Dionysian-light - Dionysian~Light

Pompeii / “Villa of the Mysteries" / panel of the Dionysiac frieze depicts a seated woman, possibly the initiate. A cupid holds a mirror in which her reflection is visible / photo Pasquale Sorrentino [***]

Fear

I’m always amused and a little bit taken aback when other Hellenes tell me they’re afraid of Dionysos, to the extent that they won’t (or don’t, as a general rule) call on him.  Everyone I meet seems to fall into one of two camps: they work closely, or have worked closely, with him, and are thus perfectly okay with him and what he stands for, or they’ve never encountered him before, have only heard stories, and are terrified of him.  (There are, of course, a few notable exceptions to this.)

I even received a message the other day from someone who said they were disassociating with me (unfriended me on facebook) because of my “connections to a deeply disturbing god.”

What?

I do understand, I think, the initial fear of him.  He’s a wild god, and there’s I think a lot of confusion between him and Pan (who *I* don’t work with).  He’s a bringer of madness, his maenads engaged in everything that was “taboo” in society, and he will.  Push.  Your.  Boundaries.  My own personal experience aside, though, I still can’t quite grasp the refusal to associate with those who honor him, or the steadfast refusal to acknowledge him as a god.

Really, if you read the stories, the worst things happened to people who REFUSED to acknowledge him.  Yeah, some crappy things happened to his followers, too, but they were always, in the end, rewarded—unlike those who refused him worship or refused his godhood altogether, who were royally screwed.

So it amuses me when I encounter that mindset.  It also amuses me when I encounter people (like the aforementioned person) who assume that because I honor him above others, that I must be mad, perverted, wild and chaotic.  Anyone who knows me knows that I try my best to be pretty level headed, and Dionysos helped me OUT of madness, rather than leading me to it.

If I leave my grin behind, remind me that we’re all mad here and it’s okay. Sun up, sun down the shadows hide me down in Wonderland, Wonderland, nobody knows the way, but if you find it in your dreams, you can find it at your dayjob somewhere south of Hell Take the path to left or right with just your gut to guide you the story is not for anyone else to tell. Go down the rabbit hole and out the other side you can’t go home in the middle of the magic carpet ride you gotta greet the sun before his lovely daughter moon you can’t forsake the journey for the safety of your room until you learn your lesson well.

—S.J. Tucker, "Cheshire Kitten (We’re all mad here)"

A three-day festival held in all the Ionian Greek cities, in the spring. Because Athenians liked to write things down on random items like pottery, we know the most about how Athens celebrated...

Folklore has given us much evidence for believing that the pleasure man takes in the fruits and flowers of the earth, the enjoyment he has in her intoxicating liquids – in fact, that gaiety, in general, can be linked with those moments when man salutes his dead…

Walter F. Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult (P. 116)

I adore that book so much

(via hierophage)