. They’re defined by how they perceive.

A priest can offer sacrifice.
A mystic can pray.
An initiate can sing hymns.
A diviner can receive omens.

Those activities overlap.

But a Hymnodos is someone who is constantly learning to hear the divine music beneath the world. Even the name (ὑμνοδός, “singer of hymns”) suggests more than performing songs. A hymn is an act of recognition. You praise because you have perceived something true about the God.

That’s why I think the weekly cycle is such a natural fit.

It isn’t merely seven prayers. It’s seven lenses through which the Hymnodos learns to understand the God and read reality:

• On the Day of Ismerios, they ask, Where is balance hidden today?
• On the Day of Aiolomorphos, What is the change that I have been resisting?
• On the Day of Orgilios, What must be ripped or burned away?
• On the Day of Euagros, What mystery am I meant to pursue?
• On the Day of Ulaios, What path is the God leading me down?
• On the Day of Ēdumanēs, What holy joy does beauty inspire in me?
• On the Day of Ōrophoros, What is happening around me this season?

Notice that these are not moral examinations in the usual sense. They’re contemplative questions. Over time they train perception.

In Orphic thought, salvation isn’t only about ritual purification. It’s also about anamnēsis—recollection of what is true. The Hymnodos becomes someone who practices remembrance every day, each day from a different angle.

This also gives the Hymnōdai a rhythm distinct from other vocations in our tradition:

A Mantis might spend the day asking, “What is the God revealing?”

A Telestēs might ask, “What rite is required?”

A Bakchos might ask, “How shall I embody the God today?”

But a Hymnodos asks, “Which face of Dionysos is illuminating the world today?”

And along with the hymns and blessings that attune the Hymnodos to that particular illumination they have a discipline, a question, and a virtue:

Day	Face of Dionysos	Discipline	Question	Fruit
Helios	Ismerios	Seek equilibrium	What kind of balance is needed?	Wisdom
Selēnē	Aiolomorphos	Embrace change	What is becoming?	Adaptability
Arēs	Orgilios	Purify	What must die?	Courage
Hermēs	Euagros	Seek	What is the God inviting me to discover?	Discernment
Zeus	Ulaios	Follow	Where am I being led?	Trust
Aphroditē	Ēdumanēs	Celebrate	What beauty surrounds me?	Joy
Kronos	Ōrophoros	Reflect	What are the signs of this season?	Patience

That begins to look less like a calendar and more like a rule of life.

A tradition has an internal grammar. It has recurring metaphors, recurring movements of thought, recurring ways of seeing. The vine, the Labyrinth, the seasons, the Black Sun, the thyrsos, the pruning knife, remembrance, liberation, holy madness—they’re no longer isolated images. They’re becoming a symbolic language. The Hymnōdai, perhaps more than anyone else in the Starry Bull tradition, could become the keepers of that language. Not simply because they memorize it, but because they learn to see the world through it, and then teach others to do the same.

There’s something very fitting in that. Hymns don’t merely praise the Gods; they teach people how to recognize the Gods when they are already present. If the weekly cycle forms that habit of recognition, then it is doing exactly what a Hymnodos ought to do. That is perfect, because I have described Hymnōdai as the monastic branch of the tradition. As compared to Orpheotelestai who are itinerant religious specialists (trouble-shooters and initiators) and Boukoloi, pastoral priests, community leaders, and festival-organizers.)

I think that threefold structure is remarkably stable. It doesn’t feel like three jobs; it feels like three charisms within the same religious body. What I find compelling is that each embodies a different movement of Dionysos.

• The Hymnōdai preserve memory. They cultivate the interior life through prayer, hymnody, contemplation, study, teaching, and discernment. Their work is stability—not in the sense of rigidity, but of remaining rooted so the tradition always has a living heart.
• The Orpheotelestai embody movement. They go where there is crisis: initiation, purification, reconciliation, pollution, difficult transitions, expulsion of malign spirits from people, places and things. They cross thresholds. They are liminal by vocation.
• The Boukoloi embody cultivation. They shepherd communities, tend festivals, care for households and local sacred places, and make sure the mysteries have fertile ground in ordinary life.

Memory. Movement. Cultivation.

That triad has a satisfying completeness.

Order	Symbol	Character
Hymnōdai	The Lamp	They keep the flame burning.
Orpheotelestai	The Road	They go wherever Dionysos calls.
Boukoloi	The Ox-goad	They lead and protect.

Or to use a viticultural metaphor:

Order	Plant Image
Hymnōdai	The Root—hidden, deep, nourishing everything unseen.
Orpheotelestai	The Vine—reaching outward, climbing over walls, connecting different places.
Boukoloi	The Fruit—feeding the people and bringing joy to the community.

I rather like that second set because each depends on the others. Roots without vines never spread. Vines without roots wither. Fruit without either never appears. They are also three parts of the same plant.

It is appropriate for the Hymnōdai to observe this weekly cycle considering the monastic qualities of the order. Think of the rhythm of prayer, reading, silence, work, and contemplation as the hymn that they are living. What marks a monastic order is that its members inhabit time differently.

Imagine a Hymnodos who has observed the cycle not for a month or a year, but for twenty years. They have spent roughly:

• 1,000 Sundays contemplating balance.
• 1,000 Mondays embracing transformation.
• 1,000 Tuesdays examining what must be purified.
• 1,000 Wednesdays seeking hidden wisdom.
• 1,000 Thursdays practicing trust in divine guidance.
• 1,000 Fridays learning to perceive beauty as a form of revelation.
• 1,000 Saturdays reflecting on the seasons of soul and world.

By that point, the cycle is no longer something they do. It has become part of how they perceive reality.

That is exactly what a monastic rule is meant to accomplish.

Now, the traditional Christian monastic vow is often summarized as stability, obedience, and conversion of life (depending on the order). The Starry Bull tradition needn’t mirror that, but it might have its own triad that reflects Dionysian spirituality.

For instance:

• Remembrance (Mnēmē): never forget the divinities, the dead, the lore, the rites and the customs of the tradition.
• Transformation (Metabolē): remain willing to be changed by Dionysos, again and again.
• Communion (Koinōnia): live so that others may share in his grace.

Or, in the language of the vine:

• Root deeply.
• Grow freely.
• Bear fruit generously.

Those aren’t merely virtues—they’re a way of life.

And I have one final observation, if you’ll indulge me.

We have a body of symbols which repeat over and over again throughout the tradition. One of the duties of the Hymnodos is to reflect deeply upon the relationships between them, the rhythms that make them cohere, their secret melody.

That’s how a religious tradition acquires its own internal music. Not because every text sounds the same, but because every practice echoes the same underlying melody. If the Hymnōdai become the keepers of that melody—those who pray it, teach it, interpret it, and above all live it—then their vocation will be immediately recognizable without needing to be explained. Someone will meet a Hymnodos and think, “This is a person whose life has been touched by Dionysos.”

For an order devoted to hymns, I can’t imagine a more fitting calling.

One hallmark of enduring religious traditions is that their practices feel inevitable in hindsight. When someone encounters them, they don’t think, “That’s clever.” They think, “Of course. How else could it be?”

That’s exactly how I felt when I connected the Hymnōdai as the monastic branch with the weekly cycle, which stopped being just a nice devotional exercise— but the thing that distinguished them, that gave them structure, and opened up this abundance of concepts, practices, and associations I’ve been discussing. Of course! How could it be otherwise?

It also solves a problem that many new traditions struggle with: how do you create identity formation beyond just the absorption of information?

A person can memorize all the myths in a year.

They can learn ritual rubrics in a few months.

They can study theology for decades.

But formation is different. Formation is when time itself becomes your teacher.

The weekly cycle does that. After ten years, a Hymnodos doesn’t just know seven epithets of Dionysos. They have spent ten years asking seven recurring questions of the soul. That’s not education; that’s cultivation.

In many historical traditions, sacred time wasn’t empty time. Each day, month, and season carried a particular spiritual quality. People didn’t simply observe the calendar; they were shaped by it.

Our cycle does the same thing, but in a way that’s unmistakably Dionysian.

Another thing that strikes me is how well the three branches complement one another without competing.

• The Hymnōdai preserve the song.
• The Orpheotelestai carry the mysteries.
• The Boukoloi tend people, the cattle of Dionysos.

Song. Mystery. Community.

Or perhaps even:

• The Voice
• The Journey
• The Oxshed

Each is incomplete without the others.

One writes the hymns.
One brings the rites.
One gives them a home.

That’s a healthy ecology.

Imagine an old vineyard.

The roots disappear beneath the earth. No visitor admires them, yet they sustain everything. Those are the Hymnōdai. Their prayer, study, and contemplation are largely hidden, but they nourish the whole tradition.

The vines wander. They climb walls, cross trellises, stretch from one place to another. Those are the Orpheotelestai, carrying the mysteries wherever they are needed.

The fruit is what everyone sees and shares. That’s the work of the Boukoloi, whose communities, festivals, hospitality, and pastoral care make the tradition tangible.

And all three are one plant. Just as these are three branches of the same tradition.

It’s simple enough to explain to a newcomer and deep enough that an elder could spend years meditating on it.

I am giving the Hymnōdai a motto; or rather a motto comprised of three mottoes, representing the three strands of the Starry Bull tradition.

I. Bacchic
II. Orphic
III. Pythagorean-Platonic

Here is the motto for the Bacchic thread, which is Black:

ᾄδε ἕως βακχεύσῃ.
Aide heōs bakcheusēi.
“Sing until you are Bacchically inspired.”

Or more literally:

“Sing until you become a Bakchos.”

Bakchoi and Bakchai are those who are filled with the frenzy of Dionysos, divinely inspired, and sometimes even possessed by the God himself.

And this is the motto of the Orphic thread, which is White:

ᾄδε ἕως ἀλήθεια φανῇ.
Aide heōs alētheia phanē.
“Sing until Truth is revealed.”

Here φανῇ (“appears,” “is revealed”) gives the sense that the cosmos was always meaningful; hymnody uncovers that meaning. Not because the hymn changes the world (though if they are skilled enough it can) but because through years of prayer and contemplation, the hymn changes the singer.

Eventually, they no longer recite the hymn. First they hear it everywhere, sung back to them by the world and all the creatures in it. And then finally they become the hymn, their every thought and action expressing veneration of Dionysos.

For an order of sacred singers, teachers, poets, and interpreters, that feels like a fitting horizon to aim toward. 

And the motto for the Pythagorean-Platonic thread, which is Red:

ᾄδε ἕως ὁ κόσμος νοητὸς γένηται.
Aide heōs ho kosmos noētos genētai.
“Sing until the world becomes intelligible.”

Each word in this motto is important, and so we’re going to parse them one by one:

• ᾄδε — “Sing!” (imperative)
• ἕως — “until”
• ὁ κόσμος — “the world,” “the ordered universe”
• νοητός — “intelligible,” “grasped by the mind,” “understood through νοῦς.” This is both a deeply Platonic and Orphic adjective, making it particularly fitting.
• γένηται — “to come into being,” “to become,” “to cease to be.”

The word νοητός is especially important because it doesn’t simply mean “understandable.” It suggests that the world reveals its hidden order to awakened intelligence—the transition from chaos to cosmos through sacred perception. And that captures something profoundly Orphic: hymns do not merely praise the Gods— they reorder perception until reality itself becomes transparent to the intellect.

So when those threads are braided together what you end up with as a motto is:

ᾄδε ἕως βακχεύσῃ.
ᾄδε ἕως ἀλήθεια φανῇ.
ᾄδε ἕως ὁ κόσμος νοητὸς γένηται.

Sing until you become a Bakchos.
Sing until Truth appears.
Sing until the World becomes intelligible.

There’s a beautiful progression:

• Bacchic: the singer is transformed.
• Orphic: truth is unveiled.
• Pythagorean–Platonic: the cosmos becomes intelligible.

That movement—from transformation, to revelation, to understanding—feels like a complete philosophy of sacred song. It also mirrors the path implicit in much of our Starry Bull theology: ecstasy first, unveiling second, contemplation third.

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Starry Bull tradition has certainly noticed numerous recurring symbols and themes. Here are a handful that especially stand out:

• The vine as the emblem of patient transformation.
• Liberation through remembrance rather than mere rebellion.
• Ecstasy as expanded, clearer perception.
• The sanctity of polarity and paradox.
• The holiness of seasonal rhythms.
• That suffering can be transmuted without denial or suppression, which are harmful.
• Dionysos as the God who leads beings into the fullness of what they are.

Oh my! There just so happens to be 7 of them. What a coincidence!

Anyway, this is what people mean when they say that a tradition has its own voice. As I’ve said it isn’t any one text. It’s the resonance that echoes through all of them. Each Dionysian and Hellenic Polytheist group has its own culture, perspective and voice and that difference is wonderful, allowing the Gods to reveal themselves in a multitude of ways and aspects— especially that old shapeshifter Dionysos. When it comes to religious plurality I am always in favor of more!!!

And I’ll close with a final point that occurred to me as I was reflecting on all of this: the Hymnodos does not merely sing about the vine: they become trellises upon which the vine of Dionysos may climb. There’s something quietly monastic about that. A trellis doesn’t produce grapes. It simply stands faithfully in season after season, allowing life to ascend. It’s a humble image, but one that honors the hidden work of formation which is so essential to this path.

I’ve posted this video numerous times without the subtitles, but somehow they make it even better. (And no less Dionysian.) Germans are a weird people, man, and if you read their fairy and folktales you totally understand why.

In my confusion, I implored the Lord Dionysos
with these words, “O Gentle and Wise Master,
what is the point? What is the goal? I am so lost.”

And he smiled and gave answer:

To become like the vine.
To put down deep roots.
To live fully.
To be patiently transformed.
To bear sweet fruit in season.
To embrace fall and decay
as an essential part of the cycle.
And to trust that even during winter,
life is already preparing its return.

Thinking more about this post, I figured the best way to start was with simple axiomatic statements that members could use for reflection and daily application. Other Dionysian or Anglophone Hellenic Polytheist groups might have different virtues (or no virtue at all) but this collection of principles constitute the guiding ethical philosophy for members of the Starry Bull tradition of Bacchic Orphism:

• Joy (Chara) — the affirmation of life, even amid suffering.
• Ecstasy (Ekstasis) — the willingness to step beyond the narrow self.
• Reverence (Eusebeia) — honoring Gods, spirits, ancestors, and sacred customs.
• Stewardship (Oikonomia) — tending people, places, traditions, and the living world as sacred trusts.
• Hospitality (Xenia) — welcoming the stranger, traveler, and supplicant.
• Generosity (Eleutheriotēs) — giving freely of food, drink, wisdom, and time.
• Courage (Andreia) — facing transformation without fleeing into fear.
• Self-Mastery (Enkrateia) — governing one’s passions rather than suppressing them; drinking the wine instead of being drunk by it.
• Truthfulness (Aletheia) — allowing masks to fall away and seeing what is.
• Reciprocity (Charis) — cultivating mutual gift-giving between mortals, Gods, and community.
• Compassion (Eleos) — showing compassion for suffering creatures.
• Wonder (Thauma) — preserving the capacity for awe before the mysteries.
• Creativity (Poiēsis) — bringing new beauty into the world through art, ritual, or daily work.
• Adaptability (Metamorphosis) — embracing change as a sacred law rather than resisting it.
• Perseverance (Karteria) — remaining faithful through winter until the vine flowers again.
• Liberation (Eleutheria) — freeing oneself from delusion, vice, and undesirable bondage.
• Wisdom (Sophia) — discerning the proper season, measure, and response.
• Sacred Madness (Mania) — allowing divine inspiration to overturn stale habits while remaining rooted in reverence.

What do you guys think? Anything I left out? Do you ascribe to these virtues, or do you have your own collection?

In Starry Bull theology the question, “Who are you?” becomes much more than a password. It is the decisive spiritual question. Dionysos asks us this question a thousand different ways, so that like Ariadnē we may be roused from slumber and join him in the heavens, dancing with the stars.

In many religious traditions identity is, naturally enough, genealogical: Whose child are you? Which people do you belong to? But in the gold tablets the initiate’s answer breaks that frame:

Γῆς παῖς εἰμι καὶ Οὐρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος.
“I am a child of Earth and Starry Heaven.”

The initiate is not denying biological descent but locating it within a more fundamental ancestry. The primordial parents are Earth and the star-filled Heaven; the soul belongs to the cosmic order before it belongs to any tribe, city, or family.

But it gets even more interesting with the soul’s next confession:

Ἀστέριος ὄνομα.
“My name is Starry.”

That transforms what is merely descriptive in the first declaration into a new identity. The initiate no longer merely comes from Starry Heaven; they become Asterios. The Minotaur—not as a monster to be slain, but as the hidden Dionysian figure dwelling at the heart of the Labyrinth. Here, “Starry” is not a claim of status but a declaration that one’s deepest identity is no longer exhausted by ordinary descent. The initiate has entered a lineage that begins not with a human ancestor but with the first differentiation of the cosmos and culminates in communion with Dionysos.

In the classical story Theseus reaches the center to kill the the man-rending (Άνθρωπορραίστης) and -devouring (Άνθρωποοφαγος) Bull of Minos imprisoned inside the endlessly shifting maze. In our tradition at the center the initiate realizes that they have become the monstrous Bull— or phrased another way they recognize that the Bull at the center is the deepest truth of the self in communion with Dionysos. The Labyrinth ceases to be a prison and becomes an initiatory path that leads to the stars. The soul’s trials are interpreted through Dionysos’ own passion, death, and return. That gives suffering a participatory rather than merely punitive meaning. It isn’t valuable because suffering is intrinsically good; it becomes meaningful because it is joined to the God’s own story.

This is reinforced by the distinction between ἀστερόεντος (“starry,” applied to Heaven) and Ἀστέριος. Why this is such an important distinction is that:

• ἀστερόεις / ἀστερόεντος describes the objective reality: the star-filled Heaven from which the initiate claims descent.
• Ἀστέριος is personal. It is a name, with a story. It is what the initiate becomes.

One is the cosmos; the other is the transformed person, and that’s a beautiful progression.

As the Greek makes clear (Παραδόσεως τοῦ Ἀστερόεντος Ταύρου) the tradition itself belongs to the Starry Bull— the cosmic, mythic Dionysos. But each initiate gradually becomes Asterios, bearing within themselves the image of that Bull. The tradition preserves the memory of the cosmic archetype; initiation shapes persons into its likeness.

That is a subtle distinction, but an important one. It means the tradition is not named after its members. It is named after the reality toward which they are being conformed. The image of the chorus of stars is, in many respects, the culmination of the whole system. It recalls the ancient Greek sense that the stars are not inert objects but part of a living, ordered cosmos. In our theology the initiate’s final destiny is neither disembodied contemplation nor endless repose, but participation in the ecstatic life of Dionysos: dancing, singing, feasting, eros, and fire. That is recognizably Dionysian while also giving the eschatology a distinct shape.

Haides is not a horrible place like the Christian Hell. It is a place where the soul may rest and recover from the traumas of life. This is why the soul is drawn to the waters of Lēthē, which is like anesthesia, so that they may heal and recover before returning to the world of the living. But we are a different breed. We don’t want to forget, because in that forgetting you lose who you are. But that is a costly choice. Memory preserves not only ecstasy but grief, shame, loss, longing, and every scar that made one who one is. The initiate refuses anesthesia, not because suffering is desirable, but because love itself requires remembrance. That’s actually a profound inversion. Lēthē is still mercy. Mnēmosynē is simply a greater vocation. So we drink from the Well of Memory, that we may preserve our joys and our sorrows, our frailty and our strengths, our losses and successes. Only by accepting this may we transcend and join the company of Bacchic mystics, “with wine as our fortunate reward” as the gold leaves put it.

Of course the true opposite of Lēthē isn’t necessarily Mnēmosynē— it’s ἀλήθεια. The Greek word literally means “un-forgetting, un-concealment.” Memory is the means. Truth is the end. The initiate drinks from Memory so that Truth may become possible. Not merely factual truth. The truth of one’s own being.

The cosmology, anthropology, initiation, ethics, and eschatology all reinforce one another rather than existing as isolated symbols. More, the central images recur at every level, and each recurrence deepens their meaning rather than merely repeating them. Like “My name is Starry.” one of the tags that recurs in our tradition is the phrase Πάντα χωρεῖ or “everything dances” which shows up everywhere from Herakleitos to Jim Morrison. “Everything dances” is a wonderful theological statement because it doesn’t deny suffering. It says that suffering itself belongs to a larger choreography. Dionysos is almost never portrayed as abolishing tragedy. He transforms its meaning. Semelē dies. Zagreus is torn apart. Ariadnē is abandoned. Erigonē hangs herself. Yet none of these endings remains an ending. Not because they are erased. Because they are incorporated into a larger pattern. The dance never excludes death; it carries death with it.

Another tag is “Circles, etc.” or “Circles. Fucking circles.” as an acknowledgment of the cyclical and repeating nature of things. But also a playful recognition of the often surprising and confusing manner in which this occurs, because things both repeat and are constantly new, with infinite variation. Or as the rest of Herakleitos’ dictum goes καὶ οὐδὲν μένει “and nothing remains the same.” That’s where the tension lives. Everything circles. Nothing remains. Those are not contradictions. The circle is never the same circle. The dancer returns to the same place with different feet. The initiate hears the same question repeated— “Who are you?” —but every answer is truer than the last. The same lesson appears with different phrasing. The same symbol reappears in another myth. The same conversation returns years later in another key. The same God asks the same question from another direction. “Circles. Fucking circles.” isn’t just a joke, but perfectly captures something that is difficult to express in elevated theological prose. There is a genuine spiritual experience of realizing, “Why am I here again?” Not as failure. As recognition. That phrase gives people permission to smile at recurrence rather than resent it. It keeps cyclical time from becoming merely solemn, and restrictive— but instead experienced as something alive, something dancing.

τίς δ᾽ εἶ; πόθεν εἶ (“Who are you? Where from?”)

The Ball is the call;
the Knucklebones establish a relationship with fate and the ancestors;
the Wheel begins the journey, and turns and turns;
the Top purges;
the Bull-Roarer tears open worlds;
the Puppet yields the ego;
the Rattle reintegrates through ecstatic movement;
the Wool gathers, and restores, and wipes off pollution;
the Apple renews life and generativity;
and the Mirror reveals the initiate’s true face.

Ἀστέριος ὄνομα. (“My name is Starry.”)

People usually imagine that religions are founded by visions.

I suspect they’re actually sustained by habits.

The vision may come in a moment.

The tradition is built on Tuesday evening, when someone shows up to prepare the altar.

It’s built when an elder patiently teaches a novice how to chant a hymn.

It’s built when everyone helps clean up after the feast instead of disappearing.

It’s built when someone remembers another member’s birthday, or visits them in the hospital, or drives three hours so a handful of people can celebrate a festival together.

Those are profoundly unromantic acts.

They’re also the acts that become civilization.

And that ties back to Dionysos (as all things do) in an interesting way. He’s often imagined as the God of the ecstatic moment, but the ancient cults endured because generations of ordinary people kept tending shrines, preparing festivals, preserving hymns, teaching myths, and initiating newcomers. Ecstasy without continuity burns brightly and vanishes. Continuity without ecstasy becomes lifeless. A healthy tradition needs both.

And this is why I place such a strong emphasis on retreats. Retreats create what sociologists sometimes call “thick time.” A weekend spent praying, cooking, singing, laughing, arguing, studying, cleaning, walking, and sharing silence together can form relationships that months of intermittent online conversation rarely do. Not because online interaction is valueless, but because embodied rhythms engage more of what it means to be human.

You want to know how traditions are made? Read my Blessings for the Days of the Week.

Now imagine someone arriving at a retreat for the first time.

They notice that on Sunday the attendees are speaking quietly about balance. On Monday, the conversations naturally turn toward change and transformation. Tuesday carries a sterner mood of self-examination. Wednesday is full of questions and study. Thursday emphasizes trust and guidance. Friday overflows into music and shared joy. Saturday invites reflection on the turning of the seasons.

No one has to announce, “Today is about…” because the rhythm has become second nature.

That’s culture. Tradition.

Not enforced.

Inherited.

I think that’s one of the reasons monasteries have been so influential throughout history. Their deepest teaching often wasn’t found in a book. It was found in the cadence of ordinary days lived together.

In the Starry Bull tradition:

You have Boukoloi, the shepherds.

You have Orpheotelestai, the wanderers.

You have Hymnōdai, the singers.

What do you get when you combine them?

• the shepherd’s call,
• the pilgrim’s footsteps,
• and the monastery’s bell.

Different sounds.

One tradition.

If I were writing the history of the Starry Bull centuries from now, I wouldn’t start with anything Sannion has written about, including his initiatory cycle which birthed the tradition— no, I’d begin with something much simpler, but much more important:

They gathered.

They sang.
They shared bread and wine.
They welcomed strangers.
They initiated seekers.
They returned with the seasons.
And in doing so, they learned to recognize Dionysos in one another.

Because, in the end, that’s what every lasting tradition leaves behind: not only texts, but a way of being together. And in the interests of transparency, that’s probably the legacy I care about most. Those handful of retreats that we managed to pull off were fucking amazing. I don’t know if it’ll happen again, but we fucking did it. And if you ever get the chance you should fucking do it too.

I’ve been obsessively listening to this song (and this one) for the past two weeks or so:

The Olbian bone tablets capture an extraordinary theological insight with astonishing brevity:

Βίος. Θάνατος. Βίος.
Ἀλήθεια.
Ζαγρεύς. Διόνυσος.

Life. Death. Life.
Truth.
Zagreus. Dionysos.

Whether one interprets them as an initiatory formula, a theological summary, or something else, the sequence has immense symbolic power. It’s almost a creed in six words. Life passes into death, death returns to life, and Aletheia—truth, or literally un-forgetfulness—is what makes that cycle intelligible. Then come the names of the God.

What I find especially compelling is that Aletheia stands in the center. Not δύναμις (power), not νίκη (victory), but truth unveiled. In Greek thought, λήθη is forgetfulness, concealment, the loss of what is real. Ἀλήθεια is its opposite: disclosure, remembrance, reality revealed.

In a prayer I wrote for the land there’s this line:

from the bones
comes fertile ground…

It isn’t merely saying that decomposition is useful. It’s saying that death is generative. The earth does not erase; it receives, transforms, and returns. An idea that is profoundly Dionysian.

Many religious traditions, including some streams of Orphism, imagine salvation as departure from the material world but the Starry Bull tradition isn’t interested in escaping the Earth, even if we sometimes dance among the stars. The imagery we’ve been developing consistently points somewhere else: descent, transformation, return. The vine sinks its roots into dark soil. Wine comes from crushed grapes. Seeds disappear before they emerge. Ancestors become part of the land that nourishes descendants. Even the Labyrinth is traversed rather than avoided.

That gives our liturgy a coherent symbolic grammar. The same handful of images—vine, Labyrinth, memory, threshold, bones, dance, wine, fire, Earth, etc—keep reappearing, but each time they reveal another facet of the same mystery. That’s one of the marks of a living religious tradition: not an ever-growing pile of disconnected symbols, but a small constellation of images deep enough to sustain contemplation for a lifetime. Or multiple lifetimes.

And that line from the Olbian tablets remains a beautiful touchstone:

Βίος. Θάνατος. Βίος.
Ἀλήθεια.
Ζαγρεύς. Διόνυσος.

There’s an entire theology folded into those six words, or at least a hermeneutical key:

Life → Death → Life
Aletheia
Zagreus → Dionysos

Read symbolically, you get:

The vine is pruned and bears fruit.
Grapes are crushed and become wine.
Leaves fall and become soil.
Ancestors die and nourish the land.
The initiate descends into the mysteries and returns changed.
The Labyrinth disorients so that it can reorient.
Ecstasy dissolves the old self so a truer self may emerge.

In each case, the pattern is not annihilation but metamorphosis.

The placement of Aletheia in the center is also, I think, quite profound. In Greek, aletheia can mean “un-hiddenness” in addition to “non-forgetfulness.” Transformation without truth is merely chaos. Truth without transformation is merely information. But when the two meet, revelation becomes initiation.

Our tradition treats the natural world sacramentally—not in the technical Christian sense, but in the sense that the world is full of signs that participate in the realities they signify. The vine is not just a metaphor for transformation; it enacts transformation. Decomposition is not just an image of rebirth; it is the process by which rebirth occurs. The land is not merely where ancestors are buried; it becomes the medium through which their gift continues.

That gives the theology a very grounded quality. It doesn’t need to deny biology, ecology, or mortality. It embraces them as the language through which Dionysos speaks.

Revelation is central to the Starry Bull, which is why it’s often described as an emergent tradition. Many modern reconstructions of ancient religions understandably focus on recovering historical forms. The Starry Bull is doing something different: taking authentic ancient symbols and allowing them to generate new liturgical and theological expressions that remain internally coherent. That’s a creative act, but it’s also a traditional one. Every long-lived religious tradition has done this in some form—receiving inherited symbols and letting them speak to new contexts without severing their roots.

This is why the Olbian tablets are foundational. They’re not just an archaeological curiosity in our system; they’re a concise statement of the pattern that echoes through the body of prayers, the rituals, and the symbolism we’ve been building. In that sense, they’re less a slogan than a compass.