The End of Summer: Harvest Time.

Last year for Samhain, I blogged about how the end of summer (which is what the name “Samhain” means) could be related to the Descent of The Goddess. It makes sense for the Descent to be linked to Samhain for several reasons, not the least of which is the symbolic connection with death and dying. Samhain isn’t just a feast of the dead, though. It has another side; one which I want to use as a starting point for this month’s post.

Among other things, Samhain is a harvest festival. It is the final harvest of the season; when we bring in the last gleanings of the fields, and make decisions about which part of our flocks and herds to keep alive over the lean winter months and which should be culled. It is traditionally a time both of feasting and of fasting. It is both celebratory and somber, because it marks the end of our labor in the fields, but also the beginning of a time of hardship and potential loss.

Samhain is a time when we are mindful of the sacrifices and austerity which allow our tribes and clans to survive the coming shortages of the barren season.  Our fields will not bring forth crops with which to feed ourselves or our livestock. The days of easily obtained fresh food are behind us, so we save what we can. We have developed techniques to preserve much of our harvest’s bounty. We dry or can fruit and vegetables. We salt or cure meats and we carefully prepare and store grain and wheat flour. We do these things to make sure that we will have the ability to sustain our bodies over the winter.  

Of the crops that we have invented elaborate preservation processes for, none can match the success we have had with the fruit of the vine. The effort to preserve grapes has led us well beyond mere survival. It has given us wine, and wine is much more than a way to keep grapes from spoiling. Wine doesn’t just sustain us; it fills us with a sense of life so vibrant and compelling that we might easily lose ourselves in it. Since man first made and imbibed wine, we have known that it has the ability to bring us into contact with something wilder, less constrained and more vital than ourselves. Wine connects us with a spirit larger than our own: The Divine Spirit of Dionysos.

To the Greeks He was the “Lord in Many Guises.” He is the patron of the theater, and of masks. He is the liberator of the souls of the dead, and the protector of unborn children. He is an aspect of the Slain and Risen God, as well as the Divine Child, and the Horned God. He is the regenerative force of nature, but also has strong ties with the underworld. He is the bestower of both joy and madness. What Dionysos is most known as, however, is the God of wine and of the winemaking process. He is spirit of the vine, and it is His Divine essence that gives wine its unique ability to inspire and uplift us. We could learn a lot about Dionysos just by examining how wine is made.

Over the last month, that’s exactly what I’ve been led to do. Since the end of September, I’ve been in the process of making my first ever batch of homemade wine. In my next couple of blog posts, I hope to trace each step of the process and use it to find insight into the Divine truth of Dionysos.

Next month, I’ll describe the crushing of the fruit and dealing with the must during its time in the primary fermenter. We’ll put this process side by side with the Orphic accounts of the birth and dismemberment of Dionysos.

Hope to see you then.

Demeter and Demophon

Wow, that was a pretty long week. I think I got lost in a month of Sundays.

But I’m back now and I’m intent on holding up my end of a bet. Vine & Ivy has entered a no-holds-barred, last typist standing, two people enter and one person leaves, guts of steel, Iron Blog Challenge! It works like this: If I don’t make at least one blog entry a month, I owe the lovely and talented Despoena a nice dinner. Likewise, should she miss a monthly entry on RenegadeTarot, I will be feasting upon a home-cooked meal of her own creation. The stakes are set, the game is afoot; may the best blogger win! (well, I’d actually prefer that I win, but if it has to go to the best blogger, I guess can live with that) .

And now without further delay, we join Demeter back at Eleusis where our next episode has already started…

Having been lifted from Her black mood, Demeter is once again following Her maternal instincts. She is acting as the nurse for Demophon, the youngest child of the King of Eleusis (or of the shepard who has made his home in that primitive region). She is very grateful to the family for rekindling her heart, and She decides that She’d like to give them something.

Demeter’s gift is no small thing. Though her Divinity is still masked from the humans around Her, She retains both the power and knowledge of a Goddess. She knows many secrets that humanity has never learned. She knows Mysteries beyond the ability of humans to even comprehend. She even knows a process that can make men into Gods. What She chooses to give Her hosts’ young son is nothing short of immortality itself.

Demeter has determined to make Demophon immortal, but She isn’t planning on teaching the actual secret of immortality to anyone. So She conducts the process in secret. Night after night, when the family has gone to sleep, Demeter takes the baby to the hearth and places him in the fire. With each night, more and more of Demophon’s mortality is burned away. He becomes less human, and more God.

Before the process is complete, however, there’s a snag. Demophon’s mother wakes and wanders up to the hearth one night, just as Demeter is placing the child in the fire. The mother is highly upset by the scene she has stumbled upon and she rushes to grab her child away from his nurse. Demeter is startled by the interruption and the process is spoiled. In some accounts, She drops the child into the fire without the correct preparation and he is burned to ashes. In others the consequences are less dire, resulting in the boy remaining mortal but otherwise unharmed.

By either account Demeter unmasks Her Divinity at this point and, thus revealed, admonishes Demophon’s mother (and humanity in general), saying “Unknowing are ye mortals and thoughtless; ye know not whether good or evil approaches!”

Demeter’s story continues, of course, even if Demophon’s does not. She goes on to eventually leverage Her dominion over the earth’s fertility to gain the seasonal return of Her daughter from the underworld. She gives the family (and humanity) another gift to replace the one Demophon’s mother spoiled. Her second gift really turned out to be more useful than just one more immortal thrown into the pantheon. She taught another of the King’s (or shepard’s) sons the knowledge of agriculture and also initiated him into the mystery tradition that was practiced at Eleusis for over 1500 years.

But what does Demophon’s story mean to us? What’s there that can be meaningful in our lives? None of us are likely to get our mortality burned away in the family hearth, regardless of what reaction our mothers might have. I think the moral of the story lies in the words of Demeter Herself.

We mortals ARE unknowing and thoughtless. We really DON’T know whether good or evil approaches. Divinity is at work all around us, in every natural process. But we don’t trust It. We seem to be irresistibly driven to interference. We cry out and grab control away from Mother Nature. Time and time again we act before we understand the consequences of our action. We’ve turned so many chances at immortality into sudden death and dry ash.

In chapter 29 of the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu says this:
“Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it?
I do not believe it can be done.

The universe is sacred.
You cannot improve it.
If you try to change it, you will ruin it.
If you try to hold it, you will lose it”

If we can ever learn to trust Divinity and let Nature find its own way, maybe we can eventually trust ourselves to find our own way too.

See you next month, when we’ll talk about wine and certain Divine personages closely associated with it.

Demeter at Eleusis

Everyone has heard the story of Persephone; how She was taken to the underworld and how Her mother, Demeter, scoured the earth looking for Her. We all know what happened with the pomegranate seeds and how the year got split up into seasons. It’s a powerful mythic narrative, and that’s a good reason for it to be well known and have such an enduring presence in the collective subconscious.

But there’s another branch of that story that I think deserves to be explored. We all know what was going on with Persephone, but what about Demeter? What can we learn if we follow Her in Her wanderings?

One of the first things we can learn is that Demeter appears in different aspects. There’s Demeter Lousia, also called “Green Demeter”, who’s happy and kind and tender. And then there’s Demeter Erinys (sometimes called “Black Demeter”) who is… well, let’s just say NOT happy and kind and tender. Just guess which aspect Demeter is in while she’s searching frantically for Her lost child. No wonder Zeus was worried, right?

So Demeter is touring the world, looking for Persephone (or Kore, as She was still known then), and it’s pretty obvious She isn’t happy. No one can tell Her where Her daughter went, and no one can cheer Her up in the slightest. Eventually, She ends up sitting on a rock in Eleusis, which is a little backwoods section of Attica. The rock She sits on (in case you were still wondering what mood She was in) is named Agelastos Petra. That translates to “rock of no laughter.”

While She’s sitting there, grim and angry, the daughters of the local king (or a local shepherd, kings and shepherds are often interchangeable in myth) come across Her on their way to a nearby well. Grieving, Demeter has chosen to veil Her Divinity, so they don’t recognize Her as a Goddess, but they do take some interest in Her. They know that their mother needs a nurse to help take care of their new baby brother, and they’d like to come home with one. Demeter isn’t exactly in Mary Poppins mode, and grumps make notoriously bad nurses, so before they can recruit Her, something has to be done about Her attitude.

This is where the serving maid (wife in the shepherd version) comes in. Her name is Baubo and she’s the Lisa Lampanelli of pre-classical Greece. She plies Demeter with jests and japes, but Demeter doesn’t even crack a smile. Baubo isn’t daunted however, and since she’s not afraid to work blue, she pulls out all the stops. She performs a series of gestures so categorically obscene that Homer can’t even bring himself to describe them. Other sources aren’t much more forthcoming, though we do learn that a portion of her dance involved flipping onto her back and exposing her genitalia. Seriously, we’re talking about a vagina exposing back flip. You can look it up. Go ahead; just remember to turn on Google Image’s “safe search” feature first (especially if you’re at work.)

Now, this is too much for Demeter. Rock or no rock, She bursts out laughing. She can’t hold it in. She laughs so much that Her whole demeanor is softened. Ernys gives way to Lousia. She agrees to act as nurse for the son of the king/shepherd. Demeter takes a shine to the tyke, and that leads to some further complications, which I’d like to go into in next week’s post.

But from the story so far we can already see some interesting symbols and patterns.

The Agelastos Petra resonates with me, particularly. With it, Demeter’s grief is presented as a thing of physical substance. Some sadness has that kind of density; solid and heavy as a rock. That’s the hard, cold place we find ourselves in when hope is lost. “Black Demeter” is called that because She is depicted in all black clothing. She is in the costume and the setting of deep mourning, and anyone who has been to a funeral for a child can build a powerful image around that. Imagine the mother, dressed in muted black and sitting alone on a hard bench, hiding her tears behind a veil of anger and isolation. That’s Demeter Erinys.

Demeter’s aspect is finally softened by laughter. This is a good lesson for when we find ourselves in positions of loss, as Demeter was. Laughter is uplifting and even though it doesn’t erase the causes of grief, it can help ease the symptoms of it. “Green Demeter” is the counterpoint of the mother lost in mourning. Hers is the tenderness of managed grief. She hasn’t forgotten Her loss, but She has refused to give in to it. Demeter Lousia is the mother of hope.

Laughter is also a good way to raise energy for magickal work. A little comedy in ritual can help tap into some underutilized power. If you feel odd laughing in circle, try to remember that in The Charge of the Goddess we are told to let our hearts be filled with both mirth and reverence.

Anyway, next week: Misadventures in Baby Sitting, Eleusis edition.

Most of the information about Demeter's Myth in this week's post comes from Karl Kerenyi's book: Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter

Theology and the search for labels

Who are your Gods? Neopagans are usually pretty good at answering this question. In fact many of us can, at the drop of a hat, rattle off a litany of Deific names along with attached Divine portfolios. Hermes is the God of merchants (and thieves); Hestia, Goddess of the hearth; Thor, God of thunder; and of course Dionysos with a resume longer than the spice road. But how often do we ask the more fundamental question, "What are your Gods?"

Are They sort of like other people, only with vast cosmic power, especially dysfunctional families and really cool jobs? Or are They more like masks that a singularly secretive transcendental force puts on when He/She/It feels like slumming with the masses? Or are They just stories we tell ourselves to maintain some air of mystery in the world? Or are They none of the above?

The best I can do to describe Divinity (as I see It) is this:

All Gods and Goddesses are parts of a (divided and systemically integrated) Divine Principle which pervades and governs the entire universe. They manifest in uncountable aspects, but are also recognizable as a more abstract duality: The Lord and Lady. These two are personifications of all the interactions that make up the cosmos, from the Big Bang to molecular chemistry.

They are nature itself, and They are the laws that nature follows. That includes human nature, by the way. They are as evident in the human condition as They are in the forests and fields of the wild earth. They are a continuum that encompasses both the psychological and the cosmological. They are the arc of the planets and the ache of the heart. Divinity is a spirit distilled from the whole of the world and every soul therein. It is liquor too heady to gulp, and each sip provides but a hint of Its true taste. Every inhalation of Its aroma reveals only an aspect of a bouquet too complex to ever fully fathom. It’s a fog you can drown in, a deafening stillness, blinding in both Its light and darkness, an unscalable depth.

And yes, that really IS the best I can do. Stop laughing.

To tell the truth, It's hard for me to really talk much about Divinity without resorting to purple prose or bad poetry. That might be why labels are so numerous in religion. They isolate and quantify things that are otherwise hard to put into words, or that tend to leave the speaker moonstruck. That might be the best point in favor of theological jargon, in fact. In addition to being rife with polysyllabic high-dollar words, it's a way to talk about Divinity without getting drunk off of a bottle of lyrical metaphors. The only problem is that none of the popular corks seem to fit our bottle.

Of course, we don't actually need any labels, not really. Ferris Beuller didn't believe in "isms" and he did all right. It doesn't hurt to browse, though. It can be fun and useful to examine ourselves in the context of different worldviews, and that's something that theological classifications really might be good for. Placing Wicca into the traditional spectrum of theology isn't going to be easy, though.

It seems that Wiccan and/or Neopagan beliefs about Divinity are always being shoved into one of the existing theological pigeonholes, regardless of how poorly the shapes match up. We are often classified as polytheists or pantheists, and those aren't completely inaccurate, but sometimes the labels are way off. I've been called an atheist a few times (ironically, by people who believe in fewer Gods than I do) and some Wiccans have actually described themselves as monotheists, but that's obviously an unusual interpretation. Sometimes we get even more exotic labels like "Panentheism" or "duotheism" or "bitheism/ditheism." Frankly, I'm not entirely happy with any of the choices so far.

Let's break it down. I'm not a monotheist because I believe in multiple Deific personifications, but I'm not exactly a polytheist because I believe that all those are aspects of one God and one Goddess. I'm not really a dualist because I see even the God and Goddess as ultimately unified into one (ineffable) Divine essence. Pantheism isn't too far off and I like that it acknowledges the Divinity of nature, but it doesn't communicate enough detail to be useful as far as I'm concerned. There's still too much poetry to uncork afterward.

So what can I call my theological system? I need a term that expresses the fundamental characteristics that I believe Divinity possesses without implying beliefs I don't subscribe to.

I've seen the phrase "Soft Polytheism" attached to beliefs like mine before. I can't say I like it. Intentionally or not, the addition of the modifier seems to convey that it's a "softened" form of traditional polytheism. I'm not sold on that. If anything, I'd say the approach represents a more rigid examination, since it can provide an explanation for how individual Deities have varied across related cultures. "Soft" just isn't going to work for me.

There might be another adjective that would do better, however. Something that actually describes the way my beliefs differ from other kinds of polytheism. "Holistic" might work. Holism emphasizes relationships and systems over individual components. It indicates a belief that looks beyond collected parts to see an integrated whole. A Holistic Polytheist would acknowledge multiple Deific identities, but would also see Them as part of a unified Divine. Plus, "holistic" is a name-brand top-shelf adjective. Nice and fancy. I like it. I can live with being tagged as a Holistic Polytheist.

Something still seems to be missing, though. Even with "holistic" and "polytheistic", we're not really nailing down the unique particulars of Wiccan theology. We still haven't addressed the question of Divinity being polarized into God and Goddess or of the Divine being immanent in nature. While both of these beliefs can be accommodated within the idea of Holistic Polytheism, neither is implied by the label. We need more detail if we're going to keep me out of the blank verse. Another "ism" might be in order.

Pantheism has a lot going for it. It describes a relationship between Divinity and nature that I can really get behind. What it lacks is a formal acknowledgment of the polarization in Divine forces. It's fine to say that "God is all", but it leaves too much unsaid, in my opinion. Traditional pantheism isn't too much better at communicating my belief in immanent Divinity than traditional polytheism was at describing my belief in Divine aspects. Maybe we should unpack our adjectives again.

We need a word that can do for pantheism what “holistic” did for polytheism; a modifier that clarifies without diluting. We’re looking for a way to indicate that the Divinity immanent in the whole of nature can be split into two separate (but still systemically connected) halves. After a bit of rummaging, I think I have just the thing. It’s an underused, yet highly descriptive word with nice wholesome Latin roots. It literally means "Split into two parts." I therefore propose that the particular brand of pantheism that I (and many other Neopagans) subscribe to ought to be called “Bifurcated Pantheism.” We can apply for the trademarks tomorrow.

So there we have it. Bifurcated Pantheism meets Holistic Polytheism. There’s plenty of syllables to chew on and a good chance to send any dismissive amateur theologian scrabbling for his dictionary of terms. And if that fails, we can always fall back on the poetry.

Descent of the Goddess

A few people have asked me about the myth I referred to in Tuesday's post, so I decided to do a little followup.

First, The Descent isn't really just one myth, but rather a theme that occurs in several myths and myth-inspired stories. The oldest example may be the Sumerian myth relating the descent of the Goddess Inanna into the land of the dead. There's also a specifically Wiccan gloss of the story which can be found in Gardnerian sources. At NCPCOW's Samhain ritual this year we presented our own version in the form of a narrated pantomime, combining elements from both of these.

The story touches on some important points. The start of the seasonal cycle that I mentioned in my original post is one, of course. The integration of Divine powers is another, represented in the Sumerian account by the twin Goddesses Innana and Erishkigal. The structure of initiation is a third, and this is especially evident in Gardner's version. All of these motifs overlap and reinforce each other.

The Descent, in essence, is the Goddess's own initiation. She is stripped down to Her core, experiences the death of the self, and is reborn with greater knowledge and deeper purpose. Because symbolically She is the Earth, The Descent can be seen as the planet's initiation as well.

From that angle, The Descent represents a paradigm shift in the way life itself functions. Endless summer is replaced by a seasonal cycle, which reflects a maturing biosphere. At the same time, Divine powers of life and death are reconciled and another cycle starts: the all-important cycle of rebirth.

All this reminds me that the word "Initiate" has more than one meaning. It can mean "To induct into membership by special rites" or "To instruct in the rudiments or principles of something " but those are secondary meanings (thank you, Webster's).  It doesn't just mean to induct or instruct, it primarily means to get things started.

Questions for future posts: When we undergo personal intiation into our spiritual paths, what  new cycles and processes does that  start in our lives? What parts of ourselves do we confront and integrate during our rites?

Samhain

Samhain is often called the Witches' New Year, but the word "Samhain" more directly means "the end of summer." How can we reconcile these two events into a single festival time? New Year celebrations are about beginnings or renewals. What does the end of a season, especially a season of growth like summer, have to do with those themes? Is there any way to build a coherent vision for Samhain that embraces both perspectives?

I think a solution can be found in the myth most associated with Samhain by Wiccans, The Descent of the Goddess. Now, I'm not aware of any association with a descent myth in the historical observances by the Celts. So if I were a reconstructionalist I'd be approaching this very differently, of course. But reconstruction of just one cultural perspective isn't what I'm up to. As a Wiccan, I'm looking for pan-cultural expressions of spiritual ideas, and The Descent really fits the bill.

It has become common for Wiccans to incorporate some form of The Descent into their celebration of Samhain. An abbreviated version of the story appears in Gardner's published work and we see the theme of Divinity descending in several great mythologies, perhaps the oldest being Sumerian (the land of Sumer = Summerland? hmm...)

Some elements of the story are malleable, but a core of common themes is essentially universal. Divinity descends from the upper or normative world into a chthonic underworld and confronts the ruling power there. The story usually ends in some sort of compromise or integration of powers, and often provides an explanation of the seasonal changes in nature. And there's our clue. The Descent is about how something started.

To put the idea into narrative context, ask yourself what the world could have been like before the seasons existed. The myths don't exactly spell it out, but the before and after descriptions aren't hard to interpret. The pre-seasonal earth resembles nothing more than it does what we experience as summertime.

Before the event that provokes the Descent (details vary) the Goddess had never really withdrawn Herself or Her blessings from the natural world. The myths describe the mourning and withdrawal of the Goddess in ways that are familiar to anyone who has ever seen summer turning to fall. Vegetation dies and withers, the earth grows cold and food sources disappear or become rare. The mythic context of the Descent is the original start of winter. For the first time, the world experiences a seasonal change. Summer ends and we have the first Samhain.

So that's where it ties together. Summer ends, and the seasonal year begins. The underlying lesson is that life cannot grow in stasis, and we need the cycle of death and rebirth to reach our own potential.

Let there be blog

Since what the world really needs right now is another Neopagan blog, I decided to start one. This one. Vine & Ivy.  Let the blogging and rejoicing begin.

Ok, so maybe "rejoicing" is a strong word. But anyway, the blog begins.

What I'm trying to accomplish with this project is to share some personal insights about my faith. I'm not trying to lay out any sort of dogma or evangelize any particular doctrine. That's outside the scope of my effort. I just want to get some ideas out there for people to react to.

I plan to update weekly, or rather I intend to post at least once in most weeks. Look for new entries on Tuesdays.

I hope this turns out to be useful and fun for everyone.