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Alternating bicoastal Bacchanals?
Responding to a question on my last post I wrote: So here’s an idea … what if you West Coast folk* put something on in 2015? I’m probably not going to have the mental and financial resources to do the...
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Olympos on the banks of the Nile
If you like this piece or the work I’m doing here at the House of Vines please consider donating to Ruadhán McElroy so that he can attend the Polytheist Leadership Conference in July. Setting out to...
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The Club of Inimitable Livers
If you like this piece or the work I’m doing here at the House of Vines please consider donating to Ruadhán McElroy so that he can attend the Polytheist Leadership Conference in July. . Kleopatra and...
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This conversation will be much better in person and with whiskey
One of the reasons that I’m so excited that Julian Betkowski will be presenting at the Conference is his willingness to pose challenging and difficult questions, such as the ones on display in his...
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In harmony
So I was reading Jack Faust’s fucking brilliant piece The Light in the Underworld: A few months ago, a member of an email list that I at least read regularly (although my interactions remain distant to...
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Walk through the fire
Among Etruscan artifacts, seven urns dating from the 3rd or 2nd century BCE are decorated with reliefs representing a chained wolf emerging from a well. In addition to the wolf, most of the urn...
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I’m a failure
Hey guys, I have a confession to make. I know that I come off as talented, confident and driven, a master propagandist who is manipulating the course of the polytheist movement from behind the scenes …...
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It is destined always to end thus. I should have known.
When at the hour of midnight an invisible choir is suddenly heard passing with exquisite music, with voices ― Do not lament your fortune that at last subsides, your life’s work that has failed, your...
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Ladies love Orpheus
Reading my Thracian Adversary’s manly remarks on misogyny, I was reminded of a conversation that took place the other night in the Starry Bull chat room regarding Orphic attitudes toward women. Plato...
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I want to give the whole world a great big hug!
I may be a failure, but you guys are fucking amazing! Within hours of that post folks stepped up and generously contributed the remainder of what these illustrious young polytheists needed to attend...
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It’s a good day to be a polytheist
And Galina just posted about something really cool she’s going to be organizing for the Conference: I showed her the paintings and she said, “I wonder if other people in the community would be...
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Nine Days of Flavius Philostratos’ Heroikos
Vinedr.: I have not yet met him when he is eating, my guest, nor have I observed him drinking. Indeed, I make a drink-offering for him every evening from these Thasian vines, which he himself planted,...
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Nine Days of Flavius Philostratos’ Heroikos
Phoen.: [§10.1] Why don’t you describe him to me and share what he looks like? Vinedr.: [§10.2] Gladly, my guest, by Athena. He is about twenty years old at most. Because he sailed to Troy at such a...
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what sweet music they make
Ruadhán has put out a final call for submissions for the annual anthology Nocturnal Spirits. You should consider contributing something. After you’ve written stuff for Holy Words, that is. Tagged:...
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Nine Days of Flavius Philostratos’ Heroikos
[§52.3] From Thessaly, of course, Achilles also received hymns, which they sang at night when they visited his tomb every year, mixing something of an initiatory rite with their offerings to the dead,...
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Ecstasy and sacrifice
A reader posed the following throught-provoking questions: Sannion, what do you see as the central devotional practice of the thiasos? Alternately, what would the central principle be behind the...
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This will not stand.
I had pretty much written off Patheos after Kraemer’s botched character assassination of Edward Butler, but then P.S.V.L. posted this: However, the Internet often provides unexpected grist for this...
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Let myth be a living thing for you
A couple days ago I mentioned the lovely story of how Orpheus used his song to heal a group of wounded and frenzied Nymphs whose land had been blighted by pollution. It’s one of my favorite stories and...
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When I give you the finger it is a gesture of respect
You can’t get specific enough in your cultus as far as I’m concerned, which is why I’ve started worshiping the severed finger of Herakles (not to be confused with Herakles the Idaean Dactyl) like the...
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Nine Days of Flavius Philostratos’ Heroikos
[§40.1] Listen also to the deeds of Alexandros, unless you are exceedingly vexed with him. Phoen.: I am vexed, but I may as well listen. Vinedr.: [§40.2] Protesilaos says that Alexandros was hated by...
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