Liberalia
Those of you who follow Sannion’s blog know that yesterday during the Liberalia we dug up the cow skull (we keep saying bull, but I think it’s a cow actually) which we buried last May when it was fresh off the slaughtered animal. Having a horned animal skull that spent 10 months underground is going to be a useful thing, I think, but I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it yet. It fully cleaned of flesh, thank the gods, and nicely intact, but much too large to de-grease and whiten in my usual manner, so it will be sitting outside by the garden altar to be cleaned by the elements. (There it is again below, slightly cleaned off with the hose, and you can see one of the phallic cakes on the altar.)
Uploading these photos reminded me I had a couple from previous Dionysos festivals I never shared. Here are the paper dolls we printed, cut out and colored, to hang from the trees during the Aiora portion of last month’s Anthesteria festival:
And the paper cups I decorated with images based on the Dionysian epithets Sannion selected, which we used to leave out wine offerings across the city for Lampteria last November:
One of your pictures is labeled “wolfsbane” – are you really growing a form of Monkshood? ._. (If you are… lucky; it doesn’t get cold enough long enough in this part of California for it to grow. I’d literally have to grow it in a refrigerator.)
Yup, that’s monkshood. I didn’t grow it from seed myself – I got a plant last year from a greenhouse, grew it successfully (unlike the first time I tried), and then let it go to seed at the end of the year, and happily, new plants started poking up this year.
I liked the photo of the rams skull,I’d like to get my hands on a skull of an antlered deer!
[...] Dver has posted some pictures from our Liberalia, Anthesteria and Lampteria observances here. [...]
Beautiful all around! You both do such wonderful and creative crafting for your festivals! I, sadly, don’t get to do as much of that any longer…