Dionysian

We spent most of yesterday evening at school, enjoying the four plays that made up Centrestage, a sort of competition for drama run by the younger end of Drama Club. There was a lot of talent on stage, huge amounts of energy - sometimes anarchic, heaps of humour of the more obvious variety, and an abundance of joy in the act of creating something for the moment. The lords of misrule came to visit us for a short while and I think we are all the better for it.

We ignore Dionysus at our peril - as Euripedes showed us in The Bacchae. Some wise words therein: The best and safest way to live / Is to keep a balance, acknowledge / The great powers around us and in us. / I think that is what is meant by wisdom. Which puts me in mind of more ancient wisdom in that famous Greek motto - Nothing in excess - including the gods of rationality, law-making, regimentation.