dionysus

It is understandable that people associate Dionysus with the overconsumption of wine. There is that scene in The Bacchae where drunken and crazed maenads rip Pentheus to shreds and Pentheus’ own mother decapitates him thinking he is a lion. But I’ve always found the less bloody side of Dionysus to be more useful. Dionysus is the topsy-turvy god of release, the god of double vision, the god of the threshold. Here the god is neither this nor that but something in between, something ambiguous, mysterious, uncertain. So, I think in many ways, Dionysus is the god of beauty, truth, compassion, and letting go.