Running From Dionysos
by Petros
Let me tell you a story,
Many years ago, when I was a boy, my parents abandoned me.
At night, I used to sit by my bedroom window and wait for my mother to come home. Sometimes she did.
Sometimes, it was better when she didn’t.
My banished father was broken and blinded by his own sadness. He is almost a stranger to me.
Every night I would sit, wait, and even pray for someone to come rescue me. No one ever did.
Not God, not Jesus, not even the Devil. So I prayed to Others.
Every night a piece of me would die
until there was nothing left but my pain and rage.
A night of rage
Stabbing wounds into a wall
Holding the knife just under my sternum, preparing for the upward thrust.
A voice saying “No.”
It wasn’t the Beautiful General.
It was the Warrior.
“You will Endure.”
“Put down the blade and pick up the iron.”
“We will harden you and We will forge you into something new.”
“Serve Me and Endure!”
So I did.
But there is a price.
The Warrior is a loyal but hard taskmaster.
Decades have passed and still the pain and rage roils within my iron-forged body.
My body breaks with its containment. My armor no longer serves as it did in the past.
Yet I Endure.
But for how long?
Life has approached me with twinkling eyes and an outstretched hand.
“Let me help.”
“Let me return to you that which died so long ago.”
I drink of His gift and for brief moments I glimpse and experience those parts of me I’ve forgotten,
Those parts He says He can return to me.
Yet I run from Him, called The Joy of Man.
“Let me help”, says the Emancipator.
I recoil in my pain and rage.
“Let me help”, says the Gentle One.
My body aches in pain as I limp away and say to myself through clenched jaw,
“I Endure!”
May I someday turn to Him and say,
“Please help me.”
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About ganglerisgrove
Free-range tribalist Heathen, Galina Krasskova, has been a priest of Odin and Loki since the early nineties. Originally ordained in the Fellowship of Isis in 1995, Ms. Krasskova also attended the oldest interfaith seminary in the U.S.- the New Seminary where she was ordained in 2000 and where she later worked as Dean of Second Year Students for the Academic year of 2011-2012. She has even given the opening prayer at the United Nations Conference “Women and Indigeny”. Beyond this, she took vows as a Heathen gythia in 1996 and again in 2004, She is the head of Comitatus pilae cruentae and a member of the Starry Bull tradition.
She has been a member of numerous groups through the years including the American Academy of Religion. She has also served previously as a state government contracted expert on the Asatru faith, and been a regular contributor to various print and online publications geared towards modern pagans and polytheists, and for a time had her own radio program: Wyrd Ways Radio Live.
Ms. Krasskova holds diplomas from The New Seminary (2000), a B.A. in Cultural Studies with a concentration in Religious Studies from Empire State College (2007), and an M.A. in Religious Studies from New York University (2009). She has completed extensive graduate coursework in Classics (2010-2016) and is pursuing a Masters in Medieval Studies at Fordham University (expected graduation 2019) with the intention of eventually doing a PhD in theology. She has also been teaching University classes in Greek and Latin. As part of her academic career Ms. Krasskova has written a number of academic articles, and also presented at various academic conferences including Harvard University, Claremont University, Fordham University, Ohio State University, Western Michigan University, Villanova University, and the City University of New York.
An experienced diviner and ordeal master, her primary interest is in devotional work and the reconstruction of Northern Tradition shamanism. Her very first book, The Whisperings of Woden was the landmark first devotional text to be written in modern Heathenry. Ms. Krasskova has a variety of published books available running the gamut from introductory texts on the Northern Tradition, as well as books on shamanism, runes, prayer, and devotional practices. She is also the managing editor of “Walking the Worlds,” a peer-reviewed academic style journal focusing on contemporary polytheism and spirit work and the first journal of polytheology. While very busy with teaching and school, she does also occasionally lecture around the country on topics of interest to contemporary Heathenry and polytheisms.
A passionate supporter of the arts Ms. Krasskova enjoys going to the opera, theater, and ballet. Her affection for the arts began early as she discovered dance, which she pursued professionally becoming a ballet dancer: first with a regional company in Maryland, then in New York City. After suffering career ending injuries, she would find new forms of expression in the visual arts. For a few years Ms. Krasskova co-owned an art gallery in the Hudson River Valley of New York, and over a course of numerous years she has studied a multitude of art mediums: glassblowing, watercolor, acrylic, photography and more!
She is now an avid collage artist, acrylic painter and watercolorist and has even enjoyed placement in international artist-in-residencies programs in New York, New Mexico, and Poland. Her work has been exhibited globally from New York to Paris.
She has taken her passion for the arts and polytheistic devotion, to create the Prayer Card Project. Since so much religious iconography has been destroyed, or defaced in the course of human history, she is actively making new religious prayers and iconography available to the various modern polytheistic communities to support those who are building their religious communities, building their devotional practices, and hungering for art that represents their religious faith. All while also supporting the artists within these burgeoning communities.
Ouch! Powerful.
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That’s an amazing poem!
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Thank you for writing this, Petros. I can totally relate!
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Appreciation and thanks for the Likes and Comments gang!
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This is an amazingly powerful piece. It made me cry.
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Incredible ❤️
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