Hail to you indomitable Archer God
whose flaming arrows never miss their mark,
Healer who comes on the swift black wing of ravens,
Leader of the wolf-pack that hunts stealthily by Night
Ie ie Paian, Lord Apollon who smashes the crown.
Once you guided the long-haired Ionians beyond
even Alexandria Eschate, to the wastes of Serike
and its hundred kingdoms, where this strong and doughty
people distinguished themselves in the arts of Enyalios,
in the production of fine grape-wine and the breeding
of horses who ran like the winds, and just as tirelessly
Ie ie Paian, Lord Apollon who smashes the crown.
As you then protected them, I pray, protect our people today
dispensing blessings of wisdom, fortitude and immunity
so that neither the virus nor the moronic measures of the ruling class
can do our nation any more harm than they have already
Ie ie Paian, Lord Apollon who smashes the crown.

I’ve mentioned the Etruscan Goddess Esia a number of times recently (here in connection with Mount Aetna for instance, and here in connection with Óðinn.)

She is the counterpart of Cretan Ariadne, with some fascinating local additions:

Another specimen, of a Praenestine pear-shaped mirror but with Etruscan inscription, has the theme of the fate of Esia, a name unknown in Greco-Roman myth. E. H. Richardson argued that she was the equivalent of Ariadne, in a story of the latter’s death as caused by Artemis, and many have accepted her suggestion. She is held wrapped up like a dead soul by Artumes, who displays the arrows with which the goddess is accustomed to end the lives of young girls. Next to her stand Fufluns, the Etruscan Dionysos, a bearded male with a drinking cup, and a winged Menrva. Below, coming up from the ground, appears an oracular head. We do not know its message, but most likely it relates to the fate of Esia. It may be that Fufluns will receive her and bestow immortality upon her. Whatever the message, Fufluns and Menrva seem to react strongly: Menrva throws up both hands in a gesture of surprise (or dismay?) and Fufluns also raises one hand. We shall observe these gestures again in other scenes of individuals who are receiving a prophecy. (Nancy de Grummond, Mirrors, Marriage and Mystery)

Discussing this mirror I mentioned that I’d like to know more about the story depicted on it, and last night while reading about the Runes I stumbled across the following:

The Greek geographer Strabo informs us that the peoples of north-western Italy venerated Artemis most among all the gods and the inscriptions left behind there seem to corroborate his report. Among them is an inscription on an oddly, apparently fish-shaped, figurine cast in bronze with a hole in it for hanging, found by archaeologists among the remains of a religious sanctuary near the Alpine town of Sanzeno, near Trent. Probably an amulet rather than a votive, it features the names of four ancient mythological figures: Diana, Esia, Liber and Vesuna. Diana is of course the ancient Italian name for Artemis and the grouping on the amulet appears to be similar to that found on two ancient Italian mirrors where the mythological figures Minerva, Fufluns, Artemis and Esia are depicted in a scene together. The mirrors depict Esia as a shade brought by Artemis to Fufluns in the company of the goddess Minerva. Liber and Fufluns are both archaic Italian names for the Greek god Dionysus and Esia is the Etruscan name for Ariadne, the daughter of Minos of Theseus and the Minotaur fame. Greek mythology also tells us that Artemis killed Ariadne, but that Dionysus (Artemis’ brother) later married her; so the Sanzeno sequence of names appears to be an attempt to represent this scene (or perhaps rather this relationship) in a highly abbreviated manner. It too, then, appears to represent some sort of divine narrative charm concerning Artemis, albeit a highly abbreviated one, used to make an item holy or powerful. Given space is usually in short supply with the loose items typically used as amulets, the inscriptions that they carry are often abbreviated; so the possibility that any listing of divine figures on a runic amulet is part of a divine charm of some sort should not be dismissed lightly. (Mindy MacLeod and Bernard Mees, Runic Amulets and Magic Objects)

This brings up so many questions.

Who is Vesuna, for one, and what role did she play in Esia’s story?

If the inscription is a kind of shorthand for a magical spell, what was it’s purpose?

Why was the figurine fish-shaped?

A quick google revealed that Vesuna is an indigenous Italic Goddess venerated by the Marsi, Volscians and Umbrians who was originally partnered with Pomonus Popdicus, the protector of fruit trees and gardens. (She is described as being “of” or “belonging to” him – Vesune Puemunes Pupřikes – implying a hierarchical relationship with this male double of Pomona the orchard Goddess.) Later during the Roman period dedications were made to Vesuna alongside Ceres and Juno Lucina.

There is some speculation that she is the Celtic Vesunna worshipped in Roman Gaul (and particularly the area surrounding the city Périgueux, which she was the patron of.) She seems to be a Goddess of abundance and good luck, as well as lakes and other bodies of water, with her symbols being the cornucopia and sistrum, on account of which she was syncretized with Isis.

Though important enough to be mentioned in the Tabulae Iguvinae no myths have come down concerning Vesuna (or Vesunna) so we can only speculate about the role she played in Esia’s story as found on the bronze fish figurine.

However it suggests to me an encounter with Mêla the Golden Apples among the Toys of Dionysos.

And since the findsight of the inscription was in the territory of Rhaetia, my mind drifts to things Germanic and especially Iðunn, and because of the bronze fish Loki. But I could just be reaching. 

The penultimate Toy (mentioned in the Orphic poet, Clement and Arnobius) is in Greek Μῆλα and Latin mālum, the apple. This is – after the grape, fig and pomegranate – perhaps the fruit most commonly associated with Dionysos:

That Dionysos is also the discoverer of the apple is attested by Theokritos of Syracuse, in words something like these: ‘Storing the apples of Dionysos in the folds at my bosom, and wearing on my head white poplar, sacred bough of Herakles.’ And Neoptolemos the Parian, in the Dionysiad, records on his own authority that apples as well as all other fruits were discovered by Dionysos. (Athenaios, Deipnosophistai 3.82d)

For Jane Ellen Harrison, Dionysos was more than just the God of the vine, he was “Dendrites, Tree-God, and a plant God in a far wider sense. He is God of the fig-tree, Sykites; he is Kissos, God of the ivy; he is Anthios, God of all blossoming things; he is Phytalmios, God of growth” (Prolegomena page 426). 

In short, he is the God of the impulse of life in nature, a God of growth and the green earth:

Now as to the rites of Liber, whom they have set over liquid seeds, and therefore not only over the liquors of fruits, among which wine holds, so to speak, the primacy, but also over the seeds of animals:— as to these rites, I am unwilling to undertake to show to what excess of turpitude they had reached, because that would entail a lengthened discourse, though I am not unwilling to do so as a demonstration of the proud stupidity of those who practice them. Varro says that certain rites of Liber were celebrated in Italy which were of such unrestrained wickedness that the shameful parts of the male were worshipped at crossroads in his honour. Nor was this abomination transacted in secret that some regard at least might be paid to modesty, but was openly and wantonly displayed. For during the festival of Liber this obscene member, placed on a little trolley, was first exhibited with great honour at the crossroads in the countryside, and then conveyed into the city itself. But in the town of Lavinium a whole month was devoted to Liber alone, during the days of which all the people gave themselves up to the must dissolute conversation, until that member had been carried through the forum and brought to rest in its own place; on which unseemly member it was necessary that the most honorable matron should place a wreath in the presence of all the people. Thus, forsooth, was the God Liber to be appeased in order for the growth of seeds. Thus was enchantment (fascinatio) to be driven away from fields, even by a matron’s being compelled to do in public what not even a harlot ought to be permitted to do in a theatre, if there were matrons among the spectators. (Augustine, De Civitate Dei 7.21) 

Whenever Dionysos appears, he does so attended by wild vegetation, whether it is with the vines of ivy and lush grapes he wears in his hair (Orphic Hymn 30), or that entwines itself around pillars and altars (Euripides’ Antiope 203), a face appearing in a plane tree that has been split asunder (Kern’s Inschr. von M. 215), or in a burst of beautiful flowers (Pindar fr.75). When Dionysos finally reveals himself in fullness to the Tyrrhenian pirates, it is through vegetation:

Then in an instant a vine, running along the topmost edge of the sail, sprang up and sent out its branches in every direction heavy with thick-hanging clusters of grapes, and around the mast cloud dark-leaved ivy, rich in blossoms and bright with ripe berries, and garlands crowned every tholepin. (Homeric Hymn 7)

Carl Kerényi believed that intoxication was not the essential core of the religion of Dionysos, but rather the “quiet, powerful, vegetative element which ultimately engulfed even the ancient theaters, as at Cumae” (Dionysos, page xxiv) – as if there was a difference between the two. 

It was through the apple that Dionysos entered the American mythic consciousness by way of the guise of John Chapman, a disciple of Emanuel Swedenborg who held strongly mystical and pantheistic beliefs and felt an abhorrence for modern civilization. Better known to history as Johnny Appleseed, culture-bringer and savior of the pioneers, in truth he shunned the company of his fellow humans, preferring animals and trees like all proper Orphics; as soon as settlements encroached upon his territory he’d pick up and move on to the next site, leaving his orchards behind for the hungry settlers. Of course, what those settlers were hungry for wasn’t fruit but alcohol, since the apples Johnny planted were so small and bitter that their only use was in brewing strong cider or applejack, a necessary substitute in a land where the vine initially did not thrive:

Teaching men how to ferment the juice of the grape, Dionysus had brought civilization the gift of wine. This was more or less the same gift Johnny Appleseed was bringing to the frontier: because American grapes weren’t sweet enough to be fermented successfully, the apple served as the American grape, cider the American wine. But as I delved deeper into the myth of Dionysus, I realized there was much more to his story, and the strangely changeable God who began to come into focus bore a remarkable resemblance to John Chapman. Or at least to Johnny Appleseed, who, I became convinced, is Dionysus’s American son. Like Johnny Appleseed, Dionysus was a figure of the fluid margins, slipping back and forth between the realms of wildness and civilization, man and woman, man and God, beast and man … The flight from civilization back to nature in America tends to be a solitary and ascetic pursuit, having more to do with wilderness than wildness. Johnny Appleseed was very much an American Dionysus – innocent and mild. In this he may have helped establish the benign, see-no-evil mood that characterizes the Dionysian strain in American culture, from transcendentalist Concord to the Summer of Love. (Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire)

In Johnny’s old New England stomping grounds, a young H. P. Lovecraft had his first brush with the supernatural:

When about seven or eight I was a genuine pagan, so intoxicated with the beauty of Greece that I acquired a belief in the old Gods and nature sprits. I have in literal truth built altars to Pan, Apollo, and Athena, and have watched for dryads and satyrs in the woods and fields at dusk.  Once I firmly thought I beheld some kind of sylvan creatures dancing under autumnal oaks; a kind of ‘religious experience’ as true in its way as the subjective ecstasies of a Christian. If a Christian tell me he has felt the reality of his Jesus or Jahveh, I can reply that I have seen hoofed Pan and the sisters of the Hesperian Phaëthusa. (Confession of Unfaith)

Dionysos’ apples, after all, aren’t just any apples, as W. K. C. Guthrie reminds us: 

Nothing, we admit, is more likely to attract a child than the present of golden apples, yet it seems a little extravagant to send to the farthest confines of the world for a mythical treasure when the same purpose, it seems, could be accomplished with dolls and knucklebones. Perhaps then we may allow ourselves to remember that the apples of the Hesperides were symbols of immortality, and that Dionysos was to be born again after his murder, and by his death was to ensure the hope of immortality for the race of human beings which was to follow him. (Orpheus and Greek Religion pg 123)

Servius preserves the tradition, first found in Hesiod, that the Hesperides were children of Night:

Hesiod says that these Hesperides, daughters of Nyx, guarded the golden apples beyond Okeanos, ‘Aigle and Erytheia and ox-eyed Hesperethoosa.’ (Commentary on Vergil’s Aeneid 4. 484)

While Diodoros Sikeliotes preserves a contrary tradition, first found in Pherekydes of Syros, that made them daughters of the Titan Atlas:

Now Hesperos begat a daughter named Hesperis, who he gave in marriage to his brother Atlas and after whom the land was given the name Hesperitis; and Atlas begat by her seven daughters, who were named after their father Atlantides, and after their mother Hesperides. (Library of History 4.26.2)

According to Pherekydes there was something so dangerously alluring about these golden apples that even the Hesperides who had been charged with their protection could not resist plucking them:

The constellation Serpens is Ladon, said to have guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides, and after Hercules killed him, to have been put by Juno among the stars, because at her instigation Hercules set out for him. He is considered the usual watchman of the gardens of Juno. Pherecydes says that when Jupiter wed Juno, Terra came, bearing branches with golden apples, and Juno, in admiration, asked Terra to plant them in her gardens near distant Mount Atlas. When Atlas’ daughters kept picking the apples from the trees, Juno is said to have placed this guardian there. (Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 3)

Which makes their involvement in the conception of Dionysos’ mother rather interesting:

There, as they say, by the Tritonian Lake, Kadmos the wanderer lay with rosycheek Harmonia, and the Nymphai Hesperides made a song for them, and Kypris together with the Erotes decked out a fine bed for the wedding, hanging in the bridal chamber golden fruit from the Nymphai’s garden, a worthy lovegift for the bride; rich clusters of their leaves Harmonia and Kadmos twined through their hair, amid the abundance of their bridechamber, in place of the wedding-roses. Still more dainty the bride appeared wearing these golden gifts, the boon of golden Aphrodite. Her mother’s father the stooping Libyan Atlas awoke a tune of the heavenly harp to join the revels, and with tripping foot he twirled the heavens round like a ball, while he sang a stave of harmony himself not far away. (Nonnos, Dionysiaka 13.333 ff)

For one of Semele’s defining characteristics was her exceptional beauty, as Diodoros relates:

Semele was loved by Zeus because of her beauty, but since he had his intercourse with her secretly and without speech she thought that the God despised her; consequently she made the request of him that he come to her embraces in the same manner as in his approaches to Hera. Accordingly, Zeus visited her in a way befitting a God, accompanied by thundering and lightning, revealing himself to her as he embraced her; but Semele, who was pregnant and unable to endure the majesty of the divine presence, brought forth the babe untimely and was herself slain by the fire. Thereupon Zeus, taking up the child, handed it over to the care of Hermes, and ordered him to take it to the cave in Nysa where he should deliver it to the Nymphai. (4.2.1)

A beauty that was not only responsible for her own destruction, but that of her nephew as well:

Aktaion was later eaten up on Kithairon by his own dogs. According to Akousilaos he met his end in this manner because he enraged Zeus by courting the fair Semele. (Apollodoros, Bibliotheka 3.31)

Which naturally calls to mind the devastation wrought by Eris:

Eris was enraged at being turned away from the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, and now she bethought her of the golden apples of the Hesperides. Thence Eris took the fruit that would become a harbinger of war, even the apple, and devised a scheme of signal woes. Whirling her arm she hurled into the banquet the primal seed of turmoil and disturbed the choir of Goddesses. Hera, glorying to be the spouse and to share the bed of Zeus, rose up amazed, and would fain have seized it. And Kypris, as being more excellent than all, desired to have the apple, for that it is the treasure of the Erotes. But Hera would not give it up and Athena would not yield. (Colluthus, Rape of Helen 58 ff) 

And also the serpent in the garden who offered Eve the tempting apple, as Clement exhorted the Greeks:

The Bakchai hold their orgies in honour of the mad Dionysos, celebrating their sacred frenzy by the eating of raw flesh, and go through the distribution of the parts of butchered victims crowned with snakes, shrieking out the name of that Eva by whom error came into the world. The symbol of the Bacchic orgies is a consecrated serpent. Moreover, according to the strict interpretation of the Hebrew term, the name Hevia, aspirated, signifies a female serpent. 

The forbidden fruit of the serpent probably wasn’t our apple, unknown in Palestine at the time of the Bible’s composition, but it became so in the popular imagination because of a play on the Latin words mālum (an apple) and mălum (an evil): the Latin of Genesis 2:17 “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,” is De ligno autem scientiæ bonum et malum ne comedas.

Olympiodoros, one of the last philosophers of antiquity, gives the final quest of Herakles an almost Judeo-Christian interpretation in his Commentary on Plato’s Gorgias:

And on this account Herakles is said to have accomplished his last labor in the Hesperian regions; signifying by this, that having vanquished a dark and earthly life he afterward lived in day, that is, in truth and light.

It’s interesting to compare this and the relationship Jews and Christians have to their wisdom-bringing serpent with his counterpart in earlier Greek, and especially Bacchic Orphic, myth: 

The Argonauts found the sacred plot where, till the day before, the serpent Ladon, a son of the Libyan soil, had kept watch over the golden apples in the Garden of Atlas, while close at hand and busy at their tasks the Hesperides sang their lovely song. But now the snake, struck down by Herakles, lay by the trunk of the apple-tree. Only the tip of his tail was still twitching; from the head down, his dark spine showed not a sign of life. His blood had been poisoned by arrows steeped in the gall of the Hydra Lernaia, and flies perished in the festering wounds.

Close by, with their white arms flung over their golden heads, the Hesperides were wailing as the Argonauts approached. The whole company came on them suddenly, and in a trice the Nymphai turned to dust and earth on the spot where they had stood. Orpheus, seeing the hand of Heaven in this, addressed a prayer to them on behalf of his comrades : ‘Beautiful and beatific Powers, Queens indeed, be kind to us, whether Olympos or the underworld counts you among its Goddesses, or whether you prefer the name of Solitary Nymphai. Come, blessed Spirits, Daughters of Okeanos, make yourselves manifest to our expectant eyes and lead us to a place where we can quench this burning, never-ending thirst with fresh water springing from a rock or gushing from the ground. And if ever we bring home our ship into an Achaian port, we will treat you as we treat the greatest Goddesses, showing our gratitude with innumberable gifts of wine and offerings at the festal board.’

Orpheus sobbed as he prayed. But the Nymphai were still at hand, and they took pity on the suffering men. They wrought a miracle. First, grass sprung up from the ground, then long shoots appeared above the grass, and in a moment three saplings, tall, straight and in full leaf, were growing there. Hespere became a poplar; Erytheis an elm; Aigle a sacred willow. Yet they were still themselves; the trees could not conceal their former shapes–that was the greatest wonder of all. And now the Argonauts heard Aigle in her gentle voice tell them what they wished to know. 

‘You have indeed been fortunate,’ she said. ‘There was a man here yesterday, an evil man, who killed the watching Snake, stole our golden apples, and is gone. To us he brought unspeakable sorrow; to you release from suffering. He was a savage brute, hideous to look at; a cruel man, with glaring eyes and scowling face. He wore the skin of an enormous lion and carried a great club of olive-wood and the bow and arrows with which he shot our monster here. It appeared that he, like you, had come on foot and was parched with thirst. For he rushed about the place in search of water; but with no success, till he found the rock that you see over there near to the Tritonian lagoon. Then it occurred to him, or he was prompted by a God, to tap the base of the rock. He struck it with his foot, water gushed out, and he fell on his hands and chest and drank greedily from the cleft till, with his head down like a beast in the fields, he had filled his mighty paunch.’

The Minyai were delighted. They ran off in happy haste towards the place where Aigle had pointed out the spring. (Apollonios Rhodios, Argonautika 4.1390ff)

Part of what I love about Apollonios’ treatment of this myth is that it places the focus peripheral to what would conventionally be considered the action, as his contemporary Kallimachos also does in the Hekale. The great heroic deed is done and Herakles lumbers off to commence a life of adventure and that’d be it as far as most people are concerned. But that wasn’t it for the Hesperides: no, it’s just the start of the story of their life without Ladon, who had been both their protector and companion. How differently they must have seen this “monster,” daily interacting with and depending on him. To them it is Herakles who is the villain! For with Ladon’s death their land has been deprived of its source of supernatural vitality. When the Argonauts first meet the Nymphs of the West, land of the Sun’s Descent, they were in the process of dissolving into dust and barren earth and it was only Orpheus’ song that brought them back to some semblance of themselves. 

In fact, in another myth it’s said that Herakles even returned to pay restitution for the slaying of the serpent by gifting the Hesperides the horn of a bull-God:

When Achelous fought with Hercules to win Dejanira in marriage, he changed himself into a bull. Hercules tore off his horn, presenting it to the Hesperides or the Nymphae, and the Goddesses filled it with fruits and called it Horn of Plenty (cornucopia). (Hyginus, Fabulae 31)

This Deïaneira, by the way, was the fruit of an adulterous affair:

When Liber had come as a guest to Oeneus, son of Parthaon, he fell in love with the man’s wife Althaea, daughter of Thestius. When Oeneus realized this, he voluntarily left the city and pretended to be performing sacred rites. But Liber lay with Althaea, who became mother of Dejanira. To Oeneus, because of his generous hospitality, he gave the vine as a gift, and showed him how to plant it, and decreed that its fruit should be called ‘oinos’ from the name of his host. (Hyginus, Fabulae 129)

Dionysos is the embodiment of the life-force – ζωή as Carl Kerényi termed it – which knows only its own self-perpetuation and nothing of morality. Dionysos is the always dying, always regenerating God, as a Tarentine poet so eloquently put it:

If any one asks who narrates this, then we shall quote the well-known senarian verse of a Tarentine poet which the ancients used to sing, ”Taurus draconem genuit, et taurum draco.” [“The bull begot the dragon, and the dragon a bull.”] (Arnobius of Sicca, Adversus Nationes 5.20)

A person’s father may be a complete mystery, but we always know our mothers. And yet with Dionysos the reverse is true – Kore-Persephone (Diodoros 5.75.4) Semele (Hesiod, Theogony 940) Demeter (Diodoros 3.62), Dione (Scholiast on Pind. Pyth. 3.177), Amaltheia (Diodoros 3.67), Isis (Alexarchos, FGrH 3.324), Indus (Philostratos, Life of Apollonios 2.9) Lethe (Plutarch, Symposiacs 7.5) and Zeus among numerous others have carried the God in their wombs – like the seed at the core of an apple:

But the Hesperian golden-apples signify the pure and incorruptible nature of that intellect or Dionysus, which is possessed by the world; for a golden-apple, according to Sallust, is a symbol of the world; and this doubtless, both on account of its external figure, and the incorruptible intellect which it contains, and with the illuminations of which it is externally adorned; since gold, on account of never being subject to rust, aptly denotes an incorruptible and immaterial nature. (Thomas Taylor, A Dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries page 209)

To be possessed by the world, such a grand and horrifying concept: 

If we add to this horror the ecstatic rapture, which rises up out of the same collapse of the principium individuationis from the innermost depths of human beings, yes, from the innermost depths of nature, then we have a glimpse into the essence of the Dionysian, which is presented to us most closely through the analogy to intoxication. Either through the influence of narcotic drink, of which all primitive men and peoples speak, or through the powerful coming on of spring, which drives joyfully through all of nature, that Dionysian excitement arises. As its power increases, the subjective fades into complete forgetfulness of self. In the German Middle Ages under the same power of Dionysus constantly growing hordes waltzed from place to place, singing and dancing. In that St. John’s and St. Vitus’s dancing we recognize the Bacchic chorus of the Greeks once again, and its precursors in Asia Minor, right back to Babylon and the orgiastic Sacaea. (Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy)

We get a glimpse of this collapse in Carl Gustav Jung’s study of the paintings of Pablo Picasso:

And just as Faust is embroiled in murderous happenings and reappears in changed form, so Picasso changes shape and reappears in the underworld form of the tragic Harlequin – a motif that runs through numerous paintings. It may be remarked in passing that Harlequin is an ancient chthonic God. The descent into ancient times has been associated ever since Homer’s day with the Nekyia. Faust turns back to the crazy primitive world of the witches’ sabbath and to a chimerical vision of classical antiquity. Picasso conjures up crude, earthy shapes, grotesque and primitive, and resurrects the soullessness of ancient Pompeii in a cold, glittering light – even Giulio Romano could not have done worse! Seldom or never have I had a patient who did not go back to neolithic art forms or revel in evocations of Dionysian orgies. Harlequin wanders like Faust through all these forms, though sometimes nothing betrays his presence but his wine, his lute, or the bright lozenges of his jester’s costume. And what does he learn on his wild journey through man’s millennial history? What quintessence will he distil from this accumulation of rubbish and decay, from these half-born or aborted possibilities of form and colour? What symbol will appear as the final cause and meaning of all this. In view of the dazzling versatility of Picasso, one hardly dares to hazard a guess, so for the present I would rather speak of what I have found in my patients’ material. The Nekyia is no aimless and purely destructive fall into the abyss, but a meaningful katabasis eis antron, a descent into the cave of initiation and secret knowledge. The journey through the psychic history of mankind has as its object the restoration of the whole man, by awakening the memories in the blood. The descent to the Mothers enabled Faust to raise up the sinfully whole human being – Paris united with Helen – that homo totus who was forgotten when contemporary man lost himself in one-sidedness. It is he who at all times of upheaval has caused the tremor of the upper world, and always will. This man stands opposed to the man of the present, because he is the one who ever is as he was, whereas the other is what he is only for the moment. With my patients, accordingly, the katabasis and katalysis are followed by a recognition of the bipolarity of human nature and of the necessity of conflicting pairs of opposites. After the symbols of madness experienced during the period of disintegration there follow images which represent the coming together of the opposites: light/dark, above/below, white/black, male/female, etc. In Picasso’s latest paintings, the motif of the union of opposites is seen very clearly in their direct juxtaposition. One painting (although traversed by numerous lines of fracture) even contains the conjunction of the light and dark anima. The strident, uncompromising, even brutal colours of the latest period reflect the tendency of the unconscious to master the conflict by violence (colour = feeling). This state of things in the psychic development of a patient is neither the end nor the goal. It represents only a broadening of his outlook, which now embraces the whole of man’s moral, bestial, and spiritual nature without as yet shaping it into a living unity. Picasso’s drame interieur has developed up to this last point before the denouement. As to the future Picasso, I would rather not try my hand at prophecy, for this inner adventure is a hazardous affair and can lead at any moment to a standstill or to a catastrophic bursting asunder of the conjoined opposites. Harlequin is a tragically ambiguous figure, even though – as the initiated may discern – he already bears on his costume the symbols of the next stage of development. He is indeed the hero who must pass through the perils of Hades, but will he succeed? That is a question I cannot answer. Harlequin gives me the creeps – he is too reminiscent of that ‘motley fellow, like a buffoon’ in Zarathustra, who jumped over the unsuspecting rope-dancer (another Pagliacci) and thereby brought about his death. Zarathustra then spoke the words that were to prove so horrifyingly true of Nietzsche himself: ‘Your soul will be dead even sooner than your body: fear nothing more than I.’ Who the buffoon is, is made plain as he cries out to the rope-dancer, his weaker alter ego: ‘To one better than yourself you bar the way.’ He is the greater personality who bursts the shell, and this shell is sometimes – the brain. (Neue Zürcher Zeitung 1932)

But even more clearly in the Dionysian dreams of his patients:

I saw a beautiful youth with golden cymbals, dancing and leaping in joy and abandonment… Finally he fell to the ground and buried his face in the flowers. Then he sank into the lap of a very old mother. After a time he got up and jumped into the water, where he sported like a dolphin… I saw that his hair was golden. Now we were leaping together, hand in hand. So we came to a gorge… In leaping the gorge the youth falls into the chasm. X is left alone and comes to a river where a white sea-horse is waiting for her with a golden boat. X found the youth in the lap of the mother so impressive that she painted a picture of it. The figure is the same as in item i; only, instead of the grain of wheat in her hand, there is the body of the youth lying completely exhausted in the lap of the gigantic mother. There now follows a sacrifice of sheep, during which a game of ball is likewise played with the sacrificial animal. The participants smear themselves with the sacrificial blood, and afterwards bathe in the pulsing gore. X is thereupon transformed into a plant. After that X comes to a den of snakes, and the snakes wind all round her. In a den of snakes beneath the sea there is a divine woman, asleep. She is shown in the picture as much larger than the others. She is wearing a blood-red garment that covers only the lower half of her body. She has dark skin, full red lips, and seems to be of great physical strength. She kisses X, who is obviously in the role of the young girl, and hands her as a present to the many men who are standing by, etc. As X emerged from the depths and saw the light again, she experienced a kind of illumination: white flames played about her head as she walked through waving fields of grain. (The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious p. 188-189)

It is death that makes possible the great abundance of life, as D. H. Lawrence reflects on in Medlars and Sorb-Apples:

I love you, rotten,
Delicious rottenness.

I love to suck you out from your skins
So brown and soft and coming suave,
So morbid, as the Italians say.

What a rare, powerful, reminiscent flavour
Comes out of your falling through the stages of decay:
Stream within stream.

Something of the same flavour as Syracusan muscat wine
Or vulgar Marsala.

Though even the word Marsala will smack of preciosity
Soon in the pussy-foot West.

What is it?
What is it, in the grape turning raisin,
In the medlar, in the sorb-apple.
Wineskins of brown morbidity,
Autumnal excrementa;
What is it that reminds us of white Gods?

Gods nude as blanched nut-kernels.
Strangely, half-sinisterly flesh-fragrant
As if with sweat,
And drenched with mystery.

Sorb-apples, medlars with dead crowns.

I say, wonderful are the hellish experiences
Orphic, delicate
Dionysos of the Underworld.

A kiss, and a vivid spasm of farewell, a moment’s orgasm of rupture.
Then along the damp road alone, till the next turning.
And there, a new partner, a new parting, a new unfusing into twain,
A new gasp of further isolation,
A new intoxication of loneliness, among decaying, frost-cold leaves.

Going down the strange lanes of hell, more and more intensely alone,
The fibres of the heart parting one after the other
And yet the soul continuing, naked-footed, ever more vividly embodied
Like a flame blown whiter and whiter
In a deeper and deeper darkness
Ever more exquisite, distilled in separation.

So, in the strange retorts of medlars and sorb-apples
The distilled essence of hell.
The exquisite odour of leave-taking.
   Jamque vale!
Orpheus, and the winding, leaf-clogged, silent lanes of hell.

Each soul departing with its own isolation,
Strangest of all strange companions,
And best.

Medlars, sorb-apples
More than sweet
Flux of autumn
Sucked out of your empty bladders
And sipped down, perhaps, with a sip of Marsala
So that the rambling, sky-dropped grape can add its music to yours,
Orphic farewell, and farewell, and farewell
And the ego sum of Dionysos
The sono io of perfect drunkenness
Intoxication of final loneliness.

I’ve not been following the news closely (because it tends to range from depressing to infuriating) but apparently back on the 21st Mount Aetna erupted. 

The blast was described as “brief but intense” complete with lava flow and a column of ash that affected the Bove Valley and nearby Zafferana where residents are still on COVID-19 lockdown.

No reports of a hundred-headed, snake-limbed, fire-spewing Giant rising from his ancient prison beneath the Sicilian volcano to wreak havoc and herald the end of existence as we know it have been recorded — yet. Experts, however, say that it’s just a matter of time. 

High says:

I am strong.
There is no mercy in me.
My travels wore that away long ago;
it is why I undertook them.
I have seen ages pass
like the currents of a raging, restless river.
All must eventually fall,
but the best will remain standing the longest.
I was there at the beginning,
a breath of fury from the chasm.
All that there was then was ice and fire and the gap.
Eventually all shall return to that primordial state.
The gap is hungry.
So hungry that it shall gnaw through the roots of the tree on which hang the worlds nine.
But that day is not today.
I shall expend my last breath keeping that day off.
I fell and shall fall again.
From my ashes will come new worlds,
as this world was carved from the body of my father.
I have been fighting for so long that I have forgotten much of who I was before the fight.
But this I remember.
This day is sweet,
full of sunlight and vineyards and swarming bees and strange maidens
for the wooing.
It is full of joy and hunger and new experiences to be had, this day.
That is why I fight.
Life is sweet,
and I will give mine to defend the day for as long as I can,
as long as I can.
Satiate yourself on life’s joys.
They are not mine to taste any longer.
Through you I can,
through you these joys become my bread and my wine,
the only nourishment left to me.
This work makes one so hungry.
This work makes one so thirsty.
Feast and keep my cup always full.

“But some occasions for these names arose in his wanderings; and that matter is recorded in tales. Nor canst thou ever be called a wise man if thou shalt not be able to tell of those great events.” — Gylfaginning, XX

Gangleri
Black the forest,
black the evening sky overhead
and black the clouds that hung low,
promising a storm was near.
Once the traveler’s cloak had been black too,
finely spun and chased along the border
with marvelous designs in thread of gold
as befits a cloak worn by a high-born king.
But the road wearies and wears down;
filthy with dust, patched in many places,
frayed and color leeched to grey
– such was the cloak of the wanderer,
that strange, one-eyed man who came from the woods
amid the cries of a murder of crows
the night the city fell to the spears of the invaders
and its walls burned to smoky rubble.

Grímnir
The head in the well
whose water feeds the roots of the tree
from which the nine worlds grow
that bore the weight of a god making the ultimate sacrifice
for power and for wisdom
– oh the things that head has seen,
the mysteries it contains.
The head is a mask
that must be worn to speak words of true prophecy.

Bölverkr
He rides out on a steed with eight legs
like a black spider weaving sinister plots,
like a coffin carried on four men’s backs,
like a hideous nightmare that has hold of you,
and will not let go.
Its hooves are claps of thunder,
rolling across the heavens.
Its panting the gusts of wind
that strike your cheek
and fills your bones with icy dread.
And if you hear the sound of the rider’s horn
calling the restless ghosts to the hunt
they say that you will never laugh again.

Hjarrandi
A voice in the darkness
swirling through the trees
like the smoke of a traveler’s fire
lit to keep the cold at bay.
Whispering weird words,
myths of a distant time and land
and birth amid fire and blood.
Eyes uplifted,
soul roaming abroad frenzied and drunken,
body trembling from the weight of revelation
– this is how real poetry is made,
the wine of the god and his raven’s bread.

Biflindi 
Sharp as desire,
strong as a will tested in flame,
piercing hearts and rending flesh,
cruel and uncaring
– the only thing that brings peace
and keeps utter chaos from descending.
Would you expect the god of the spear to be any other way?

Njótr
His face is harsh
from battles and scheming
and endless wandering of roads.
You don’t come back from death unmarked
and his body is a map of the ordeals that have made him mighty.
But when he smiles and lifts his cup in silent salute
she sees none of that.
He is handsome in the fading light,
and her bed is cold and oh so empty.
She wants the warmth this vagabond king offers
and he wants to give her everything she needs.
It is good to have allies in all the realms.

Rúnatýr 
The runes are screams
born of blood and madness
and a need for knowledge at any price.
They are spirits hungry for use,
old and dark and wise.
They will show you what lies hidden to your sight
– but sacrifices must first be made
before the runes can be taken up.

Jolfr 
The king of the forest,
hairy and savage,
feasts on golden honey,
the tribute of the lesser beasts,
and slumbers in the cave of death,
dreaming of the shining realms
during the cold, barren months of winter.
But he comes forth with the flowers of spring
to revel with the trooping hosts
amid songs of joy and gay feasting.

Óski 
Be careful what you want,
choose your words carefully;
for the old man hears all
and even grants wishes from time to time.
Like King Harald who longed more than anything
for the glory of the battlefield,
for his name to echo down through the ages
like the clash of arms, the shriek of a broadsword
splintering a wooden shield.
Pleased with his offerings the fruit of the gallows came with his bear-shirt on
and tutored Harald in the ways of war,
made him a mighty fighter and leader of men.
He trampled many a foe into the ground,
sacked and plundered all his neighbors’ lands.
His name inspired fear in all who heard it
for he seemed invincible,
like one of the gods of old and hardly a man any longer.
But no matter how strong we mortals become,
there are those stronger still
and they scheme in ways we will never fully comprehend.
Óski lifted Harald high
so that his fall would seem all the more splendid.
He had no clue when his time came
– he did not notice that the man who drove his chariot that fateful day
had but one eye.
Still, Harald received everything he had been promised,
and then some.
Men still remember his name to this day
on account of what the grey god did for him.

One of the most important functions of tradition is that it serves as a point of reference which allows us to make sense of our own all-too-often chaotic and confusing lives by furnishing us with a rich vocabulary and a storehouse of symbols and stories from the past that can be used to explain and make sense of our contemporary situations so that we are able to safely navigate its perilous terrain.

This is something that Plutarch of Chaironeia knew well. He was a man of astounding intellect and ambition who had it in him to be one of Greece’s greatest political or military figures. And perhaps we would remember him today in the company of Leonidas and Pericles had he not had the grave misfortune of being born into the time and place that he was. By the first century of the common era Greece’s golden days of glory and power were long behind her. Though Alexander the Great had succeeded in forging the quarrelsome city-states of Hellas into a tight-knit confederation that established its dominion to the edges of the known world and beyond, this vast empire was already coming apart at the seams before the son of Zeus succumbed to grief and illness in Babylon. It wasn’t long before his creation fragmented irreparably into a series of geographically determined kingdoms ruled by Alexander’s former Generals. For the next two hundred years or so these Successors waged constant warfare by land and sea, jockeying for prestige and expanded territory regardless of the cost to themselves or their subjects. The brunt of this conflict was borne by the cities of the Greek mainland since the Hellenistic Dynasts had come from there and control of Greece was a way of establishing legitimacy in the eyes of their neighbors. Whole regions were utterly despoiled, forests cut down to build naval vessels and machines of war, hills plundered of mineral resources, fields burnt and salted or left fallow when the farmers were massacred or carried off into slavery. After such a prolonged period of conflict the Successor Kingdoms exhausted their strength and had difficulty repulsing foreign invasions. First came the Gauls who managed to cut a swath through Greece all the way to Delphi where they sacked the temple of Apollon before being driven out through a collective effort and forced to settle in Anatolia. But this was nothing compared to Rome. One after another of the Successor Kingdoms fell to the superior organization and military might of the Romans until the whole of Greece and the Hellenistic East were swallowed up and made part of the Imperium – save only Ptolemaic Egypt, which had long been a dependent ally. Then, with the forced suicides of Marcus Antonius and Kleopatra Philopator one of the bloodiest periods of history was brought to a close and Rome was left the undisputed master of the Mediterranean.

Many Greeks undoubtedly welcomed their Roman overlords with great fondness for it meant an end to all that conflict and chaos. Indeed under Roman rule they experienced peace, prosperity, law and order and all the good things associated with the empire such as her justly famed roads, aqueducts, and efficient bureaucracy. Such things were not without a price, however. Greece was forced to give up her autonomy and longstanding institutions such as direct democracy and city councils. They still existed in some places, but without any genuine power or influence. In fact in the first few generations after Octavian cemented his sole rule of Rome there was very little for a politically-minded Greek to do. You got nowhere without extensive social contacts in Rome – and the wealth to travel in such circles – and even then there were limits on how high one could aspire. Many Romans looked down their noses at their Greek subjects, except when it came to the arts and philosophy where they were grudgingly accepted as their superiors. Thus many cities such as Athens, Alexandria and Antioch became little more than college towns where wealthy Romans sent their sons for proper education, deeming them worthy of little else.

This is the era into which Plutarch was born. At one point he even moved to Rome seeking a promising career. Though he made many close friends and met with modest success he eventually bumped into the glass ceiling and grew frustrated with the realization that he could progress no further. So he returned to his hometown, once the shining star of Boiotia but now a pitiful backwater, and spent the remainder of his days active in small-time local politics, serving as a priest at Delphi and pursuing antiquarian and philosophical studies. Plutarch devoted much of his writing to showing his countrymen how to get by in this drastically changed environment. Even if they could no longer aspire to the greatness and might of their ancestors, like him they could devote their efforts to serving their local communities and keeping their beloved cities running smoothly. More, in the few arenas where the Romans allowed them to participate they had an obligation to excel and prove that some greatness still dwelt within them.

Towards that end Plutarch set himself the task of preserving and popularizing the noble accomplishments and wise sayings of his people so that they would serve as reminders for the generations yet to come. Though Plutarch produced a staggeringly large body of work on a variety of historical, ethical, religious, philosophical and even scientific and mathematical subjects he is perhaps best remembered today for his Parallel Lives which is a collection of biographies of important Greeks and Romans. His intention with these, as the title suggests, was to show similarities between the two groups, emphasizing continuity between their respective cultures and demonstrating that greatness is not a respecter of race. Though the Romans were now on top of the world the Greeks once had been and might be again if they could learn how to get by in this changed environment. His writing is fundamentally didactic, not historical – though it does a good job in that regard too. Each of these Lives was chosen to highlight the values that made the men such outstanding examples and also to warn against the vices that had brought so many of them low, not merely to relate a bunch of trivial facts and figures. The morals of these tales were meant to be taken to heart and put into practice through daily life. Even if one could not accomplish the sort of things that a Theseus or a Scipio Africanus had, one could certainly apply the same principles and lessons to one’s own goals and aspirations.

And this is one of the many (many, many) things that I agree with Plutarch on. No matter how much our external circumstances may seem to change the fundamentals of human experience do not. Our needs and desires, the way our brains function, how we respond to external stimuli, what works, what doesn’t and why – all of this has remained essentially the same since the early Paleolithic. We benefit greatly, then, from understanding what has come before us, how others have dealt with such things and what happened when they failed to. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel nor should we ever delude ourselves into believing that we are the first and only ones to feel such things or face such obstacles. In fact we can draw moral strength merely by realizing that another person has faced the same crisis that looms before us, whether or not they ultimately proved successful against it. A keen familiarity provides countless blessings, but certainly this must be among its foremost.

Welcome to our plentiful feast O august Deo,
grandmother of the vine and wet-nurse of mountain-fostered Bakcheios,
you who love the season of autumn when the golden wheat is threshed
and the leaves on the fair trees burn brightest before they fall
and the last of the produce is brought to market by the industrious farmers,
those holy toilers in the fields who keep your traditions alive with their tireless labor
feeding the city of the well-born ones in this fertile valley
nourished by the pure waters of the Willamette and McKenzie rivers.
O frenzied Chloê, accept this offering we gathered for you
and carried home in the liknon-basket, all the best fruits, grains and vegetables we could find.
May the fragrance of fresh-baked bread be pleasing to you O mistress Demeter,
you who first taught man to cultivate the earth and make food from plants
instead of the flesh of beasts; you who caused us to put aside our savage ways
and embrace just laws and the harmonious existence of civilized city-life.
You with eyes like blue camas flowers and hair green as hops, crowned with poppies,
you who hold barley in your hands to remind us of that wonderful beverage, dear to your heart,
that you first quenched your thirst with when you searched for your beautiful daughter over the whole earth.
Rejoice O bountiful Ceres in our celebration,
as we rejoice in all that you have graciously bestowed upon us
and we will remember you again next year!

Hail to you Petesouchos,
chief of the gods of in the district of Arsinoë,
double-plumed lord of abundance,
green king of the fishes who dwells in peace within his lake,
master of the floodwaters that cause life to prosper,
mysterious lord who knows every secret thing
that transpires beneath the surface.
Men travel from distant lands to consult your venerable oracle
and hear the future foretold through your thunderous roar
that shakes the earth and sends the noisy geese to flight.
Though your countenance is terrifying,
and your wrath justly feared,
since you have sword-like teeth for the rending of flesh
and jaws powerful enough to drag the river-horse down to death,
you are named the ally of man,
and when kindly disposed one can find in the whole world
no greater protector than you.
You come to the aid of those in distress
like the mighty egg-born Dioskouroi,
and consume those who would do your favored harm
like ferocious Kronos devouring his own children.
My heart trembles at the thought of your majesty,
and I am overcome with awe for you
many-times great crocodile-god!
Your altar shall never be bare of sacrifices,
nor your praises go unsung,
so long as I continue to draw breath and walk upon the earth.

Whenever offerings are presented to the Egyptian gods it is customary to say “I give to you the Eye of Horus,” which refers to a very ancient myth. Once, long before men inhabited the earth, the gods called Egypt their home. Originally Rē had governed the gods with goodness and wisdom as their king, but as time passed he grew old and feeble and tired of listening to the quarrels and complaints of his divine subjects. So one day Rē left the earth to reside forever in the peaceful solitude of the heavens, but unfortunately Rē had not chosen his successor before he went away. Thus the gods fell to fighting amongst themselves in order to determine who would be king. Eventually only two contenders remained – the strongest, fiercest and most courageous of all the gods, the brothers Horus and Seth, each of whom was the equal of the other in every way imaginable. Because they were so evenly matched it seemed as if their battle would rage on forever and the gods and the land were suffering terribly as a result. Then one day while the two of them were wrestling Seth grabbed the eye of Horus and plucked it out, maiming and making impotent his brother. Before his power completely left him, however, Horus reached out and crushed the testicles of Seth. As the two gods lay there weak and bleeding out their lives Thoth appeared and said, “I am Thoth strong-in-magic, and I can heal your wounds with a single word! But if I do so then your hearts must be purified of anger, with peace between you and flourishing once more in the land.” They had no choice but to agree and it has been that way ever since.

The word that Thoth spoke to restore the gods was hotep which can mean either an offering, a blessing, wholeness or peace – sometimes it can even mean all of these at once. Thus every time that we sacrifice to the gods we are reenacting what Thoth did for Horus and Seth. Hence sacrifices are called “The Eye of Horus” and “The Testicles of Seth” in Egyptian sources. These sacrifices restored the gods, made them whole, healthy, powerful and peaceful hearted. 

Consequently they became kindly disposed towards us and cause the earth to be fruitful with blessings. Thus sacrificing to the gods is the single most important thing that a person can do, for when the gods are deprived and angry the whole world suffers.

What sort of things constitute the Eye of Horus? Well, to begin with we find this label – or rather irt-Hr W3dt ”The Green Eye of Horus” – most commonly applied to alcoholic offerings, with various types of beer, wine and other beverages indicated. These libations were made to both the gods and the ancestors – indeed having plenty to drink was one of the signs of an especially blessed afterlife, with numerous spells created for that purpose alone. Though libations were given to all of the gods we find them associated with none as frequently as we do Horus, to the point where his fondness for alcohol led some late authors to speculate on the identity of Horus and Dionysos. And by all accounts Horus’ fondness for drink has persisted into modern times. A variety of contemporary Kemetic websites suggest vodka, whiskey, gin and rum in addition to beer and wine. I’ve had the greatest success with rum which he seems to be especially fond of.

But alcohol is not the only substance we find described as The Green Eye of Horus – as one might guess it encompassed all forms of fruit and vegetables, anything that was green, growing and fertile. In fact offering scenes often depict tables piled high with produce, particularly grapes, dates, figs, onions, lettuce and the like.

Additionally we find many different kinds of grain, loaves of bread and special sacrificial cakes on the offering table as well. The commonest of these cakes – called a shat-cake – was shaped like an isosceles triangle and had to be laid on its side and stacked head to tail. These cakes were so important that we find baking scenes depicted on temple and mortuary walls. There are a number of recipes available for a variety of sacrificial cakes – but in my experience Horus is just as happy with a good crusty loaf of bread, especially if it’s multigrain with lots of seeds on top.

Frequently one also finds beef, fowl and other forms of meat offered to Horus. The notable exception is pig’s flesh which was only given to a select few Egyptian gods and under no circumstances was ever offered to Horus. This is because the pig was generally considered a ritually impure animal and Horus is definitely a stickler for the rules. Secondly, and more importantly, Seth took on the shape of a boar during their battle so offering the animal’s flesh to him is just going to be a reminder of their original animosity.

Incense is frequently described as the Eye of Horus or is said to purify and restore his Eye, so you should definitely consider offering this to him. A good Egyptian temple blend or Kyphi would work, as would strong, masculine or solar scents.

There were lots of other non-food related items presented to Horus in antiquity. These included images of hawks, representations of the Horus Eye, ankhs, winged solar discs, jewelry, gold, silver, votive figurines, etc. Since the sun and moon are his right and left eyes respectively you can offer him representations of these. Also, Horus wore the White Crown of Upper Egypt, so anything in this color makes for an appropriate offering, as does solar colors like gold, yellow, bronze, etc. One color to avoid would be red since this belonged to Seth and had certain dangerous and unpleasant connotations for the ancients. Blue as the color of the heavens or green because of its ritual connotations would also be acceptable. Some totally modern offerings that many Kemetics give to Horus today include: tobacco, metal, fire and spicy foods.

In my experience Horus enjoys very physical activities carried out in his honor – dancing, running, martial arts training, mountain climbing and so forth. Anything that gets the blood bumping and sweat flowing. Best of all, though, he appreciates when we fight for what we believe in, live justly and help those who are less fortunate than us.

He is the wanderer and stranger, a God of madness and poetic frenzy, master of magic and shapeshifting. He is the Bear King and the Black Sun. Periodically he forgets that he is a God and becomes a suffering hero. Once the lands of the North had been his home; Óðr his name was then, an adopted member of the tribe of Vanir, husband of Freyja, blood-brother of Freyr (and of Loki), and champion of Óðinn’s warband. But during an important quest on behalf of Ásgarðr he was struck down by a nameless foe, poisoned, corrupted, and made to serve the force of uncreation. And so he would have remained, had an ancient Witch Goddess not cured and restored him. He returned to find Loki bound beneath the poisonous serpent and his wife missing. Freyja went in search of him and never returned. Óðinn will not set Loki free, so Óðr refuses to resume his position within the warband and goes to bring his wife home. Before he leaves, however, he gives Óðinn valuable information about the coming war. When Óðr breaks Loki’s bonds Óðinn forbids any of the Æsir to stop him or retaliate. As the two Gods seek the lost Freyja they plot how to win the war, collect friends from among the diverse pantheons of the world, and preemptively strike against the allies of their nameless foe. Shortly before the end Óðr and Freyja are reunited.

Because of the global quarantine COVID-19’s death toll sits around 183,424. 

Also because of the quarantine we have created massive food shortages and related conditions that the UN predicts could result in close to a billion deaths. 

When a cowardly leftist posts to Twitter that the patriots marching in the streets demanding an end to the quarantine care more about the economy than safety – this is why.

But hey, on the plus side since everyone’s been staying home the environment has significantly recovered. Just think how much better it’ll do with nearly a 1/8th reduction in the population. There you go Greta – now you can stop your crocodile tears. Assuming you make it through. 

Dung-beetle of Etna: The big kind. Because the mountain is also big. Aristaios, the story goes, was the only Giant to survive on the Sicilian mountain called Etna; the fire of heaven did not reach him, nor did Etna crush him. (Suidas s.v. Aitnaios kantharos)

Gregory Nagy has some interesting points to add about Pyrrhos the Wolf of Wilusa, whom Snorri presents as the personification of Surtr’s flame:

The description ‘fiery’ matches the hero’s name Púrrhos, deriving from the adjective purrhós, meaning ‘fiery red’, which in turn derives from the noun pûr ‘fire’. The description matches also the association of this hero with a kind of war dance known as the purrhíkhē—a word that likewise derives from the adjective purrhós. Here is a basic definition of the purrhíkhē as we find it in the ancient lexicographical tradition attributed to Hesychius (under the entry πυρριχίζειν): τήν ἐνόπλιον ὄρχησιν καὶ σύντονον πυρρίχην ἔλεγον ‘the word for energetic dancing in armor was purrhíkhē’. In the work that I am epitomizing, I offered detailed evidence to show that this kind of war dance was a ritual dramatization of biē ‘force, violence’ in warfare. I hold back on repeating the details here, except to add that the noun purrhíkhē is appropriate to the name Púrrhos, not only to the adjective purrhós, since there are myths that derive the name of the war dance from the name of the hero. According to the poetry of Archilochus (F 304W), for example, the word purrhíkhē refers to a war dance because Púrrhos danced such a war dance for joy after he killed the hero Eurypylos in the Trojan War. According to another tradition, mentioned by Lucian (On dance 9) and by other sources, Púrrhos not only “invented” the purrhíkhē: he also captured Troy through the ignition of this war dance, since he started the fire that burned down the city when he leapt out of the Wooden Horse, already dancing his dance and thus igniting the fire.

The Greek word kantharos meant dung-beetle as well as referring to Dionysos’ distinctive drinking-cup. In Egypt the God Khepri was worshiped in the form of a dung-beetle who daily pushed the morning Sun up the Mound of Creation. You can read more about him at Edward Butler’s Goddesses and Gods of the Ancient Egyptians: A Theological Encyclopedia. 

The kantharos was a special drinking cup said to be invented by the God himself. Unlike the skyphos, which was round, with small handles, the kantharos had a high base and projecting handles that stretched from the rim to the foot of the cup. Dionysos’ own kantharos was always full, and could never be drained – even by the great and lusty Herakles himself. The wine that it produced was unrivaled in all the world. One drop from it would make a man drunk – though without any of the negative effects of consuming large quantities of alcohol.

In light of the previous post I thought I’d share this piece I include as part of my spiritual basics curriculum. 

Establish your personal limits. One of the things that Dionysos is really big on is consent and respecting boundaries. But he takes you at your word, meaning the God and his Spirits are going to push and push and push until you say stop – and then they will. No explanation required, no judgment, just respect for you recognizing and asserting your personal limits. But it won’t let up one second before you do that and he’ll also let you take it far past what’s safe or healthy, if only to teach you the necessity of knowing yourself. I’ve seen folks get hurt real bad as a result of that, and I don’t want to see it happen to any of you. This is about self-discovery not dick measuring. The only one you’re in competition with is yourself. (Besides, I have the biggest dick of all!) Meaning that if things start getting really, really bad stop the course work and seek whatever kind of treatment you need. You might be cracking under the pressure or this may have exacerbated (or even revealed a previously undiagnosed) mental condition. I’m here and you’re wherever you are, so I can’t give you the proper care or supervision that should normally accompany work of this nature. That means you’ve got to look after yourself, okay? Don’t make any rash decisions, especially if you’re having suicidal ideation, and if you’re confused or considering something that’s really out of character for you, talk to somebody whose opinion you trust and see what their take on the situation is. They may be right, they may be wrong – but at least you’ll have another outside perspective to consider. And remember, if you’re ever in doubt about whether something is coming from the Gods and Spirits or your own craziness, there’s always divination. If you’re under major stress or don’t feel you can trust your signal clarity consult a competent diviner rather than doing the reading yourself – especially one who is completely outside the situation and has little to no knowledge of what’s going on with you. However, none of this abdicates your personal responsibility to make proper choices for yourself. Just because a friend, a diviner, or even a God or Spirit is telling you to do something that doesn’t mean you actually have to. You can argue with them, arrive at a compromise, or even flat out tell them no. You don’t just have the right, you have an obligation to decide things for yourself – and of course part of that involves accepting the consequences that come of such a decision. Every choice we make opens up certain options for us and closes off certain others. If a person (or Person) is asking you to do something and you refuse, yeah, that could  remove opportunities for you or even end your relationship with them, and man that would suck – but it would suck more doing something you knew was wrong for you simply as a way of seeking external validation. (And compromising your personal integrity can have far worse, long lasting consequences so really, don’t do that shit.)  

Take care of yourself. There’s a reason we refer to this kind of intense engagement with Spirits as “work” – and that’s because it can be tremendously taxing. Physically, spiritually, psychologically and interpersonally. Even if you have supportive friends and family, this is something you’re going to need to take personal responsibility for because if your needs aren’t getting met you’re the one who’s going to suffer. That involves obvious things like making sure that you are properly hydrated and fed, that you get sufficient rest, regularly performing a personal inventory of your emotional state and so forth – but also make sure that you’re giving yourself enough time to transition and recover. If you’re having to go from an intense and transformative spiritual encounter right into stressful and noisy social situations, that can be really jarring, disorienting and damaging to the psyche, as well as compromising to the work you’re doing. A lot of my practice involves altered states of consciousness so this is something that’s particularly important to me and thus I take a lot of time preparing for ritual. Often more than the actual ritual itself. For instance, about an hour before I intend to do something I’ll light candles and make offerings at my shrine, play appropriate music, put on ritual jewelry and clothing as a mental cue that I’m going into work-mode, do any purifications (of the space or myself) I feel are required, read material that helps put me in the right mindset, still and focus my thoughts on the Gods and Spirits through meditation, smoke weed and drink some alcohol as well as dance, chant, pray and adopt sacred postures and movement. This can be more or less formal as the situation requires, but I try to create this bubble of the sacred around myself meaning that if I’m talking with someone I avoid chit chat, mundane or upsetting topics, I make sure the television or radio aren’t blaring in the background, I don’t check my e-mail or fart around on the internet, I try not to think about bills, or upcoming appointments or the dumb and annoying shit someone on Tumblr may have said earlier that day. Among the offerings I give to my Gods and Spirits is space in my mind and I want that space to be worthy of and able to receive them, so all of this prep is nearly as important as the eventual worship itself. Likewise, you should put thought and care into what you do to bring yourself back after you’ve finished the work. Spend time collecting and reorienting yourself. Listen to music that’ll put you in the proper mood or watch a movie with relevant themes. Eat, even if it’s something simple, as the act of taking in nourishment can really help ground you in your body, and drink something that’s non-alcoholic, especially water or tea. Do some light reading, write in your journal, or make a piece of art. When you finally stumble forth and rejoin humanity explain that you’re in a vulnerable state and ask them to take that into consideration when talking with you. (I.e. save the heavy and emotionally wrought conversations for later, don’t get upset if it takes me a while to respond or I find it difficult to follow thought trains or otherwise act a little oddly, etc.) If possible, take a nap even if it’s just a 10 or 20 minute quicky. (Sleep can be rejuvenating, act as a buffer between different mental states and gives the Gods and Spirits a further opportunity to continue the conversation through dream.) Another thing that can help is taking a shower or bath, especially if you put herbs and other smelly stuff with cleansing and grounding properties in the water. 

Be present and mindful. Stop. Breathe. Focus. Whatever’s happening is probably not going to kill you. It may hurt, it may really, really suck – but you’re going to get through this. Chances are, you’ve probably been through much worse before. Everything changes; it’s the only constant in this world. So the situation you’re facing, it’s just temporary. It could get better, it could get worse but it’s definitely not going to be like this forever. So let it pass, let it wash over you and continue on its way, just as you will. This is especially important to keep in mind when the work triggers past traumas or dredges up shit long forgotten. That was then, this is now. Everything is different. No matter how scary and painful it is, how vividly it’s presenting itself to you – you’re safe, in another place and time, and you’re not the person you were then. Go through a personal physical inventory, “these are my fingers, this is my arms, this is my shoulder, this is my head, this is my nose, etc.” which will help override the fear response as well as ground you in your body. If you can’t stop the badness, try to ride it out. For instance, tell yourself no matter how horrible this is I can endure it for a minute. It’s just sixty seconds of sensation. When you’ve gotten through that, do it for another minute, and another until it’s done. Once you have removed yourself from the situation and gotten your mind and emotions stabilized, you may want to try analyzing what happened and your responses to it. Pain, fear and the like are messengers and teachers. If we fight or run from them we just make things worse and deprive ourselves of the understanding they offer. What’s causing this, why am I responding in this way, how does this new information change the way I think about things, does it have to only change them in that way or can it mean this other thing altogether? One way to process this is to write stream-of-consciousness style in your journal. Give yourself permission to put it all out there on the page, without editing or censoring or worrying about what others will think. Once you’re done let it sit for a while and then read through it and do the same thing with whatever that stirs up in you, until you’ve reached a point where you’re okay with things, or at least okay enough to share what’s going on with someone you trust – and even then you can just share with them what you want or need to, without ever letting anyone glimpse your messy process. If it’s really sensitive and you don’t want to keep it around – either because someone might discover it or because you don’t want to be reminded of it – feel free to destroy that material. Hell, consigning the pages to the flames could be a powerful cathartic act in and of itself. 

Recite a mantra. Especially if your thoughts are agitated or stuck on an endless loop, having a special phrase to repeat over and over again can really help break that. There is power in words, but even on a psychological level it distracts your conscious brain and gives it something else to focus on. Find something that’s personally meaningful to you, even if it’s just a string of Dionysian epithets or a line from one of my poems. Within the Starry Bull tradition we have a mantra that’s effective not only for this kind of mental jamming, but also works really well for cleansing, consecration and healing. Hell, it’s pretty much my go to any time I need to say something meaningful in ritual. It’s taken from the Orations of Aelius Aristides and runs:

Nothing can be so firmly bound
– by illness, by wrath or by fortune –
that cannot be released by the Lord Dionysos.

Although merely repeating the words can bring about the desired release, it really helps if you think deeply about what you’re saying and how Dionysos has acted in this capacity – in your previous experience of him, in the lives of those you know, as well as in myth. What does it mean to unbind and release? What are some of the ways that he could do that with regard to the ordeal you are presently going through?

Cool your head. Take a white linen cloth and soak it in chernips, then lay down and place the cloth over your eyes and forehead or entire face. This bit of Starry Bull ritual tech is useful in a number of situations: when your thoughts are racing or your emotions are out of whack, when you’re having a bad trip of spiritual encounter, particularly if it just keeps repeating, when you’re coming down from altered states stuff or are physically exhausted from dancing, when you’re reeling from the effects of contact with miasma, etc. The color white has a wealth of associations within our tradition (which I won’t go into here) but chief among them are purity, healing and things pertaining to the ancestors, as does linen which tended to be favored by Bacchic Orphic initiates over woolen objects because of the strong taboos attached to the latter. Chernips is made within the Starry Bull tradition by extinguishing a flaming branch or leaf in a basin of water, with or without some talky bits to give it extra oomph. (I usually use the mantra discussed above.) There’s a lot of complicated woo stuff I could get into with regard to this practice but instead I’ll point out its obvious positive practical application: doing this forces you to just lay there focusing on the damp cloth that’s sending droplets down your neck instead of the roiling mess that is the inside of your head. Breathe. Relax. Do some of the mindfulness exercises described above or recite the mantra. Visualize the badness being absorbed by the cloth and leaving you. Keep it on for as long as you feel it’s necessary, though I’d give it a good 5 to 10 minutes to do its thing. Once you’re finished submerge the cloth in the bowl of chernips to neutralize any miasma it may have picked up and let it sit overnight. Then wash and dry it (I prefer air-drying it but that’s a personal thing) then cover the cloth with some sea salt or natron and let it sit like that another night. That should clear it of any lingering gunk, at which point you can stash it with the rest of your ritual gear until your next freak out. (Although I currently just use a repurposed napkin, I want to get a cloth with magical symbols and phrases stitched on it in red and black thread. Hmm. If only I knew someone who knows how to sew …)

Egg cleanse. Most cultures have some form of healing, cleansing or divination involving eggs and unsurprisingly considering their cosmology and the frequency with which eggs were offered to Dionysos Chthonios this was a thing among the ancient Bacchic Orphics too. Within the Starry Bull tradition we have a number of different but related practices involving eggs, so I’m just going to give you a very basic, watered down version. When you’re feeling sick, emotionally frazzled or blocked by psychic gunk take an uncooked egg (or better yet have someone else do it) and, holding it about an inch above you, run it over the length of your body starting and ending at the top of your head. As this is done, open yourself up and allow all of the badness to be sucked from you up into the egg. You can do this in silence, while chanting appropriate Dionysian epithets or vibrating the Greek vowels or even while reciting the mantra mentioned above. This practice is more effective if you have some background in energy work, but that’s by no means a prerequisite. Just try to visualize or feel the grossness leaving your body and going into the egg. When you’re done either crush the egg in your hand (especially if you need to feel as if you vanquished whatever you’re trying to get rid of) or throw it as far as you can, releasing that shit into the world. Not only is this magically and psychologically effective but it’s a hell of a lot of fun. Word of warning, though: don’t do this in a hotel room, because egg is a bitch to get off the walls.     

My wife sent me this, which she got from Facebook:

I had a pretty good 4/20 though my pain levels (heightened by the inclement weather we’ve had the last couple days) made it difficult to reach any kind of significant altered state. The good thing about drugs is that even when you fail it’s still fun to try. The bad thing is how much puking is involved. Oh, so much puking …

Speaking of which we picked up some amanita muscaria recently so I can guide our housemate through her first experience with the entheogen. My last amanita trip was pretty rough so I’ve taken a break from working with old Red Cap for a while, but it’s time to get back on the proverbial horse. And by rough I mean my wife came home and found me sprawled out on the livingroom floor naked, shivering uncontrollably, covered in cold sweat with mucus and flecks of vomit in my beard, and barely responsive. To make matters worse I had spontaneously decided to commune with my fungal ally so she had no idea what she was walking into. Bad psychonaut. (In fairness I’d taken much larger doses in the past without anything like that happening so I assumed I’d be okay, but taking entheogens is a crap shoot and you never really know how the spirit is going to respond until you’re in the middle of it. If you’re not willing to take that risk you’ve got no business dancing with them. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t take sensible precautions like notifying your spouse when you’re about to trip balls.)

This is going to be a nice way to kick off Kantharos, the month of Dionysos’ cup of intoxication.