The fucked up family of Dionysos

The Dionysian Artist presents three family trees for Dionysos, which are not entirely contradictory to one another, even if they don’t all fit perfectly. Things like this are among the reasons I don’t take myths literally.

But, hey, everybody’s family is at least a little messed up, right?

The Dionysian Artist

I hope it does not come as a shock that Dionysos has a complex and often confusing family tree. I’ve divided this into three tales:

Standard myth: has him the son of Zeus and Semele, daughter of the founder of Thebes, Cadmus (his grandfather) and Harmonia (his grandmother). If we look back through Cadmus’ family tree Zeus is something like Dionysos’ great, great, great, great grandfather via Io. Zeus is also his great grandfather on Dionysos’ grandmother’s family side. And as a technicality Zeus is his father and mother…  is your mind twisted yet?

If we regard Orphic mythology: the Olympian Dionysos is a second incarnation. His first incarnation is known as Zagreus-Dionysos, the son of Persephone and Zeus.
Zagreus is a supreme deity that Zeus concedes the throne to his son, thus giving Zagreus the universe as a mere babe. As is typical in myth: Hera is jealous, and employs…

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We Need a Sacred Bartender

Update from Thiasos Bakkheios:
We recently had another chanting and drumming and (some) dancing devotional. I’m going to report on it as best I can. Only some of these are my personal recollections; certain gaps in my memory had to be filled in with information supplied by “dude, you were so wasted” stories people told about me the day after.

The plan was to sacrifice food and drink to Dionysos and His friends and relations, to build up the energy and the ecstasy with chanting and drumming, and to ask the god if He’d be so kind as to send us some sign in our dreams as to how we can best make our individual relationships with him stronger.

Indigenous People’s Day

Thoughts I had on Indigenous People’s Day, yesterday:

I was born on land disputed by the Iriquois Confederacy and the Cherokee, land where the Shawnee moved when the whites forced them out of Virginia.

 

I grew up on the land where the Baxoje (Iowa) lived, where once the Dakota and Sauk roamed.

 

I live now on land fished and farmed by the Olohne, and where the Muwekma and others still live.

 

The land I live on, from which I derive my life, is Native land, shaped by Native lives, soaked with Native blood.

 

I remember. I will not let others forget. I will pay the debt incurred by my white ancestors, as best I can, to the descendants of those they wronged.