The silly things I agree to do! – Dionysia

I have lots of things that I want to post about here. I still mean to re-write the shadow work post that got eaten last week, in addition to musing about the direction in which my relationship with Hera is taking me. But I am writing here today about my opportunity to show my local pagan community what I, as a Hellenic polytheist, get up to.

As many of you will know already, a small, private group from the local pagan community get together during the conventional eight holidays in the wheel of the year at our allotment to perform ritual together. It’s coming up to the vernal equinox and some smart-ass noted that nothing had been arranged for our little group ritual yet. After a moment of wondering what to do, somebody looked at me and went, ‘Emma? What about you? You haven’t led a ritual yet!’ cue affirmative nods and mumbles of ‘yeah, you said you wanted to do something!’. I murmured something about not really following the wheel of my year in my own practice, and following a very different ritual format…’Great! We like to see how everyone else practices!’.

So I agreed to lead our ritual this month at the allotment in a Hellenic style. I have been worrying since Monday about what to put together. It crossed my mind to maybe perform a ritual honouring persephone for the coming of spring, or honouring Apollo and Artemis as gods of the sun and moon for the equinox. But no. I really don’t want to create an arbitrary rite somehow related to the time of year right off the bat. Instead, I am going introduce my community to the city Dionysia, which begins around the time of our celebration.

I am going to do a proper procession to the ritual space. I want to cleanse the participants with Khernips and have them toss barley into the fire. I am going to invite them to bring drums and noise makers to process with, I will ask each member to bring food for the god and for us to feast. And finally I will ask those who are willing to bring short stories or poetry of their own creation to be recited in ritual as a performance.

Not to mention lots and lots of wine.

Wish me luck.