Telegraph Hill's Night of the Beasts

Euripides speaks of the Maenads: head thrown back, throat to the stars, "more like deer than human being." To be absolutely free! To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! These are powerful mysteries. The bellowing of bulls. Springs of honey bubbling from the ground. If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn.
- The Secret History, Donna Tartt