Queen of the Dead part 2, 129

"The motif of the famine or drought plays a role in many other versions of the myth. As a grief-stricken Demeter searches in vain for her daughter, the crops cease to grow. The famine thus constitutes an outward manifestation of the overwhelming grief of the goddess of vegetation. As we have seen, the Hymn to Demeter suppresses the theme of the Search for Persephone, and the famine is deferred until after the events in the palace of Celeus."

"Demeter's first plan, to immortalize and adopt a human child - and thereby to subvert the order of Zeus - has been thwarted. After its failure, the goddess conceives a second plan: to starve men so that they can no longer bring offerings to the gods. While Demeter may still be irritated at mankind for interfering with her designs, the true object of her wrath remains the gods, Zeus, above all. But she is quite willing to sacrifice mankind to her own purpose. The cessation of vegetation is consciously - and somewhat heartlessly - willed and planned by Demeter to achieve her goal."

The Politics of Olympus by Jenny Strauss Clay

Imagine with me, if you will.

Imagine with that deep faculty that built worlds for you as a child.

That, if you try, even now, can make trees speak and rivers laugh.

Back and back. Beyond the ages of Iron and Bronze and Stone.

Into the Golden Age, and this is not the age of metal-glint.

Oh, no.

This is the age of honeycomb and honeydew, of mead-blood and winedark sea. Of nectar and ambrosia and the golden apples of Idunn and the Hesperides.

Drink with me, all flushed and rolling, all whispering, all gorged on godflesh and wreathed in smoke. Swallow it down as it boils and bubbles in the belly and bowels. 

Falling back and back, dizzy and something lifting in your chest, something peeling back, the muscles of your face shifting, baring your teeth in a smile so very eagerly shared by all the others in the room.

Perhaps they have hair like snakes, faces all ash-white and blood-daubed; ochre-bodied, painting fingers that writhe and twist in strange and potent shapes that leave electric blue-traces across your vision.

Did you think you were the only one? The only child of this ancient knotted line; your breath like all the winds flasked in skin, all tied together with thread? 

And now you are undone, the storm unleashed:

And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.  -  Kubla Khan, Coleridge

Imagine then. Imagine, yes.

Imagine the salt on the wind, the iron in the blood. The crackle of flame.

He waits beside the fire, there in the bloodlight of womb, there in the centre of the very heart of big bellied verdant Mother.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

The antlered shadow there, scalp festooned with the roots of the bone-tree, stretching up and down into darkness, wreathed in laurel and vines. There, all enmeshed, lie serpents and eagles, black-eyed and unblinking in their wisdom.

He throws the bones, carves the lots; weaves a cat’s-cradle out of his own viscera. She nourishes him there. in the darkness. Enfolds him as he tends the flame that he brought from the stars with a word that is not a word..

Such a handsome beast is he. Such a monstrous uncreated coming-together and breaking apart of vision and form. Did you think yourself the only one, when he still remains buried here in dark earth?

Well, did you?

The shining colours of his guts; with one deft pull he snares you; ten thousand masks cast out by his shadow; plays you like a lute, like a liar strumming a lyre.

Down and down. There lies his spear, his club, his bow, his skull-breaker, his arrow of gold.

Down and down, in fire and flux, in ice and pestilence. There he sits, in the age of honey and amber. Even the rocks groan and bleed at the pulsing of his drum, as he bores his way down through the top of your head, as he kisses, wakens the snake and she rises to meet him

The secret centre. He drinks from the freezing fount and transmutes it to intoxicating gold. 

Poisoner and poisoned.

Pharmakon. Body and blood. He gives himself to us, so to be devoured, to ignite the fire in our breast and bellies.

A mocking smile, echoed from the other end of time:

“Do this, in remembrance of  me.”

We, the hunted, lay ourselves prostrate, as his curved bone knife cuts us free, hands roughly kindling organs, filling them with light and darkness. With solemn mockery, he cleaves the stone of our heart in two; we are to bleed forever, to stream back across the tracks, to this, the place beyond beginning and end.  

Bones disarticulated and dismembered, we are naught but hide and flesh to be stitched together with thorn, scratched and cut down to the bones, our marrows stuffed with secrets.

Burns us black, so he does, until we all go up in smoke; draws us in, holds us there, and then expels us as changed breath and a gesture, so we rise and stream forth from that place; almost to see her emerge from the darkness, this lady of feline grace and hawkish beauty, this leader through the labyrinth.

We do not imagine her, flanked by kings of beasts, heavy pawed and golden. Do not see her in feathered cloak and covered in gleaming jewels. Do not see her place her hand upon his shoulder, and watch him strengthen, watch the weariness we never saw was there, the loss of what he gave for us, be banished once more. We do not see her give him the cup, the mark of her eternal favour.

For this is just postulate. Just a might be. 

Inktober 12: Young Hera racing.

“Hera’s cult at Olympia was administered by a college of sixteen women chosen from the most venerable and respected matrons of the district. These women organized the Heraia, or games held to honor Hera, concurrently with the quadrennial Olympic games. While women were generally excluded from the Olympic games both as competitors and spectators, the Heraia involved a footrace for girls of three different age categories. They ran in the same stadium as the men and boys, though the track was one-sixth shorter. The winners received a portion of the meat from the cow sacrificed to Hera and a crown of olive.”

I believe we have a lot of the more popular deities added to the database already (at least the theoi epithets as a base)! with the exception of Dionysus and Hekate who are still being worked on.

So what's next?

Now we can focus more on finding the epithets outside of theoi for the deities already in the database. but if you would like to see a deity added sooner rather then later, you can request they be added!

While we work on the deities listed all other deities will be added only when requested. you can reply to this post in some way or send an ask with the deity you want to see added and we'll add them if theoi has any epithets listed! if theoi does not have any epithets listed then we'll let you know that they'll be added once we start finding some epithets

You want to see relevant epithets you can start using in your prayers? Here you go! Want to see a list that shows MULTIPLE meanings where they occur or acknowledging where meaning is uncertain instead of picking only one (for those we've gotten past 'just theoi.com' for)? Here you go!! You want sources for every tidbit of info to double check or do more reading? Here you goooo!!!!