every time I open myself up to Dionysus, I realize just in how many areas of my life I can feel his presence, how many times he was guiding me and putting me in situations for a reason.
✵Oh, great liberator! You are a patron, a protector, a healer for all of those kids who fall out of frames, who feel like they don’t belong anywhere.
✵You welcome them into your open arms, guiding them through their trauma, guiding their shadows and fragmented parts back to the center of their souls!
Last thing you knew, you were standing in CVS to buy flowers and chocolates for your sweetheart, but then you stepped outside and saw the procession in all its glory, and remembered that thisis what you’re really supposed to be doing. So now you are running towards the parade, running as though you might miss it if you don’t get there fast enough. You take the head off one of the roses and strew its petals on the ground, singing.
You’ve been feeling listless lately, and the arrival of the Mad God is something to look forward to. It is a spectacle. He’s brought through the city streets on a ship that rolls along the ground like a carriage, and he is accompanied by a train of masked revelers: women with sticks and loose dresses, men with ugly masks and dragging leather phalloi between their legs. Leaves and flowers, bright torches, the clash of cymbals and wail of flutes. The screaming has already started.
You have not seen the god before. You do not know what he looks like, but you thought you saw a mask that was intended to be his face. You remember it had a crown of vines, and bovine horns, and a manic expression. You ask the person next to you, “Why is the god mad?” and they turn their head much too slowly. They wear a theatrical satyr mask, with curling horns, and a too-wide mouth that looks like a gaping hole that is laughing at you.
“Don’t you know?
“No.”
“Oh.Well, why do you think, then?”
You have not considered this question before. It has something to do with wine, you think, but that can’t be all there is to it. You decide that the god is mad because he wants to be; he’s a god, he can be whatever he wants. So if he didn’t want to be mad, he wouldn’t be.
The boat-carriage is drawn by magnificent leopards with golden pelts. You pet one as it passes, running your hand through its silken fur, and it licks your wrist.
The procession passes, and behind it, in the negative space where it just was, is a swamp. The swamp is swollen with meltwater. There are half-buried jars of wine in the mud, left open. The whole world is open today, so the dead are here. The god brought them up with him, and they come in their own pale procession, silent. They are thirsty. They are attracted by the blood of the living. You don’t have any blood to give them, so they swarm like insects around the open wine jars half-buried in the swampy ground. They are here not as a menace, but as friends and guests, which is why they get the first of the wine.
You beckon a lost soul towards the jar nearest to you, and it comes like a shy cat to a bowl of milk. “Who did you used to be?” you ask it. It looks up at you with hollow eyes, and does not answer.
You return to the center of the city, and find that the revel is in full swing. You push through the red silk, the incense smoke, the mass of masked faces and writhing bodies. Your ears echo with the cacophony of obscene screams. The architecture of the city is strange, off somehow, though you can’t place it. These buildings look ancient, but not derelict — their ivy-twined columns are still standing, and their walls burnished white.
You don’t know where you’re going, but you arrive at a small perfumed tent draped in red, where someone is dancing in a dim spotlight. It is a young man, dressed like a harem girl in sheer purple scarves, with ribbons and flowers in his hair. His dark hair swirls around him like the smoke, and in a blur of arms he swaps out the masks in front of his face — a comic rictus, an evil grimace, a horned beast, a beautiful woman. Bells tinkle on his ankles as he dances to the eerie flute music. You sit down on a plush purple couch and watch him, mesmerized. Someone throws coins at his feet. He ignores them.
He playfully throws one of his scarves at you, and it lands on your head, draping over your face. Through its translucent fabric, he seems distorted, uncanny. He beckons you to dance with him. Some distant voice in your head tells you that you should not take it, that you will make a mockery of all decency if you dance like that. But the voice is not very powerful, not in comparison to the glint of his leaf-colored eyes. So you step up onto the raised platform. You try to match his slow, sensuous movements, but you can’t make your hips do that serpentine thing that he does. Laughing, he takes your hands in his, and lifts a ceramic cup to your lips. You don’t remember seeing him receive a drink, but now there is a cup pressing your lips apart. You take a sip of whatever’s in the cup — it’s a rich, sweet wine. It almost tastes like honey, and you greedily take a larger gulp of before he pulls the cup away.
Maybe it’s the smoke, or maybe it’s something in the wine, but you are starting to hallucinate. The man has horns. You are certain they aren’t connected to his mask; no, they are thick, curving bovine horns that stretch like branches from the wreath of leaves on his head. Was there an ivy wreath on his head before? You can’t remember.
Dizzy and intoxicated, you lie down on the nearest couch, sinking into red and purple silk. Your brain is starting to blink like fireflies. You grope up at the young man’s mask, like a cat batting at a ball of yarn, and pull it off. The horns do not come away with it. The man has a very pretty, androgynous face, framed by his dark curls that hang down like vines as he leans over you. His cheeks are flushed. “Hi,” he says cheerfully. “I hope you’re having fun.”
“Fun…” you mumble.
“You’ve been so stressed and anxious lately. Life getting to you? I thought you should take a load off. You deserve it.” He smiles a golden-honey grin. “Please don’t ask why. You alwaysask why.”
“Who are you?” you ask.
But you know. You know. Beneath his eyes is swirling, primordial blackness. It calls to you, tugs at you, entices you to dive headfirst into the abyss.
“I can’t stay long,” he whispers. “I’m getting married tonight.”
“Oh… congrats. To whom?”
“To the queen!” He giggles coquettishly. “She’s waiting for me. But I’ve still got time to play…”
You miss the rest of the sentence, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters right now, except for his presence, which is considerably bigger than his body. It’s like he’s glowing with a warm and seductive radiance that fills the whole tent, that both envelops and penetrates you.
His lips taste like ripe grapes.
You wonder, briefly, if this is what the queen will experience when he comes to her in her ritual chamber for their secret and sacred marriage. You wonder if maybe this isthe ritual chamber. You are dimly aware that the tent is now empty except for you and him, but you can still hear the screams and laughter and music tangling together just outside the tent.
“Life can be delicious you know.” He takes a swig from the same cup as before and smirks at you. “It doesn’t have to be hard. It doesn’t have to be painful. It can be all bright colors and heady scents and fine tastes. Voluptuous.”
That’s crazy, you want to say. Of course life is hard. You’d have to be mad to believe otherwise. But you don’t say that. Instead, you start laughing, laughing until your sides split and your face splits. The laughter doesn’t really sound like your own. This can’t be your voice, can it? But still, you feel the rush of catharsis. Whoever told you that life was about suffering? All you’ve ever wanted was to laugh in their face.
This is the real Secret, you think. Not that ‘law of attraction’ bullshit. THIS. Milk and honey, wine and blood. Something older, older, older than human footsteps. This is whythere are gods. Gods are what you see when you pull back the curtain. Are the Mysteries all this obvious? Seized with sudden mania, you start dancing again, and your ecstatic screams rise to join the rest. You don’t remember your own name or who you were before you got here, or what your real face looks like. Maybe this isyour real face.
You are surrounded by people now, though you don’t remember leaving the tent. Their torches sting your eyes. Burning, burning, burning. They bare bright smiles, genuinely joyful, but with sharp and bloody teeth. They have snakes entwined in their hair and draped over their shoulders like scarves. Some have the faces of satyrs, bulls, goats, cats, foxes, bears, owls, moths, dragonflies, bees, kings… Some are alive and some are dead, but you can’t quite tell the ghosts from the living. They surround you in a great ring, joining hands, singing that strange and wild song that you’ve been half-hearing all night. Flowers spring up on the flagstones wherever you step. That bright, blooming energy that you felt before rises within your own chest. It’s in you now, the god is swelling inside you now. You no longer fit in your own skin. You flail, you thrash, you stamp your feet, you keep screaming: “EUOI! EUOI! IO DIONYSOS!”
Sweet is the pleasure the god brings us in the mountains. when from the running revelers he falls to the ground clad in his sacred fawnskin. Hunting the blood of slaughtered goats for the joy of devouring raw flesh […] Hail to the Roaring God, Bromios our leader! Euoi! The ground flows with milk, Flows with wine, Flows with the nectar of bees. –Euripides,Bacchae.
You are sitting on a swing, your legs pumping you back and forth. You don’t remember why. Something about the god having cursed the city’s women to hang themselves as punishment for having killed his worshippers, unless they swung in atonement and remembrance. But you know that can’t be the real reason — swinging is no punishment, not like this. It’s fun. Your heart swells as the swing arcs towards the sky. You feel like you could lift right off of it and go soaring through the heavens, towards the rising sun, with no wax wings to bring you down. Something about the swing feels so freeing,even if you are locked in place, not moving anywhere. Back and forth, back and forth… it’s lulling, like a song that was sung to you once in your distant childhood, or a dream you once had. When you get off, unsteady on your feet, you feel a burden has been lifted.
Other Names: Bacchus, Zagreus, Liber Epithets: Bakkhos (frenzied), Bromios (the roaring), Eleutheros (the liberator), Meilichios (the mild/gracious), Maenoles (the mad), Nyctelius (of the night), Nyctipolos (night-stalker), Staphylites (of the grape), Theoineos (god of wine), Agathos Daimon (good spirit), Oenops (wine-faced), Antheos (the blooming), Kisseus (of the ivy), Kittophoros (ivy-bearer), Dimetor (twice-born/of two mothers), Dimorphos (two-formed), Dithyrambos (of the dithyramb), Areios (warlike), Kryphios (hidden), Karpios (of the harvest), Hyes (of moisture/the dripping), Ekstatophoros (bringer of ecstasy), Boukeros (bull-horned), Aigobolus (goat-slayer), Melanaegis (of the black goat-skin), Lysios (loosener/deliverer), Lenaeus (of the wine-press), Limnaios (of the marsh/liminal), Psilas (giver of wings), Psilax (uplifted on wings), Soter (savior), Khthoinios (of the Underworld), Dendrites (of trees), Eubouleos (of good counsel), Polymorphos (many-formed), Khryphion (hidden), Khoreutes (the dancer), Melpomenus (singer/of the tragedy play), Phleon (the luxuriant), Omadios/Omaphagos/Omestes (flesh-eater), Bassareus (the fox), Androgynos (androgynous), Agronios (wild, savage), Oinops (wine-dark/wine-faced). Domains:Wine, ritual ecstasy and trance, festivals and revelry, pleasure, madness, hallucinations, intoxication, liberation, fruit, androgyny, GNC and LGBTQ+ people, viticulture, theater and choral songs, life-force, reincarnation. Appearance: He appears to me as an androgynous and beautiful young man with long, curly hair that flows over his shoulders (it’s usually dark brown but seems to change color, being occasionally blond, black, strawberry, etc.). He has wild eyes that are vine-green or the pinkish-purple of grapes, and they’re usually either bright and laughing or disturbingly mad-looking. He typically has ruddy cheeks and a bright smile. He’s usually not wearing much beyond a cloth draped over his body (in white or purple) and/or a leopard pelt, but sometimes appears in in casual modern clothing with a leopard-print jacket. He often wears a grape headdress, and he sometimes has horns resembling a bull’s, ram’s, or goat’s. His laughter is both musical and utterly insane. His aura is the reddish-purple of grapes. Sacred Days and Festivals: Greater/City Dionysia (10-17 Elaphebolion). Lesser/Rural Dionysia (10 Poseideon). Lenaia (12-15 Gamelion). Anthesteria (11-13 Anthesterion). Oskophoria (8 Pynapsion). Haloa (26 Poseideon). Agrionia (nocturnal women’s festival). Symbols/Attributes:Grapes, thyrsus, masks, drinking cups, ivy leaves, tambourine, winnowing basket, honey, phallus, animal skins, leopard-print fabric. Sacred Animals: Leopard/panther, bull, serpent, goat, fox, bee, frog, bat Sacred Plants: Grapevine, ivy, fig, pine, fennel, orchis, thistle. Elemental Affinity: Earth, water, darkness. Planet:Neptune (modern) Colors:Purple, green, gold, burgundy, black. Crystals: Amethyst, grape agate, black diamond Incense:Grape, fig, fennel, musk, cinnamon, frankincense, storax, vanilla, cannabis. Tarot Cards: Temperance, The Hanged Man, The Fool, The Devil, The Hierophant, The King of Pentacles. Retinue: (called the thiasus) Maenads/Bacchantes, satyrs, seilenoi, Ariadne, Silenus, Pan, Thyone (Semele), Kotys, Korymbos, Aristaios, Phales, Methe, Telete Associated People: Actors, social outcasts, women, androgynous/LGBT+ people. Offerings: Wine, honey, grapes, figs, other fruit, ivy, pinecones, milk with honey, mead, sparkling juice, masks, stories/poetry/plays, dance, donations to community theaters or big cat conservation. Syncretized With: Liber Pater, Sabazius, Osiris (though personally I think Shezmu fits better), Serapis, Tammuz, Shiva, Flufluns
Hymns to Dionysus
Homeric Hymn 26 to Dionysus
I begin to sing of ivy-crowned Dionysus, the loud-crying god, Splendid son of Zeus and glorious Semele. The rich-haired Nymphs received him in their bosoms from the lord his father And fostered and nurtured him carefully in the dells of Nysa, Where by the will of his father He grew up in a sweet-smelling cave, Being reckoned among the immortals. But when the goddesses had brought him up, a god oft hymned, Then began he to wander continually through the woody coombes, Thickly wreathed with ivy and laurel. And the Nymphs followed in his train with him for their leader; And the boundless forest was filled with their outcry. And so hail to you, Dionysus, god of abundant clusters! Grant that we may come again rejoicing to this season, And from that season onwards for many a year.
Orphic Hymn to Dionysus
Dionysos I call, loud-roaring and divine, Primeval God, a two-fold shape is thine: Thy various names and attributes I sing, O, twice-born, thrice begotten, Bacchic king: Wild, ineffable, two-form’d, obscure, two-horn’d, With ivy crown’d, howling, pure. Bull-fac’d, and warlike, bearer of the vine, Endowed with counsel prudent [Eubouleos] and divine: Triennial, whom the leaves of vines adorn, Of Zeus and Persephone, occultly born. Immortal daimon, hear my suppliant voice, Give me in blameless plenty to rejoice; And listen gracious to my mystic pray'r, Surrounded with thy choir of nurses fair.
Orphic Hymn to Dionysus Khthonios
Dionysos Khthonios, hear my pray’r, Awakened rise with nymphs of lovely hair: Great Amphietos Bakkhos, annual god, Who laid asleep in Persephone’s abode, Did’st lull to drowsy and oblivious rest, The rites triennial, and the sacred feast; Which rous’d again by thee, in graceful ring, Thy nurses round thee mystic anthems sing; When briskly dancing with rejoicing pow’rs, Thou move’st in concert with the circling hours. Come, blessed, fruitful, horned, and divine, And on these rites with joyful aspect shine. Accept the general incense and pray’r, And make prolific holy fruits thy care.
Orphic Hymn to Dionysos Lenaios
Hear me, Zeus’s son, blest Bacchus, god of wine, Born of two mothers, honor’d and divine, Lysian, Euion Bacchus, various-nam’d, Secret child of gods, holy, fam’d Fertile and nourishing, in whose liberal care Earth’s fruits increases, flourishing and fair; Sounding, magnanimous, Lenaean pow’r O various-form’d, medicinal, holy flow’r: Mortals in thee, repose from labour find, Delightful charm, desir’d by all mankind: Fair-hair’d Euion, Bromios, joyful God, Lysian, invested in the leafy rod. To these our rites, benignant pow’r incline, When fav’ring men, or when on Gods you shine; Be present to thy mystic’s suppliant pray’r, Rejoicing come, and fruits abundant bear.
Orphic Hymn to Triennial Dionysus
Bacchus frantic, many-nam’d, blest, divine, Bull-faced Lenaean, bearer of the vine, From fire descended, raging, Nysian king, From whom initial ceremonies spring: Liknitan Dionysos, pure and firey bright, Eubouleos, crown-bearer, wandering in the night: Pupil of Persephone, mysterious pow’r, Triple, ineffable, Zeus’ secret flow’r, Ericapaeus, first-begotten nam’d, Of Gods the father, and the child fam’d, Bearing a scepter, leader of the choir, Whose dancing feat, frantic Furies fire, When the triennial band thou dost inspire. Loud-sounding, Tages, of a firey light, Born of two mothers, Amphitios bright: Wand’ring on mountains, cloth’d with skins of deer, Apollo, golden-ray’d, whom all revere. God of the grape with leaves of ivy crown’d, Bassarian, lovely, virgin-like, renown’d, Come blessed pow’r, regard thy mystic’s voice, Propitious come, and in these rites rejoice.
Orphic Hymn to Dionysus Bassarius:
Come, blessed Dionysus, various nam’d, bull-faced, Begot from Thunder, Bacchus fam’d Bassarian God, of universal might, Whom swords and blood and sacred rage delight: In heav’n rejoicing, mad, loud-sounding God Furious inspirer, bearer of the Rod By Gods rever’d, who dwells’t with humankind, Propitious come, with much-rejoicing mind.
Orphic Hymn to Dionysus Liknitos:
Liknitan Dionysos, bearer of the vine, Thee I invoke to bless these rites divine: Florid and gay, of nymphs the blossom bright, And of fair Venus, goddess of delight, Tis thine mad footsteps with mad nymphs to beat Dancing thro’ groves with lightly leaping feet: From Zeus’ high counsels nursed by Proserpine And born the dread of all pow’rs divine: Come, blessed daimon, regard thy suppliant’s voice, Propitious come, and in these rites rejoice.
Orphic Hymn to Dionysus Perikionios:
Dionysos Perikionios, hear my pray’r, Who mad’st the house of Cadmus once thy care, With matchless force, his pillars twining round When burning thunders shook the solid ground In flaming, founding torrents borne along, Propt by thy grasp indissolubly strong. Come mighty Bacchus to these rites inclin’d, And bless thy suppliant with rejoicing mind.
Verses from the first Hymn to Dionysus in Euripedes’ Bacchae
O blessed is he who, happy in his heart, Knows the initiation rites of the gods, Purifies his life and Joins his soul to the cult, Dancing on the mountains, with holy purifications Celebrating the Bacchic rituals. O blessed the man who dutifully observes The mysteries of the Great Mother, Kybele. Swinging high the thyrsus And crowned with ivy He serves Dionysus. Onward you Bacchae, onward Bacchae, Escort the roaring Bromios home, A god an the son of a god! Escort him Down from the Phrygian mountains into Greece’s wide-wayed streets, Streets wide for dancing, Bromios the Roaring God! […] Sweet is the pleasure the god brings us in the mountains. when from the running revelers he falls to the ground clad in his sacred fawnskin. Hunting the blood of slaughtered goats for the joy of devouring raw flesh he rushes through the mountains of Lydia, of Phrygia. Hail to the Roaring God, Bromios our leader! Euoi! The ground flows with milk, Flows with wine, Flows with the nectar of bees. The Bacchic One, lifting high the bright-burning flame of the pine-torch, like the smoke of Syrian frankincense, springs up and rushes along with his thyrsus. Running and dancing he incites any wanderers, shakes them with shouts of joy tossing his luxuriant locks to the wind.
(Translation by Stephen Esposito)
Horace’s Hymn to Bacchus
Bacchus on the far-off rocky hills, teaching his chants – you who are still to come, believe me – I saw him and his student Nymphs and goat-footed Satyrs and their pointed ears.
Euhoë! – my soul trembles with that moment’s fear, Bacchus possesses my breast and I madly rejoice. Euhoë!, spare me, god of freedom [Liber], spare me, god of the fearful thyrsus of power.
I must celebrate your inexhaustible revelers, and the fountains of wine and full rivers of milk, and mirror in song honey dripping from the hollows of trees;
I must celebrate your bride and her constellated crown, and Pentheus’ palace shaken to bits in a mighty downfall, and the destruction of Lycurgus of Thrace.
You control the streams, the savage sea, you are hot with wine as on distant hilltops you bind Bistonian [Thracian] women’s hair with a knot of vipers that do not harm them.
And when the rebellious army of giants tried to climb the heights to the Father’s kingdom, you were the one who threw back Rhoetus and his terrible lion’s claws and teeth;
Although you were said to be more suitable for dances and fun and games and were labeled unfit for a battle, yet you took your part in war as well as in peacetime.
You were graced with golden horn when Cerberus saw you: he was harmless, and softly wagged his tail, and as you were leaving, he licked your legs and feet with all three of his tongues.
(Translation by Joseph P. Clancy, University of Chicago Press, 1960)
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Disclaimers:Descriptions of the gods’ appearances are purely a record of how I personally see them. Gods are shapeshifters that can appear however they wish, and will be perceived differently by different people. My own perceptions of them may or may not match ancient artwork. Correspondences listed are mostly modern. Festival dates are based on the Attic calendar. Offerings listed are all specific to the deity in addition to standard ones. Translations of hymns are from Theoi unless otherwise specified. Sources: THEOI GREEK MYTHOLOGY, neosalexandria, HellenicGods.org, κοράκι/crow’s grimoire
honestly even if you are a “stereotypical” worshipper of a god, you’re still doing great. You’re a Dionysian that likes to get drunk? Good, just be safe! You’re a chaotic bisexual Apollonian? That’s okay! You’re an Ace or lesbian Artemisian who wants to chill in the woods? That’s okay! You’re doing great! You’re an Aphrodite worshipper who’s really into pink, self love, and sea aesthetics? You’re doing lovely!
Your worship isn’t lesser even if it’s what people expect. Your relationship can still be deep and interpersonal. You’re doing amazing — don’t doubt yourself.
