I wear garb sacred to the Priestesses of Isis: a linen robe of purple (Dionysus' favorite color), atop a fringed cloak lined with lamb's fleece. My head is shaved, my eyes are rimmed with kohl from the sea of Marmora, my white face glistens beneath rice powder. Antimony pigment tints my lips and cheeks the hue of Persian earth. I spin in concentric circles, ever east, over stones, rivers, woods and trees, atop Himalayan peaks, descend to rivers where sea monsters hibernate. A passionate virility uniting sound, rhythm and movement vanquishes the "infernal ones."

I clasp my hands, stomp my feet and slap my thighs. Soaring beyond the flickering shadows of duality, I pay homage to rain, the harvest, all living and dying creatures. In one hand I carry a slit drum, made from a hollow trunk cut lengthwise, a female symbol; in the other, a flute representing the phallus. Egged on by Dionysus, known as "the roarer," I strum the lyre, bang the tambour, clash cymbals and rattle bones—clamor loud enough to wake satyrs from their drunken sleep.

Phantoms invade my deserted grove. Processions of bacchantes carrying the sacred serpent form. Graceful and splendid, savage and bloodthirsty, they have crossed time and space to reveal their paradoxical nature. The mark of the sphinx upon their foreheads solves the riddle of the pyramids.

We blend into a single stream, then form circles measuring the circumference of the universe. We circumambulate temples, shrines, pagodas, basilicas; chant mantras, utter invocations, turn prayer wheels, light incense. Owls hoot, wolves growl and goats bleat. Drugged, we execute spirals within spirals, plumb worlds within worlds.

Individual bacchantes leap into the center and unveil themselves. Torchlight emanating from a burning pine tree, rich sap oozing from its trunk, illuminates visages contorted in bacchic rapture. I recognize Sappho of Lesbos, carrying a basket of figs. Her lyrics are improvised in the Aeolian vernacular. Songs of love and weddings summon the mighty Eros, dark eyed nymphs and violet eyed Aphrodite. They anoint Sappho's lips with dying goat's blood and paint her upon a red figured vase, safe from satyrs who lustfully nip at her heels.

Cleopatra sails up the Nile on her barge. She disembarks and does a belly dance. Her jeweled dagger and silver bells cling-clang, her folds of flesh jiggle until the treasure rooms of Byzantium disgorge their booty. Even the asp sucking at her swollen breast wears a moonstone torque. Isadora arrives and the rhythm changes to a stirring polonaise. Her dishevelled hair is indistinguishable from the scarf sewn for her by the fifty Pallantid priestesses from Athens who, in the age of woman power, rather than be ruled by a patriarchy, jumped off cliffs to drown in the ocean. Reverential, we tie the gossamer thongs of Isadora's sandals, weaving ourselves into her legend.

An ass' bray, a puff of hashish smoke, signals the departure of these insubordinate spirits who rebel unto the nether world. Persephone, Queen of the Dead, escorts them back to the bottomless lake of Lerna. Emptied, the ritual ended, I have escaped the narrow prison of my body and soared to realms normally spoken of in a whisper. I am no longer in the wine god's thrall. Before I bathe in the Pierian spring, a verse from the Tao Te Ching:

The Valley Spirit never dies
It is named the Mysterious Female
And the doorway of the Mysterious Female is
The base from which heaven and earth spring.

Barbara Foster is an Associate Professor in the Library Department at CUNY. She is a world traveler in the tradition of the heroic women she writes about. She has acted as a referee for the Royal Geographical Society (London). She is co-author of the biography The Secret Lives of Alexandra David-Neel (Overlook Press, 1998). The New York Times reviewed an earlier biography Barbara co-authored on David-Neel favorably on three occasions: the Book Review's "Bear in Mind" column called Forbidden Journey (Harper Collins, 1989) "a wonderful biography," and "New and Noteworthy" asserted, "Hers was a great human life very well written up."

Barbara's lectures on David-Neel (the French explorer of Tibet) at universities, academic conferences, museums, public libraries and organizations have taken her from coast to coast in the U.S., Vancouver and the B.C. area, Australia and Mexico. Barbara has written forty articles on Women's Studies and International Librarianship. Her articles also have appeared in Travel and Leisure, on the internet in The Richmond Review (London), Passionfruit, Projected Letters, etc.

Barbara's latest investigation is focused on Adah Isaacs Menken (1835-1868), America's first superstar known worldwide in the nineteenth century, now a brief, factually incorrect mention in biographical encyclopedias. Barbara has published articles on Menken in the North Dakota Quarterly (1995), Jewish Quarterly (UK) (1994) and Journal of the West (1995). Her biography of Menken is finished. She presented her slide lecture on Menken at Yale Drama School among other venues. She is a speaker in the New York Council for the Humanities Program which will take her all around New York state. Her article "Adah Isaacs Menken: Broadway's First Star" appeared in the Summer 2000 Culturefront. Another essay on Menken appeared in the Nineteenth Century, Spring 2002. In 2003 two other essays on Menken were published on the internet: one in Moondance Magazine, another in the Encyclopedia, Women in Judaism. Barbara's website is threeinlove.com.