Fiamma
February 26th, 2008, 01:23 AM
I was going to start this about a week and a half ago, adfter interest was expressed in the topic over in the God of the week thread for Apollo (http://mysticwicks.com/showthread.php?t=182789) as well as in a few pm's that I recieved.
I haven't forgotten it, I've really been trying to write some more about that and not gotten very far due to things like life going on and stuff taking up my brain....
So I'm going to start out with something that I wrote back in November. This is personal experience and UPG, though I keep finding interesting bits here and there, such as calling Apollo "Bakkhos" (a name also given to Dionysus) in Orphic hymn #34 (the text of the hymn can be found in the thread linked above), and their sharing of the sanctuary at Delphi.
Hmmm....this is interesting. For some weeks now, I've been expecting to wake up and feel like something was different, or amiss. Ever since the dream I had of Dionysus a few weeks ago, the Delphic split has been on my mind to one extent or another on a near constant basis, and it made sense that perhaps Dionysus was coming to take a more predominant part of my life for the moment, while Apollo would step back but that's not happened.
Dionysus hovers close, I am frequently reminded of his presence, though I don't actually need reminders. However, it seems that Apollo has drawn even closer. I sometimes wake up in the morning feeling a similar semi-delirious languor as I did when he stepped from the shadows during the Dionysus dream and pulled the arrow that he had just shot at me from my chest. When I'm awake, I feel a nearly-constant, almost tangible-presence.
I find it fascinating that each has been appearing in a manner more obviously appropriate to the other. In my mind, the ideas of balance and binary opposition- two opposites, without the other, one cannot exist- which have always been interesting to me have jumped much more to the forefront of my mind.
And then there is this theory which I recently ran across, I think while reading William Broad's book The Oracle: Ancient Delphi and the Science Behind Its Lost Secrets, mentioned only very briefly but still churning around in my mind since then, that some scholars have had the idea that Apollo and Dionysus are two halves of the same god. To be clear, I do not believe this but it is a fascinating idea and I can see where it could come from. The related idea that I have settled on for the moment as my understanding is not two halves of one whole...but more like two atoms sharing a covalent bond, connected by common threads, very difficult to separate one from the other.
I don't know. Maybe I'm experiencing some sort of between-time overlap. I'm working on a ritual to celebrate Lampteria next weekend. Maybe that will trigger a more seasonally-appropriate shift in my perception. Or another possible cause is that it's all connected to some things that have been going on with me that I'll not go into now (though I can suddenly see inspiring an interesting work of short fiction...) in that I need to be seeing this intricate connection of one and the other, two separate entities that cannot be wholly bisected- seasonal events be damned. Part of me is hoping that the first is true, part of me is hoping the second. In any event, the gods will do as they will, I will (hopefully) see what they want me to see.
Do I sound like a raving lunatic here? At the same time, it's making perfect sense to me...but sounding somewhat ludicrous as I reread the words.
And after someone suggested the idea of twins, without a whole lot of elaboration as to what was meant:
I hadn't thought of this in the sense of twins...and I don't actually think that that's what I'm thinking of here, but I'm not sure.
It's like....ummmm...different evolutions of the same little slice of the divine? In one way, they're so different, but if you go 359 degrees from one, you come to the other. All the difference is contained in that 360th degree. Small, but still there and if you look closely enough, you can see the same inner core...
If anyone has further thoughts on this, it is a topic of great interest to me and I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts, experiences etc on the matter.
I haven't forgotten it, I've really been trying to write some more about that and not gotten very far due to things like life going on and stuff taking up my brain....
So I'm going to start out with something that I wrote back in November. This is personal experience and UPG, though I keep finding interesting bits here and there, such as calling Apollo "Bakkhos" (a name also given to Dionysus) in Orphic hymn #34 (the text of the hymn can be found in the thread linked above), and their sharing of the sanctuary at Delphi.
Hmmm....this is interesting. For some weeks now, I've been expecting to wake up and feel like something was different, or amiss. Ever since the dream I had of Dionysus a few weeks ago, the Delphic split has been on my mind to one extent or another on a near constant basis, and it made sense that perhaps Dionysus was coming to take a more predominant part of my life for the moment, while Apollo would step back but that's not happened.
Dionysus hovers close, I am frequently reminded of his presence, though I don't actually need reminders. However, it seems that Apollo has drawn even closer. I sometimes wake up in the morning feeling a similar semi-delirious languor as I did when he stepped from the shadows during the Dionysus dream and pulled the arrow that he had just shot at me from my chest. When I'm awake, I feel a nearly-constant, almost tangible-presence.
I find it fascinating that each has been appearing in a manner more obviously appropriate to the other. In my mind, the ideas of balance and binary opposition- two opposites, without the other, one cannot exist- which have always been interesting to me have jumped much more to the forefront of my mind.
And then there is this theory which I recently ran across, I think while reading William Broad's book The Oracle: Ancient Delphi and the Science Behind Its Lost Secrets, mentioned only very briefly but still churning around in my mind since then, that some scholars have had the idea that Apollo and Dionysus are two halves of the same god. To be clear, I do not believe this but it is a fascinating idea and I can see where it could come from. The related idea that I have settled on for the moment as my understanding is not two halves of one whole...but more like two atoms sharing a covalent bond, connected by common threads, very difficult to separate one from the other.
I don't know. Maybe I'm experiencing some sort of between-time overlap. I'm working on a ritual to celebrate Lampteria next weekend. Maybe that will trigger a more seasonally-appropriate shift in my perception. Or another possible cause is that it's all connected to some things that have been going on with me that I'll not go into now (though I can suddenly see inspiring an interesting work of short fiction...) in that I need to be seeing this intricate connection of one and the other, two separate entities that cannot be wholly bisected- seasonal events be damned. Part of me is hoping that the first is true, part of me is hoping the second. In any event, the gods will do as they will, I will (hopefully) see what they want me to see.
Do I sound like a raving lunatic here? At the same time, it's making perfect sense to me...but sounding somewhat ludicrous as I reread the words.
And after someone suggested the idea of twins, without a whole lot of elaboration as to what was meant:
I hadn't thought of this in the sense of twins...and I don't actually think that that's what I'm thinking of here, but I'm not sure.
It's like....ummmm...different evolutions of the same little slice of the divine? In one way, they're so different, but if you go 359 degrees from one, you come to the other. All the difference is contained in that 360th degree. Small, but still there and if you look closely enough, you can see the same inner core...
If anyone has further thoughts on this, it is a topic of great interest to me and I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts, experiences etc on the matter.