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Oct. 23rd, 2007 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badstarFriday night I wandered up to Charles Village to pick up some crack wings (Er, honey mustard wings from American wings & Pizza at 2400 St Paul. We're too far away for them to deliver now. Unfortunately, none of the places we've tried that deliver have even semi-decent honey mustard wings, let alone a replacement for crackwings. The one place we tried brought this order of...gah, these little dried out chicken flavored sticks with this goop on them that looked radioactive. I swear, they were glow-in-the-dark chartreuse and when we tried to eat them the smell burned the inside of our noses. Terrible.)
So while waiting for the order (I lost the phone number or I'd have called ahead), I turned towards Safeway to pick up some groceries when I realized there was a liquor store on the 2400 block of St Paul, just as you turn left out of the Safeway parkig lot. I swear in all the time I've been there, I have NEVER seen a liquor store there but it didn't look new either.
So I'm coming out of the grocery store and I go back to pick up the order...but I turned left instead of right. Pizza place was to the right, liquor store to the left. There I am, in front of the liquor store. Walk in but am thinking to myself that I don't need any alcohol. Then I remembered that I had said earlier this week that I would pick up some wine and offer some to Dionysus as soon as I was able. Hah, well that made sense then.
But uh, what sort of wine? I've heard someone say before "It doesn't matter, Dionysus just likes wine. Though, I sorta had the feeling that it would in fact matter.
I do not like red wine. I like white wine. So when the question of wine comes up...my first thought is always white wine. And then, in my mind, I get this very clear "Don't even THINK of getting a white wine." Ooohkay. And then Shiraz came to mind. Shiraz? I've tried several red wines, but not Shiraz.
So I'm looking around. And I'm looking at this bottle, not really sure what it was. It was a very dark-colored bottle, and the label didn't appear to state very clearly what it was, so I picked it up...finally saw that it was a Chardonnay and went to put it back (Not that I would mind a good Chardonnay, but...) so I'm trying to put it back. And the shelf space was all of about a millimeter taller than the bottle and I guess I put it in at an angle because it got wedged in there, and took some doing to get it out. In the process I managed to knock the bottle beside it, which fell off the shelf but I caught it in the other hand. Got the other bottle in straight, looked at this one...it was an Australian Shiraz. Hithertoo referred to as "Kangaroo Wine" because it has a kangaroo on the label.
My next thought is "Uhh...I still don't have my new ID. How am I going to buy this? I still cannot buy alcohol without being carded." And of course, I get "Relax. They're not going to card you this time."
Of course they didn't. My ID showed up in the mail on Saturday. When I went to get my new ID the other week, they took a new picture. Ironically enough, I swear I look even younger in this ID than the previous one. No complaints though. The picture is...well, pretty damned impressively for an ID photo. But I digress.
So I get home with all the stuff, unbagging it all.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chironcentaur asks what's up with the Kangaroo Wine and then starts telling me about some teaser for a news story she'd seen the night before with something nasty (can't remember what) in some wine. I explain that I'm not going to drink the wine, and somehoe we move onto other conversation. A little while later I ask if I can borrow her copy of Kerenyi's Dionysus book, and then a little while later, grab the bottle of wine and start to head upstairs. She asks what's going on and I realize I never told her about the Dionysus dream. Without going into all the absolute minutiae, but still taking several minutes, I explained.
When I finished, in true Gavin fashion, my kind, thoughtful roommate* pointed and laughed at me, said she was glad things like that didn't happen to her and then kinda snickered and said "Haha, you've got the three".
I took the wine and a large clump of rosemary that I'd picked up at the store with me, and lit some candles, rearranged my altar a bit, thinking that I really need more altar surface...it really is not big enough to accommodate the worship of multiple deities.
I lit some pine incense and meditated a little. I read one of the Orphic hymns to Dionysus. I placed the rosemary on the altar in offering. I opened the bottle and poured some into a small glass. Most of the wines that I've tried have smelled like, well...wine. This one smelled like grapes. I did end up drinking some of it after all. And by "some" I mean maybe half of the glass that I had, which is probably about half the size of your average red wine glass. (Hey, it's what I had on hand.) The first sip or two wasn't entirely terrible, but after that, the last of the bit I drank...I don't think I'll be making a habit of drinking Shiraz. Not that particular Shiraz anyway. The last couple of sips, oddly enough, tasted like there was rosemary mixed in. (The rosemary on the altar did not come into accidental contact with the wine.) Maybe it was the context, or maybe red wines hit me harder than white wines, but I felt slightly (not very, just slightly) head-spinny as I made an offering of some wine and then meditated for a bit. The main thing that I got from all this was that this was not a temporary presence, this was permanent. Not not an absolute constant as Apollo is, but permanent. I lost track of time and when all was said and done, I think I spent about two hours sitting up there, offering and meditating. Shortly before I finished, I noticed my little bag of tiles with the Greek alphabet oracle sitting near me, and I hadn't tried it in a while, so I decided to see what came out...Khi. "Succeeding, friend, you will fulfill a golden oracle". Definitely looks like a good one to me.
*for certain values of kind and thoughtful
Mrph. This...well, if it didn't go as I hoped, it was because I was poorly-prepared. All week I let the Dionysus thing distract me a little too much and I guess I thought that my knowledge of ritual structure and previous experience leading ritual would get me through this one. I was wrong. So we were trying to do a Puanepsia ritual.
To be sure, it wasn't a complete failure. And I had help from Chrissy and Jeff who, I think did as well with their parts as could have been done with me the scatterbrained mess. (Thank you, both of you!!) Next time, I write my own. Next time, I make sure to make extra copies. Next time, next time, next time...
Small group ritual is much harder than large group. At this point anyway.
it all started with me having problems getting a fire lit. It seemed like it should be fairly simple. There was a bunch of teeny kindling. And I had brought with me this bundle made of all the little ends of the incense sticks that I've been offering for a while now, the dried bay (yes, dry. They snapped when bent.)leaves that I've been offering to Apollo every Saturday night, all wrapped up in some tissue paper. Okay, little wood bits no bigger than toothpicks, really dry leaves and tissue paper. Seems like something that should catch pretty easily, right?
Well, yeah sure...it would catch for about half a second and then the flame would die out. Geez, I thought tissue paper was extremely flammable? A big clump of laundry lint and some chopped candle wax ended up doing the trick (like half an hour later)
I'd stopped at a liquor store to pick up some wine for this one (completely intentional, this one) White wine was totally agreeable, and I'd hoped to find a steel Chardonnay...but only found one that was kinda ambiguous. Then I started looking at others, and I was reading various abels and tags. There was one that mentioned hints of guava, that sounded wonderful. I decided to grab that one. It was a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Of course I never really taste the "hints" that they mention in the descriptions...but this was still a really good one, once the bottle is empty, before I throw it out, I will have to write down the vinyard and year. In the end, everyone that partook of the wine during the ritual agreed.
On an amusing note, on my way out of the store, my attention was caught by a case of black glass bottles with black labels decorated with orange flames and white text. How could I not check it out? The brand, to my great amusement was called Killer Juice. I'm going to have to try that one one of these days on general principle.
In the end, the ritual was awkward and clumsy and I just generally made a mess of things. There's also the factor that a couple of the participants may have been there "just for something to do" which really kinda irks me. Also, post-ritual, Matt decided to do some energy work on me without asking or even telling me. Well, he thinks he did something anyway, but he didn't. But the fact that he even tried to without my ok really ticked me off and I told him on no uncertain terms that it wasn't cool and not to do it again.
The omen was okay, and overall, the impression that I got was that it was an acceptable and honest, albeit clumsy and awkward, effort. But later on when I came home, I felt fairly depressed about the whole thing. As I mentioned before, I have been, for some weeks now, in the habit on Saturday nights of making an offering of seven fresh bay leaves while considering what it is of myself that I have to offer. I couldn't do it this time without feeling like I'd failed and after the third or fourth leaf, I had to take them back and start over.
When I finally did go to sleep, I was somewhat exhausted and ended up sleeping til noon, right through all three alarms I'd set on my phone to be able to get up and go back to the grove for Sunday. I remember being half asleep, thinking about the things I needed to do and how it was Monday, so I could keep sleeping for a while. Then I started thinking and questioned what happened at the grove the day before, and realized that I hadn't gone to walk with the old ones...and snapped awake, realizing it was Sunday, and it was noon. Threw on some clothing and left. Got to the grove and the first thing that I heard when I walked in was, from Caryn "Well, I heard your ritual was quite a success last night." For about half a second, I thought she was being sarcastic and mocking me but no, that's not something that Caryn would do so I guess she must have been serious. Then Danielle started talking about how she thought it went all and all, and I decided that she really must have been serious. I honestly didn't feel any better about it, and really didn't want any reminders at the time, but what can you do?
And that, folks, was my weekend. Well, the major happenings of it anyway. Minor details include overhearing a story about someone named Shaqueesha (Taking a guess on the spelling. Where on earth do they get these names?) Having two people simultaneously back into me, one on each side, at Barnes and Noble- I swear, it couldn't have been better-times if it was choreographed. Smacking my elbow into the living room wall (Okay kids, stucco bits in sensitive elbow hurt) and getting headbutted in the boobs and then in the nose by Chrissy. Oh, and making smores post-ritual on Saturday night.
So while waiting for the order (I lost the phone number or I'd have called ahead), I turned towards Safeway to pick up some groceries when I realized there was a liquor store on the 2400 block of St Paul, just as you turn left out of the Safeway parkig lot. I swear in all the time I've been there, I have NEVER seen a liquor store there but it didn't look new either.
So I'm coming out of the grocery store and I go back to pick up the order...but I turned left instead of right. Pizza place was to the right, liquor store to the left. There I am, in front of the liquor store. Walk in but am thinking to myself that I don't need any alcohol. Then I remembered that I had said earlier this week that I would pick up some wine and offer some to Dionysus as soon as I was able. Hah, well that made sense then.
But uh, what sort of wine? I've heard someone say before "It doesn't matter, Dionysus just likes wine. Though, I sorta had the feeling that it would in fact matter.
I do not like red wine. I like white wine. So when the question of wine comes up...my first thought is always white wine. And then, in my mind, I get this very clear "Don't even THINK of getting a white wine." Ooohkay. And then Shiraz came to mind. Shiraz? I've tried several red wines, but not Shiraz.
So I'm looking around. And I'm looking at this bottle, not really sure what it was. It was a very dark-colored bottle, and the label didn't appear to state very clearly what it was, so I picked it up...finally saw that it was a Chardonnay and went to put it back (Not that I would mind a good Chardonnay, but...) so I'm trying to put it back. And the shelf space was all of about a millimeter taller than the bottle and I guess I put it in at an angle because it got wedged in there, and took some doing to get it out. In the process I managed to knock the bottle beside it, which fell off the shelf but I caught it in the other hand. Got the other bottle in straight, looked at this one...it was an Australian Shiraz. Hithertoo referred to as "Kangaroo Wine" because it has a kangaroo on the label.
My next thought is "Uhh...I still don't have my new ID. How am I going to buy this? I still cannot buy alcohol without being carded." And of course, I get "Relax. They're not going to card you this time."
Of course they didn't. My ID showed up in the mail on Saturday. When I went to get my new ID the other week, they took a new picture. Ironically enough, I swear I look even younger in this ID than the previous one. No complaints though. The picture is...well, pretty damned impressively for an ID photo. But I digress.
So I get home with all the stuff, unbagging it all.
chironcentaur asks what's up with the Kangaroo Wine and then starts telling me about some teaser for a news story she'd seen the night before with something nasty (can't remember what) in some wine. I explain that I'm not going to drink the wine, and somehoe we move onto other conversation. A little while later I ask if I can borrow her copy of Kerenyi's Dionysus book, and then a little while later, grab the bottle of wine and start to head upstairs. She asks what's going on and I realize I never told her about the Dionysus dream. Without going into all the absolute minutiae, but still taking several minutes, I explained.When I finished, in true Gavin fashion, my kind, thoughtful roommate* pointed and laughed at me, said she was glad things like that didn't happen to her and then kinda snickered and said "Haha, you've got the three".
I took the wine and a large clump of rosemary that I'd picked up at the store with me, and lit some candles, rearranged my altar a bit, thinking that I really need more altar surface...it really is not big enough to accommodate the worship of multiple deities.
I lit some pine incense and meditated a little. I read one of the Orphic hymns to Dionysus. I placed the rosemary on the altar in offering. I opened the bottle and poured some into a small glass. Most of the wines that I've tried have smelled like, well...wine. This one smelled like grapes. I did end up drinking some of it after all. And by "some" I mean maybe half of the glass that I had, which is probably about half the size of your average red wine glass. (Hey, it's what I had on hand.) The first sip or two wasn't entirely terrible, but after that, the last of the bit I drank...I don't think I'll be making a habit of drinking Shiraz. Not that particular Shiraz anyway. The last couple of sips, oddly enough, tasted like there was rosemary mixed in. (The rosemary on the altar did not come into accidental contact with the wine.) Maybe it was the context, or maybe red wines hit me harder than white wines, but I felt slightly (not very, just slightly) head-spinny as I made an offering of some wine and then meditated for a bit. The main thing that I got from all this was that this was not a temporary presence, this was permanent. Not not an absolute constant as Apollo is, but permanent. I lost track of time and when all was said and done, I think I spent about two hours sitting up there, offering and meditating. Shortly before I finished, I noticed my little bag of tiles with the Greek alphabet oracle sitting near me, and I hadn't tried it in a while, so I decided to see what came out...Khi. "Succeeding, friend, you will fulfill a golden oracle". Definitely looks like a good one to me.
*for certain values of kind and thoughtful
Mrph. This...well, if it didn't go as I hoped, it was because I was poorly-prepared. All week I let the Dionysus thing distract me a little too much and I guess I thought that my knowledge of ritual structure and previous experience leading ritual would get me through this one. I was wrong. So we were trying to do a Puanepsia ritual.
To be sure, it wasn't a complete failure. And I had help from Chrissy and Jeff who, I think did as well with their parts as could have been done with me the scatterbrained mess. (Thank you, both of you!!) Next time, I write my own. Next time, I make sure to make extra copies. Next time, next time, next time...
Small group ritual is much harder than large group. At this point anyway.
it all started with me having problems getting a fire lit. It seemed like it should be fairly simple. There was a bunch of teeny kindling. And I had brought with me this bundle made of all the little ends of the incense sticks that I've been offering for a while now, the dried bay (yes, dry. They snapped when bent.)leaves that I've been offering to Apollo every Saturday night, all wrapped up in some tissue paper. Okay, little wood bits no bigger than toothpicks, really dry leaves and tissue paper. Seems like something that should catch pretty easily, right?
Well, yeah sure...it would catch for about half a second and then the flame would die out. Geez, I thought tissue paper was extremely flammable? A big clump of laundry lint and some chopped candle wax ended up doing the trick (like half an hour later)
I'd stopped at a liquor store to pick up some wine for this one (completely intentional, this one) White wine was totally agreeable, and I'd hoped to find a steel Chardonnay...but only found one that was kinda ambiguous. Then I started looking at others, and I was reading various abels and tags. There was one that mentioned hints of guava, that sounded wonderful. I decided to grab that one. It was a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Of course I never really taste the "hints" that they mention in the descriptions...but this was still a really good one, once the bottle is empty, before I throw it out, I will have to write down the vinyard and year. In the end, everyone that partook of the wine during the ritual agreed.
On an amusing note, on my way out of the store, my attention was caught by a case of black glass bottles with black labels decorated with orange flames and white text. How could I not check it out? The brand, to my great amusement was called Killer Juice. I'm going to have to try that one one of these days on general principle.
In the end, the ritual was awkward and clumsy and I just generally made a mess of things. There's also the factor that a couple of the participants may have been there "just for something to do" which really kinda irks me. Also, post-ritual, Matt decided to do some energy work on me without asking or even telling me. Well, he thinks he did something anyway, but he didn't. But the fact that he even tried to without my ok really ticked me off and I told him on no uncertain terms that it wasn't cool and not to do it again.
The omen was okay, and overall, the impression that I got was that it was an acceptable and honest, albeit clumsy and awkward, effort. But later on when I came home, I felt fairly depressed about the whole thing. As I mentioned before, I have been, for some weeks now, in the habit on Saturday nights of making an offering of seven fresh bay leaves while considering what it is of myself that I have to offer. I couldn't do it this time without feeling like I'd failed and after the third or fourth leaf, I had to take them back and start over.
When I finally did go to sleep, I was somewhat exhausted and ended up sleeping til noon, right through all three alarms I'd set on my phone to be able to get up and go back to the grove for Sunday. I remember being half asleep, thinking about the things I needed to do and how it was Monday, so I could keep sleeping for a while. Then I started thinking and questioned what happened at the grove the day before, and realized that I hadn't gone to walk with the old ones...and snapped awake, realizing it was Sunday, and it was noon. Threw on some clothing and left. Got to the grove and the first thing that I heard when I walked in was, from Caryn "Well, I heard your ritual was quite a success last night." For about half a second, I thought she was being sarcastic and mocking me but no, that's not something that Caryn would do so I guess she must have been serious. Then Danielle started talking about how she thought it went all and all, and I decided that she really must have been serious. I honestly didn't feel any better about it, and really didn't want any reminders at the time, but what can you do?
And that, folks, was my weekend. Well, the major happenings of it anyway. Minor details include overhearing a story about someone named Shaqueesha (Taking a guess on the spelling. Where on earth do they get these names?) Having two people simultaneously back into me, one on each side, at Barnes and Noble- I swear, it couldn't have been better-times if it was choreographed. Smacking my elbow into the living room wall (Okay kids, stucco bits in sensitive elbow hurt) and getting headbutted in the boobs and then in the nose by Chrissy. Oh, and making smores post-ritual on Saturday night.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-10-24 02:52 am (UTC)Whereas Apollon is much more about the white wine. Though he's been preferring the Greek brandy I have lately, for some reason.
Re: STL
Date: 2007-10-25 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 03:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 03:57 am (UTC)(other than the nose, that hurt. But it went away, so it's ok)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 11:01 am (UTC)