#dionysusdeity

For good Fortune! The 2024 Rural Dionysia is now officially over. The poll is now closed, and it is time to reveal the winners of this year's edition:

For the Freestyle poetry category, the winner is:

Helene / Klytemnestra by @apiswitchcraft

For the Modern Hymn category, the winner is

Minor Hymn to Love (Eros) by @piristephes

and finally, for the “Complete the Fragment” category, the winner is

For We Are Only Mortal - By Aön Re of @hyakinthou-naos

Thank you to everyone who has participated and voted and big congratulations to our three winners for this edition!

For those who celebrate it, receive our best wishes, and that you have a merry Rural Dionysia and happy holiday season regardless of what you celebrate.

Submissions are now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted a piece for this edition of the Rural Dionysia! Are listed below this year's entries. Enjoy the read!

Freestyle Poetry

Nymphs by @junipersplace

Curious Light by @agressivepoet

QUALMS ABOUT UNANSWERING(?) GODS by @hellyeahmfwitchcrafttime

In wine, truth. by @piristephes

2 Makes 1 by @froggyart

Helene / Klytemnestra by @apiswitchcraft

Distance by @khaire-traveler

Modern Hymn

To Apollo of Parnassus by M. Rutilia Laeta @apis-vergilii

Minor Hymn to Love (Eros) by @piristephes

Hymn to Persephone by @apiswitchcraft

Complete the fragment

Selene's wisdom by @piristephes

For We Are Only Mortal - By Aön Re of @hyakinthou-naos

(alcaeus) muses on sappho's triumph by @imperturbitude

To vote:

Voting takes place via poll. You will be asked to vote for 1 entry per category. You have until Dec. 25th to vote and we will be announcing the winners on Dec. 26-27th latest.

Io! The time of the year has come again for the Rural Dionysia!

How to participate

The Rural Dionysia is meant to be a smaller competition than its urban counterpart, as such, we have selected only 3 categories:

Freestyle poetry

Modern hymns

“Complete the fragment”

Freestyle poetry

Your poem can be about any chosen topic (myth, personal experience etc.) in any written format. It doesn't have to be religious in nature.

Modern hymn

An hymn must sing the praises of a deity of your choice. Unlike the "freestyle poetry", your work must be of religious nature to fit in this category.

Complete the Fragment

Each year, we choose a fragment from an Ancient Greek poet to work with. The challenge is that the initial fragment must be included somewhere in your piece in its original order. This means you can fill the gaps however you want, but you can’t switch the order of the words in your piece or remove words from the original fragment.

Here is the fragment selected for this 2024 edition:

Fragment 113 by Alcaeus (trans. David A. Campbell; Loeb 142)

…kiss…(they) began…knowledge…sits…are…mortal

Here is the Greek text for reference. Note that because the word "they" is implied, it will be acceptable to keep or modify this word.

If in doubt for any of these categories, remember that you can check submissions from the previous years to get an idea of how others have done before.

Submitting your piece

Please submit your piece through submissions on this blog. All entries must be tagged for the category they are being submitted to. but you can only choose 1 category per piece and each person may only submit 1 entry per category each year.

Entries must also be tagged for potentially triggering content and squicks. If your entry needs a trigger warning, kindly add them at the end of your submission and we will take care of adding them in. Check the rules below for further information about submissions.

Calendar of the event

Nov. 16: Official announcement and opening of submissions. Dec. 17: Final submission day. Dec. 18: Vote opening. Dec. 25: Vote closing. Dec. 25-26: Announcement of the winners!

No worries though! We will be posting reminders about each step when the time comes.

General rules

Roleplay and fanfic are not acceptable submissions. This is a religious festival, please respect our faith and do not submit an entry if you are roleplaying or writing fanfiction.

Unlike with the City Dionysia, entries do not necessarily have to be about specific deities or Hellenic polytheism except for the “Modern Hymn” category, which has to be dedicated to one or many gods of your choice.

There are no meter restrictions. This is up to the writer.

All stories, myths, and poems must be entered using the submissions button.

All entries must be tagged for the category they are being submitted to. Entries must also be tagged for potentially triggering content and squicks.

An entry may only be submitted to a single category.

Each person may only submit one entry per category each year.

Winners for each category will be decided by popular vote.

Admins of this blog cannot participate, for obvious reasons. As for now, this includes @thegrapeandthefig @verdantlyviolet

devotional acts to Lord Dionysus today! He has really been by my side recently with my turbulent mental health, i burned incense, lit a few candles, poured a libation, and gave a prayer of thanks.

I've been transmasc since I knew the word for it. I came out as nonbinary at 14 and wanted to be perceived as a boy when I was a child.

as I've gotten older, I wanted short hair, and I wasn't allowed to by my father (I shaved off my eyebrows bc I was pissed about it in high school and then half my head). So the second I turned 18, my group of queer friends took me to their apartment and buzzed it completely off. It was amazing. It felt great. I had it like that for the next 9 years.

Now, I genuinely want my hair long. I'm coming back to my femininity. I realize that Dionysos had been trying to get me to open back up to this side of myself, but I desperately pushed it away because I wanted nothing to do with the womanhood I experienced, with being perceived as a woman, with any sort of femininity even though I did miss it deeply. I worry about not looking like I belong in my community.

But I've come to the realization that my shaved head was liberating at a time when I needed it. The past few years, I did it because it was protecting me from the advances of men, I walked at night without the worry, I wasn't accosted in the city I walked around in. It became something I used as protection not because I wanted any longer, it became the opposite of what it once was for me.

I now have hair past my shoulders. I love it. It looks good, I feel good. It's wavy, it's red, it's soft. I wear makeup intermittently again. I adorn my body in jewelry and perfume. I love it. I've missed it.

I remember someone queer called me a woman the other day and I felt a needle in my heart, and I immediately felt Dionysos' presence and him softly saying, "it's because you're pretty, it happens" and I laughed.