A Little This and That

Mantis ● 30s ○ Witch ● 🔞 ○ Mystic in training, accidental riverwalker, deep sea witch. hellenic practices mixed in with some other stuff. Dionysus, Hermes, Hekate, Aphrodite, Thoth. Trying to connect more with other practitioners!

[jellogram]

I've always considered myself a kind of hedonist and felt like Dionysus kinda knew what was up. And in the past that mostly meant I was partying a lot but now I'm getting into other kinds of hedonistic pleasure. Like yeah sure you can find god at the club but you can also find it inside a really juicy nectarine.

And at a certain point, the pursuit of partying stops being a pursuit of pleasure, because 1) you're in pain so much of the rest of the time in exchange for those few hours of pleasure, and 2) it gets really easy to ignore other kinds of pleasure and just keep hitting the party button over and over. That's not pursuing maximum pleasure, that's blindly pursuing one type of very limited pleasure in spite of how small the returns are getting.

Like I never thought of moderation as a form of pleasure-seeking but it actually really is. If the goal is to experience pleasure and avoid pain, then maintaining some degree of moderation is kind of important.

[child-of-earth-and-starry-heaven]

One thing I’ve learned from Dionysus is that pursuing joy is not the same thing as avoiding pain. If you’re gonna be a hedonist, let it be the genuine pursuit of joy, and not just avoidance.

[prairiebeetle]

the mythic literalism debate really obfuscates the need for historiography imo. I don't believe that x or y god is a rapist or a murderer in any real sense, but individual opinion should not be the main focus here. what's undeniable is that these mythologies, cultural norms, and cultic practices were developed within a highly misogynistic, ableist, and stratified society, and it's irresponsible to overlook or attempt to 'soften' that fact when retelling or reimagining these stories.

someone else's belief or non-belief in the myths doesn't necessarily matter to me; there's bound to be a range of positions today as there was in the ancient world. but what does matter is whether someone is carrying forward harmful practices or ideas because they've simply rewritten a surface-level 'nice' version of the myths in their head, rather than engaging more deeply with the source culture and seeking to understand their meanings in context.

we can and should worship the gods without needing to ignore, absolve, or justify the cruel, oppressive parts of their myths and cultures. instead we need to ask questions like, what do these things tell us about the function of religion, or gender roles, or property rights at the time, in this place? what might this suggest about the god’s worshippers, their role in public worship or household rituals, or their relationship to civil governance, public unrest, marginalized groups, imperial expansion, etc.?

these types of questions can help you to build a theological foundation and create a practice in line with your personal convictions, grounded in historical context, but able to identity and deconstruct the objectionable parts when you see them. the myths are documents, first and foremost, and that's how we need to treat them. anyone who says that it's hubristic or 'offensive' to take this approach does not have your best interests in mind.

[ranrandraws]

hermes thing i want to turn into an oil painting

[iliothermia]

Pendulum

[ulstercycle]

Dionysus sketch page is finally done!

[politijohn]

Source

Happy Pride Month!

[reasonsforhope]

Holy shit!!!!!!! HUNGARY DID IT!!!!

-via the Los Angeles Blade, June 1, 2026

[divinitydespair]

Happy Pride to all the depraved

[bexondeck]

of all of the bizarre things I’ve seen while working in skilled nursing the one that’s going to stick with me until I die is bug god

[bexondeck]

nothing can possibly prepare you for the moment you show up to give a man his apple juice and he says “Do you think bugs come from the same god as us? They’re older than our god. They have their own.”

[redlipstickresurrected]

Satoshi Kawamata aka 川又聡 aka Kawamata Satoshi (Japanese, b. 1978, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan) - Leopards, Japanese Paintings: Sumi-e Ink, Mineral Pigments

[mournfulroses]

Mahmoud Darwish, from a poem titled "A Wedding Over There," featured in Almond Blossoms and Beyond: Poems

[pissssston]

silly This isn't exactly how I picture Dionysus in my head, but I haven't come up with a finished piece—not just a sketch—to get it right yet

In my mind, he actually looks more like Zagreus than Dionysus. You know, this whole thing with the bull-headed god...

[caelibane]

Serpent legged Dionysus

Naukratis, 1-2nd century CE Roman Egypt.

He bears a cornucopia and grapes, he is depicted wearing a nebris (deer skin cape associated with Dionysus and the Maenads), a himation and the Hemhem (triple atef) crown. Harpokrates (Horus the Child) in the top right corner.

The Hemhem (meaning “To Shout Out”) crown was an attribute of multiple Gods at varying points, but noticeably Horus the Child of Esna and the Nubian God Mandulis who was called "Sun, the all-seeing master, king of all, all-powerful Aion” and whose cult was continuous with Hellenistic Egypt. In the case of Horus, Ptolemaic and Roman period Esna developed a particular theology of Horus the Child* depicted with the hemhem crown as “The perfect youth, sweet of love, who repeats the births again and again.” The triumph of the Sun each dawn and the renewal of all life in the world. It is only natural that Dionysus, a Life Giving God presiding over the renewal of vegetation and the salvation of the human soul, should be wearing it.

*Budde 2010, Child Deities. UEE.

[dodovoxo]

Diony sus

[nyxshadowhawk]

Neon Dionysus by @lilacsidhe

[nightmaskart]

Hekate Propylaia

[dragolemur]

Dionysus the god you are.... 🍷

one of my favorite drawings I've ever made, the design, lineart and rendering came out just so perfectly aaa-

guess that's what procrastination caused by exam session stress does to you (drawing made during last year's spring semester)

[khal-winchester]

As a community, we really need to work on this whole "racism has to involve slurs or I can't identify it" thing we have going on.

[khal-winchester]

Here's the thing: Racism in our communities doesn't show up right away as overt racism and slurs and racism in its final boss forms. It starts small and it waits to see how far it can get. It holds out to see what it can get you to cosign before it takes another step and then another one and then another one. It might start as the bemoaning of loss of white European identity and culture. It might start as BIPOC standing up for themselves being reframed as "drama". It might start as the recentering of anti-racism efforts onto white comfort and white perspectives. We can't just look for shaved heads and known dogwhistle tattoos. We have to pay attention to how our BIPOC community members are being treated, what they are saying, what they are sharing. We have to pay attention to how language is being used, misused and recentered even when that language is not aggressive, explicit slurs.

Racism in pagan and witchcraft spaces sometimes announces itself, but it doesn't always. Sometimes people who are doing racist shit don't even think of the shit they're doing as being racist (regardless of its impact). And people who don't know what to look for on their own can easily fall into the trap of liking, reblogging, supporting or even spreading harm if they aren't willing to listen to the people who do know what they're looking for. Racism makes itself comfortable in our spaces because we allow it to, because we are only looking for overt racism and slurs and hatespeech and we don't respond until it reaches that point.