This sucks

Written by thehouseofvines

I am the worst ἱεροποιός (temple-steward) ever.

Okay, maybe that’s a little hyperbolic — thus far I haven’t raped anyone in the temple, or murdered a baby and offered its succulent flesh to the Gods, or let some Iranian burn the place to the ground, or a dozen other examples from Greek myth and legend. But I fucking forgot that last night was Lenaia. I am so ashamed, and this is a really shitty way to kick off Year 4.

For some reason I was under the impression that the festival didn’t start until January 23rd or 25th. So I limped downstairs this morning, leg hurting too much to sleep, with the intent to grab one from the stack of unsold calendars on the table near the Óðinn and Frigga shrine, so I could begin planning out our observance now that our household’s Yuletide season is over, only to flip it open and discover the bad news.

Man, I should have hung the calendar by the door in the Bakcheion after putting down the finishing touches, left one beside my desktop computer, or plugged the dates into my Google calendar with notifications, or really anything other than relying on my shitty sense of time.

Oh well. I have nearly a month to get my shit together in time for Anthesteria. No sense dwelling on this fuck up.

27 thoughts on “This sucks”

  1. You do know that Lenaia runs from the 12th to the 15th of Gamelion right? So it’s not too late. Personally I only celebrate it for one day during that period each year, and this year I’ll be doing it on Sunday morning.

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    2. That’s a good suggestion, and may be what I end up doing, but from what I understand – and I could be mistaken on this point, a lot of the scholarship is uncertain or contradictory – it’s only a 4-5 day festival in Attica because of the comedic competitions that were added. Elsewhere – for instance in the Ionian cities of Asia Minor and the Ukraine, which is mostly what I draw on – when we find Lenaia celebrated it’s a 1 or 2 day affair, and just limited to the Mainadic thusia and wine-rites.

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      1. Perhaps, but even if so, it shows that there’s no particular religious reason it *can’t* be stretched out or celebrated on adjacent days, so that seems to leave a lot of leeway for you even if you’re generally observing it in a non-Attic manner.

        And even if it’s not a “proper” Lenaia, I think you could distill down the main themes into something doable that’s worth the effort. Not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, and all of that. That’s the position I find myself in this year for other reasons but I’m still doing a pared down version tomorrow at dawn.

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        1. See my comment to Aridela below. I think you guys are right. In fact, if memory serves one of the sites in Asia Minor even celebrated it later in spring, and a couple others we just know it was celebrated, without any idea of how it fit into the local calendar. (Or if it was part of an official polis calendar or if a private thiasos was celebrating it.) There are so many gaps in our knowledge of Greek religion outside Attica, though it does seem pretty clear that most Ionian colonies kept some version of Lenaia and Anthesteria – even if the rest of their calendar differed.

          Of course, then there’s the divination I did. Which makes me wonder – is there something about me personally that means I shouldn’t celebrate the festival this year, or is it because the parts that interest me about Lenaia were traditionally restricted to women. Probably should have divined on “why” rather than just stopping at “don’t.”

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          1. See, that’s actually something I was wondering myself. On the Bakcheion website you have as part of the ritual outline a phase where you go out and call to the God out from the wild. Should men actually do this considering that this was for the Lenai?

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            1. We know men participated; in fact, we know they participated in the waking of Dionysos since it was one of the instances where the Herald blew the salpinx. Other men probably ran around making a ruckus and using noise-makers, which is what men today could do. The problem is, minus the literary sources, most of our knowledge comes from a series of Lenaia Vases (not gonna try for the German) which detail the ritual activities of Dionysos’ priestesses. Of course, these vases are highly controversial as scholars have been arguing for close to two hundred years now whether the Mainades depicted on them are human votaries and thus we have different stages of the ritual represented or if they are Nymphs, Goddesses, etc and we’re dealing with some mythological scene. Some of the arguments are really poor. For instance, the presence of Satyrs in a scene is taken as incontrovertible proof that we’re dealing with something mythological since Satyrs aren’t real (ignoring the possibility that you’ve got a guy dressed up in a costume or who is otherwise reenacting the role) and likewise if it’s a mythological scene why is Dionysos represented as a mask on a pole (which would signify a mortal ritual) as opposed to some anthropological image such as a full-grown youth or a child in the liknon, as he normally is in such contexts. I touch on all of this in the essays and other reading materials on the festival at the Bakcheion.

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          2. Forgot to add a part.

            What do you recommend men do for this festival aside from just regular offerings to Dionysos Lenaios?

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            1. I recommend that they start by reading the Lenaia content on the Bakcheion, and piece it together from there, performing divination when in doubt.

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  2. I mean, since days in our religion technically start the sundown before, it’s still Lenaia. Unless you need to do a particular ritual you could still offer some kind of sacrifice to Dionysos Lenaios.

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    1. That’s the thing – there are special rites performed, which I’m not prepared for and lack the supplies for. I thought I was doing the responsible thing by checking ahead, so I’d have time to get myself and everything else ready – except I was 2 weeks off, likely because this is a year with 13 months, which moves the festivals around a bit. Can I cobble something together for tonight or tomorrow? Certainly. Will it be something worthy of being called a proper Lenaia celebration? I don’t know.

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  3. Also here to say, it’s 4 days long! I tend to observe 3 days but I feel like I’m unusual in that regard. Perhaps whatever spontaneous observances you come up with will end up being particularly meaningful!

    Memory is tricky. Just gotta remember who we are, right?

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    1. Oh, it’s great to hear from you!

      And yeah, that’s certainly a possibility (despite what I said above) but I’m just really disappointed in myself over this. My grasp of time is … let’s just say, not so great. The other week Galina told me it was Thursday, and I had the hardest time believing her, even after Alexa confirmed it. Not because I thought she was lying to me or anything, but because I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that it was already Thursday and not Tuesday or Wednesday.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Believe it or not we have that in common. I have always struggled with time to the point that I can’t even tell you how long ago something was accurately. Something a “few minutes ago” could have been an hour and a half ago. I don’t know if it has to do with my condition but a doctor noted that as a kid I “don’t know where I am in space” either so maybe I’m just not of this world lol

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      2. I totally get the disappointment. In my experience, we’re usually a lot harder on ourselves than the gods are, though. FWIW, I feel like Lenaia is a bit more flexible than Anthesteria in terms of dates.

        Linear time is difficult to get the hang of!!

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        1. Ya know, I think you and Dver are correct. There does seem to be a lot of flexibility to this festival, especially when you move past the Attic material, and I think that’s actually a big part of it – the Lenai of each place are supposed to wake the God in the manner appropriate to that place.

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  4. SO I am not knowledgeable on Dionysian worship but I’m curious – can you celebrate it late or is it very particular to the calendar date for a reason? I’m coming from the perspective of mostly agrarian and astrological holy days which shift depending on local climate or are fix because -gestures to stars- so I’m very interested to find out…

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    1. That really depends on the festival. I follow a mixed lunar and solar calendar. The lunar dates tend to shift around by as much as a couple weeks, depending on where we are in the cycle or if an extra 13th month needs to be added to keep everything in alignment. Other dates are solar, and thus fixed, always falling at the same time each year. Some of the festivals are single day affairs, others spread over 2, 3, 5 or even 10 days. Among those, some can be celebrated any time during that period, whereas others require more specificity because things happen at that time and that time only, such as Anthesteria where the dead rise to join us in tasting the first batch of the year’s wine and Dionysos consummates his union with the king’s wife in the ox-shed. It’s the difference between commemorating an event and participating in it.

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      1. Ooo ok that’s super interesting.
        Now because it’s wine tasting does that mean that folks who make wine (raises hand) but have to do it in a climate and time different than Ancient Greece/Rome/Turkey/Egypt still need to have wine made and what not in time or just celebrate this day as well as when their wine is ready? Sorry to bug you. I told Galina today in a DM I keep seeing Dionysos everywhere now and partly blame you lol

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        1. Hahaha he does get around.

          In ancient Greece wine was kept in giant jars or pithoi which were partially buried in the ground. At Lenaia the priestesses of the God would open the jars, stir the contents as they sang songs to Dionysos, and sample the wine – in preparation for Anthesteria, which took place about a month later, when the jars would be opened proper, and the whole community would partake.

          Anthesteria was also a fertility festival meant to cause the flowers and other plants to rise and open up (hence the name, which is basically “flower festival.”) On the second of the three nights, the wife of the king would perform a hieros gamos with Dionysos (either via direct communion with the God, his phallic replica, or one of his priests – or possibly the king – acting as a surrogate or “horse”: our sources are unclear on the matter) while the community would engage in masked revelry, culminating in them either taking individual partners or participating in orgies. During the three days the dead would come up through the pithoi and celebrate with their descendants (and those who perished during the flood of Deukalion, basically the Greek Noah, were also honored) until they were bid farewell on the final day (and forcibly banished if they stubbornly refused to go with pitch and buckthorn.)

          Now, while the festivals of Dionysos loosely follow the life-cycle of the grape (in a Mediterranean climate) it’s not a perfect sync. For instance, some people derive Lenaia from lenos the vats where grapes were tread but that doesn’t make much sense since no one’s going to be treading grapes in winter, as that’s usually done during the fall harvest. (Consequently I’m with the camp that derives it from a type of maenad called Lenai who presided over the core rites of the festival. Why they’re called that is complicated, would take too long to explain, and is tangential.)

          Lenaia can be moved around, but I personally believe that Anthesteria needs to remain where it is regardless, because of all the other stuff going on. (Living in the Northeast, this often means there’s a bunch of snow on the ground during Anthesteria, which can take some mental as well as physical adjustment since it’s a spring flowering rite. Didn’t have this problem in Oregon as there were tons of flowers on display by that point.) Note, however, that mine is not the only position within contemporary Hellenic polytheism. Good arguments have been made for making it a movable feast, including the question you raise about the growing cycle of the grape being different in different regions. Since I don’t generally make my own wine (though I have experimented with other types of homebrewing, including a couple very successful batches of mead and metheglin) I try to find either new wine, or some local variety for Lenaia and Anthesteria. (For the other festivals I just go by the label or name, which can be a fun game in its own right.)

          Oh, and there are other parts of Lenaia that have nothing to do with wine and feasting – such as using wool to collect the city’s pollution, and then weaving to cleanse the threads of fate, etc. Plus there’s the waking of Dionysos who is thought to be either dead or sleeping during winter, comedic competitions intended for a local audience as opposed to the City Dionysia which had tragedies, comedies and satyr plays and was a big spectacle intended to draw audiences from far and wide, and so forth.

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          1. Oh, and I’m very much in favor of having a localized calendar, even if that means moving festivals around to better reflect the growing cycle – unless there’s some reason not to – or better yet creating new ones that either do that or honor local history, heroes, etc.

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  5. Fuck. My calendar has it starting tomorrow, but I’m miasmic AGAIN so need to divination tonight to see if/how I can proceed.
    My plants and trees are all budding and pushing up from the crazy warmth, and it’ll be in the negatives by morning. We are all fucked up.

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    1. Uggh. I feel ya. For the last three or four years we’ve had mild, even temperate winters that are usually done by February or March. In the past winter was brutal, with snow and ice that could last six months or longer. This has played havoc on our garden (not to mention the local farmers whom we buy most of our produce from) with the worst part being the proliferation of insects, especially these little gnatty things that keep coming up through the drains. Good thing climate change is a myth, or this would really suck. If this continues, in a decade or so New York will become New Florida.

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