#original myths
i keep thinking about an event or something for polytheists focused on writingmyth retellings.
if its something specific itd be like a “MythReWriMo” (along the lines of a “Myth-Retelling Writing Month” or anything with less of a silly name fkdkdkd)
and maybe even something more non-specific? like not a month-long thing, but a more general event for coming up with retellings.
or better yet !! modern myths!!narratives or poetry
(with monthly or weekly prompts perhaps, maybe focusing on different deities depending on the time?)
i just feel like itd be so cool to have a little community interacting with our own versions of the known stories, and also with modern mythos, new stories, with the gods interacting with new domains that are a part of modern worship and cultus….
idk, something to think about maybe?
You have come to see the divine procession.
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.
Now the time has come. Now the flowers are here.
My entry for Dionysia Ta Astika this year!
Anthesteria is an eventful time for Dionysus – at least, during the first two days. Dionysus is most involved in the ceremonial opening of the pithoi on the first day, and then the ensuing merrymaking the following day, culminating in the hierogamy… where the basilinna marries Dionysus.
He does not, in fact, “possess” the archon basileus during the hierogamy. Never has; and he expects he never will. He’s heard (but never confirmed) that Zeus and Hera have been known to shoehorn themselves in on the hierogamies held in their honor, and he applauds their interest in keeping the spice in their marriage. But for his part, Dionysus demurs, largely because the basilinna is not particularly meant to be Ariadne. He doesn’t condemn this; apparently, most of Greece is unclear whether Ariadne perished as a mortal, and Ariadne’s said that she rather enjoys the ambiguity. It certainly makes her more mysterious (“and sexy,” he tells her); so doesn’t stop the hierogamies held in his honor.
Nonetheless, he is not interested in even a ceremonial “wife” to take the place of his beloved goddess of the labyrinth; and most years, they informally use the energy of the ritual to amplify their own lovemaking, to great effect.
This year, though, Ariadne has been invited by her father, Minos, to spend the festival with him, working with the ancestral spirits who have come to walk abroad in the land of the living. Dionysus gives her a kiss farewell and a gift of the spirit of the first pithoi to be opened this year, for her to share with his father-in-law.
Well, that leaves him quite free this Anthesteria – and in particular, during the hierogamy. Perhaps he might find a different “queen” to while his time with.
————————-
The tragedy of Pentheus was not unlike many human tragedies of this great and passionate land: which is to say, rather dark and violent. This particular tragedy gained fame in the form of a play, held in Dionysus’ own honor.
The tale was told well – Dionysus rather enjoyed watching the staging. His character was mysterious, witty, dangerous, and sexy. No complaints there. Pentheus was arrogant, bigoted, oppressive, angry.. and, Dionysus thought the actor did well showing his ambiguity. The feelings behind the words. What Pentheus couldn’t show, until the end, when Dionysus had him so wound up and flustered that he finally was able to lead him along to his judgement and destruction.
Sparagmos: tearing apart. Well, one can be torn apart literally and metaphorically, of course.
——————
Dionysus ambles leisurely into his camp. The satyrs and maenads are around somewhere, but not close; he can hear their din in the middle distance. He has given them his blessing to do so. He wants the camp to himself for tonight.
Save for one special guest.
The panther he has in mind is doing a thing cats are so good at – dozing while not dozing. His eyes are closed, but his ears twitch at Dionysus’ approach.
“Hello there, handsome boy,” Dionysus croons, walking over. The panther does open his eyes then, upon being addressed, and turns to face Dionysus. His feline expression is one of dignified aloofness. Very self-contained. A much better look for him, honestly, though Dionysus bets he can make him come undone again.
“You have been a good kitty, hmm? Yes. I have no complaints about you, my darling, not a one.”
Dionysus strokes the heavy, dark-furred head. The panther allows it, closing his eyes again as Dionysus’ hand runs over the smooth pelt, pausing at the golden collar around the neck.
“Perhaps I haven’t rewarded you properly for your dedicated service, my pet. I’ve been remiss. Would you allow me to make it up to you, for a night?”
The golden eyes open again, staring hard at Dionysus. The god smiles.
“Yes. It’s a sacred night of revelry for my followers, after all. I don’t see why you shouldn’t be allowed to participate, my sweet.”
Now the ears are up, listening fully. Dionysus laughs softly.
“Indeed. You’ve earned back the privilege for one night, I do think. So, you may remove your mask, darling…” Dionysus draws his fingers in a circle, around the panther’s throat, where the source of the magic is concentrated in the collar, and steps back. “… and stand upon two legs as before, and gaze upon me with the face of a man once again… Pentheus.”
There is no twisting of limbs, no yowling turned to screeching, nothing gruesome. Nothing like that first transformation
The panther merely stands upon his back legs and then the form drops from him, like a discarded garment, leaving only a rather handsome man standing there, nude and trembling and staring wide-eyed at his human fingers. King Pentheus of Thebes, as he once was.
—————–
The lord of wine, madness and revelry regards the man before him quietly. Pentheus is absorbed with empirically confirming that he is, in fact, a man again, and Dionysus doesn’t interrupt. The night is young, and his new acolyte has been a beast for quite some time now. Both of them can use the opportunity to refamiliarize.
Pentheus’ body is as pleasing as before. The king of Thebes had been fairly young still, when Dionysus had first seen him – only a little older than the god himself. Pentheus’ hair is a thick but well-groomed thatch of black curls; his beard is short and neatly trimmed. He has the proud body of an athlete: lean, well-formed muscles. It’s also the body of a soldier: a few battle scars trace over his body, lovely blemishes to keep him from looking too much like a god.
Noticeably absent are any signs of the last violence to touch his body. No scars indicate that his limbs or organs had ever been anywhere but right where they should be.
The collar remains, as it must.
Dionysus is patient; and after a few moments Pentheus raises his eyes to look at him. His eyes are different now. Wiser, humbler, calmer.
“As I expected. You’ve learned a great deal from your time with us,” Dionysus says. “There’s a sagacity there I didn’t see before.”
Pentheus bows his head in assent – submissively, one might say, if one didn’t see the wry quirk of his lips. Dionysus is glad. That’s the secret untameable part of Pentheus he wants to protect and sustain.
“An educational few months indeed, Dionysus,” Pentheus says, looking back up at him boldly.
No title, still, or epithet. Dionysus isn’t bothered, particularly, as he doesn’t consider himself to be one who stands on formality with even his servants. But he does wonder if he can coax a sweet word out of this proud former king.
(He also wonders if he even wants to. This flash of rebelliousness is not unattractive… though, as with all things, it needs moderation)
Dionysus steps quietly over towards Pentheus, watching a faint tension enter the mortal’s shoulders. “You’ve accepted your punishment quite gracefully, all things considered, but I know life as even a gorgeous panther can’t have been very satisfying.”
“…I’m grateful for your mercy-“ Pentheus begins, a bit cautiously, and shuts up abruptly as Dionysus clucks dismissively and presses his fingers to the man’s lips.
“None of that. Tonight, this most sacred night in my honor, is a night of celebration. You’ve grown; you’ve changed. I think you’re due a taste of the thing you’ve wanted, which you paid such a heavy price for.”
Pentheus stares at him, looking very charmingly nervous now, his earlier bravado taking a step back. “You…?” he half-asks, hoarsely.
Dionysus waits to see if Pentheus can finish the question; but the man trails off. “…Yes, darling, me. You wanted me then, didn’t you? In your palace. In the prison. In the forest.” Dionysus leans over and kisses Pentheus’ throat, just above the collar. Not the lips, not yet – too intimate. Pentheus is still new, after all. “Tonight, my handsome and dutiful friend, I will give you the privilege of taking my body…”
He pauses, and cocks his head. Pentheus is – well – taking an interest, that much is clear at a glance down. But there’s something still holding the king back. Dionysus is mildly surprised; he had thought after so many pent-up months, Pentheus would leap at the chance to take charge of Dionysus… unless… ah.
Dionysus smiles, gently. “Unless, of course, you wanted to take me another way. To the hilt, as it were.” He’s pleased to see a responding flush finally cover Pentheus’ face. “Well, darling. I’m sure you’ve heard by now. I consider myself rather flexible in such matters. I can certainly accommodate.”
Yes, he’s touched on it now. Pentheus’ body is responding rather enticingly… but the former king looks nervous still.
“Speak of your concerns, my pet; tonight is yours,” Dionysus tells him, bringing Pentheus’ fingers up to kiss them one at a time, which produces a delightful little shudder.
“I – could not ask it – “
“I know you couldn’t, my dear. But that was then.”
“I shouldn’t have – it was a wicked thing – ”
“Never wicked. Only fun.” Dionysus runs his thumbs over Pentheus’ nipples, making him jump and then glare at the god, which delights Dionysus.
“You enjoy this. You still enjoy mocking me.” The accusation only sounds pitiful. The torment in Pentheus’ voice is still raw, and Dionysus relents. He’s come a long way, but not all the way.
“You may find this hard to believe,” Dionysus murmurs, brushing a hand over Pentheus’ chest, unsurprised to find the heart racing beneath his fingertips. “…but I don’t want your shame.”
Proud Pentheus manages a faint scoff at that, even though his nerves, and Dionysus smiles. “No, really. Not for this, anyway.” He begins slowly stepping around behind the man, allowing his fingers to trace along Pentheus’ chest and shoulders as he goes. “You have more than a little hubris that you ought to be ashamed of, and I’m still attending to that. But this desire? No. I don’t want you to be shamed for it. There shouldn’t be any shame in it.”
“It’s wrong,” Pentheus rasps.
Dionysus clucks his tongue mildly. “Same old tune. Poor Pentheus, living like this. Believing that something you want so much can be so terrible.”
“You’re all deviants,” and Dionysus is pleased to hear far less conviction and anger than the last time Pentheus had spat this out at him. Now there’s much more confusion, and a hint of something enchantingly beseeching. Please convince me.
“Perhaps. But ‘deviant’ isn’t the same as ‘wicked,’ you know.” Pentheus’ eyes are fixed on a tree nearby, still visibly trying to collect himself, at a time when he ought to be uncollected. Dionysus rests his face on Pentheus’ well-formed back, wrapping his arms around the man’s midsection.
“You still think so little of me? Even after all those salted herrings I’ve slipped you, as a treat,” he complains. As he’d hoped, Pentheus snorts and relaxes incrementally.
“I enjoyed those,” he acknowledges, and with jerking movements, puts one hand atop Dionysus’ own.
“You’ll enjoy this even more,” Dionysus promises, pressing a kiss to the hot skin of his back, sliding his free hand down.
—————
Amethyst-eyed Dionysos, bare feet caked in mud, twigs in his long curls, is dancing between the evergreens.
He toes the edge of the property, banging against the chain link fence in tune with a drum only he hears. His hot breath puffs out into smoke clouds, which pour through the ice laden fence. With red-stained fingers, he grips the chain like a dancer partner and then slips through the spaces. The cold of the cement slab surrounding the correctional facility shocks his feet momentarily, and still he dances. He abruptly slams into a door. How amusing! What is a locked door to the Mad God? Don’t they know he’s needed within?
Uplifted on hazy wings of smoke, Dionysos dances down empty hallways and through the spaces of a cell’s bars. With a dirt caked under his fingernails, he blesses the occupants: a dozing alcoholic, and a boy made a man by heroin-white violence.
He blesses their slumber, their feverish dreams, the madness that claws at them. That sort of music, Dionysos knows well.
He leaps down the lobby that stinks of body odor and fear, and unlocks the doors from within.
Finally, release! — and he bursts through like a bull. But the wind whispers a different plan, and carries him southward, down the highway slick with ice, past the gas station, to a building hidden behind a long driveway.
Vines of ivy choke the welcome sign, so that only the word “rehabilitation” shines through. The Twice-Born God knows intimately the chorus of “Hello, my name is—“.
Clouds of cigarette smoke secretly expelled through bathroom windows follows him as he lovingly traces a finger along the brick. How many winters had he spent here!
And then, a chilling breeze whispers to him again, and takes him up, up, up to the window of a woman asleep in her court-mandated bedroom. A rest well deserved, in his opinion.
Dionysos slips through the spaces and blesses her forehead, slick with a feverish sheen. He blesses the pinpricks and flower-like scars, he blesses her yellow teeth, and then he spins from the bed, dropping leaves and crushed jasmine in his wake to bless the room next to this one. A woman sleeps on her side, dark hair obscuring her face. She is resting from a long dance once tirelessly performed in a role that no longer suited her.
The two women share nothing in common, save their feverish dreams, and the madness that claws at them. That music, Dionysos knows well.
The Wine-Dark God twirls down locked stairwells and reception desks, past the art room and cafeteria. He dances out of the sliding doors and down the driveway, knowing soon he’ll return.
Another breeze chills his bones but this time he knows it’s coming and waltzes with it down the street. The furs adorning his shoulders slip and fall, and he laughs as he picks them up, a reddish hue to his cheeks.
He hops eagerly along the road and up the bus lane. The parking lot sits empty, save a small group of cars huddled together in a corner. He slips through the spaces in the blue doors and dances in the sanitized hallways; the lobby reeks of body odor and fear. The quiet is unnatural to him, usually brimming with romance and betrayal and boredom.
The lockers sit silently as if sentinels to the moon; shiny but dented, they hide forgotten homework and rolling papers. Dionysos skips down to the auditorium, where music stops and starts over.
Uncertain voices ring out in celebration of songs written decades ago, whose harmony and lyric still rings out into unripened minds. A boy who does not yet call himself a boy stands at the edge of the stage, drowned in light, his purple dress beautiful, if not a little ill-fitting.
Dionysos moves slowly, transfixed, as this young boy hesitates to forget the same line again, his fear burning in his throat. Mistake! Mistake! Mistake!
With a sudden wild look in his eyes, he captures a gulp of air. A courage all the boy’s own wells up inside his chest, and he bursts out with the right line, loud, certain, and unafraid.
Dionysos laughs and wanders up the stage-left stairs to bless him; the boy would need to hold onto this strength for later. An anxiety swirls within him, a feverish dream, a madness that claws. That music, Dionysos knows well.
If only for a moment, the Insatiable God finds himself satiated and dances on. He soon leaves the school, and the rehabilitation center and the correctional facility, to head for the trees.
Amethyst-eyed Dionysos bows to the great pines before him, and begins his dance anew. There is no shame in it, no bashful queasiness; he is a daring dastardly scoundrel of a god, breathing the night air without inhibition. He knows his laughter and stomping dance will awaken the earth from her winter slumber. Dormancy will end.
For those blessed by him too shall awaken, sleeping now for the time being. Winter will end. Spring will come. He dances for them, for the new growth struggling to break through the snow.
With his dance, a promise is made. Madness will not last forever. This song, he knows well.
You have come to see the divine procession.
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.
Now the time has come. Now the flowers are here.
