#despoena

I don’t deserve this body

My glittered lids

The swollen skin of a perfectionist

Unraveling, unpersoning,

Dark déjà vu and sick saliva

A downpour despite

Despite

Despite

Spite

Spite

Des

Des

Despo

Despoena.

A great example is the goddess Despoine/Despoena. She’s the daughter of Demeter and Poseidon and the central goddess of the Arcadian Mysteries. Her true name is known only to her initiates. When I first began working with her a decade ago information on her was SPARSE. Even more academic sources had little information. The bright side is I got to reach out and connect with her without any biases or expectations from the experiences of others. I couldn’t even find anyone else that worked with her. Every once in awhile I Google her and search the tags for her. I was surprised recently when more things started popping up. And even more surprised to see people coming up with very similar upgs to the ones I’d formed so many years ago. Examples being that she was raised by a male lesser god instead of by Demeter, possibly for her protection. And another being that the “Artemis” depicted in her temple isn’t the Artemis we know but a separate young goddess with similar attributes (my personal upg is that it is her daughter and she was later syncretized with Artemis). And I saw another that her consort was a king! (My upg is that her consort was Rhadamanthus and that he ruled Crete before his brother Minos). Or that she would have similar associations to her mother and sister, but more associated with reaping (I see her as the autumn to Persephone’s spring). And I saw another that she would look older than her sister despite being younger which I’ve always felt was the case!

It doesn’t make them any less upg and it’s definitely not enough consensus to start putting them in the category of shared personal gnosis (there’s still not really enough of us for that yet it seems). But its a bit validating so see others come to the same or similar conclusions from their own work with her!

I like to think it shows that the gods call their followers to them in their own time, when they want to.