trial of a god
I love Dionysos, and Dionysos loves me. Deeply. Irrevocably. At this point, I’d be surprised if we weren't inseparable at a molecular level, our souls entangled. Our devotion to one another is eternal. But I’m learning the hard way that love and devotion don’t automatically equal presence. A few months ago, when the chips were down, Dionysos revealed that he would be exiting my life for a period of time, a timeline that has since become sacred to me. He will be leaving, and I won’t be able to rely on or even call upon him beyond a working relationship for divination. He will be gone until he returns
At first I rallied against this revelation, kicking and screaming like a child throwing a tantrum. I don't want him to leave, so he can't. I don't know what I'll do without him, not when he has been so loud, so vivid, and so large in my life since we met, so he can't possibly draw his presence away. How can he abandon me now? How can I trust that he'll return? It took me a while to understand, and longer to accept, that that's part of the bargain. My practice can't stand on Dionysos and neither can I. No matter how much I love him — and if you know anything about me, you know that I love Dionysos so enthusiastically that it might as well be a blinking, neon sign — I’m not living *his* life. I'm living *mine*. There is rebirth that awaits me without him (ironic, huh?), and I must trust that he'll celebrate whoever I become
So, here I am, sitting on the doorstep of "goodbye." I burn his candle, I wear his oil, I hold him close in the moments between sleep and waking... and time marches ever toward the moment I'll no longer have him. What else can I do? What else would you do in my shoes?