cultivation

Cultivation is an agricultural term for the act or process of preparing the soil for the raising of crops as well as the husbandry of plants. Dionysos represents the process of the cultivation of the self pollinating vine. The wild vine is dioecious (has distinct male and female individual organisms) therefore the male flowering vine must be present in order that the female flower can be fertilized and produce fruit. In nature occur self-fertile grapevines, hermaphrodite vines, and cultivating these vines would produce a plentiful stock of self pollinating vines and this brings its fruits and the gift of wine to regions that would not normally support the propagation and growth of the dioecious vines.

Dionysos with accoutrements

The process called tinkuy in pre Colombian Andean shamanism brings together the wild feminine and masculine halves of the human being to create a harmonious unity. The great quariwarmi shamans of the Andes were cultivating the woman and the man as the symbolic serpent and the jaguar, bringing their energies into the centre, the axis mundi, to produce a physical and spiritual union of the opposites. The centre is where all is mediated to and from here is a sum greater than the parts. During the same period in history, a different culture, on the other side of the world was ritually reenacting the same process. The ancient Greeks were immortalizing the dual sexed in their conception, celebration, and worship of the effeminate god man Dionysos. 

The alchemical transformation of the aspirant involves taking the base materials of man and woman, and refining them. This is the process in agriculture of cultivation or in metallurgy the compounding of alloys into a new material. This process within us is the sacred marriage, called the Hieros Gamos, that creates an inner transformation demonstrated by the union of the sacred feminine and masculine. The spiritual joining together with your soul mate forges the hermaphrodite, who is the end result of this process. The spiritual cultivation of the human being is the template for creating the divine from the human. The spiritual union of the inner divine feminine and masculine gives birth to the god. This is in essence the saviour because it enables the realization that the god is you and you are everything.