Demigods and Monsters (10 page)

Wine, in and of itself, is also neither good nor bad. Riordan makes it clear that alcoholism, or an excess of drinking, is not a good thing or in any way attractive. But there's another side to the fruit of the vine. What Riordan doesn't really address—probably because these books are written for readers under the legal drinking age—are some of the ancient ritual uses of wine. It was in these rituals that Dionysus was known as the god of divine ecstasy, a usually blissful state in which normal limitations disappear and one is united with or open to the divine. And without understanding that aspect of the god, you can't really understand Dionysus.

One thing to keep in mind when we talk about the Greek myths is that these were not just a bunch of stories made up to explain natural phenomena like sunrise and thunder to people who didn't have our current understanding of science. The myths tell the stories of gods whom the people worshipped. The Ancient Greeks built temples to these gods and prayed to them and followed specific rites or rituals, asking the gods to aid and protect them. One of the things I love about the Greek pantheon is that they had specialists. You prayed to Artemis if you wanted a good hunt, to Ares before you went into battle, and to Dionysus if you wanted a healthy orchard or a good crop of grapes. Wine was part of many of these rituals, which shouldn't surprise anyone. It's been a sacrament (part of sacred ritual) for millennia and is still part of many ceremonies both in Judaism and Christianity.

Why wine? It relaxes. It loosens the grip of the ordinary world, the clutter of everyday life: thoughts about what you have to do, where you have to go, what someone said. Wine dissolves inhibitions, freeing people from worry and fear. It makes people feel good
and even empowered. It's used as part of religious rituals for the very deliberate purpose of preparing the worshipper to forget about the ordinary world for a while and open to the divine powers. Wine is a kind of intermediary, or medium, that allows you to communicate with the deities. When worshippers went to a Dionysian festival they weren't just letting loose, they were opening themselves to the truths of the gods. This state of intoxication was called divine ecstasy. It was in this state that the messages from the gods—even prophecies—came through. It was also a state of divine inspiration, from which songs or stories or ideas would arise. Inspiration is another word for breath, and creative inspiration was said to be the gods breathing through you.

Wine was considered to be part of Dionysus, literally. It was believed that if you drank his wine, you took a bit of the god inside you. He was, as Edith Hamilton points out, the only god who existed both outside and
inside
his worshippers. The Maenads, the most extreme of his devotees, believed that when they drank his wine, they were possessed by him. Dionysus bridged what Michael Grant describes in his book,
Myths of the Greek and Romans
, as “the sharp gulf between human and divine.”

There's a lovely symmetry in the myths of Dionysus. His mother Semele died because she wanted to see a god in his full glory. Her son allows humans to see the gods through him, and even to take the divine inside them. It's as if he's still working on his mother's problem, saying, “Okay, maybe you can't look at the gods full on, but there
is
a way you can experience them, and I'll let you do it.”

So the underlying assumption in the use of wine as part of religious ritual is that it's hard to access the gods in our usual distracted state of mind. Or put another way, one of the trickiest things about having religious faith is that most of the time we can't see the divine. Like Homer, Riordan uses the device of the Mist to explain why mortals are usually so blind to the presence of the gods. Historically, just about every religion has dealt with this problem: What is it that you
have to do to actually experience the divine? There are nearly as many answers as there are religions. Some faiths say that prayer alone is the way. Others transcend—go beyond—the everyday state of mind through entering a kind of trance. This can be done through meditation, chanting, drumming, dancing, singing, fasting, yogic practices, and the use of psychoactive drugs. Alcohol, of course, is one of these drugs.

But there's another idea about how we can access the divine that has to do with place. As the writer Alain Daniélou explains in his book
Gods of Love and Ecstasy: The Traditions of Shiva and Dionysus
:

I think Camp Half-Blood is one of these sacred places, which is why Dionysus, the god whose rites allow people to communicate with the deities, is the perfect god to run it. He's the gatekeeper, the one who lets mortals in to meet the gods, whose presence ensures that that the boundaries between the divine and the mundane remain in place, and who admits the half-bloods to experience their own semi-divine inheritance. When Percy leaves Camp Half-Blood without permission in
The Titan's Curse
, it's Mr. D who comes after him. In his own self-centered way, Mr. D is completely aware of who enters and leaves the camp. With his strange indifference, Mr. D allows the kids the freedom to shrug off their old confining identities—for example, Percy as a problem student with ADHD—and find their new true identities as half-gods and heroes. It's in Camp Half-Blood that the Mist vanishes and one can see the supernatural. Creatures such as the centaurs and satyrs reveal themselves in their true forms. Here, even monsters, like the Minotaur, appear. It's the place where the kids meet the divine (Mr. D himself, for starters) and realize that they each have the gods inside them. And it's Dionysus,
the god of all growing things, who allows the half-gods to fully grow into themselves. In Camp Half-Blood, the campers don't have to drink or enter a trance in order to partake of the wine god's blessings. They merely have to be in his baffling and amazing presence. Rick Riordan's portrayal of Mr. D pulls off a bit of magic that I think even the gods would envy. He's given us Dionysus without his wine and yet with all of his power and mystery. God of the vine, fertility, wildness, drama, and joy. Master of madness, magic, and illusion. The gatekeeper who gives mortals entry to the divine.

Daniélou, Alain.
Gods of Love and Ecstasy: The Traditions of Shiva and Dionysu
s. First published in French as
Shiva et Dionysus
1979. Reprint of 1982 translation, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 1992.

Grant, Michael.
Myths of the Greeks and Romans.
1962, Reprint, New York: A Meridian/Penguin Book 1995.

Hamilton, Edith.
Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes.
1940. Reprint, New York: A Meridian/Penguin Book 1989.

Ellen Steiber lives in Tucson, Arizona, where she writes and edits books. She has always loved mythology and thinks that there's a good chance that the Greek gods are still around. While she was writing this essay, Iris appeared in a gorgeous double rainbow right outside her office. Two of her other essays appear in
The World of the Golden Compass,
edited by Scott Westerfeld, and
A New Dawn
, edited by Ellen Hopkins. Her Web site is
www.ellensteiber.com
.

When the gods come among men, they are not known.

—RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Living in New York City, just under two miles from what became Ground Zero, I witnessed the events of 9/11 all too close to home. It was a scene to gladden the war-mongering heart of Ares, the Greek
god of war. The smoky, fiery image of the Twin Towers was surely one lifted straight from Hades' wildest dreams.

Although I am old enough to know Superman is make-believe and that James Bond is just a character in books and film, I actually found myself wondering, “Where are they?” Why didn't Superman soar onto the scene and snatch a plane in each fist a second before they struck? Why had James Bond's trademark derring-do failed when his valiant deeds were most crucial?

What a foolish part of me expected was larger-than-life action taken by one of our own pop culture demigods (Clark Kent) or heroes (Bond). What I and the rest of the world got instead was a reality check: heroes and demigods sure don't exist in real-life New York.

But subsequent events proved me wrong. Mr. Emerson says if divinities are here, we don't know it, but he might better rephrase it: We just don't
recognize
the gods and demigods and heroes that surround us in our daily lives.

Every emergency worker who raced into those buildings that terrible day or worked to help victims or labored over recovery of any possible survivors was a hero ten times over. It was as if they reached inside the deep pocket in the overalls of their souls and pulled out the equivalent of Percy Jackson's penknife in Rick Riordan's series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: a great weapon with which to combat evil. Our twenty-first-century heroes' weapons were courage and strength beyond any ordinary mortal's wildest expectation, courage and strength on the scale of those exemplified by those old Greek gods.

According to Riordan in his quartet (so far) of books, the gods are indeed among us, and they can be
known
: that is, if you happen to be half-blood like Percy Jackson and many of his friends.

But like Percy at the start of the series, you've probably never given much thought to Greek gods—or their complicated lives and carryings on—outside of the classroom. And again like Percy (and later in
The Titan's Curse
, both Bianca and Nico di Angelo), you'd
certainly never imagine that immortals might be living right down the block in your own neighborhood.

Who even bothers to give a second glance to the extensively wired guy riding the city bus? While he messages someone on his Blackberry, Mr. Motor Mouth is babbling nonstop on his cell and tapping his foot to an upbeat tune playing on the iPod plugged into his free ear.

Or how about that leather-jacketed biker roaring by on his Harley? What gives him the right to curse
you
as he nearly wipes out at the crosswalk? You glare after him, but I bet you don't wonder—or even care—who he is.

Then there's that panhandler who has staked her claim on your corner—she's homeless, and you want to feel sorry for her, but she doesn't smell so great, and there's something scary about her sunken eyes and that weird knit jester's hat she wears even in mid-summer. If you're like me, you scurry past, pretending not to see her, not wanting to think where she came from or who she might be or even if she has a name.

Or did you even wonder why that amazingly beautiful girl stopped to preen and fix her makeup at every cosmetics counter in Macy's en route to the exit? Maybe, maybe not.

But since I entered the world of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, I find myself thinking that, just like Percy, I might have encountered Hermes, or Ares, Medusa, or even Aphrodite on a shopping spree, and not even known it!

Although come to think of it, just once, maybe I did.

Late afternoon winter sunlight slanted from west to east across from Grand Central Station as I waited to cross the street. It was the height of rush hour and hoards of commuters hurried down the sidewalk to get into the station. In the crowd I spotted a matted-haired man. He was walking the head-down, shuffling walk of the homeless and looked half-crazed. But New Yorkers, as is their wont, took no notice of him.

Suddenly he looked up and a radiant smile crossed his dirty face. Walking in front of him was a young woman. He could only see her from the back but her long blonde hair shimmered like spun gold in the sun. He reached out with one hand and touched it. From across the street I gasped, fearing she was in some kind of danger. But the smile on his face was so joyful, and his touch must have been gentle because she never noticed—nor did any of the milling crowd, intent on getting somewhere fast. It was a moment's vision, but it has never left me.