Out here we is stoned immaculate

Since it’s the fourth of the lunar month, the day I traditionally set aside to honor Hermes, I’m going to begin working on some magical charms to bring about lusis kakōn or a release from evils. I’m going to collect a bunch of appropriately sized rocks (a nod to the treatise Lithoi which discusses the esoteric properties of stones and circulated in antiquity under the name of Orpheus) from the shores of the thrice-holy Willamette river and soak them in a bowl of consecrated and blessed wine overnight on my Dionysos shrine. Then tomorrow I’ll inscribe them with this passage from Homer which was often used in ancient Greek magical workings to alleviate suffering and anxiety:

ἔνθ᾽ αὖτ᾽ ἄλλ᾽ ἐνόησ᾽ Ἑλένη Διὸς ἐκγεγαυῖα:
αὐτίκ᾽ ἄρ᾽ εἰς οἶνον βάλε φάρμακον, ἔνθεν ἔπινον,
νηπενθές τ᾽ ἄχολόν τε, κακῶν ἐπίληθον ἁπάντων.

Then I’m going to wrap them in yarn from the ball that I discovered waiting for me outside my apartment after a particularly intense journeying I did with Ariadne and Spider on the hero-feast of Jim Morrison. The yarn is seafoam green so wouldn’t necessarily be my first choice for this, but on the other hand how I came by it and the associations it has as a result are too good to pass up. (Plus the seafoam is a nod to Aphrodite and she’s very good at soothing sorrows.) As I wind the thread around the stone I will intone nine healing epithets of Dionysos over it to give it added potency.

If you’re interested in acquiring one of these contact me at sannion@gmail.com. I’m offering them for $25 a piece plus an English translation of the Homeric passage so you can use it for meditative or magical purposes.