At three in the morning, go to the woods. Or wherever your bare feet can touch the earth and your eyes can see the sky. Your garden, your front lawn, your backyard.

Wear nothing but a white tunic if you are a man. A white dress if you are a woman.

Look down on the ground and look up at the sky. Speak to the world you live in and to the heavens where it is floating.

Reveal your pain to them:

That your heart was crushed by another, if you wish to be unbound from a person. That a dream of yours is only torturing you, if you wish to forget a desire. That a memory is causing you agony, if you wish to be freed from the past.

After you have shed your last tear, take off what you are wearing. Light a fire in front of you and watch the fabric burn to a crisp.

As you let your naked body be gently warmed by the flame, you are allowing the powers that be to cleanse away your pain.

“Persephone”

Dionysus is known by many names, including 'the Twice-Born God' and 'the Resurrected One', but my favourite one is, without a doubt, 'the Liberator'.

He is seen as a symbol of hope, as he was given a second chance at life as an infant. Having been killed as a baby in an accident, Zeus sewed his child's body to his thigh, from which Dionysus was born again.

When he was ascended to Olympus, he was done so as the Liberator of humanity, being the god of madness, ecstasy, the harvest, and hope, to name a few.

As a result, he is often depicted in art and sculpture as holding out either a libation cup or arms laden with fruit, showing how he provides for us so lovingly. He is famously shown with Eros in reliefs and sculptures, feeding and nourishing the child god; or shown with a nymph and her child, feeding them from the bushel of grapes in his arms.

The ancient Greeks celebrated his birthday on what lines up to be the 25th of December on modern calendars, and it is from Dionysus that the story of the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ came from.

Dionysus is so so much more than just the god of wine, and he doesn't deserve to have that taken away from him. He is a provider and he has cared for us for millennia, whether we realised it to the full extent or not. Praise and hail 🍇🕯