Aitia: Myths to contemplate while performing a Starry Bull sacrament
A mneumonic exercise to help you get more out of the sacrament. As you go through each step pause for a moment and reflect on the story given here and how that relates to what you’re doing. This will wrap your actions in added layers of sacred meaning.
Supply list:
Agalma
Anointing oil
Ash
Bay leaves
Beeswax candles
Cakes or bread
Cauldron
Chernips bowl
Drinking horn
Eggs (3)
Flowers or ivy
Fruits (grapes, apples, pomegranates and figs)
Hand drum
Honeycomb
Leafy branch
Mead
Incense
Incense burner
Linen veil
Milk
Offering bowls (4)
Plates (2)
Pomegranate juice
Rattle
Red cloth, white cloth, black cloth
Red ribbon, white ribbon, black ribbon
Water
Water for chernips
Wicker basket
Wine
Keep all of your ritual tools in a kiste (wicker basket) when not in use.
Mystis also nursed the god after her mistress’s breast, watching by the side of Lyaios with sleepless eyes. The clever handmaid taught him the art that bears her name, the mystic rites of Dionysos in the night. She prepared the unsleeping worship for Lyaios, she first shook the rattle, and clanged the swinging cymbals with the resounding double bronze; she first kindled the nightdancing torch to a flame, and cried Euion to sleepless Dionysos; she first plucked the curving growth of ivy-clusters, and tied her flowing hair with a wreath of vine; she alone entwined the thyrsos with purple ivy, and wedged on the top of the clusters an iron spike, covered with leaves that it might not scratch Bakchos. She thought of fitting plates of bronze over the naked breast, and fawnskins over the hips. She taught Dionysos to play with the mystical casket teeming with sacred things of worship, and to use them as his childish toys. She first fastened about her body a belt of braided vipers, where a serpent coiling round the belt on both sides with encircling bonds was twisted into a snaky knot. (Nonnos, Dionysiaka 9.111-131)
Fill a bowl with water and plunge a burning branch into it to create chernips.
The Naxians tell a story about this god, that he was raised among them, and on account of this the island was especially beloved by him, and some people called it Dionysias. For according to received myth, Zeus, at the time when Semele was struck by a thunderbolt before giving birth, took the child and sewed it up into his thigh, and when the full term for birth arrived, wishing to escape Hera’s notice he extracted the baby on what is now Naxos and gave him to the local nymphs, Philia, Koronis, and Kleide, to raise. He struck Semele with lightning before she gave birth in order that, being born not from a mortal but from two immortals, he would automatically be immortal from birth. (Diodoros Sikeliotes, Bibliotheka 5.52.5-6)
Wash your hands, forearms and face.
However there is a unique use of the word aponimma [‘dirty water’] among the Athenians, where it is applied to the ritual actions in honor of the dead, or to the purification of those who are enageis, as Kleidemos says in the work called the Exegetikon. For, having made remarks ‘on sacrifices for the dead’, he writes as follows, “Dig a trench on the west side of the grave. Next, standing right next to the trench, look toward the west. Pour water down, saying the following, ‘For you the water of purification, to whom it is necessary and for whom it is right.’ Then immediately pour down the scent.” Dorotheus also cites this, alleging that such things are written down in the ancestral laws of the Eupatridai, concerning the purification of suppliants, “Next, after you yourself and the other persons taking part in the sacrificial ritual have received the water of purification, take water and purify; clean off the blood-guilt of the one being purified, and after that, having shaken off the water of purification, pour it into the same place.” (Athenaios, Deipnosophistai 9.78)
Apply sacred ash to your forehead and cheeks.
The Titans cunningly smeared their round faces with disguising chalk (titanos), and while he contemplated his changeling countenance reflected in a mirror they crept upon him clutching an infernal knife. [Dionysos transforms into various animals] or again like a bull emitting a terrifying roar from his mouth he butted the Titans with sharp horn. And the gates of Olympos rattled in echo and finally the bold bull collapsed: the murderers each eager for his turn with the knife chopt piecemeal the bull-shaped Dionysos. (Nonnos, Dionysiaka 6.155 ff)
Go around the ritual area using a leafy branch to sprinkle it thoroughly with chernips.
They say that with no other wood is the creature (i.e., the serpent) killed except with the vine. Nikandros says in his Ophiaka that Dionysos, made frantic by Hera, fell asleep, and the serpent constrained his limbs, but he rose up, struck it with a branch and killed it; whence both of old and now it is said it was brought to an end with a branch. (Scholia ad Nicandri Theriaca 377)
Then go back over everything using a tympanon (hand-drum) to drive off any remaining impurities.
While his friends were in good health Pythagoras always conversed with them; if they were sick, he nursed them; if they were afflicted in mind, he solaced them, some by incantations and magic charms, others by music. He had prepared songs for the diseases of the body, by singing which he cured the sick. He had also some that caused forgetfulness of sorrow, mitigation of anger, and destruction of lust. (Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras 33)
Lay the three cloths down in the order of red, white, then black and put the cauldron in the center.
Boiling in a bronze cauldron plants whose power she knew, obtained from diverse regions, she cooked the slain Aeson with warm herbs and restored him to his original vigor. When Father Liber noticed that Aeson’s old age had been expelled by Medea’s medicines, he entreated Medea to change his nurses back to the vigor of youth. Agreeing to his request, she established a pledge of eternal benefit with him by restoring his nurses to the vigor of youth by giving them same medicines that rejuvenated Aeson. (The Second Vatican Mythographer 137-38)
To either side of the cauldron place beeswax candles and in front of each of them set a plate and two offering bowls. Before the cauldron put the rhyton (drinking horn) and the thymiaterion (incense-burner.)
When Achelous fought with Hercules to win Dejanira in marriage, he changed himself into a bull. Hercules tore off his horn, presenting it to the Hesperides or the Nymphae, and the goddesses filled it with fruits and called it Horn of Plenty (cornucopia). (Hyginus, Fabulae 31)
Take out the agalma (which may be a pillar, a stone, a piece of wood, a phallos or large pinecone) and remove its linen veil. Place it in the cauldron, anointing it with sacred oil.
…the Prodorpia is given at the Dionysia: two stones…libations: double propitiary offerings; two stones wreathed with fillets of wool; wood. On the twelfth: at the house (?) of the Basileus the following is to be given to Dionysos: a lamp, barley, wheat groats, a pure cheese, honey, wood, flock of wool, libation: propitiary offerings, garlic, and (?); on the thirteenth: to Hera Anthea the following is to be given: a pregnant white sheep, having mounted (to the altar) in white, a chous to the priestess, and wood… (LSAM 41)
Sit facing the agalma with your eyes closed for the span of nine breaths, quieting your mind and preparing yourself. Contemplate the symbola.
People are wrong to think that Orpheus did not compose a hymn that says wholesome and lawful things; for they say that he utters riddles by means of his composition, and it is impossible to state the solution to his words even though they have been spoken. But his composition is strange and riddling for human beings. Orpheus did not wish to say in it disputable riddles, but important things in riddles. For he tells a holy tale even from the first word right through to the last, as he shows even in the well-known verse: for by bidding them ‘put doors on their ears’ he is saying that he is not legislating for the many, (but is addressing) those who are pure in hearing … (Derveni Papyrus col. 7)
Open your eyes and hold your arms up like the horns of a bull, palms turned out towards the agalma.
That Osiris is identical with Dionysos who could more fittingly know than yourself, Klea? For you are at the head of the inspired maidens of Delphi, and have been consecrated by your father and mother in the holy rites of Osiris. If, however, for the benefit of others it is needful to adduce proofs of this identity, let us leave undisturbed what may not be told, but the public ceremonies which the priests perform in the burial of the Apis, when they convey his body on an improvised bier, do not in any way come short of a Bacchic procession; for they fasten skins of fawns about themselves, and carry Bacchic wands and indulge in shoutings and movements exactly as do those who are under the spell of the Dionysiac ecstasies. For the same reason many of the Greeks make statues of Dionysos in the form of a bull; and the women of Elis invoke him, praying that the god may come with the hoof of a bull; and the epithet applied to Dionysos among the Argives is ‘Son of the Bull.’ They call him up out of the water by the sound of trumpets, at the same time casting into the depths a lamb as an offering to the Keeper of the Gate. The trumpets they conceal in Bacchic wands, as Socrates has stated in his treatise On The Holy Ones. Furthermore, the tales regarding the Titans and the rites celebrated by night agree with the accounts of the dismemberment of Osiris and his revivification and regenesis. Similar agreement is found too in the tales about their sepulchres. The Egyptians, as has already been stated, point out tombs of Osiris in many places, and the people of Delphi believe that the remains of Dionysos rest with them close beside the oracle; and the Holy Ones offer a secret sacrifice in the shrine of Apollo whenever the devotees of Dionysos wake the God of the Mystic Basket. To show that the Greeks regard Dionysos as the lord and master not only of wine, but of the nature of every sort of moisture, it is enough that Pindar be our witness, when he says ‘May gladsome Dionysos swell the fruit upon the trees, the hallowed splendour of harvest time.’ For this reason all who reverence Osiris are prohibited from destroying a cultivated tree or blocking up a spring of water. (Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris 364e-365e)
Hold this posture for another nine breaths. Make your left hand into a fist, pounding your chest over your heart three times, then bow your head and hail the god as loudly as you can.
For there was a feeling as if taking hold of the god and of clearly perceiving that he himself had come, of being midway between sleeping and waking, of wanting to look, of struggling against his departure too soon; of having applied one’s ears and hearing some things as in a dream, some waking; hair stood straight, tears flowed in joy; the burden of understanding seemed light. What man is able to put these things into words? Yet if he is one of those who have undergone initiation, he knows and is familiar with them. (Aelius Aristides, Oration 48.32)
Light the candles and the incense, using the leafy branch or your hands to feed the smoke to the agalma.
The leader of our revel holds the torch high
blazing flame of pine
and sweet smoke like Syrian incense.
(Euripides, Bakchai 183-86)
Hang red, black and white tainia (ribbons or braided cords) from the agalma and then crown it with a stephanos (wreath of ivy or flowers.) Sprinkle flower petals around the agalma in the cauldron.
The author of the Cretica says that when Liber came to Minos with the hope of lying with Ariadne he gave her this crown as a present. Delighted with it, she did not refuse the terms. It is said, too, to have been made of gold and Indian gems, and by its aid Theseus is thought to have come from the gloom of the Labyrinth to the day, for the gold and gems made a glow of light in the darkness. (Hyginus, Astronomica 2.5)
Pour milk into one of the bowls on the right side. Dip your index and middle fingers in and feed some to the agalma.
Now you have died and now you have been born, thrice blessed one, on this very day. Say to Persephone that Bakchios himself freed you. A bull you rushed to milk. Quickly, you rushed to milk. A ram you fell into milk. You have wine as your fortunate honor. And rites await you beneath the earth, just as the other blessed ones. (Gold Leaf from Pelinna)
Pour water into one of the bowls on the left side. Feed the agalma.
‘Rain-bringer’. An epithet of Dionysos, as Kleidemos says. Since he says we perform sacrifices to him during the time when the god makes it rain; but Pherekydes (3 F 90) says that Semele is called ‘rain-bringer’ and that the children of Dionysos are the Hyade . Aristophanes (587, 878 Kock) lists Hyês with foreign gods. (Photios, Lexicon s.v. Hyês)
Pour mead into the other bowl on the right. Feed the agalma.
But Glaukos, while he was yet a child, in chasing a mouse fell into a jar of honey and was drowned. On his disappearance Minos made a great search and consulted diviners as to how he should find him. The Kouretes told him that in his herds he had a cow of three different colors, and that the man who could best describe that cow’s color would also restore his son to him alive. So when the diviners were assembled, Polyeidos, son of Koiranos, compared the color of the cow to the fruit of the bramble, and being compelled to seek for the child he found him by means of a sort of divination. But Minos declaring that he must recover him alive, he was shut up with the dead body. And while he was in great perplexity, he saw a serpent going towards the corpse. He threw a stone and killed it, fearing to be killed himself if any harm befell the body. But another serpent came, and, seeing the former one dead, departed, and then returned, bringing a herb, and placed it on the whole body of the other; and no sooner was the herb so placed upon it than the dead serpent came to life. Surprised at this sight, Polyeidos applied the same herb to the body of Glaukos and raised him from the dead. (Apollodoros, Bibliotheka 3.3.2-5)
Pour pomegranate juice into the other bowl on the left. Feed the agalma.
In the Eleusinian mysteries, likewise, the initiated are ordered to abstain from domestic birds, from fishes and beans, pomegranates and apples, which fruits are as equally defiling to the touch, as a woman recently delivered, and a dead body But whoever is acquainted with the nature of divinely-luminous appearances knows also on what account it is requisite to abstain from all birds, and especially for him who hastens to be liberated from terrestrial concerns, and to be established with the celestial Gods. (Porphyry, On Abstinence From Animal Food 4.16)
You may keep a cloth handy to clean yourself between libations or go right from one to the next.
Let the stony bowls, then, and the amphorae be symbols of the aquatic nymphs. For these are, indeed, the symbols of Dionysos, but their composition is fictile, i.e., consists of baked earth, and these are friendly to the vine, the gift of god; since the fruit of the vine is brought to a proper maturity by the celestial fire of the sun. But the stony bowls and amphorae are in the most eminent degree adapted to the nymphs who preside over the water that flows from rocks. And to souls that descend into generation and are occupied in corporeal energies, what symbol can be more appropriate than those instruments pertaining to weaving? Hence, also, the poet ventures to say, “that on these, the nymphs weave purple webs, admirable to the view.” For the formation of the flesh is on and about the bones, which in the bodies of animals resemble stones. Hence these instruments of weaving consist of stone, and not of any other matter. But the purple webs will evidently be the flesh which is woven from the blood. For purple woollen garments are tinged from blood and wool is dyed from animal juice. The generation of flesh, also, is through and from blood. Add, too, that the body is a garment with which the soul is invested, a thing wonderful to the sight, whether this refers to the composition of the soul, or contributes to the colligation of the soul (to the whole of a visible essence). Thus, also, Persephone, who is the inspective guardian of everything produced from seed, is represented by Orpheus as weaving a web and the heavens are called by the ancients a veil, in consequence of being, as it were, the vestment of the celestial gods. (Porphyry, On the Cave of the Nymphs 6)
Offer cakes or a loaf of bread to the agalma and then place it on the plate to the right.
And I say to you, beloved Mousaios, son of Antiophemos, he ordered me to prepare quickly for an appropriate sacrifice. And so I built an altar of excellent oak on the shore, and putting on a robe, I offered service to the gods on behalf of the men. And then I slit the throat of an enormous bull, bending back the head to the gods, cutting up the fresh meat and pouring the blood around the fire. After I laid the heart on broken cakes, I made a libation of oil and sheep’s milk. I then ordered the heroes to spread round the victim, thrusting their spears and their swords furnished with handles into the victim, and into the hide and the viscera shining in my hands. And I set up in the middle a vessel containing kykeon, the sacred drink of water and barley, which I carefully mixed, the first nourishing offering to Demeter. Then came the blood of the bull, and salty sea-water. I ordered the crew wreathed with crowns of olive leaves. Then filling up a golden vessel with kykeon by my hands, I divided it by rank so that every man could have a sip of the powerful drink. I asked Jason to order a dry pine torch to be placed beneath, and with swift motion the divine flame ascended. (Orphic Argonautika)
Offer fruit (especially grapes, apples, pomegranates and figs) to the agalma and then place them on the plate to the left.
That Dionysos is also the discoverer of the apple is attested by Theokritos of Syracuse, in words something like these: ‘Storing the apples of Dionysos in the folds at my bosom, and wearing on my head white poplar, sacred bough of Herakles.’ And Neoptolemos the Parian, in the Dionysiad, records on his own authority that apples as well as all other fruits were discovered by Dionysos. (Athenaios, Deipnosophistai 3.82d)
Offer three eggs to the agalma and then place them on the plate to the right.
Plutarch, Symposiacs 2.3:
When upon a dream I had forborne eggs a long time, on purpose that in an egg (as in a Carian) I might make experiment of a notable vision that often troubled me; some at Sossius Senecio’s table suspected that I was tainted with Orpheus’s or Pythagoras’s opinions, and refused to eat an egg (as some do the heart and brain) imagining it to be the principle of generation. And Alexander the Epicurean ridiculingly repeated, —
To feed on beans and parents’ heads
is equal sin.
as if the Pythagoreans covertly meant eggs by the word ϰύαμοι (beans), deriving it from ϰύω or ϰυέω (to conceive), and thought it as unlawful to feed on eggs as on the animals that lay them. Now to pretend a dream for the cause of my abstaining, to an Epicurean, had been a defence more irrational than the cause itself; and therefore I suffered jocose Alexander to enjoy his opinion, for he was a pleasant man and excellently learned. Soon after he proposed that perplexed question, that plague of the inquisitive, Which was first, the bird or the egg? And my friend Sylla, saying that with this little question, as with an engine, we shook the great and weighty question (whether the world had a beginning), declared his dislike of such problems. But Alexander deriding the question as slight and impertinent, my relation Firmus said: Well, sir, at present your atoms will do me some service; for if we suppose that small things must be the principles of greater, it is likely that the egg was before the bird; for an egg amongst sensible things is very simple, and the bird is more mixed, and contains a greater variety of parts. It is universally true, that a principle is before that whose principle it is; now the seed is a principle, and the egg is somewhat more than the seed, and less than the bird; for as a disposition or a progress in goodness is something between a tractable mind and a habit of virtue, so an egg is as it were a progress of Nature tending from the seed to a perfect animal. And as in an animal they say the veins and arteries are formed first, upon the same account the egg should be before the bird, as the thing containing before the thing contained. Thus art first makes rude and ill-shapen figures, and afterwards perfects every thing with its proper form; and it was for this reason that the statuary Polycletus said, Then our work is most difficult, when the clay comes to be fashioned by the nail. So it is probable that matter, not readily obeying the slow motions of contriving Nature, at first frames rude and indefinite masses, as the egg, and of these moulded anew, and joined in better order, the animal afterward is formed. As the canker is first, and then growing dry and cleaving lets forth a winged animal, called psyche; so the egg is first as it were the subject matter of the generation. For it is certain that, in every change, that out of which the thing changes must be before the thing changing. Observe how worms and caterpillars are bred in trees from the moisture corrupted or concocted; now none can say but that the engendering moisture is naturally before all these. For (as Plato says) matter is as a mother or nurse in respect of the bodies that are formed, and we call that matter out of which any thing that is is made. And with a smile continued he, I speak to those that are acquainted with the mystical and sacred discourse of Orpheus, who not only affirms the egg to be before the bird, but makes it the first being in the whole world. The other parts, because deep mysteries (as Herodotus would say), we shall now pass by; but let us look upon the various kinds of animals, and we shall find almost every one beginning from an egg, — fowls and fishes; land animals, as lizards; amphibious, as crocodiles; some with two legs, as a cock; some without any, as a snake; and some with many, as a locust. And therefore in the solemn feast of Bacchus it is very well done to dedicate an egg, as the emblem of that which begets and contains every thing in itself.
Offer honeycomb to the agalma and then place it on the plate to the left.
Libations (libamina) derive their name from their author, and so do cakes (liba), because part of them is offered on the hallowed hearths. Cakes are made for the god, because he delights in sweet juices, and they say that honey was discovered by Bacchus. Attended by the satyrs he was going from sandy Hebrus (my tale includes a pleasant jest), and had come to Rhodope and flowery Pangaeus, when the cymbals in the hands of his companions clashed. Lo, drawn by the tinkle, winged things, as yet unknown, assemble, and the bees follow the sounding brass. Liber collected the stranglers and shut them up in a hollow tree; and he was rewarded by the discovery of honey. Once the satyrs and the bald-pated ancient had tasted it, they sought for the yellow combs in every grove. In a hollow elm the old fellow heard the humming of a swarm; he spied the combs and kept his counsel. And sitting lazily on the back of an ass, and leaning upon a branch stump he greedily reached at the honey stored in the bole. Thousands of hornets gathered, and thrust their stings into his bald pate, and left their mark on his snub-nosed face. Headlong he fell, and the ass kicked him, while he called to his comrades and implored their help. The satyrs ran to the spot and laughed at their parent’s swollen face: he limped on his hurt knee. Bacchus himself laughed and taught him to smear mud on his wounds; Silenus took the hint and smudged his face with mire. The father god enjoys honey, and it is right that we should give to its discoverer golden honey infused in hot cakes. (Ovid, Fasti 735-762)
Fill the rhyton with wine and hail the god by his various names. With each round pour some into the cauldron and then take a sip yourself. Do this until all of the wine is gone, and then set the rhyton in front of the cauldron.
Hymn from Ovid’s Metamorphoses
We call on Bacchus by his many noble names
Lyaeus, Bromius; child of flaming fire;
alone twice mothered and alone twice born;
great lord and planter of the genial grape;
Nyseus too, and Lenaeus and Thyoneus,
whose locks are never shorn;
Nyctelius, Iacchus, Euhan, father Eleleus;
and all the countless titles that are yours, Liber,
throughout the lands of Greece.
Take out krotala (castanets or rattle) and shake rhythmically as you pray to the god or ask for blessings.
There sounds the clang of the cymbals, there echo the tympanons, there the Phrygian flutist plays upon his deep-sounding, twisted reed. There the Maenads, adorned with ivy, toss their heads wildly and play the castanets. (Catallus, Carmina)
Let the remainder of the ritual unfold as it will, though dancing and singing are strongly encouraged.
Because the first Bacchus is Dionysos, possessed by the dance and the shout, by all movements of which he is the cause according to the Laws (II.672a5–d4): but one who has consecrated himself to Dionysos, being similar to the god, takes part in his name as well. (Damascius, Commentary on the Phaedrus 1.171)
When you are finished, kiss the agalma and extinguish the candles.
The penis corresponds to one’s parents on the one hand because it has a relationship with the seed. It resembles children on the other hand in that it itself is the cause of children. It signifies a wife or a mistress, since it is made for sexual intercourse. It indicates brothers and all blood relatives since the interrelationship of the entire house depends upon the penis. It is a symbol of strength and physical vigor, since it is itself the cause of these qualities. That is why some people call the penis ‘one’s manhood.’ It corresponds to speech and education because the penis like speech is very fertile … Furthermore, the penis is also a sign of wealth and possessions because it alternately expands and contracts and because it is able to produce and to eliminate. It signifies secret plans in that the word medea is used to designate both plans and a penis. It indicates poverty, servitude, and bonds, because it is also called ‘the essential thing’ and is a symbol of necessity. (Artemidoros, Oneirocritica 1.45)
Leave the offerings for as long as you are able, up to three days, and then dispose of them in your customary manner. Return the ritual tools to the kiste when you are done.
And the Boeotians and other Greeks and the Thracians, in memory of the campaign in India, have established sacrifices every other year to Dionysos, and believe that at that time the god reveals himself to human beings. Consequently in many Greek cities every other year Bacchic bands of women gather, and it is lawful for the maidens to carry the thyrsos and to join in the frenzied revelry, crying out ‘Euai!’ and honouring the god; while the matrons, forming in groups, offer sacrifices to the god and celebrate his mysteries and, in general, extol with hymns the presence of Dionysos, in this manner acting the parts of maenads who, as history records, were of old the companions of the god. (Diodoros Sikeliotes, Bibliotheka 4.3.2-5 )
You may add whatever prayers and sacred formulas you wish or perform these actions in silence, except where directed to speak.
And I know how to lead off the sprightly
dance of the lord Dionysos, the dithyramb.
I do it thunderstruck with wine.
(Archilochos fragment)
Perform this ritual complete at the new or full moon; a simplified version may suffice for weekly or daily observance.
So what? Does not Epigenes, in his book On the Poetry of Orpheus, in exhibiting the peculiarities found in Orpheus, say that by “the curved rods” (κερκίσι) is meant “ploughs”; and by the warp (στήμοσι), the furrows; and the woof (μίτος) is a figurative expression for the seed; and that “tears of Zeus” signify a storm; and that the “parts” (μοῖραι) are, again, the phases of the moon, the thirtieth day, and the fifteenth, and the new moon, and that Orpheus accordingly calls them “white-robed,” as being parts of the light? Again, that the Spring is called “flowery” (ἄνθιον) from its nature; and Night “still” (ἀργίς) on account of rest; and the Moon “Gorgonian,” on account of the face in it; and that the time in which it is necessary to sow is called “Aphrodite” by the theologian? In the same way, too, the Pythagoreans spoke figuratively, allegorizing the “dogs of Persephone” as the planets, the “tears of Kronos” as the sea. (Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 5.8.49.3)
