And here’s an article about the Jólakötturinn from the Smithsonian.

#13: Elvis Presley – Blue Christmas

#12: Band Aid- Do they Know it’s Christmas

#11: Johnny Cash & Friends – Silent Night

#10: Greg Lake – I Believe In Father Christmas

#9: The Waitresses – Christmas Wrapping

#8: Lemmy – Run Run Rudolph

#7: Mariah Carey – All I Want for Christmas Is You

#6: Metallica – Turn The Page

#5: The Kinks – Father Christmas

#4: Jethro Tull – Christmas song

#3: Chris Brown – This Christmas

#2: Otis Redding – White Christmas

And the #1 best Christmas song is …

Bing Crosby & David Bowie – The Little Drummer Boy

Fight me if you disagree.

For those curious about what I meant here by the constellation of Bear King myths check out my posts Hunting the European Sky Bears, Beware rousing the sleeping bear and Bärensohnmärchen. 

And while you’re at it you might want to give these articles a quick read through, which discuss the presence of the Labyrinth in the Northern lands too: 

• Zavaroni Adolfo, Souls across the Labyrinth: Representations of Rebirth in the Bronze/Iron Age in Europe
• Angelo Fossati, Following Arianna’s Thread Symbolic Figures at Female Rock Art Sites at Naquane and In Valle, Valcamonica, Italy
• Joanna M. Lawrence, Phallic Representations in Bronze Age Scandinavian Rock Art: Contexts, Associations, and Interpretations
• Caroline Malim, Mazes, Minotaurs and Maidens: Evidence for the Cult of the Labyrinth and the Cycle of Life
• Umberto Sansoni, Alpine and Scandinavian rock art in the Bronze Age, a common cultural matrix in a web of continental influences
• wonderMondo, Stone labyrinths of Bolshoi Zayatsky Island

And for good measure, here’s a selection of links pertinent to the Starry Bear proto-tradition:

And if you want to get a better sense of what I mean by the folk level religiosity so often ignored by contemporary Heathen groups visit my other site eklogai | polytheist extractions, particularly this tag.  

I feel justified in referring to the Starry Bull as a tradition. We have multiple Orpheotelestai who have initiated folks in the double digits. We have a respectable body of literature, produced by myself and several others. We have schismed into multiple lineages (which mostly don’t speak to each other anymore.) There are several online groups run for and by members (even if I’m no longer involved so I can’t speak to how active or accurate they are.) Even folks who no longer consider themselves members are continuing the work they began while with us. I’ve started teaching classes again and the Hudson Valley Bakcheion will be holding regular meetings and public rituals in 2020 e.v., beginning with Lenaia for which 6 or 7 people have already RSVPed.

Starry Bear, on the other hand, I consider to have the status of proto-tradition. Although there are a couple folks I regularly discuss it with and have helped me tinker with some experimental ritual and mystical tech, it is still very much my own brain child and in need of a great deal of research and development. In fact I don’t think I’ve even attempted to explain what it is, with most of my writing focusing on the history of Greek and Northern contacts, the identification of Dionysos with Óðr and Freyja with Kírkē, and more briefly arcolatry and star-lore. Although these are fascinating subjects with  each requiring further exploration, I’ve really just scratched the surface as far as the Starry Bear is concerned. My hope is that in a year or three we’ll be in a position to start bringing others into it, so I suppose I should begin articulating my vision for the Starry Bear proto-tradition. 

In the past I’ve jokingly referred to it as Bacchic Orphic Heathenry, but that’s not too far off. One thread of it will concern the presence of Dionysos in Northern Italy, central Europe, Asia Minor, along the coast of the Black Sea, as well as Skythia and Hyperborea up through the Russian, German, Scandinavian, French, and English Romantic movements, and a little after. Orphic cults proliferated in this area – particularly in the present-day Ukraine – as well as groups such as the Kapnobatai, the Galactophagai, Pythagoreans and allied figures like Aristeas, Abaris, Hermotimos, Zalmoxis and Pseudo-Alexander, all of whom betray strong shamanic traits and practices. And a ton of stuff involving Medeia. I’m going to stitch all of this together into a form of bakcheia similar to but distinct from what we do in the Starry Bull. 

There are also three strains of Dionysiac myth I need to tease out. The first of these concerns a series of archaic myths and later folktales concerning a Bear King which I believe refer to him (especially when death and rebirth are involved or he’s attempting to woo a maiden, who in some versions turns out to be his sister.) Next there is his lost history as Óðr, some of which I’ve pieced together from allusions, puns and riddles in the Eddas and Sagas, folktales, fairy stories, superstitions and ballads as well as things I’ve gleaned from dreams, visions, divination, ritual encounters, inspired writing and UPG. And the third is continuations of the lore found in Medieval, Renaissance, Romantic, and more contemporary literature concerning both Dionysos and Óðr. (Not to mention other Greco-Roman and Heathen divinities.)

Next I want to flesh out my understanding of Dionysos’ relationships with the Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, and Celtic divinities. His friends and allies will then constitute the loose Starry Bear pantheon. As above this process will consist of research, dreams, visions, divination, ritual encounters, inspired writing and UPG. 

The next stage will involve a synthesis of core devotional practices largely drawn from the level of superstitions, fairytales, folklore and folkways, and even syncretic, quasi-Christian customs from these countries. The various branches of Heathenry have the higher stratum covered, so we’ll draw on lower level religiosity. Likewise I want to develop our own ecstatic and sorcerous techniques since there are serious problems with how a lot of folks do seiðr, runework and the like. 

Plus all the Black Sun stuff.

There’s a whole lot more to it, but that should suffice to give you a rough sense of what I mean when I refer to the Starry Bear proto-tradition – and how much effort it’ll take to bring this thing to the surface. 

Plato, Phaedrus 244de
Next, madness can provide relief from the greatest plagues of trouble that beset certain families because of their guilt for ancient crimes: it turns up among those who need a way out; it gives prophecies and takes refuge in prayers to the gods and in worship, discovering mystic rites and purifications that bring the man it touches through to safety for this and all time to come. So it is that the right sort of madness finds relief from present hardships for a man it has possessed.

From The Invocation of the Black Sun: Alchemy and Sexuality in the Work of Coil by Hayes Hampton:

Crowley envisioned the highest level of initiation as the point where man, having dissolved his individual humanity, resolves into god, or what Crowley called “Unity…above all division.” Thus, Crowley’s magical system aims at psychic alchemy, using the aspirant’s habits, proclivities, and even resistance to change as transformative material. In his most complete statement, Magick: Liber ABA, in a chapter entitled “Of the Eucharist; and of the Art of Alchemy,” he describes the later, more painful stage of the process: “just as the Aspirant, on the Threshold of Initiation, finds himself assailed by the ‘complexes’ which have corrupted him … so does the ‘First Matter’ blacken and putrefy as the Alchemist breaks up its coagulations of impurity.”

Here Crowley writes of the nigredo phase of alchemy, which he often symbolized with a black dragon, though traditional alchemical literature more typically symbolizes it with the symbol of the black sun. Coil adopted the black sun as their logo and as a frequent lyrical image, using a drawing from Crowley’s Liber Arcanorum which can be viewed as a visual pun: both sun and anus. As a glyph joining the nigredo with elimination of bodily waste, the black sun combines two of Coil’s major tropes: the fragile, contingent nature of the individual self and the exploration (and alchemical use) of forbidden or rejected materials and sexualities. Stanton Marlan, in The Black Sun: The Alchemy and Art of Darkness, looks in depth at the black sun’s relationship to the alchemical nigredo and its metaphoric eclipse of consciousness. The black sun, in Marlan’s summary, brings together “blackness, putrefactio, mortificatio, the nigredo, poisoning, torture, killing, decomposition, rotting, and death … a web of interrelationships that describe a terrifying, if most often provisional, eclipse of consciousness” –that is, the dissolution of the mundane self both desired and feared by the magician, and the confrontation with the “dark forces” he or she must master in order to evolve spiritually. These “forces” were understood by twentieth-century magicians like Crowley not so much as external, demonic forces but as psychological negativity: shame, guilt, fear, and disgust.

For Balance and Christopherson, the “dark forces” included psychological negativity in the form of gay self-hatred and puritanical body-phobia and also what is culturally constructed as physiological negativity: blood, urine, shit, and (gay) semen — the ultimate forbidden substance of the 1980s, worse than crack cocaine. All of these substances, Coil’s work insists, travel along the subterranean rivers of our cities and our psyches, poisoning us unless we transmute their subtle energies. Coil’s debut album, Scatology (1984), which John Balance called “alchemy in sound,” explores the psychic and bodily terrain of waste matter. “Literally,” Balance told an interviewer, “some of the sounds — shitting and toilets –were … raw noises. Wewere making good things from what is perceived as being basically, bad things; dealing with subjects other people wouldn’t touch such as rotting and death.”

The black sun logo, prominent on the album’s cover, serves as a visual reference to other lacunae, holes, and forbidden spaces mentioned in the songs or in the album’s extensive liner notes: “The Devil’s Hole” that Charles Manson told his followers awaited them in the California desert, Salvador Dali’s “Humanism of the Arsehole,” the psychic and corporeal depletions of vampirism, gluteal injections of antibiotics to cure STDs, and, most memorably,the shit- and piss-spattered setting of “The Sewage Worker’s Birthday Party.”

Inauspicious as each of these may be, each also contains the possibility of transmutation; as Scatology’s liner notes summarize, “It is about performing surgery on yourself – psychic surgery— in order to restore the whole being, complete with the aspects that sanitised society attempts to wrench from your existence.”

From Dead Kings and Saviour Gods – Euhemerizing Shamanism in Thracian Religion by Dan Attrell:

As the undisputed masters of healing herbs (according to the Greeks), the Thracians were no strangers to the shamanic techniques of ecstasy well known among other cultures of the steppe. Working from the texts of Posidonius, Strabo reported that the Mysians, a Thracian group from north-western Anatolia, possessed members of their society called both θεοσεβεις (“those who fear god”) and καπνοβαται (“those who walk in smoke”) who practiced strict vegetarianism and consumed nothing but honey and dairy products. This reference to the “walkers in smoke” may allude to the ecstasy achieved by mass cannabis consumption as reported by Herodotus among the Scythians. […] One Orphic bone inscription from Olbia dated to the 5th century BC reads “for Dion(ysos) and Psyche,” revealing the importance of a transcendent soul in connection with the Greek god of intoxication in Thracian territory. Another of these bone inscriptions containing the words “Βιος Θανατος Βιος” and marked with little “Z” pictograms (which might represent little orphic serpents) reveals the widespread and consistent nature of Dionysian symbolism reaching as far north as modern Ukraine. In the shamanic mystery initiations as practiced by the Orphic cults, near-death experiences and the use of dangerous doses of hallucinogenic plants went hand in hand. Whereas the Divine Bridegroom Sabazios (Dionysus) was primarily the god who presided over ecstasy and entheogenic intoxication, the Thracians held him in equally high regard as a dying-and-rising saviour god and a master over the souls of the deceased. Long before the introduction of alcohol, shaman exploited the ecstatic and oracular properties of hallucinogenic mushrooms (Amanita muscaria and various types of coprophilic Psilocybin-containing mushrooms); opium (Papaver somniferum); “jimsonweed,” “horsemad,” or “thornapple” (Datura stramonium); mandrake root (Mandragora officinarum); cannabis; deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna); and henbane (Hyoscyamus niger). The experience of death and the ecstatic evacuation of the soul from the body appears commonly in the Thracian funeral iconography on which is depicted the Tree of Life. To be in a state of ekstasis – that is, to stand outside the body – was to experience death itself.

From The Sacred Conspiracy by Georges Bataille

Beyond what I am, I meet a being who makes me laugh because he is headless, who fills me with anguish because he is made of innocence and crime. He holds a weapon of steel in his left hand, flames like a sacred heart in his right hand. He unites in one eruption birth and death. He is not a man. But he isn’t a god, either. He is not I, but he is more I than I: his belly is the labyrinth in which he himself goes astray, led me astray, and in which I find myself being he, that is, a monster.

Who are you? No, who are you really? Not what you do for a living, or how much you make, or what you own, or don’t own. Not what religion, or political group you belong to, not what hobby you have to take up your time. Not what your parents always wanted you to be, or who your friends think you are, or who you think you have to be when you’re around other people. But who you really are, deep in your core, in those dark, hidden parts of your being, those parts made of dream and fantasy and passion. Do you remember who you once were, before it all went wrong, before you made those compromises, before you started pretending to be someone else in order to fit in? Do you remember the way that it could have been, if only? Remember and be who you are. Don’t cheat the world of your uniqueness. As rough and imperfect as you are, there’s only one you in the whole world.

I don’t like talking about this: I am an intensely private man, except when it comes to religion – and I dislike giving my enemies cause for celebration. But I should probably mention this as it’s been impacting my life in a lot of ways, including here.

I have been struggling with three chronic ailments, and atypical symptoms that indicated a fourth. About 6-8 weeks ago those symptoms intensified to the point where I’ve spent nearly every day in excruciating pain. We’ve been to several doctors, eventually leading to a specialist in lyme disease who diagnosed and is in the process of treating me. I was warned that this would make things worse before they got better and that has indeed been the case. Because of the current opioid hysteria I can’t get anything effective to help manage the pain (particularly my joints, which seem always to be on fire) and alternative methods such as stretching, meditation, herbs, etc. have brought only minimal and temporary relief. And while this may be the worst it’s only one of several ailments I’m currently dealing with.

As you can imagine this hasn’t been great for my interpersonal relationships or mental health. I’ve had some pretty down days. Even contemplated suicide at one point. It’s been challenging keeping up with my correspondence, even when it’s about important religious stuff. And not just because I’m down so many spoons.

This illness has revealed some of the weaknesses in my spiritual life and practices, and created some new ones as well. I’ve had to face shit I just never thought would be an issue for me.

And you know what? I’m thankful for that.

Don’t get me wrong. This process has sucked. I wouldn’t wish it on even my worst enemies.

But in addition to bringing to light areas I need to work on it also showed me that even at my lowest, most hopeless point I love Dionysos. I will hold to him. I will do everything in my power to serve him. Even when I’m so caught up in pain and despair that I can’t see, feel or hear him. There were times I wondered if he had stopped caring about me, or worse that our whole history together had been a lie, a delusion. And I just didn’t give a shit. Dionysos is fucking awesome, whether he exists or not. I prayed to him. Made offerings. Read about him. Did what I could for his people. And whatever else I was able to, as I was able to.

And he’s made himself known to me in a bunch of small ways, and even helped when it got really bad. The fact that he hasn’t done more, and some random kledones I’ve received – later confirmed through divination – led me to believe that this was something I needed to go through, that it was in some way initiatory and so he could not interfere.

And that excites me because I think I know where this is leading. 

My goals for 2020 e.v. (Year Two of the Bakcheion)

• I want to get back into doing regular temple and priest work.
• I want to immerse myself in the festival-cycle and really connect with the different faces of Dionysos through the year.
• I want the festival-cycle to really catch on with others, especially our local group which is in the process of forming.
• I want to codify the system of soul-parts for the Starry Bull tradition, and develop esoteric practices around them.
• I want to learn the deeper mysteries of the Black Sun; I feel as if I’ve just scratched the surface.
• I want to flesh out the Starry Bear proto-tradition enough that I can start bringing others into it.
• I want to finish the remaining books listed here. 

Yes, I am aware that each of these could represent a lifetime’s work; I’ll feel good about myself if I accomplish even half of them over the next twelve months.

However, before Lenaia comes Foundation Day, during which it is customary to take the auspices for the upcoming year, as well as divine on more personal matters.

If you’d like your year read there are a number of methods you may choose from. I also have a comprehensive package deal involving six systems for just $88.00. If you’re interested, act fast – I’m only doing five of these bundled readings. Reserve yours today.  

Lenaia is coming up, and I’m excited. Not only does this kick off the Year 2 Bakcheion festival cycle but I’ve got a half dozen or so locals to celebrate it with this time. We’re going to have a symposion, followed by a masked procession through the city culminating in us calling Dionysos up from the depths by a waterfall, complete with offerings and an a cappella choral rendition of this:

How will you observe Lenaia? 

We live in a pluralistic and capitalistic society where the guiding philosophical principle seems to be the open market system. No one holds a monopoly on truth, and old ideologies which had taken for granted their close and long-standing relationship with the authorities are finding that they must now compete with a multitude of newer and older faiths in order to win the hearts and minds of the people of today.

Television evangelists recognized this fact in the early 1980s and began tailoring their message to the sensibilities of a broader audience, employing slick production values and charismatic talking heads who seemed less like manic prophets come from the Judaean wilderness and more like smooth Southern gentlemen hawking used cars as they espoused the Word of God. No longer was it sufficient to merely assert the truth-claims of the Gospel Message – now they had to sell the benefits of their religion and how it would positively impact the lives of the average man. Other religions followed suit – the extreme commercialism of McWicca as evidenced by the glossy-covered books with little substance to be found in most major bookstore chains, and the Kaballah centre’s attempt to market its red string bracelets and $5 bottles of Kaballistically blessed water to celebrities hungry for the next major fad are but two examples of this. (I could also mention $cientology in this context but don’t want to risk getting sued.)

Along this line of thought, one may naturally wonder how Hellenismos may compete in America’s open market on religion and what benefits may be had from accepting our faith.

In a word, what we offer is beauty. Ask the average person on the street what their first impression of ancient Greece is, and if they don’t answer toga-wearing homosexuals chances are they’ll mention the beautiful marble statues or the ruined temples with their impressive columns still standing two thousand years later. If the person that you’re interrogating happens to be of the better educated sort, they will probably mention the epics of Homer, the great dramatic works of Sophokles and Euripides, the philosophic dialogues of Plato, or the body of myths which has informed and inspired the great minds of Western art down through the centuries. The artistic is intricately woven into our conception of the ancient Greeks because it was a fundamental part of their world-view. Art is man’s response to the beauty and harmony which surrounds him, a way to make sense of his experiences and share them with his fellows. It is interesting to note that the Greek word for the universe – kosmos – not only implies order and stability – but also beauty and ornamentation. They felt, deep in their bones, the fundamental beauty of the world which surrounded them – the fiery hues of the sky as the sun began its decline into the west, a natural spring bubbling along through a forest clearing, the human body in repose – and they sensed something divine in all of this: a world, as Thales of Miletos said, full of Gods. The Gods could seem remote, dwelling far off on the distant heights of Mount Olympos, but more often the Greek experienced his Gods as immediate presences manifest in the natural forces which surrounded him – Zeus thundering through the dark storm clouds, Poseidon riding the ocean waves on his mighty chariot, Dionysos present in the ripe fruit of the vine, Aphrodite and Ares stirring up emotions within the heart, leading either to love or destruction. No Hebrew ever spoke of his God in this manner – his voice may come from the burning bush, but the author of Exodus is clear to point out that Yahweh is not in the burning bush. Yahweh is so far removed from his creation that Newton could speak of the world as a machine so efficient that it made God redundant – and it is but a short step from there to Nietzsche’s terrible and prophetic proclamation that God is dead.

And what has the world become, completely divorced from the divine? It is a bleak place, full of hardship and ugliness. Everywhere there is a profound sense of emptiness and loneliness. Look at the cities which surround us and define our existence so much of the time: they are dirty, monotonous, ugly things, oppressive and stifling in their greyness and uniformity. The spirit rebels at such surroundings, and so street youth take spray-paint cans in hand and desperately scrawl their names and cryptic symbols across the bleak facades in a futile attempt to break up the monotony, to proclaim that they were here, that their life mattered in some small way. But without any deeper connection to the wellspring of creation, to the world of imagination, all that they can manage is their petty territorial tagging. It only serves to accentuate the bleakness of their surroundings, the bareness of their spirits.

Look at the popular culture which develops from such an environment. Interchangeable rap lyrics which extol the virtues of getting drunk and wasted, of acquiring extravagant amounts of wealth and surrounding one’s self with shiny jewelry, tricked out cars, and booming sound systems. Women are reduced to bitches and hoes whose existence serve only to gratify the infantile and unimaginative lusts of gangtas. The broader popular culture is no better, dominated as it is by reality television whose contestants will demean themselves in order to win large sums of money, where celebrities are paraded about for no other reason than because they are wealthy and have celebrity.

Our culture lacks any deeper, defining morals, has no greater world vision, and allows itself to be manipulated and controlled by those who perpetuate the greatest atrocities in our name, with never a word of criticism, so long as our basic human needs are met, and the scoundrels can convince us that they are protecting our national security and traditional way of life. That seems to be what passes for the American Dream these days – a secure, if unfulfilling job, so that I can surround myself with things I don’t need, and watch amusing things on television until I finally keel over dead. No tough questions, no quest for deeper fulfillment or a richer relationship with one’s surroundings, no desire to accomplish great things and leave one’s mark on the pages of history.

Hellenismos stands in opposition to this by asserting the central value of beauty. Beauty is truth, a reflection of things as they authentically stand and also their relationship to higher powers and an exalted, visionary order. When one encounters beauty it changes the person, because beauty is attended by desire and we come to desire the beautiful, wanting more of it, no longer satisfied with that which is not beautiful. It compels us to follow it, to sacrifice the mundane and superficial in order to possess it, causes us to look within and make changes within ourselves in order to both be worthy of the beautiful and to better represent it, and we start to infuse our vision with it, causing us to behold the beauty that surrounds us, where before all seemed dark and depressing.

When we look at the things that the ancient Greeks considered beautiful, we see how important their religious world-view is today. As I said earlier, the Greeks were keenly aware of the beauty of their natural surroundings. When you value beauty you desire to preserve and ensure its continuity for future generations. You don’t pour your filth into rivers, pave over sacred groves in order to build parking lots, turn the air black and unbreathable out of carelessness and avarice. Instead you live in harmony with your surroundings, honouring its beauty as sacred, divine, as worthy of being cared for as one’s own beloved parents.

Regarding the human body as beautiful, the Greeks went to great lengths to ensure its healthiness and robust vigour. At the center of every city, even in colonies as far away as Turkey and India, was the gymnasium where men would come to work out. Even older people such as Sokrates made a point of visiting the gymnasium every day in order to stay in shape. Most festivals had their agon or competition in which races, wrestling, boxing, discuss-throwing, dancing, etc played an important role. Every four years men would travel from all parts of the known world, even calling temporary halts to wars, so that athletes could compete at the Sacred Games at Olympia – a tradition that has carried over – albeit modified somewhat – into the modern world. Science and medicine were highly valued in ancient Greece, the birthplace of rationality. Physicians, who considered themselves descendants of Asklepios, traveled from village to village or tended temples such as that at Epidauros, curing ailments, mending broken bones, and prescribing regimens of diet and exercise in order to ensure optimal health and the beauty of the body. These regimens were taken to an extreme at Sparta where the whole populace lived a disciplined, barracks-like existence, eating a thick black gruel, and spending their time training for war and perfecting the body – even the women, a thing unthinkable to the Athenians. While an extreme example, the Spartans were hardly alone in their veneration of the body and striving for its perfection. We see just how pervasive this ideal was in numerous statues of handsome young boys at the peak of fitness, the panegyrics praising successful athletes, and even in the lives of Greece’s greatest creative spirits: Plato, who was famous first as a boxer, and then as a philosopher, Aiskhylos who wished to be remembered primarily as a soldier and in fact made no mention of his career as a man of letters in his epitaph, and Sophokles, who composed his greatest tragedies at the age of 90. No wilting hot-house flowers, no sickly ascetics torturing their flesh in the deserts were the ancient Greeks! In fact, they had such veneration for the beauty of the human body that they could think of no better way to express the transcendent beauty of the Gods than to depict them in human form. For what in the world is more beautiful than man, the measure of all things?

But, of course, for the Greeks it wasn’t enough to simply make the outside beautiful and neglect what lay within. That would have been like offering a man an ornately sculpted golden chalice – filled with brackish water and mud. So, even as the young men trained their bodies in the gymnasia, their fathers were sure to place their minds and spirits under the careful guidance of tutors who would instruct them in poetry, music, philosophy and rhetoric. For the true man is one who is well-rounded, who could be just as comfortable at a dramatic competition as he was hanging out with his friends in the agora or carrying arms against the Persians. The Greeks excelled in the arts. Even today, Homer’s poems are unmatched in their beauty, complexity, and ability to stir the passions that lie deep in the breast and give wings to the imagination, allowing it to soar to the very heights of Olympos. The plays of the dramatists are still being performed, the vase-paintings and architecture of the period are still marveled at. This was the world that the Greeks surrounded themselves with, in which they lived and thrived. Aristophanes’ comedies were not simply mindless entertainment. They grappled with the same profound questions as Plato’s dialogues. They are peppered with all kinds of contemporary political and religious controversies. They are fond of sly word-plays, clever puns, and outright sophistry. And the ancient Athenians had no problem following along, and in fact thought those plays best which challenged their basic assumptions and really made them think hard about current issues. Imagine a modern playwright getting away with lampooning a popular political figure the way that Aristophanes does! And yet, for the ancient Greeks who saw the beauty in thought, who didn’t want to sit passively by, but be actively engaged with their art – it was the norm, not the exception.

Just as beautiful as a young boy athlete or a choral ode on stage were the ethical philosophies and law-codes of the ancient Greeks. Fundamental to both was the concept of harmony, of submission to a natural and transcendent world-order. The criminal is one who puts himself outside of this order, who is intemperate, unable to control his desires, thinks only of himself and never of how his actions will impact his neighbors or the larger community. Lust, avarice, wrath – these are all emotions which disturb the tranquil calm of the spirit and disfigure the body. One sees how truly aberrant these are when depicted by art – grotesque and tormented figures in stark contrast to the normal conventions of Greek art which are serene and elegant, the quintessence of beauty.

So, when a stranger asks, what benefit is there in adopting Hellenismos, what is the essence of your religion? answer him Beauty, and know that it is the sublimest of faiths, worthy of the greatest respect, infusing and ennobling all aspects of life, and that without this sense of the beautiful, existence becomes a travesty worthy of the greatest contempt.

 

For the last week or so I’ve been listening to a lot of the Kinks’ back catalog. I knew them mostly from their handful of hits and influence on contemporary and subsequent groups (including, apparently, The Doors.) They were one of those bands I wouldn’t turn off if they came on the radio, but also wouldn’t ever seek out on my own. (With the exception of “Lola” which is just a great song all around.)

Damn, I’ve been missing out. 

Appropriately enough it was their song “Death of a Clown” that kicked off this obsessive streak. 

Do you have a favorite? 

I was actually reminded of this old post during my recent tiff with the folks behind the Xenia Declaration. (Who still count a man accused of sexually assaulting one of his thiasos-mates as a signatory. Guess they’re too busy hunting crypto-Nazis to bother policing their own.) But I digress …

A couple years ago I remember a bunch of people posting those slick KONY2012 graphics and heart-wrenching Invisible Childrens videos to stop the evil dictator Joseph Kony. I don’t use “evil” lightly but in his case it totally applies. Genocide. Torture. Rape. Forcible conscription of child soldiers. Trying to impose a theocracy based on the 10 Commandments. I didn’t need Oprah, George Clooney, Taylor Swift and Ryan Seacrest to tell me this dude was bad news, but apparently a lot of other folks did because after it started trending on Twitter and Facebook that shit was everywhere. They organized a couple rallies in Eugene and someone even put a sticker up near the train tracks I crossed every night on my way into work.

But here’s the thing; even though Kony lead the Lord’s Resistance Army and was trying to turn Uganda into a Christian fundamentalist state he’s a spirit-medium guided by the ghost of a WWI Italian soldier:

Even the most respectable experts give credence to Kony’s ‘mystical’ status, the New York Times describing him, in all seriousness, as ‘a former altar boy who became possessed by spirits’. The spirit apparently responsible for Kony’s survival is called Lakwena, the ghost of a First World War Italian army medic. Kony claims Lakwena has helped him avoid Ugandan army attacks since the spirit first possessed him in the 1980s.

And he uses toys and reptiles to plan his military campaigns:

It has been reported that Mr. Kony keeps an ample stock of snakes, turtles, and lizards, for just such mediumistic purposes. Not having the benefit of being tutored at a military academy, Mr. Kony deduces a battle’s outcome by setting toy guns, and helicopters on fire to see how the models will burn; thereby foretelling victory or defeat in an upcoming battle. LRA casualties are simply predicted by placing a finger in a glass of water. And if Joseph Kony’s spirit panel isn’t giving him good military advice, the LRA leader can always count on “angels” for divine guidance on campaign strategy. The LRA’s child soldiers are told that commands come from these angels, who commune regularly with Mr. Kony. It must have been one of these heavenly messengers who provided Mr. Kony with the holy advice to expand the Ten Commandments to Eleven Commandments–the Eleventh Commandment being “Thou shall not ride a bicycle.”

And apparently it works. He was indicted for crimes against humanity by the Hague in 2005 and yet remains at large. Obama sent peacekeeping forces into the region in 2011 and again in 2014 and they weren’t able to catch him either. Even more telling, the global slacktivist campaign against Kony came to an abrupt end when Jason Russell was filmed rampaging through the streets of San Diego naked, pounding the pavement, screaming obscenities and claiming to be under attack from a devil.

“I sing of Hermes, the Slayer of Argos,
Lord of Kyllene and Arcadia rich in flocks,
Luck-bringing messenger of the deathless Gods,
giver of grace, guide, and granter of happy boons!”

Such is how the eighteenth Homeric Hymn praises Hermes, and as many can attest from personal experience it is a very apt description. Of all the Gods, Hermes is perhaps the closest to mankind. He is constantly depicted as putting on a human guise and walking among us, working his strange magic and causing the unexpected to occur. He is a God of the crossroads, where two points meet and the road diverges into unfamiliar territory. Chance, coincidence, synchronicity, luck, an accident so full of meaning it ceases to be arbitrary. We have many ways to describe the Hermetic presence in our lives, and it can be felt in an equally abundant variety of manifestations. For Hermes has taken upon himself many offices: his realms include everything having to do with money and finances, with commerce and exchange, with thievery and clever ideas, with communication and logic (both expressed as clear thinking and cunning deceit), with travel and exploration, with social bonds and their transgression, and ultimately everything that has to do with the human world and what lies beyond it.

Hermes is fond of surprising us. When we’re agonizing over which bill will have to go unpaid this month, he drops a windfall into our laps. When we’re feeling that our life has lost its moorings and we’re drifting aimlessly along he’ll cause our eyes to flash upon a billboard with a message that seems to have been written just for us. Sometimes Hermes’ change can be drastic and frightening: a long-time relationship suddenly crumbles or the job that we were sure we were going to get falls through. At such times it is easy to get discouraged and even to become angry at our lot in life – but if we don’t lose heart and continue pressing on, often we will find that this happened for a reason: another person, better able to meet our needs steps into the fore; that job we thought looked so promising is actually a dead-end that would have sapped our spirit and left us feeling trapped and bitter. Hermes is an amazing God, and the more you look for his presence in your life, the more it will be found.

But sometimes that can prove difficult. It is easy to get caught up in things and lose our focus, especially when our lives are so hectic and fast-paced and we have to juggle a dozen things at any given moment. While Hermes’ presence can be announced with colorful fireworks and life-altering events, more often than not he acts in subtle, easily missed ways behind the scenes. Just as anyone who works so hard to make our lives better and run smoother (when he’s not throwing a monkey-wrench into things for his own amusement that is) appreciates when we take note of their benefactions, Hermes likes it when we honor him in a spirit of gratitude.

This can take a number of different forms. Obviously there is the lavish sacrifice and votive gifts which form such an important part of Hellenic polytheist religious practice. Additionally there are small devotional activities that we can perform for him, such as writing poetry or making crafts to please him, or showing kindness to random strangers on the street or donating time and money to worthy charities in his honor. And there is always the solid stand-by of prayers and even spontaneous expressions of gratitude such as, “Wow, thanks for ____” or even “Holy shit, Hermes, that rocked!” whenever we note his activity. All of these are fine examples, and I would most heartily commend their adoption. But lately I’ve been thinking of another way that I could express my gratitude to the God, one that is more permanent and concrete, and I would like to share that with you today. 

In ancient times people used to set up hermai by the wayside to mark important boundaries. These were piles of stones, sometimes with a pillar erected in the middle, which had been built up over the years, each traveler setting a rock on the pile as he passed by. Scholars speculate that Hermes acquired his name from this practice, being originally the guardian of such numinous places.

Reflecting on this practice, I figured it might be a wonderful way to show our continual gratitude to the God. The practice, as I envision it, consists of this:

Every time that you feel thankful to Hermes for something, pick up a rock or pebble. Using a permanent marker – a magic marker would indeed be appropriate, considering that Hermes is the patron of the magical arts – inscribe it with some type of dedication. Depending on the size of your stone this could be a date, or a single word to remind you of the event, or even a small paragraph describing what happened. Afterwards place the stone in a bowl which you can keep in a special place such as his shrine, and every time that you pass by you will have a tangible reminder of that event. Once your bowl is full, take the pile of stones outside – in your yard, or to a park, or an abandoned city lot, or some wooded location, or at a crossroads or the roadside of a highway – and set them up in a mound as a herm of gratitude. Thus you will have erected a monument to the God and consecrated territory for him, and left a physical representation of your gratitude. And who knows, depending on where you set it up somebody at a later date may stumble upon it, perhaps leading them to seek out more information about this God, and who knows, they may even end up cultivating a relationship with him just because of your example. It will also be a continual act of devotion that can help ground you and remind you of his presence and his many blessings in your life.

Originally published in He Epistole, Neokoroi’s quarterly newsletter.

We live in a society that has lost its sense of the holy, and even when people reject the radical materialism and atheism that are the dominant philosophical premises of our culture, they often do not know how to go about establishing a strong and lasting relationship with the divinities. In antiquity there would have been people trained in these arts, who could act as intermediaries between the world of the divine and our own: priests and shamans and oracular agents who could teach the individual the ways of holy communication and show them how to recognize the mysterious presence of the Gods in their lives. Today people are left to their own devices and have to figure all of this out for themselves. While there are some positives to this – it ensures total freedom for the individual, since no dogma or priestly authority can stand in the way of their relationship with the divine; it makes the spiritual life one of exploration and growth – it can prove exceedingly difficult to get anywhere when one doesn’t even know where to begin.

As someone who has been walking this path for a little while – though in many respects I am still a novice – I would like to share some of my thoughts and experiences in the hope that it might give such people an idea of how to begin communicating with the Gods and listening for their wisdom and guidance.

The most important step as far as I’m concerned is to begin cultivating a state of open awareness. Divinity surrounds us in a multitude of forms, and it is constantly speaking to us, though we don’t always have the ability to hear what the Gods are saying at the time. Remember the words of Thales of Miletos – there are Gods in all things. In the sky above us and the earth below; in trees and rivers and rocks and flowers and all the animals that inhabit the world. Nor are these numinous presences limited to the things we traditionally associate with nature: there are spirits of concrete and glass, of fiberoptics and electricity, of shining skyscrapers and darkened alleyways. Each of them possesses a distinct personality and can act in the world, though some are harder to reach than others, and some may possess only a limited ability to influence the things around them.

As you go about your daily life, try to be aware of your surroundings. Too often we go through life with tunnel-vision. Our minds are occupied with other things. Our bodies are carried along as if by its own volition. We see our fellow commuters as a mass of indeterminate shapes on our periphery, and most of the time we can’t even tell if the sun is shining or if its grey and drizzily out.

Stop. Be aware. Notice all the things that are going on around you: the blades of grass breaking through the concrete, the warmth of the sun on your bare arm, the smell of pine in the air, the fleeting conversations carried to you on a breeze. Remember that all of this is alive and that the material world is the playground of the Gods, wherein their forms and revelations are made manifest. Keep an eye out for things that are abnormal: leaves rustling when there’s no wind; shadowy shapes in the corner of your eye; dancing light on the surface of a pool. Seek out places where you feel this numinous presence strongly: parks and abandoned buildings, rivers and crowded markets. Spend time there, just soaking up your surroundings, taking in all of the sensations that come to you, and looking out for the spirits of the place. Do little acts to cultivate a relationship with these beings. Care for their land by picking up trash or removing graffitti. Leave small offerings such as flowers, food, drink libations, pretty stones and feathers, or shiney trinkets. Do something creative while you’re there, such as sketching or painting, writing poetry or journaling, or even just read, especially if you do so out loud for their enjoyment.

When you have developed this state of open awareness, you should begin looking for oracular signs, kledones as the Greeks called them. This is one of the strongest and most constant ways that the Gods communicate with us. We see these things all the time, but either we’re not fully aware of them, or we dismiss them as chance and coincidence. But that’s precisely why they are so powerful. A coincidence is something outside of our control. Since we know that it cannot possibly originate with us, it becomes increasingly likely that the source for it is the Gods themselves. Now of course, not every random thing that happens need have a God behind it. And we should also be careful lest we put too much into it. Sometimes our desire to see something clouds our perception, or can inflate our egos and lead us to a disasterous outcome. (Just because you see the face of Christ appear in your breakfast burrito does not mean that you are the Chosen One.) So use your discretion when it comes to this sort of thing.

But what type of kledones are there? Well, sometimes you’ll be mulling over a problem in your head, cross a street, and find the solution spelled out in a storefront poster. Or you’ll overhear a snatch of conversation that, taken out of context, sounds as if the person is speaking directly to you. Or maybe you’ll have been feeling distant from a God only to have the various images associated with him pop up throughout the day, or you open the book you’ve been reading and see his name, even though he has nothing to do with the plot, or you’ll turn on the radio and all of a sudden a song you’ve always associated with him starts playing. These, and countless things like them, are what I consider to be kledones, little messages from the Gods imbedded in the fabric of our lives, sometimes profound ones, sometimes nothing more than a casual “Hey there!”

One thing that has proven very helpful in establishing communication with the Gods is meditation and visualization. To get started with this you should first find yourself a quiet space where you won’t be disturbed for a while. Preferably this should be a darkened area lit only by a candle, but if that’s not possible, any area will do. To help set the mood you may choose to light incense and play music, but this music should be of a sort that is condusive to meditative states. Try to avoid music that has singing, as this can interrupt your mindfulness, although singing in a foreign language you don’t understand, especially if it is long, droning and sonorous in form, can actually help you enter an altered state. Sit comfortably on the ground, in a relaxed but upright posture. If you are familiar with Yoga asanas you may adopt these, but it’s certainly not necessary, especially if you are just starting out. Close your eyes and relax your breathing. Let your mind empty gradually. Don’t try to force it, as the purpose isn’t to enter a Zen “no-mind” kind of state, but one of open receptivity. Slowly feel yourself entering the presence of the God. You may choose to visualize yourself coming into a moonlit forest clearing or the adyton of an ancient temple or wherever you envision the God most clearly. Begin to fill your mind with images associated with him, whatever it may be that brings to mind the God for you. If you are trying to commune with a particular aspect of the God, choose the associations most apropriate to that epiphany. As a way to help with the mindfulness you can chant his names and epithets. This practice is especially helpful in the early stages with driving out errant thoughts and centering you. You may choose to envision yourself performing some act associated with the God. In the case of Dionysos, that might be dancing with the throng of Maenads and Satyrs, participating in a hunt, offering sacrifices to the God at his temple, approaching and communicating with the God, acting out certain of his myths, or anything else that would be appropriate for the setting. Try not to force anything too much, but go with the flow.

Once you have set the stage let your visionary faculties take over and see where they lead you. That part of our soul which psychoanalysts call the Unconscious and which the ancient Neoplatonists termed the daimonion is in direct communication with the divine, but our conscious minds act as a barrier between that world and this. Visualization and meditation – as well as all forms of ritual – help soften the barrier and allow us more direct forms of communication with the divine, be they through visions (images pregnant with meaning), journeys (to other worlds or parts of this world normally inaccessible to us), messages (verbal and other forms of communication) and even prognostications of future events.

Don’t be worried if this sort of thing doesn’t work well for you at first. Some people simply lack the ability to sit quietly for a prolonged period, or find themselves extremely blocked so that it takes years of practice before they can get even the simplest form of communication. And some others never get any kind of results from this practice, which is perfectly fine. Not everything is meant to work for everyone. However, I think that there are certain benefits to this practice for everyone, even if it’s just a way of centering their minds and focusing themselves for something else. This is a practice which can be performed anywhere (I often do it on the bus on my way into work in the mornings) and either on its own, or as part of another practice, such as a regular worship ritual or in preparation for divination. Afterwards, you should record any significant experiences you had during the session, especially if you receive any kind of important communication. However, while you’re meditating be fully there, and don’t constantly be focused on remembering or recording what’s going on: this is a sure way to cheat yourself of important experiences.

Another way that the Gods can communicate with us is through dreams. Many Gods in antiquity had dream oracles where people would come to sleep in the temple in order to receive a visitation from the divinity in their dreams. Dreaming is a time when our conscious minds are entirely subsumed within the unconscious, and leads us into a world ripe with symbols and populated by imaginary structures. You can study techniques such as lucid dreaming or deep meditation to help you navigate this realm better, or you can perform rituals before going to bed to acquire dream oracles. There is extensive literature on this topic relating to the incubation practices connected with the cults of Asklepios, Trophonios, and Serapis in antiquity, as well as whole procedures in the Greek Magical Papyri.

But some of the most intense dream-communications I’ve ever received occurred spontaneously – and in fact it was this latter sort which originally led me to explore Dionysos, since he had been appearing to me in a series of dreams and visions before I even properly knew who he was. You should keep a notebook by your bed to record any significant dreams you have, especially because dreams are fleeting things that are often difficult to remember in their entirety once we are fully awake and under the grip of our conscious mind.

A word of caution, however, is in order regarding both dreams and visualization. Yes, they can be powerful things, and the Gods can communicate directly to us through them – but not every dream or vision we have is necessarily true or meaningful. Sometimes we don’t remember them perfectly, or the kernel of truth is enshrouded in falsehood which we must strip off, or far more commonly, it’s just our brain’s way of processing information, working through the random images in our subconscious so that we don’t go insane. There are people who treat every dream they have as if it possessed monumental importance and was always the result of a divinity communicating with them. Not only is this highly unlikely – while the Gods are concerned with us, it’s arrogant to presume that we are their only concern and that they have nothing better to do with their time than to sit there and whisper things into our sleeping ears – it’s also absurd when you consider the nature of our dreams, and how random, pointless, and mundane most of them are. One should also be on the lookout for arrogance and egotism: just because you have a dream and it’s personally meaningful for you, it doesn’t necessarily follow that that dream is a communication intended for the whole rest of the world. One need only stroll through an insane asylum to see how common these messianic delusions are, and how little comes from them in the end.

A good check on the validity of dreams, and also another way to communicate with the Gods (though this is also prone to the above pitfalls) is divination. A standard element in almost all ancient Greek rituals was divination, usually by interpreting the entrails of the sacrificial victim, and so this should play a part in any properly reconstructed ritual. In addition to that it’s the best way to open up communication with the God, going to him directly when we have any question that we cannot answer on our own.

The most popular methods of divination today would probably be those which have been imported into Hellenismos from outside sources, such as Tarot, I Ching, and the Runes. Even when Hellenists are familiar with more authentic Greek methods and are proficient in their use, they often continue to employ these foreign tools, and I don’t see anything wrong with that. There is nothing inimical in those systems to Hellenismos, and their universal symbols can easily be adapted to ours, and what’s more, they clearly work, and have a long history behind them, and often people will come to Hellenismos with years of personal practice with these methods behind them. Why should they turn their backs on that just to maintain a superficial purity of practice?

That said, however, there are plenty of methods that are native to Greece, and these are powerful and effective in their own right, and learning them can be a profound act of devotion to one’s God.

Some of these methods include:

• Homeric Oracle
• Olympian (Limyran) Oracle
• Libanomancy
• Oinomancy

But of course the best and in my mind one of the most essential aspects to a strong relationship with a God is actual, formal worship.

This is the routine I follow for my rituals:

– Purification: First I make sure that the altar is arranged properly, and clean off any incense ash, previous offerings, or dust that may have accumulated since last time. Then I wash my hands in a bowl of lustral water, or khernips (You create this holy water by consecrating it with fire i.e. dipping a burning branch into it or by mixing it with sea salt and reciting a blessing over it.)

– Pompe: Once everything is set up, I take a few steps away, and then approach the altar with slow, steady steps, mindful of entering the presence of the deity.

– Fumugation: When I light incense, it’s either a specific mixture for a God, like I’ve detailed in the Compendium of the Gods, or something general such as frankincense, myrrh, patchouli, or nag champa.

– Hymnodia: When I recite a hymn to the Gods, I generally use those of Homer or Orpheus – though Archiloukos, Pindar and Sappho have some good material too – or else I use something I’ve composed myself. While I read, I think about the God I’m honoring and will often spend a couple moments meditating on them afterwards. Alternately, you may choose to read a story about one of the God’s myths at this time.

– Thusia: For the sacrifice itself, I place my offering in a bowl in front of the God’s image, or on the altar, usually after holding it aloft for a couple moments. The sacrifice may consist of a small portion of food, grain, flowers, a picture, oil, more incense, candles, stones, feathers or other natural objects, and so forth.

– Prayer: I take a few moments here to address the God or Goddess. This is usually in the formal Hellenic prayer structure (a list the deity’s epithets and cult centers, mention of past assistance, etc.) – but if I’m addressing Dionysos or Hermes or a God with whom I have a more familiar relationship, I may speak to them in a companionable tone, even at times as I would a close friend. If I have need of anything, now is when I make my request. Otherwise I just speak to them or meditate on their nature. A new practice that I’ve developed is writing out prayers, verses, thoughts, whatever’s on my mind, etc., on scraps of paper which I keep near my altar, and then I place them in a bowl. This act helps focus me, gives me a tangible sign of the encounter, and allows me to keep track of what I’ve been talking to the Gods about. I usually keep the bowl for about a month, and then I burn all of the scraps of paper in a cleansing ritual.

– Libation: I either sprinkle a few drops of wine on the altar, or pour the Gods a glass. In addition to wine, I may use water, oil, milk, honey, or another alcoholic beverage. (I have it on good authority that Athena likes warm saki – although I have yet to ask her myself.)

When that’s done, I either remain in front of the altar after meditating or I process away, comforted after having spent a few moments of my busy day with the bestowers and sustainers of life’s blessings.

All of these methods, taken in conjunction, cannot help but establish a strong level of communication between yourself and the Gods. The important thing to remember is: be aware of the world around you and make time for the Gods in your busy life.

A companion to this piece. 

The thing that brings people to Hellenismos is usually the Gods. Sure, there’s the occasional person who comes to the religion through a fascination with ancient Greek history and culture, or because of their great admiration for her literature (and who doesn’t feel their soul stir upon reading the opening lines of the Iliad) but I rather suspect that these individuals are in the minority. For most it is the Gods who lead us here – and who keep us around long after we find out what an opinionated, argumentative, and cantankerous bunch Hellenists can be.

And while there are those people who are drawn equally to the whole pantheon, and to the Gods precisely as a pantheon, again, I don’t think this is terribly common. Most people when they describe what brought them to Hellenismos will cite a strong attraction to a particular deity, or perhaps to a small group of them. While this attraction may change over time, blossoming to include other Gods or passing from one deity to another, for many this attraction holds a singular power in their life. They may feel especially devoted to this divinity who inspires their greatest aspirations and most praiseworthy efforts, and they often feel that in some respects the divinity reciprocates by showing interest in their development and a certain measure of protectiveness for them. This type of relationship is usually called patronage, which borrows as its model the client system of ancient Rome, and has precedent in the relationships between Odysseus and Athene (Iliad 2.279), Aristeas and Apollon (Herodotos 4.20), Marcus Antonius and Dionysos (Plutarch’s Life of Antony), and perhaps most famous of all, Socrates and his daimonion (Plato’s Apology). 

Plato has voiced what many in a patron relationship intuitively felt – namely that every human soul is under the control and guidance of a particular divinity: “The Demiurge divided the whole mixture into souls equal in number to the stars, and assigned each soul to a star … and when he had sown them, he committed to the younger Gods the fashioning of their mortal bodies.” (Timaeus 41-2) And in the Phaedrus he adds, “He who follows in the train of any God honours him, and imitates him as far as he is able; and this is his way of life and the manner of his behaviour. Everyone chooses the object of his affections according to his character.” (252c)

This is, clearly, a very important relationship. Even if one’s patron is not directly responsible for the creation of their soul and body, our proximity to the divinity will certainly have an effect on our life. This may be on the subtlest of levels, for instance by influencing our thoughts, whether that be simply by making us think about something in a totally different light or by exerting a kind of gravitational force which constantly draws us back to a particular network of associations, images, and concepts. And yet, even this seemingly simple thing can have a profound effect on our lives, for our thoughts, to a large extent, shape who we are and how we react to the world around us. If we are aligned to a particular world-view, which is under the domain of a single deity and which exists in counter-distinction to other divinities, we are going to make different decisions than if we were aligned to the world-view of someone else. For instance, the Dionysian world-view is one of freedom, and abundance, and the transgression of boundaries resulting in an orgiastic loss of distinctions. How different that is from the law and order and rational remoteness of Athene’s world-view. (Of course it is important to remember that the Gods are not simply ideas or archetypes, but distinct beings, and further, as true divinities they represent a totality which embraces both a particular point as well as it’s polar opposite: thus, healing Gods also bring plague, rationality contains an element of ecstacy, and there is a speck of light at the center of even the vastest darkness.)

I can personally attest that having this world-view, this cluster of ideas in the back of my head, has caused me to make decisions I might not have otherwise. Dionysos is always there inspiring me to boldly take life by the throat, to experience things to their fullest, to be aware of the sensual beauty which surrounds me, and to root out within myself whatever threatens to hold me back or diminish my experiences of the world. He is the enemy of fear, of stasis, of empty formality. I have had to make hard choices, to give up things I thought important to me because in the end they were really strangling me and keeping me enslaved, and he is constantly urging me to open myself up to a deeper awareness and acceptance of frightening and challenging ideas. The bios Dionusou or Dionysian life is an unfolding process, and one that I am constantly striving to live. Thus, I am who I am today largely because of my devotion to this God. I suspect a follower of Demeter or Apollon or Poseidon feels exactly the same way about their God and the impact that that deity has had in their life.

And that’s really the point that I want to make. No matter how great a God is, no matter how fully they may fulfill the desires of the individual devotee – no God in a polytheistic system exhausts the totality of existence, nor claims the whole of the world as theirs alone, nor monopolizes the ways of being and worship. All of the Gods exist in relationship to each other. This may be through diametrical opposition or through a certain affinity or even a similarity of essence. They are friends, enemies, lovers, relatives, and more – a plurality of beings relating to each other and creation in every conceivable manner, their relationships forming a wonderful, complex tapestry which animates the cosmos and our lives within it. This is the fundamental, beautiful truth of polytheism – and unfortunately, there are times when the patron relationship can endanger that.

Because of my close identification with Dionysos and his world-view other relationships have been closed off to me. I have almost nothing to do with Athene, Apollon, and Artemis. Sometimes this is a result of the decisions I have made in life, sometimes it’s because there is a spiritual repulsion that takes effect like when you place two magnets together and they push away from each other, and much more commonly I am simply so preoccupied with Dionysos, so conditioned to find his presence in the world, that I either don’t think to look for the others or miss them entirely when they are present. I don’t think that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it is certainly limiting. There is so much out there that it would be a real shame if I never had the opportunity to see and experience it. Sometimes this intense focus can actually be harmful, in the way that if you only eat one food, no matter how tasty it may be, you are depriving yourself of complex nutrients that you can get only through a diverse and well-balanced diet. Each of the Gods have certain blessings to bestow on us, lessons to teach us, experiences to share with us. If we are locked into only one pattern there’s going to come a time when that pattern leads us into conflict and pain. Dionysian exuberance and abundance can easily become addiction and fatal excess. Just look at Jim Morrison or Baudelaire if you have any doubt. These men led life to its fullest – and burnt out in a very short span of time. That may make for a Romantic ideal – it’s better to be consumed by fire than to fade away – but realistically, they couldn’t sustain that level of intensity, and their art, especially in the case of Morrison, suffered for it. In the beginning, his work was brilliant and prophetic – towards the end, sad, self-obsessed, and pathetic. Imagine if he had acquired some Apollonian restraint and discipline, if he had learned to temper his spirit just a bit, to curb his addictions, to find real freedom instead of nihilistic renunciation. His craft could have gone on for years, allowed to grow and mature and reach its full potential. Perhaps he could have changed the world with his words – instead he ended up a miserable, bloated drunk choking to death on his own vomit in a bath-tub in Paris.

My relationship with Dionysos is unquestionably the most important in my life – the one constant in a world of Protean transformation. No other God can hold a candle to that, come close to the affections I have for him. And yet, sometimes those secondary and tertiary relationships have radically altered the course of my life. They have opened me up to new experiences and taught me lessons Dionysos either couldn’t or felt needed to be done by someone else in order to bring the point home more forcefully. Sometimes those relationships have lasted for a long time. Hermes, for instance, has been present in my life for a number of years. He has refined my writing, encouraged me to undertake strange journeys, revealed things about certain parts of my personality that didn’t fit into the Dionysian mould, and nudged me to take on a more magical practice. He has also been a doorway through which I was able to make contact with other Gods. As a consequence, I consider him to be a second patron, only slightly below Dionysos in my own personal divine hierarchy. But there are other Gods who have come into my life for only very brief periods, whose presence has focused on one particular area or idea, and once that issue has been resolved, have passed back out of my life. Horus came in seemingly only to inaugurate an interest in Egyptian religion. After about a week or two of intense epiphanies I’ve had very little to do with him since. Zeus came to teach me about power and its responsibility. Aphrodite to lend beauty and refinement to my life. Sobek to protect me during a difficult transition. Hekate made it possible for me to attend Pantheacon in 2007. If I had turned my back on them, refused to have anything to do with them because Dionysos is my all and everything – think how much smaller my life would be as a result of that.

I’ve also noticed, unfortunately, that some people feel inadequate spiritually because they do not have a strong attachment to a single God. They feel like they aren’t good enough, that they’re doing something wrong, that maybe this isn’t the religion for them since everyone else has a patron and they don’t. This is nonsense. The patron relationship is not the de facto form in Greek religion. It is a unique experience, one that has special benefits but also comes with heavy duty responsibilities, and which is not the norm, now or back in antiquity. In ancient times the average person tended to pray to a wide variety of Gods. At different times in their lives different Gods would have had different levels of importance to them. Artemis was said to watch over young girls, but once they reached maturity and marriage she became remote until they were pregnant and gave birth. Hestia or Demeter would likely have held more sway over them while they were concerned with the domestic sphere. If they were sailing, they may have made offerings to Poseidon, a God they otherwise would have had no contact with unless they lived on the coast. Others would have been prominent only at festival time or if they entered a particular career, and so forth. Taken as a totality over time, this created a possibility for an abundance of minor relationships – which is by far the norm, both today and in antiquity, however common the patron relationship may be. So people shouldn’t be worried if they don’t have a patron – maybe they just haven’t found one yet but the God is still out there waiting for them, or maybe they don’t have one, and instead are meant to cultivate a number of these lesser relationships. There is no one right way – the religious life of each person is as unique and individual as a snow-flake to make use of that insipid metaphor. Instead of trying to conform to the pattern of someone else, they should be seeking what works the best for them. That may involve recognizing the existence of a patron relationship – or moving beyond the concept altogether.