#arkteia

for the trojan war to begin, agamemnon had to sacrifice his daughter iphigenia in aulis. the time of the sacrifice, artemis put a deer in her place and took her in tauris (tauric chersonesos, ukraine). after the death of clytemnestra, her brother orestes came to find her. meanwhile, iphigenia had become a priestess of artemis and along with the statue of artemis, they came to brauron.

the trojan war was a campaign for the return of helen. ->helen is the ambassador of divine beauty, which is to the east, where the sun rises. ->menelaus is the one who claims her because she is his wife and she belongs to him. menelaus=μενέλαος < μένος + λάος/λᾶας=great stone (matter). he is the one who stays in the matter. and to the one who stays in the matter belongs divine beauty. ->the achaeans campaign through the sea of emotion. achaeans=ἀχαιοί < ἄχα/ἄχια=waters (emotion).

through the catharsis of emotion menelaus claims the divine beauty-helen.

but agamemnon is the leader. ->agamemnon (cratylus)=admirable for remaining. ->iphigenia=ἰφιγένεια<ἴφις+γένος=the power of the genus. she has to be sacrificed to artemis (according to cratylus, the deep knower of virtue).

so in order for the acheans-the people who travel through the sea of emotion to claim divine beauty, they have to sacrifice the power of the genus to virtue.

iphigenia goes to the north and to her place remains the deer=ἡ ἔλαφος<ἐλ+φάος, which is the sacred animal of artemis and represents the enlightened soul. ->in tauris: taurus is the sacred animal of the earth and it is the incarnation of the soul in the earth. ->orestes<ὀρεσίβιος, the one who hunts in the mountains the beasts (cratylus). in order to claim the peaks of virtue, you have to win the beasts of passions. ->in aulis: aulis=αὐλή/αὐλά (doric) ->βραύνα=cavity of the earth. the soul comes to the cavities of the earth to encarnate and prove that she follows arete (virtue)-artemis.

in brauron happened the celebrations of artemis brauronia, arkteia. ->ἄρκτος < ἀρκέω-ὦ=to suffice. the bear does not need food during the winter, and in the same way, the soul in the darkness and coldness of the material field has no need to feed from anywhere other than the interior world-arete. the polar arktos from the moment of birth has the ability to stand on the feet and hunt for food. artemis is the law of integrity and energy=the power to stand on my feet.

arkteia happened every 5 years. the procession began from the akropolis because entering the propylae and moving to the parthenon, the first temple to the right is that of artemis brauronia. the arktoi (young girls dedicated to artemis) with their pedagogues and the priestesses of artemis had canisters, animals for sacrifices, various other offerings. they stayed for a few days, sometimes more, athletic games happened, the arktoi danced with movements mimicking bears around the altar under the guidance of pristesses, wearing short chitons. they stayed in π shaped rooms and in the grand space in front of them happened the celebrations.

the athenians sent there their daughters to learn to honour the arete and the oikos (house) as a structured psychic state, so that they could build a healthy society in the future, because the state of a civilisation can be seen from the position of a woman. the same way behind every spartan was a strong mother, and there happened the celebrations of artemis orthias, for whom praxiteles built a statue called orthon. orthon means straight and like the cypress, the holy tree of artemis (hades-our world as well), the soul must stand straight. its strucute was an isoscelus triangle, meaning that one must honour equally the somatic and psychic nature, and stand straight to the typhonus wind and honour ὀρθὸν λόγον.

All girls are born with a little she-bear in them that is just waiting to be let out!

Photo by Heather Johnson 2011

Happy Arkteia! I meant to post this earlier in the day, but I never had the chance because of an exam. But here it is now with bits of copy and pasting from an old writing I did it *coughs*. (My goal is to post about every Artemis festival coming up or on that same day).

Arkteia is a modern festival of Artemis created by Thista Minai. It falls every March 6th because the 6th of every month is sacred to Artemis. Back in ancient Greece, the sixth of every month was 6 days after the New Moon since the ancient Greek calendar was lunar (so you can either celebrate on traditional lunar days or 6th of a month). Minai originally called the festival Brauronia after the ancient festival held by the cult of Artemis Brauronia. She later improvised the festival and renamed it to Arkteia. Instead of  "taming" our wild side, the modern Arkteia is a celebration of embracing our wildness and inner child.

The arkteia, a rite of girls around the ages of five to ten acting like bears, was practiced at the following sanctuaries: Artemis Mounichia in Piraeus, Artemis Brauronia in the coast of Brauron and on the Acropolis.[5] Redfield believes that the rite first began in Mounichia and later in Brauron.[6] The arkteia service was available to all Athenian families as believed by Aristophanes.[7] Although there were marble votives dedicated to male children, there hasn't been any literature that marked that boys participated in the rite.[8]

Short garment-clothed girls while some were naked ran and danced like bears; they became arktoi which mean bears. Saffron (a yellow-orange color) robes or krokotos were worn in the beginning of the rite. “Sourvinou-Inwood has made a careful argument suggesting that the saffron robe was worn at a relatively early stage in the rite, and that the girls shed it and became naked as a preparation for their return to society in their new status.”[9] The purpose of the rite was to transform the girls into being marriageable because it was believed all little girls were wild.[10] The rite gave them a chance to feel their power and release all their wildness.[11] After the rite they would be tamer.[12] It is suggested that the saffron robes represent sexual maturity.[13] “A Bear is imagined with a krokotos… is otherwise known, not least from Aristophanes, as a full-length yellow gown that makes a woman irresistibly alluring. Krokotoi appear with details of workmanship in the Brauron inventories. Very likely a bride wore it at her wedding. If a little Bear wears it, it is by anticipation, like using a bridal basin.”[14] They can also represent “the skin of the tawny bear in a more civilised mode.”[15]

The rite’s purpose also teaches girls about separation from their family since they would be living with their husbands after marriage;[16] it is why they remain in the sanctuary for a certain period of time. Like some young women who believed in chastity, Hippolytus, a companion of Artemis, vowed to remain a virgin and remarked he had “a maiden spirit.”[17] By acting like bears, the girls are able to relate to Artemis’s fierce chastity.[18] Once they shed their robes as mentioned before, they would be transformed and perhaps accept their fate as brides.[19] This also marks the end of their maidenhood.

The modern Arkteia does not celebrate giving up our "maidenhood" or "childish side". Rather it is a day to celebrate this wild inner child that always resides in us.

To read more and see the citing, you can go here: Link I am founder of the website which I made back when I was a young Artemis devotee teen. It is no longer updated. 

On this day ask yourself:

* What were your favorite things you loved to do when you were younger? Make a list and think of doing them today to relive the happy moments when you were younger. 

* What is a part of you that never died that has been with you since you were a child? 

* As an adult, cut loose on the seriousness of life and learn to relax and have fun today.