Body and Blood of a God - To Drive Out Depression

There is a Hellenic ritual that I believe so very strongly in because it has worked for me countless times over. I call it The Dionysian Rite, and it does, in fact, have ancient Greek origins.

The belief in wine being the blood of the vine is very ancient, and the concept of ingesting the body and blood of a God is not unique to the Christian religion. It, also, is very ancient. Christianity is also not the first religion to have a Savior God. That, too, is ancient, and while more than one Greek God carried the Epithet of Savior, Dionysos is known as the God of life who returned from death.

This rite was probably done in a Cult setting with specific instructions, but we can also adopt cultic practices in modern Hellenism. Dionysos had worshipers who would attack, kill and eat a live bull (the sacred animal of Dionysos), and in so doing, considered themselves to be eating the God's body and drinking His blood. I adopted this concept for my own temple, using chocolate (an ecstatic food) along with wine or grape juice to be the body and blood of Dionysos, since Dionysos is also the God of ecstasy and wine and grapes. Now, if you can find pieces of chocolate shaped like a bull, that would be of the most ideal, but if not, a typical piece will do. The richer the better, and the more pure and fresh the wine or grape juice, the better.

While this is a practice I have adopted for my temple's general activity, it also has many benefits for the personal human body. It's important to remember that while this ritual mirrors others in modern time, it's not about salvation from our humanity, because our humanity is not damned, it's blessed. There is no "cross to bear." Dionysos reminds us that it's alright to live.

Whenever I am feeling depressed or anxious, I have found that the ritual does wonders for freeing me from it and returning me to the lively world. Depression and anxiety is a form of death for the human system, and thus when life is fused back into you, it pushes the death out. I don't even have to do it in a formal setting. I just hold the chocolate in my hand, and before eating it, I say, "Body or Spirit of Dionysos." And if I drink wine or grape juice, "Blood of Dionysos." The depression, and any other ailment of the mind and spirit I may be feeling, is then dissolved. Of course, it may be beneficial beforehand to ask Dionysos to bless the food and drink as His blessings upon the "food of joy and the drink of the vine."

I'm not saying that someone should give up medical treatment for their depression or other mental illnesses. I'm simply saying that adding spirituality to it, might be the completion to the cure you need. Again, I believe so strongly in the power of this rite that I encourage fellow Hellenists and Pagans to give it a try.

In the Goodness of the Gods,

I'll see you at the next Herm down the road,

Chris Aldridge.

Day With The Druids

Autumn is my second favorite season, summer being the first. So yesterday afternoon, in very beautiful weather, I decided to attend a local Druid gathering, part of the ADF, in Rockford, Illinois, to celebrate the turning of the seasons. One thing that interested me in Druidism is that their central idea is simply a love and reverence for Nature, not necessarily a set theology. While they do call on certain Gods, namely Celtic, a Druid, to my understanding, is not made to take a vow to uphold one specific theological idea or worldview. There are, indeed, Hellenic Druids, and probably Druids who are monotheists or don't have any gods at all. I thought, I can jive with that, because I love Nature too and it doesn't conflict with my Hellenic beliefs at all.

The nearby group, called a Grove in Druid terms, much like a group of Hellenists may be called a Temple or a Demos, is ran by a friend of mine who invited me to attend back when the gathering and ritual was first planned. I had never before attended a Druid rite, so when it began, I was intrigued to see some similarities with Druidism and Hellenism. As within Hellenism, a central burning flame is ignited during the rites, although not necessarily for the same reasons. To the Greek, the fire may symbolize Divine presence, while to the Druid, it may represent one's inner spirit and connection to the Divine Ones.

The Druids invoke Gods who are obviously not Greek, but who rule over the same things that Greek Gods do. In other words, it would be very easy for a Hellene to create equivalences, such as when they called on the Earth Mother and their Forge God named Goibhniu, whom I would call Gaia and Hephaistos. They went on to invoke the Spirits of Nature and the Ancestors, which Hellenists do, and they also venerated their local river as a Divinity. This as well was and is done in Hellenism. In ancient Greece, local rivers and even springs received worship from their locals. The giving of sacrifices and libations were done pretty much the same way as a Hellene might do by pouring or placing them on the ground or in a holy container. So I didn't feel like too much of a foreigner religiously. There were, of course, some cultural differences, like the fact that a Druid's holy drink is ale, and for a Hellene it's wine. The rite was very clearly Irish and Celtic. However, I saw it as an opportunity to not only be Pagan with other Pagans around me, but to learn about another way of life. I didn't see the differences as being enough to build a wall of separation.

There was one particular thing the Druids did that I really enjoyed, and that was the concept of The Well. A fairly large bowl of clear water was set up in the middle of the altar to symbolize this cosmic entity, containing universal holy waters made so by the Kindreds, aka the Spirits of the land, the Ancestors, and the Shining Ones (Gods, Goddesses and Heroes). To take from this Well and into yourself is considered a sacred drink, and once ingested, the blessings of the Kindreds reside within you. We also ate of bread as well with our drink, but this was more on the concept of sharing sacrifice with the Gods, which the Greeks also did. You might remember, the Greeks had a rite of holy ingestion too, though far more complicated in cult setting, that I wrote about some time ago concerning Dionysos, and of course, the Christians took these concepts and ran all the way home with them into their holy communion. But The Well just really made me tingle with intrigue. I am very much a naturalistic person, so my deep love is found in very natural concepts.

I found the entire rite to be quite uplifting, and importantly, thorough. Sometimes, Pagan rites are done in a few simple movements or actions, or they continue through to completion entirely with one or two of the same movements or actions. This one, however, took its time and covered all of its very large, diverse theological and naturalistic bases. It actually taught me some things about ritual structure itself and gave me some new ideas in terms of templates that I might could fill in with Greek religion for my own public rites. I was very impressed with how detailed the Druids were, and how they touched the Divine, Nature and the worshiper on every level possible - mind, body and spirit completely. If there was ever a religion besides Greek that could be called a universal system in that it reaches out to everything, it's that of the Druids.

In the Goodness of the Gods,
Chris Aldridge.