faith
The Nymph sat before her golden loom in a cave the size of a grand cathedral, with ivy clinging to the damp walls and a floor bestrewn with rose petals that never crinkled up or lost their enticing...
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Follow the Labyrinth beyond the North Wind
Some light reading for those interested in the Starry Bear side of things. Zavaroni Adolfo, Souls across the Labyrinth: Representations of Rebirth in the Bronze/Iron Age in Europe Angelo Fossati,...
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Trippy
The poems I posted earlier today are from Wine Dark, my Bacchic Orphic riff on Homer’s Odýsseia. You know what’s crazy? I wrote it well before I arrived at the conclusion that Freyja is Kírkē and...
View ArticleOdder and Odder
Have you been keeping up with the October movie list? Noticed anything a little … odd? Hint: I was very careful in my choice of which titles to include, and the order in which they should be viewed.
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The childrens is the future
Contemporary paganism and polytheism are, for the most part, religions of conversion. Few of us were raised in the traditions we follow and most of us went through a difficult and at times quite...
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An exemplary woman
When people go on about the great pagans of antiquity who deserve to be remembered today, everyone mentions Hypatia but she wasn’t the only exceptional female philosopher that the exceptional city of...
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Orphism isn’t monist
Well, first off, Orphism is more an interpretive methodology than a coherent system of belief; each group operated independently of the others and even when they were using a similar body of myths...
View ArticleMysteries
I don’t want to talk about this. Every fiber of my being is resisting – and that’s why I’m going to do it. But I will, because in the end that’s what being a Dionysian comes down to. A constant...
View ArticleWe don’t need another shero
Apparently breastfeeding is sufficient to make one a shero these days. (And, just for clarification female heroes are heroines, not sheroes.) Before I have the mommy brigade up in arms let me just say...
View ArticleWhy this stuff matters
The power of Orpheotelestai came from their knowledge, experience and discernment in matters of religion and was further predicated on a natural hierarchy – if the average person could solve their own...
View ArticleMysteries of the bees and lizards
The best honey in antiquity was that which came from the Hyblaean mountain range in Sicily: They’ve been as plentiful as the pomegranate seeds reddening under their slow-growing husks, in some fertile...
View Articlethe power of choice
We often talk about Dionysos as the God of freedom, the one who comes to liberate us from our chains whether they are personal inhibitions, psychological addictions, societal convention or even...
View ArticleOrphism is not misogynistic
People say some really stupid shit. For instance, this scholar I’m reading actually asserted that Orphism was misogynistic! Now, Plato in the Republic (10.620a) does have Er relate that Orpheus so...
View ArticleThis is the stuff of mysteries
Interesting fact: many of the cities of Magna Graecia had a double foundation. First by a god or hero and later by a mortal, who was like their living shadow. As an example, Tarentum was originally...
View ArticleI found it!
Five or six years ago I came across this quote. It interested me for very different reasons back then. I posted it to the blog, but didn’t put it in any of my quote files and consequently lost track of...
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On henotheism
Note: there have been some significant changes since I made this post, but the broader points it makes are important enough that it deserves to be revived. I saw some folks discussing my theological...
View Articlecut up
In a recent discussion I mentioned bricolage: Though it’s evolved organically the Starry Bull pantheon is tightly-knit with a lot of intersection among its members. Many of them have a habit of showing...
View Articlesomething worth getting torn apart to see
Today is the Feast of the Dionysian Kings, and we had a pretty good discussion on the underlying themes of the festival and some ways to celebrate it last night in the thiasos’ fancy new Skype chat. It...
View Articlefor therapeutic purposes
Margites was famed in antiquity for his foolishness. The man was such a simpleton, in fact, that he didn’t know what sex was or how to do it. Eustathius tells the following story about him: He did not...
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