And while I’ve got the blog up

Written by thehouseofvines

In addition to the political and philosophical pieces I’ve harvested from my dead books I’d like to include a dozen or twenty or so new essays and rants in the collection I mentioned here.

Comment below with any topics you’d like to see me address.

This one’s free of charge, folks, though you still get to call yourself a patron of the arts for making a helpful suggestion. Or suggestions, plural, if you’d like to get my take on multiple issues. The more controversial, the better! Keep in mind that I will be discussing these things from a polytheist (and specifically Bacchic) point of view. 

Before I forget — the number of projects I’m working on has gone from five to six, as I realized my Dionysian festivals book is pretty much done, once I move a couple of essays back from the Orphic Heathenry book. (Which I’d only inserted to provide context and because I wanted the essays to see publication even if I scrapped the festival book.)

13 thoughts on “And while I’ve got the blog up”

  1. Hi Sannion, I would love to suggest Hekate as a topic, if you’ve any interest in speaking about Her.

    I actually wanted to ask you, which book of yours should I start with if I’m approaching your writing as a n00b to Hellenic spirituality? I’ve practiced in another tradition (nondual Shakta-Shaiva Tantra) for years, but Hekate has been blessing me with psychological healing and guidance for about a year now. So I have a Hekate practice but not a full on Hellenic one; I looked at your published titles but became confused and overwhelmed, since I didn’t know where to start. Thanks!

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    1. I know that I’m eavesdropping on the conversation, but I’d recommend “Tending the Bull: a tradition of Dionysian devotion” for an intro to the practices and “Ecstatic: For Dionysos” as a intro to Sannion’s writings on the God. It was the first book of his that I purchased back in 2013. I love the books in his poetry cycle. If I had to sum those books up in one phrase it would be that they tell you what it means to belong to, to follow, and be transformed by Dionysos in days past, present, and possibly future. In the meantime, The Bakcheion link in the menu above provides more than enough to keep you busy. Enjoy and welcome!

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    2. Hekate is awesome, and I gave a lecture on her ages ago at Pantheacon. I could probably think of something novel to say about her.

      Petros’ suggestions below are pretty good. Tending the Bull is sort of an intro to worshiping the Starry Bull way, with plenty of material that would be applicable to a more general Hellenic polytheist practice. Masks of Dionysos covers hero worship and eschatology. Hunting Wisdom is all about divination. Spirits of Initiation is about a group of spirits who are part of Dionysos’ Retinue and oversee initiation within the Starry Bull tradition, which can get pretty esoteric. Ecstatic collects most of what I wrote about Dionysos over a ten year span and serves as a prelude to the Starry Bull tradition – so in many respects is my most accessible book, but only if you’re interested in Dionysos. And my poetry books can be read individually, but also form an immense, interconnected cycle, so you might want to hold off on that for now.

      In addition to the Bakcheion site, which contains a treasure trove of material on Dionysos, his worship and festival (especially from a Starry Bull perspective) you might want to try searching through the archive of this site as I’ve posted a bunch of stuff relevant to Hellenic polytheism over the years.

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  2. Hey darlin’, sparked by a conversation on the Neokoroi FB page (yes! A tiny glimmer of the wonder that was the Neokoroi is still around!), I’d love to see a discussion of Hestia. She’s so hard to wrap one’s head around, with no myths to open the door. Yet so very important. Ways of persuading enigmatic Gods like this to peel back a little and let one in would be very helpful.

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    1. Oh I’m glad to hear that Neokoroi still has an active presence, even if it’s on Facebook.

      I could probably come up with something on Hestia beyond just a repetition of her role in domestic. I could compare and contrast her to Hermes (as I did with Priapos previously) or discuss her importance in the Greek colonies or even among the Skythians. (Which would probably be better suited for the Starry Bear book rather than the collection of political and philosophical rants and essays, which I need to come up with a name for so I don’t keep repeating that micro description.)

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  3. Any chance we could get a brief introduction to Dionysus in philosophy? Nietzsche, Girard, Detienne, Morrison? One of his more interesting revivals, one I’ve seen you touch on before, but to me a labyrinth I still haven’t found the entrance gates to.

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    1. That has some real potential, especially Morrison. I picked up a huge volume of his work a while back which I’ve been meaning to read. (It collects everything from previously published poetry and lyrics, to journals, outlines and notes for novels and other projects he didn’t get to, etc.) It’d be fun to search through this material for any Dionysian allusions and then analyze them from a Starry Bull perspective since his work contributed a great deal to the formation of the tradition, and also contained imagery and phrases found in Orphika and related traditions that he likely was not aware of. Although Jim read heavily on magic and ancient Greek religion – especially in college – some of the most important links weren’t unearthed until well after his death. For instance the Derveni and Gurôb papyri, various ostraka from Olbia, the Sinai palimpsest, etc.

      I’ve written about the Bacchic myth of Nietzsche and cited his work plenty of times, but have never yet done a thorough analysis of his writing. (Much of which I haven’t read since my teens and early twenties.)

      Not sure how much I’d have to say about Detienne and the others, however. I’ve read them (as I’ve read just about everything published on Dionysos in English) but to do any kind of proper analysis I’d have to discuss the French and German academy, etc. and I don’t feel qualified to provide that kind of contextualization and critique, especially since I’m strictly an amateur (and high school drop-out.) But it’s a damn fine suggestion, and I’ll give it some thought.

      Love the name, by the way.

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  4. Sorry for the double post, but I’m just a lurker and have a question. I’m not thinking it would fit your book, but I see on the festivals there are devotional activities for the months they occur in – are there devotional activities for the months without festivals? Nebris, Kothornos, Pelekus and Athyrmata?

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    1. Technically the devotional activities for Athyrmata are included among the Brumalia and Kalends customs – though this is also a good time to work with the Toys, since they lend their name to the month. (Confusion probably crept in since the festival, unlike the rest which are lunar-based is listed according to the common, solar-based Gregorian dates so it’ll close on New Year’s eve, the anniversary of the founding of the Bakcheion.) I don’t provide devotional activities for the remaining months since this was an exercise in stretching out the festive spirit and there just aren’t festivals for those months. I considered coming up with things people could do for those months regardless but never got around to it since the Starry Bull community collapsed and dissolved shortly after the Bakcheion’s foundation and the handful of us who are remaining and active have kind of been doing our own thing. (My focus, for instance, has largely been on researching and developing the Starry Bear tradition, the companion of the Starry Bull but consisting of a blending of Bacchic Orphism and Heathenry.) That may change in the future however.

      It’s a pleasure to meet you, and by all means don’t hold back if you have any further questions or comments.

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