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In the interest of giving equal time to both sides of the Minoan pantheon, I’m going to alternate between goddesses and gods in the Meet the Minoans series. Up this time: Dionysos, god of passion and parties. At least, that’s how most modern folks see him, but he’s actually far more complicated than that. Let’s take a look.

First of all, the symbols usually associated with Dionysos tend to be, shall we say, less than civilized. He is often depicted dressed in leopard skins (or panther skins, the panther being the melanistic or black leopard), accompanied by leopards or riding in a chariot pulled by them. His staff is the thyrsos, a fennel stalk wound round with ivy and topped with a pine cone. If he’s not in the mood to wrap the ivy around the handle of the thyrsos, he wears it on his head as a crown. He hangs out in the wild woods and caves with satyrs and maenads who like to have wild sex and tear baby animals apart with their bare hands so they can eat them raw. Not exactly a city boy, if you see what I mean.

Vineyards may be fairly civilized enterprises, but the grape harvest and winemaking are ancient sacred activities with a wild side. And wine brings on that most Dionysiac of states, drunkenness and uncontrolled passion, both joy and rage. In a ritual setting this amounts to sacred madness and ecstasy. A couple of interesting tidbits: Dionysos is the original miracle-worker who turned water into wine. And wine was used to represent his blood in Dionysiac ceremonies.

Author, tarot creator, and pagan leader Courtney Weber joined me on the latest episode of The Modern Witch Podcast. Our conversation was such a blast that I had to send her a few more questions. For the full interview head on over to The Modern Witch PodCast.

DH: The New York pagan scene has been exploding over the past few years. As a pagan Leader within that community what would you say are some of the major reasons for this renaissance?

CW: It seems to go in cycles, with a resurgence happening every twenty years or so. One of my teachers says that's pretty typical of the entire Pagan movement, as a whole. Other writers have connected the interest in Paganism and Witchcraft to environmental damage. When we notice the planet it injured, we cherish it even more. My gut sense is that this recent resurgence is an unconscious reaction to 9/11. I moved to New York in 2003, when the city was still in the very early stages of healing. There wasn't much of a cohesive community. I kept meeting people who, like me, were looking for the community but couldn't find it. It started coming together slowly, but then quickly and one day just exploded in number. I suspect other local congregations may have experienced something similar with their own numbers. Consciously or not, people are trying to find meaning and comfort in a world that became sharply terrifying on one single day. I believe I can trace my own embrace of Paganism to the aftermath the tragedy. Everywhere, but especially in New York, the collective soul needs nurture. Green faith (as the interfaith community calls it) is dynamically restorative. I think there is a pulse beneath the concrete that suffering souls can feel. We know the Mother is a Healing one, and this draw is what I believe stirred this recent renaissance. 

     Earth ripples alive in her golden skin as wheat ripens under summer sun, pulses to fullness fattened by rain and wild airs. Bronze rods of barley brushed by the weather, shimmer in fields of light as Corn Mother moves amongst us. Her fertile body is swollen with grain, sheaf after sheaf—enough to bring bread to the whole planet, even to famine, if we work with the climate, tend our fields as holy places, share with those who lack as an act of Compassion. Her belly is big with promise, with miracles, wonders, but our shadows stretch long on the harvest acres as we eat up the land. At the heart of the Eleusinian mysteries lay a single grain of wheat—sun-energy so small, holding the future. Women everywhere engage with the sacred alchemy of making bread: grain, water, fire, to feed their families and those who are in need. Loaves and flatbreads, chapattis, sour rye unite us in simple ritual: May we break bread in peace with all nations, in the name of Goddess.

Rose Flint © Mother Tongue Ink 2013

Mara Berendt Friedman (Lorane, OR) For over two decades, Mara has celebrated the Divine Feminine through her paintings. See more at: www.newmoonvisions.com

It's fiery Tuesday here at the PaganNewsBeagle, and we've got a full plate of activist goodies! Satanic activists take advantage of #HobbyLobby; open carry -- prayer; the IRS investigates churches; should Pagans have "ministers," and heretical Founding Fathers of the U.S.

Under the category of "Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword" the Satanic Temple (hardly the Christians who brought the original case) is now invoking the #HobbyLobby SCOTUS decision to demand a religious exemption to anti-abortion laws in several states. While it's not obvious if these Satanists are actually religious, or just clever activists, they are certainly doing a nice job of getting attention.

"Open Carry -- Prayer!" That's what Byron Ballard calls a new law promoting faith in the public schools of North Carolina. The ramifications of this (and other) new state laws on religion is discussed by Heather Greene at TWH.

There's something immensely powerful in women baring our bellies.

Quoted in The Woman's Belly Book, a woman describes what would happen when her daughter, as a toddler, met someone for the first time: She'd lift her shirt up and show them her belly.

Here's an adult, and global, example. "Get Your Belly Out" is a worldwide campaign that four women in the UK have launched to raise awareness of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), Crohn's disease, and colitis — all ways of naming the belly's deep distress. Using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, supporters are posting photos of their bellies bared. They're also donating to research that will generate a cure for these gut-wrenching diseases.

I love how bellies bared for the camera make such an impact. They're saying: "Here I am, you can't ignore me now." When women bare bellies in a joint enterprise, the message is: "Here we are, you can't ignore us now."

There are so many legends about wishes in our culture. Which one of us has not make a secret wish on our birthday candles?  Who hasn’t wished on the first evening star?

So often, these are the first spells we cast as children.

Sometimes, a simple wishing spell is all you need, and you don’t have to wait for your birthday, or for the first evening star, to cast it.  All you need is the Nine of Cups!

The summer issue of the progressive spiritual-political magazineTikkun includes feature essays on the topic "Thinking Anew about God" which should be of interest to PaganSquare readers. The editor of the journal suggested to contributors that though many thoughtful people have rejected the (dominant male) God out there who is in control of the world, these same people often are not aware of new ways to thinking about divinity. All of the contributors respond to the challenge to imagine and conceptualize divinity in new ways. Though most of them are not pagan, I suspect that aspects of some of their views will resonate with every reader of this blog. 

Jewish feminist Judith Plaskow and I contributed a jointly written essay. In it, I speak of Goddess as a personal presence who loves and understands the world and whose power is power-with not power-over.  Judith speaks of God as a power of creativity that is the ground of both good and evil.

The Table of Contents provides a glimpse of the exciting new ideas about Goddess and God discussed in the issue.