Go to work. Go to school. Go to the gym. Eat right. Drink more water. Drink less beer. Don’t drink whiskey. Don’t shop. Save money.  Work more. Be nice. No anger. No bacon. No ice cream. Calories. Money. Friends. Kids. Dogs. Partners. Sharing. Support. Calm. Clean. Pretty. Clothes. Cars. Money. Taxes. No anger and no bacon.

There is a laundry list of things we are “supposed” to do. Done every day without thinking, it seems normal to fill the moments, to do what should be done. Celebration and debauchery are scheduled and designated for time and place. Vice, I believe, has a bad reputation. I believe in vice, but not as a tagline for Sin City. I believe in escape.

 
The Bacchanal festival is an outlet “as every person found at hand that sort of enjoyment to which he was disposed by the passion predominant in his nature” writes the Roman known as Livy in chapter XXXIX of his self-titled history book. Mardi Gras, bachelor parties and Saint Patrick’s day are the modern day answer to the ancient rites. Fredrik Nietzsche sees festivals of debauchery as the modern expression of repressed violence, sexuality and chaos in a world of conformity and control. I like this theory because it seems healthier than the alternative: “I drank too much, so I threw up.”

“The Bacchae,” by Euripedis, was a play first performed around the year 400 BC. Chances are, unless you took “Classical Foundations of Literature” or a similarly titled class in your liberal arts undergraduate education, you haven’t read this play. You haven’t talked about it, dissected it, become lost in its language, or found yourself in its story.

 Chances are, you have imbibed an excess of wine, you have perhaps even used the word “Bacchanal” while drinking said wine, trying to sound sophisticated and unaware of your tribute to the god of the party. You still, however unwittingly, know its story.

 It is the story of the cult of Bacchus.  In this play, a few thousand years removed, is the nature of a mountain town, devoted to joy and fun and a little healthy debauchery. If Frederick Nietzsche is correct and the Apollonian (war-god of order) worship is dominating our society, then the chaos and fun-loving cult of river, mountain and ski towns are the last idolaters of the Bacchanalia.  

Bacchus, also known as Dionysus, is the man who invented the orgy (from the Greek word “orgia”– more akin to Snowdown than pornographic fantasy). He is the Greco-Roman god of wine, of festivals, of drunkenness. He is the god of madness and chaos and ecstasy. In Disney’s “Fantasia,” Dionysus is portrayed as a sloppy rotund man-child with ruddy cheeks and an oddly pink nose. He appears harmless, blundering and surrounded by animals. If my memory is correct, he is soundly punished by the parental Zeus as if he had broken curfew.

Once again, Disney got it wrong. The power of Bacchus should not be ignored or undermined. Ovid tells the story of Pentheus, a stick-in-the-mud who didn’t believe that Bacchus was a real god; he set out to prove Bacchus false and instead was ripped apart at the hands of his own mother and sisters, fulfilling the prophecy that was made to him. Apparently Pentheus had never read Oedipus Rex. Do not discount the power of Bacchus, the god of virility and wildness and rampant nature. He is the god of life – intimately linked to Hades, the god of the underworld.

The image on the cover of my university bookstore used-copy of The Bacchae is of a young Elvis Presley. It was specifically chosen by my wizened professor for this photograph, blurred into an enlarged face shadowed by dark hair in a black and white print, brooding and powerful and Byronic. This is how I think of the god of ecstatic female worshipers, who philandered with sprites and nymphs, who was – in all fairness – no more promiscuous than Zeus.  I think of the sexual magnetism and power of Elvis, who moved his hips on national television. A man who’s godlike status outlived his own life.

I think of another friend who has left us too soon. He was someone who daily worshiped the wildness, the outdoors and freedom. I’ve looked up to his confidence, his humor and his kindness since we were young. His life was a reminder not to lose oneself by worshiping the wrong god. We miss you Joe.

Go outside. Go with friends. Go with your dogs. Go have fun. Go have a beer on the top of a mountain, go watch the eagles fish in the river. Go challenge your body – run, bike, ski, climb. Challenge your mind – read, write, learn, do Sudoku. Eat bacon and cheese and pancakes. Earn money, spend money. Travel. Love openly. Chase your whiskey with beer. Worship the mountains and life and the god of fun: Bacchus.

– Maggie Casey