xxi.

[ecstasies]

information

player: Rue
contact: twerks
character: Dionysus / Dion Reed
race: Olympian
roles: God of wine, vegetation, pleasure and festivity; patron of the Athenian dramatic festival.
journal: ecstasies
pb: Daniel Tighe
bio:

• Historically depicted as either a bearded older man or a long-haired, attractive youth.

• One of the Twelve Olympians (variant).

• Born to Zeus (god, obv) and Semele (mortal).

• Put under Hermes' charge as an infant; taken to King Athamas and his Queen Ino where he was raised as a girl (to be spared Hera's wrath).

• As he was growing up he discovered the process of making wine from grapes; Hera struck him with madness; Rhea cured him and he set off through Asia teaching the cultivation of wine.

• When he finally returned to Greece it was to reintrodue his worship, although many princes of Greece were opposed to him at first because of the madness and disorders it brought with it. Ritual ecstasy, etc.

• Further stories and appearances can be found here because I'm lazy.

dionysus in the modern world.

The Olympian Dionysus personifies the natural beauty of excess. He exists for the night-sky of euphoria and enlightenment through ecstasy: hedonism is the most primal path to self-discovery, or so his Maenads believe, and only by removing selfish inhibition and the shackles of social constraint can a person be his or her true self. Dionysus revels in these leveling acts of impassioned human destruction: his nature is changeable—enigmatic and wild—which makes him a dangerous deity in his own right, although his followers have long since learned that such danger is a necessary part of a ripened life.

Despite being an adoptive addition to the Greek pantheon Dionysus has been worked into myth incredibly well. His (most likely) Phoenician roots explain his exotic looks and behaviours in comparison to the other deities: his various cults are shrouded in question, not unlike the mystery cult of Isis, although the initiation rites and nocturnal activities separate him from what many might call the 'more decent' deities. Naturally, Dionysus would have it no other way, and he takes great pleasure in keeping others guessing with his peculiar customs and habits. There is one truth to him, however, that is unmistakably clear: Dionysus has a lust for all the facets life that can be rivaled by no other, and it is this veneration of experience that offers itself so well to Athenian festivals, dramatic works and ritual celebrations.

It is undoubtedly his patronage of what would nowadays be considered 'taboo' that has preserved him for so long. Christianity quashed the Grecian pantheon two thousand years ago yet elements of Dionysus have survived to this day: allusions to 'the horned god'; 'the bringer of chaos'; the unseen danger that teaches the necessity of fear ... Dionysus enjoys the Bible as much as any other modern-day critic. Thanks to this poor villain, Satan, his own ideals been remembered, and thanks to centuries of Christian oppression have new cults begun to rise in his name.



TBC