Gold-voiced Orpheus sang that the chalk-faced spirits
of the wind-swept steppes chased the thunder-sired calf
straight into the mirror that shattered out into our world,
scattering seeds that would grow into pomegranates,
and ash trees, and figs, and apples, and roses, and tulips,
and ivy that strangles, and aconite, and pine, and hemp,
and wormwood, and mushrooms, and most precious of all
the gnarled vine from which grows the grapes we crush to make our wine.
Our God is all this and so much more. And so we give thanks to you
Dionysos, and ask you to bless our garden and all that we are growing in it,
whether that is flowers which delight our eyes with their vivid colors,
or potent medicines for the body and soul, or food to fill our hungry bellies
that is both healthy and delicious, or the ingredients for incenses
and offerings for our household divinities, or whatever else you have
seen fit to make grow in our garden, O Father of Life, Much-Flourishing One.

Dionysos Abrokomes, we thank you
for providing seasonable weather
and making the Earth fruitful so that
it might produce what is needed for life.
Dionysos Beboskekaios, we ask you
to bless all those who labor in the fields,
those who sell their goods at market,
those who prepare our meals,
and those who make the drugs
that keep both our bodies and souls healthy.
Dionysos Gapedon, we offer you
the firstfruits of all that we acquire
or create, mindful that it is only through
your awesome power and benevolence
that such things have been given us,
and hopeful that in respectfully giving back
we shall receive much more from you in the future,
O kind and gracious one.

O Dionysos Medōmethēs and Bakchepaian,
we lift up any family members who are going through difficult times,
whether it be illness, emotional pain, or other challenges,
and we ask for your healing touch and comfort be upon them,
for they are dear to us as your own Staphylos and Oinopion.

King Dionysos Drepanēphoros,
protector of his people,
I ask you to protect my family
from sickness, from harm,
from envy and division,
and from every kind of accident.
Master Dionysos Desmōluthēnaios,
protector of his people,
if any of us have been subjected
to any curses, spells, or bindings,
I beg you to render these curses,
spells, or bindings null and void
through your might and authority.
Lord Dionysos Dialusos,
protector of his people,
if any evil spirits have been sent against us,
I ask that these evil spirits be sent
to the place of punishment within the Labyrinth,
to be dealt with as you please, Dikerōs.
Then, Hunt Master,
I ask you to send your Furious Host
to guard and protect all of the members
of this pious and Gods-loving household.
[Name all family members.]

Bakcheios who begot many fine children
with your exceedingly beautiful wife Freyja,
and would do anything to defend them,
we pray for the happiness and protection of our family.
Shield us from any danger, Terror of wicked Wights,
and guide our family safely through life’s challenges,
that we may honor you into ripe old age,
and the fruitful continuity of our line be ensured,
O you who fill the halls of Sessrúmnir with joy.

O Dionysos Syndesmos,
we thank you for the blessings
you have stitched into our family
since bringing us together,
for life can be cold, and cruel, and lonely
without people to share it with.
We are grateful for the love and support
we find in one another, Dionysos Plektos,
and may we never take our family for granted,
or fail to cherish the moments we have together.

O Dionysos Lyaios,
I am impure and broken,
imperfect and yet full
of an ardent longing for you.
I have sullied my mind
with improper thoughts,
and behaved in a manner
that was beneath me,
contrary to the laws and norms
that you have given your people
so that we may live the good life
forever with you on Mount Nysa.
Forgive me,
open me up,
release me,
Lord, I pray!
Let your ecstatic madness engulf me
like the heavenly fire that birthed you,
so that I may rise up shining
and pure as the nocturnal stars once more,
and bellow in the hunt
as one of your Furious Host.
And let these words of yours always
be emblazoned upon my heart:
“you can serve your weakness,
or you can fulfill your purpose.”
I implore you to amputate whatever impedes,
and strengthen that which connects me to you,
O master of my wild heart.

What the hell? Y’all know that I have no love for Andrew Carlson, the alcoholic, misogynistic, animal-abusing, megalomaniac who larped as a social justice warrior and authority on all things Thracian, but it has been nine days since his fiery demise and there hasn’t been a single mention on the Wild Hunt. I readily admit my opinion is a minority one, and a lot of folks who didn’t know him as well as I did held him in high esteem and lauded his contributions to the contemporary polytheist movement, so these would-be journos’ complete silence is quite striking. Apparently they have given up all pretense of covering community news unless there is some way to turn it into an anti-Trump screed. I should be shocked and disappointed, and yet somehow I am not.

Edited to add: looks like they finally got one up. ‘Bout fucking time. 

The core of the tradition can be found at the Bakcheion. Regardless of one’s involvement one should familiarize oneself with the material there. 

Guests and all others are Xenoi, “strangers, outsiders.”

Laity are Philoi, “friends of the tradition.”

Students are Akousmatikoi, “listeners, one who is receiving the tradition.”

Those who have undergone the general initiation are Mystai. Each Way has its own additional initiation or series of initiations. 

We have two grades of religious specialists: Boukoloi, “cowherders” and Orpheotelestai “experts in Orphic rites.”

The Boukolos has a general proficiency in the tradition, can lead communal rites and assist their Orpheotelest but cannot teach classes or perform initiations.

To become a Boukolos one must undergo specialized training by an Orpheotelest, receive the general initiation, and take classes on the following texts:

• Revelry: A Journey Through the Dionysian Year
• Tending the Bull: A tradition of Dionysian devotion 
• Hunting Wisdom: A Bacchic Orphic Diviner’s Manual
• Masks of Dionysos: Getting to Know the God Through His Heroes and Heroines
• Spirits of Initiation: A Study of the Toys of Dionysos

One does not need to have completed Boukolos training to become a Mystes, although it is recommended.

The Orpheotelest is a general religious specialist, community leader, instructor in the tradition, initiator, and has mastered one or more of the Ways of the tradition. Each Orpheotelest is independent and autonomous in how they oversee their strain of the tradition, though they have lineage obligations to the Orpheotelest who trained them, as their Akousmatikoi, Mystai and Boukoloi do to them.

Although one must master at least one of the Ways to become an Orpheotelest, one does not have to be either a Boukolos or Orpheotelest to undergo this specialized training. Training in more than one Way is permitted, though not required. Each Way has its own title which one earns upon completion of training. 

• Green Way = alchemy, plant lore, and entheogens. (Rhizotomoi, “Root-cutters”)
• Purple Way = sacred theater, ritual construction, organizing festivals. (Technitai, “Artists”)
• White Way = recitation of hymns, prayers, and incantations. (Hymnodai, “Hymn-singers”)
• Red Way = mastery of a range of ecstatic rites. (Bakchoi, “Frenzied Ones”)
• Black Way = everything pertaining to the Black Sun mysteries. (Nyktipoloi, “Night-roamers”)
• Gold Way = eschatology, funerary rites, hero cultus. (Choephoroi, “Libation-bearers”)

I woke up this morning to very good news. One of the folks I had in mind with my confessions of a gadfly post can now be scratched off the list. If you knew even a fraction of the damage that Theanos Thrax had done to both individuals and groups within the polytheist movement you would understand why his death is something that our household is celebrating. (Especially since most of his victims were vulnerable women who fell for his “male feminist” and “female empowerment” shtick, which he used to sexually, financially and otherwise abuse them.) The rest of y’all on that list better make amends while you can. Just saying.  

There has been a lot of ethical discourse here since my return, but what are your values, O readers? Give us at least five virtues and vices to reflect upon, be they your own personal ones or those shaped by your religion and ancestral traditions (if there’s even a difference.) And while we have this conversation, do not behave disrespectfully toward your fellow guests or I will escort you out of the House of Vines.

I realize that the positions I am advocating may seem a little severe, and if it was just a case of some idiots dabbling in magic they do not comprehend, spouting off on political matters they do not comprehend, or giving their opinions rather than making proclamations on behalf of Gods they do not comprehend, I would not care. But all of these things have consequences, especially when they are coming from people who want to be seen as leaders within our communities.

If you want the respect, power, authority, and other benefits that come with such positions then you must hold yourself to a higher standard, and if your behavior fails to meet that standard expect that you will be met with criticism and forced accountability. If you are not willing to submit to that from the people you would presume to lead, let me assure you that you will answer to the Gods for your shortcomings, and if the myths tell us anything, it is that such chastisement rarely stops with the wrongdoers themselves, but spreads to everyone who accepts that authority, or who recognized what was happening and did nothing to stop it.

Harsh, perhaps, but divinities, magic, and the like hold to an older law, a truer law, than anything you will find in our modern, progressive representative democracies. (Yet another reason why I am a tribalist and traditionalist, and not some pathetic right-winger or leftist.) I speak from experience here, which is why I am remaining an outsider (Orpheotelestai have always been marginalized religious specialists moving from community to community as needed) and not hesitating to speak out when I see such behavior and attitudes taking root and spreading through modern polytheism.

I am not here to be liked or to make friends or found groups and lead them. I attempted all of that, failed, and manfully met the correction doled out by our divinities.

Because of the task given me I have to clean up the esoteric messes these bumblers are creating through negligence, stupidity, greed, arrogance and impiety. They are just useful idiots, not the true enemies I fight against, which are the powers allied with the unmaker. But I am going to be a gadfly on these people’s asses until they stop making my job harder.

I remember my ancestors, who belonged to the Blackfoot Confederacy, who waged a war against the encroachment of the United States into their ancestral lands for over 80 years. And waged wars against all of the neighboring tribes from Alberta to New Mexico. And random fur trappers, prospectors, mountain men, and any other interlopers. We were the greatest warriors on the plains, wild and free, so long as we had our land and our traditions. 

And I remember my father, who lied about his age so that he could enlist in the Marines, to escape the reservation and boarding school. He spent the remainder of his life chasing freedom, though he lacked land or his traditions.

Though the song is not about the Blackfoot it is fucking badass. 

On this day when we honor the martyrs of freedom, let us not forget the great Vlad Țepeș Drăculea, Voivode of Wallachia, a courageous liberator and defender of his people. May he never thirst!

For all those who died, or will die, in the defense of liberty and the other values which make it possible for us to live lives of true worth. Remember their sacrifices on this day.

As a tribalist and traditionalist my political beliefs have never really mapped well onto the Right-Left dichotomy of the American (and more broadly European) system, leaving me without a party or an interest in participating in this country’s institutions since I began thinking seriously about such matters. (Longer even, as I haven’t voted since I was a teenager. I did it once, didn’t like it, and decided never again for me.)

This is why it has amused me when people persist in calling me a Nazi, despite the numerous posts I’ve written breaking down all my criticisms of the ideology (for instance, my rejection of the nation-state; of socialism; and of industrialization and modernism, all of which were such foundational principles that they’re in the fucking name itself), that my ancestors fought and died fighting fascism, and I even quit using all representations of the Sonnenrad Heinrich Himmler designed for Wewelsburg castle (even though the symbol was ultimately unpopular and actively opposed by the Nazis themselves and my decision to use it had nothing to do with its origin) lest there be any confusion.

So it’s not that I believe that one’s polytheism should be politics-free (I’m not even sure that that is possible, although I’ve attempted to create apolitical space in the past so that we could come together despite our differences to worship and discuss sacred things for it to inevitably get hijacked) it’s just that I’m really uncomfortable with the ways in which people go about combining them, especially when they attempt to ascribe political and party affiliation to our Gods, as John Beckett, Tess Dawson, Sarenth Odinsson, the r/hellenism and r/dionysus forums on Reddit, and so many others have. Now, keep in mind, these people are not making inferences based on the principles of a given religious tradition, speculatively engaging with myths and sacred texts, or other perfectly acceptable (if incorrectly applied) types of exegesis.

No.

They are presuming to act as the mouthpieces for the Gods (as if our Mighty Ones were not capable of communicating their wills and desires on their own) and what’s worse (and inevitable with such individuals) they are claiming this as their own sole prerogative, and damning any who would dare to follow their example, especially if they happen to arrive at differing conclusions and sloganeering.

It’s all so tedious and predictable, and would be laughable if history wasn’t littered with uncountable examples of the atrocities that all too often follow such talk. Actually, scratch that. There’s precious little that’s funny about blasphemy and hubris (excluding the punishment this brings down which can be a laugh riot, provided you’re a safe distance away when it happens.)

This, to bring it back around, is why I am a traditionalist and tribalist. Our traditions have safety mechanisms built in to protect against such impiety and the countless evils that this vice unleashes into a community. Probably the most important being: let’s take it to the diviners and oracles. You think Zeus supports your “No Kings” riot? Fucking prove it. And accept the consequences if it turns out mantikē has a different story to tell.

For instance, one of my strongest detractors, who has jumped in every time my name’s come up in various fora to shout about how evil I am and how horribly I’m misrepresenting things whether people want to hear it or not for years and years, finally had the good sense to take it to the mat and, much to her surprise, discovered that Dionysos affirmed the positions I have been advocating this whole time. (Though she’s still mistaken about my alleged fascism.) And you know, respect to her for not only checking but having the moral courage to admit it publicly. That certainly puts her ahead of the folks I’ve been discussing.

And that’s not only why I embrace the tribalist identity (or rather it’s one of numerous reasons) but have no interest in the pan-polytheist movement which reached its nadir circa 2010-2014 or the endless communal brouhahas. I can say, “Those people simply ain’t my people; why would I care what they think?” and instead focus on those who are, and the wonderful things we are doing together for our Gods and spirits. 

End of April, 1741. A son was recently born to Empress Maria Theresa, and the Jewish community in Prague is celebrating, parading in the streets. The blaring of trumpets, the pounding of drums, and the swell of joyous melodies fill the air. Leading the procession is the Jewish postman, wearing a wig with a long braid, topped by a luxurious hat. After him, accompanied by two trumpeters, rides Simon Wolff Frankel — the ‘primator’ — the mayor of the Jewish city, so says the inscription in German that describes the detailed drawing of the procession of the Jews through the streets of the city. From the medieval to the early modern era, the city was the political unit of the greatest importance. Thus, early modern urban processions are understood in the research literature to represent the different parts of society and the internal relations between them. Edward Muir has suggested that they can be seen as a kind of unwritten ‘civic constitution’, where the processions did more than showcase social order; they symbolically reinforced the city’s identity as a cohesive political unit. It is therefore unsurprising to see the head of the community, Simon Wolff, leading the procession of the Jewish city of Prague, in the first row. The presence of scholars and rabbis, representatives of the religious–traditional leadership in the second row, is also not unexpected. The Jewish guilds (butchers, tailors, and bookbinders) asserted their prominence within the community by their flags hanging from huge poles. Yet what most catches the eye is the enormous image of Bacchus. Six Jews lead his carriage, and he himself is riding on a giant wine barrel. Behind him, a Jewish reveller dances while brandishing a bottle of beer. Not far from him is a giant platform carried by eight people, on which the god Pan is depicted as he plays his long shepherd’s flute. Forest animals are also carried on the platform, peeping from between the trees, enchanted by his melody. Why are Bacchus and Pan marching in the Jewish street? What was their role in the cultural composition of Jewish communities in Europe in the eighteenth century? This question should naturally be directed to the rabbi — the representative of religious authority in the traditional Jewish community in the early modern period. Let us turn to the row of bearded rabbis in the second row of the procession. One of them, Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschütz (1690–1764) served at that time as the senior rabbinical authority in the city’s Jewish community. Three years after marching alongside Bacchus and Pan in a parade, Rabbi Eybeschütz surprisingly described the importance of Greco-Roman mythology for Jewish culture.

— Maoz Kahana, The return of the gods: Greco-Roman mythology in eighteenth-century rabbinic lore

I hail the Dionysian Dead on this final night of Katachthonia. May they never thirst!

Against the Mevakkaltas I

By the glorious name, and authority and power
of Dionysos Agrios I command you to open your mouth
and accept your adjuration and ban, O Mevakkalta-demon,
whatever your name happens to be; it is irrelevant in the end,
for all of you daughters of Mevakkalta, daughter of Zarnay the Lilith,
are alike in your desire to inflict torments on your chosen victims,
and feed off of the pain and misery, the doubt and confusion,
and the spiritual gifts you twist, and stunt, or snuff out entirely.
Although you once outnumbered the Lilim and Mazzikim,
and were more powerful than the Ruḥot and Šedim,
today there are fewer of you than the Nephilim
who survived the great deluge, or the Rephaim
who were slaughtered by King Chedorlaomer and his allies
at the battle of Ašteroṯ Qarnayim. You slink about at night,
attended by the host of evil dreams who are enslaved to you,
and attempt to seduce youths into copulating with you in the hope
of having children of your own. And when you are unsuccessful
in your endeavor because of the curse
laid upon you by Yahō’s wife Ašerah
which made you as ugly on the outside as you are within,
and barren as the stones that once comprised
the impregnable walls of Jericho
until the blast of Joshua’s shofar brought them tumbling down,
you vent your rage on the daughters in the house,
especially if they happen to be the firstborn of the family,
and blessed with beauty, charm, wisdom, piety
and all of the other things your vile race is lacking.
If, by chance, the boy’s seed puts a girl-child in your belly
(for you Mevakkaltas have not produced
male offspring since the days of Balaam)
it will be as feeble and grotesque as its mother.
And so I say to you, Mevakkalta most wretched of demonkind,
remove your tendrils from the minds and bodies
of everyone beneath this roof,
and go far away from this place;
do not bother these fine people,
or anyone of their bloodline again,
or Dionysos, āšipu of the Gods,
will place his seal upon your forehead,
using a spike of iron to keep it in place,
rendering you powerless and breaking your hold
over the evil dreams and other spirits that you command;
he will bind you with iron chains, and with iron shackles, and with iron fetters;
he will sew up the lips of your mouth and of your vagina with iron thread,
so that you can neither curse nor copulate;
he will beat you with iron rods,
and pierce you seventeen times with an iron knife.
Then he will cast you into the deepest depths of Tartaros
to become the plaything of the spirits of the dead Giants,
the wrathful Titans, and the other terrible denizens of Hell’s Hell
who excel even him in the arts of torment,
and no one on Earth or in Heaven
will ever think of you again,
O Mevakkalta-demon whose name,
and desires, and accomplishments
do not matter.

Against the Mevakkaltas II

Guilty of crimes beyond numbering
and full of jealousy and hate,
grim daughter of Mevakkalta,
bringing torment and misery
into the life of the eldest daughter, and the
next and the next down the line, as each is
drained of their vitality, strength, luck and the
surety of the Gods, and spirits, and their dead;
everything you’re scheming will come to naught,
venal creature, for you have made bitter
enemies out of Sabaōth, protector of life,
raging and rampaging Dionysos,
and ʾAšmedai the bringer of death;
not only do they possess awesome power
and cleverness like nothing you have seen before,
but these three individuals have joined together
to stop you from harming NN,
or harming any others after her.
Burning worse than the touch of iron,
like lightning are these charms they’ve handed
over to us to cripple you, Mevakkalta, and
crush you, so that you become prey
to demonic kin far worse than you.
The mighty voces magicae are:
Asarē, Asarou, Achthanou, Saranarchou, Arountē;
and Arara, Charara, Hax, Pax, Adimax;
Asca, Basca, Rastaia, Serc, Cercer, Recercel, Acereba;
and Abachour, Thouchar, Ōsouchar, Sabachar.
IŌ ERBĒTH
IŌ PHARBĒTH
IŌ PAKERBĒTH
IŌ APOMPS
Shin. Shin. Shin.

Against the Mevakkaltas III

O daughters of Mevakkalta, descendants of Zarnay
the dancing-girl and Samaēl the venom of God,
who sit at the crossroads combing out your hair,
who dance on the rooftops, and ride the whirlwinds,
you who revile the male and female Liliths almost as much
as you do Michaēl the Prince of the Heavenly Host;
like a tick gorged on the blood of its victim,
Mevakkalta-demons, you attach yourselves
to family lines, and drain all of the luck, vitality,
and joy that you can from them, targeting especially
the firstborn daughters for whom you have reserved
greater torment than all the others. You bombard
such a girl with whispered deceits and barbed cruelties
until she takes your voice for her own, and internalizes
your messages of smallness, inferiority, disgust
with herself and hatred for all of womankind.
You sexually assault her in her sleep,
and show her far worse things in her dreams,
until she is willing to agree to
or do anything, just to make it stop.
You dangle opportunities in front of her,
only to dash them to the ground
and laugh as they shatter like pottery,
and you sabotage the things she works hardest at
so that she never receives the recognition she deserves,
and has to watch the less worthy surpass her.
You destroy everything she cares for,
and take from her all those whom she loves,
and I won’t even mention what you do
to defenseless infants, and the aged and infirm.
But you will not succeed this time, against
NN, her bloodline, and everyone in her household,
O malice-filled children of Mevakkalta, for your
whole ignoble race are bound, and inscribed,
and banned, and condemned, and excommunicated,
by the Great God Dionysos who fills demonkind
with terror and trembling and a desire to flee
lest they be destroyed by his awful power and fury
whenever he is near. All agreements are dissolved,
any claim you have made on NN is shattered,
and she is set free of your influence, never to be
troubled, or tormented by your wicked kind again.
No Mevakkalta may harm the mind, the soul, the luck,
the flesh, the bones, or the blood of NN, her family,
or her household due to the unbreakable seal
which Dionysos the son of Zeus has placed upon her,
and all of hrr descendants, from now until
the Sun, the Moon, the Planets, and all of the Stars
have fallen from Heaven.
So long as they remain in place, so shall NN
and those related to her have nothing to fear
from you daughters of Mevakkalta.

Against the Mevakkaltas IV

Dionysos was traveling to visit his famed shrine at Tel Šor
near the river of Kišon, when he heard wailing and terrible
shrieks coming from a house on the outskirts of the village
of Šūnēm. He sent his Se’irim, and dancing women, and
the rest of the festive company on ahead to wait for him,
then Dionysos changed his appearance, putting on the
attire of a vagabond āšipu, and approached the house
where he was greeted by a little girl who was playing
with a stick in the dirt, too poor to have any toys of her own.
“Your clothes are funny,” she remarked, “like the clothes
an Aluzinnū.” And Dionysos smiled and said,
“Indeed they are, but they make the Šedim
and Mazzikim afraid, so I like them.”
She nodded and said, “I like them too.”
Dionysos reached into one of the pouches tied to his belt
and retrieved a ball of many colors, a tuft of wool, and a doll
with beautiful black eyes and hair like her own, which he
handed over to her. The girl began to cry, and Dionysos
leaned down, kissed the top of her head, and said, “Where
do these tears come from?” And she answered him, “Your
gifts are so beautiful, and yet ever since my sister and I dug
that jar up out of the earth, our family has known only suffering
and want. First, my father was injured and has not been able to
work. Then my mother was struck down by a quartan fever which
neither the doctors nor the village healing-women could cure,
and she died. My sister’s fiancé was stung by scorpions, and died too.
And now the evil spirit that we released from the jar has taken possession
of my sister, and our father is spending the last of the family’s money on
quacks who are just making things worse. The Gods have abandoned us,
and I am afraid of what further evils lie in store for us.”
Dionysos held her tight, and then stood and entered the accursed house.
Moments later the sham exorcists were tripping over themselves as they fled,
and the shrieks of her sister went silent,
nor did her father make any sounds from his bed.
When the silence had gone on long enough for her curiosity
to get the better of her, the girl crept to the door and peered in,
and she gasped at what she saw. Her sister and father were
cradling each other, both fully recovered, and watching
with horror the scene before them.
The evil spirit was out of her sister, and being held in place by four women
who glowed as bright as the Sun, as the stranger swung a hammer, pounding
iron nail after iron nail into the thing’s pitch-black body.
Nails like a diadem circled her brow;
nails had been driven into her eyes,
and ears, and used to shut her curse-speaking mouth;
there were nails in her breast, and in her stomach,
in her hands, and her knees and her feet. So many nails
that the girl could not count them all.
The stranger set the hammer down and smiled at the girl,
“Do not worry, little one, this Mevakkalta and her sisters
will not trouble your family again. The bonds connecting
this Mevakkalta to your family, NN,
were shattered and cannot be reforged.
Each of these nails is punishment for the wickedness she
has done to you NN, or to someone you love,
and each burns like the fires of Gē-Hīnnōm,
and will continue to do so even if she manages to pluck them out.
This Mevakkalta is going to be cast into the outer darkness,
never to find her way back, and with her will go
all of the pain, and illness, and poverty, and grief that she has loosed
upon your family, NN. Should you ever find yourself in need,
call upon the four Ladies who stand here assisting me, the Ancestral Mothers
who are the iron rods with which ʾĒl Šaddai and Ašerah Queen of Heaven
chastise those who do evil to their people. Never forget: even in the midst
of your suffering you are loved by your Gods and by your dead.
There is no place where they are not. Trust in them, and you will be saved.
Now, enough with sorrows, enough with tears; go and embrace your
sister and your father, who have been restored to you this day.”
First the Mevakkalta and then the stranger disappeared, though the toys
he had gifted the little girl remained, and she carried his message with her
the rest of her days.