I am really making progress with the research phase of the Starry Ram, consuming everything I can on ancient Israelite, Judahite, Samaritan, Edomite, Midianite, Nabataean, Canaanite, Kemetic, Babylonian, and other Levantine and Near Eastern polytheisms. None of these religions can properly be studied in isolation, even if I wasn’t following the peregrinations of Dionysos. Holy fuck, does he get around! Although it is still very episodic and lacunose, I am beginning to get the story of his time and adventures in that region, which is proving quite fascinating. Putting all of that together into something coherent and digestible is sure going to be a challenge, but that’s the next phase so I don’t have to worry about it at the moment. 

But I had plenty of other things to be concerned about. As far as I’m aware I have no ethnic ties to the region, my people being predominantly Blackfoot and Southern Italian. Until recently I also had very little interest in the ancient Near East, with the exception of Kemet back when I was doing the Greco-Egyptian thing. And on top of that I’m an itinerant religious specialist who deals with a lot of polluted and nasty shit for my clients. Consequently I was afraid that it would not be possible for me to maintain the level of purity to perform some of the foundational rites of these religions (even in a modified, syncretic form), communicate with the divinities, receive their mysteries, or synthesize everything into the Starry Ram tradition. I mean, shit, I had to stop maintaining a Starry Bull temple because of the amount of combat with malignant spirits I am engaging in. And here I was considering forging a tradition that was even stricter and more concerned with pollution? 

I was discussing how I didn’t feel worthy of the task with my colleague Tove when she suggested that I ask Yahweh directly through bibliomancy. She grabbed a Tanakh from the shelf and opened it to the Book of Joshua 2-6:

2 Jericho was bolted and barred shut because the people were afraid of the Israelites. No one could enter or leave. Yahweh said to Joshua, “I am about to hand Jericho, its king, and its warriors over to you. 3 All the soldiers will march around the city once a day for six days. 4 Seven priests will carry rams’ horns ahead of the ark. But on the seventh day you must march around the city seven times while the priests blow their horns. 5 When you hear a long blast on the horn, all the troops must shout very loudly. The wall around the city will collapse. Then the troops must charge straight ahead into the city.” 6 Joshua, son of Nun, summoned the priests. He said to them, “Pick up the ark of the promise, and have seven priests carry seven rams’ horns ahead of Yahweh’s ark.”

I just sat there for about 10 minutes, while Tove asked what I had gotten from the passage, increasingly confused since she knows Heathen lore much better than Hebrew. My family were vagabonds, following the rodeo circuit and then whatever ranches were hiring in the off season, but my mother always made sure that we attended Sunday services at the nearest church, regardless of the denomination. I was exposed to a lot of different Christianities, many of them Protestants who valued memorization of the Bible and the ability to quote verses for any situation that might come up. I won awards. I knew what that passage meant. 

And so I’ve been learning everything I can since.