I have decided to celebrate Samhainn–opening my year as a Druid Apprentice–with a rite honoring Demeter, Persephone, and Hades. It seems appropriate since not only is Samhainn traditionally a time to celebrate the dead, when the gates of the underworlds are thrown open and the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead are thinner, but it is also a celebration of the harvest (the final harvest!). And coincidentally, it also can be conceptualized as the threshold between fall and winter, which in Greek Mythology is the time when Persephone leaves her mother Demeter and goes to reign in the underworld with her husband, Hades. Demeter’s grief at the loss of her daughter inaugurates winter, when plants turn brown and die and the earth goes cold, and it stays that way until Persephone returns in the spring, bringing with her the rebirth of the living world.
Unfortunately one of my main resources for prayers honoring the Hellenic gods is now lost for all time thanks to the death of Geocities, so I don’t really have a prayer honoring Hades, and I am having a hard time writing one. I’m sure this bottle of Jaegermeister next to me isn’t helping, but I just don’t know enough about Hades to write a decent prayer to him.
So I’m stuck, and cranky. And tipsy, I guess. I think I’m going to play video games online with my brother and worry about this tomorrow. Of course, the problem with that attitude is that I plan on celebrating Samhainn on Sunday, and Sunday keeps getting closer. I mean, if all else fails, I guess I can always just come up with a sort of impromptu invocation, and that’s probably what nI’m going to wind up doing. So the whole thing isn’t foiled; I’m just feeling irritatingly uncreative. Maybe I should try to pray to Hades before Sunday, and ask for a bit of his dread underworld inspiration. I mean, if anyone knows how Hades wants to be honored, it would probably be Hades, right?
I do have a lot of other cool stuff planned for the holiday, but this rite is sort of supposed to be the fulcrum of the whole thing, and celebrating the Wheel of the Year is supposed to be a part of my AODA First-Degree Druid curriculum, so it is kind of important to me.
On the other hand, I did manage to be creative to write a New Eleusinian Mystery Rite. It’s fairly awesome, and contains the secrets of life, death, and immortality, but I don’t know anyone who I can initiate who can then turn around and initiate me. And what’s the point of having initiatory mysteries that nobody gets initiated into? And it’s not really the kind of thing you can initiate yourself into, either.
Have you tried the Wayback Machine? Chances are that as long as you have the web address to the now defunct Geocities website, you can find an archived version on the Wayback Machine. For example, here’s an archived copy of your blog from February 2007.
(referencing a few different posts here)
Wow, we must be connected in some way. I am also American Neopagan Druid (ADF and AODA) who recently started incorporating Celtic deities into my otherwise-Hellenic practice.
I also have not prepared for my Samhainn rite until late in the game, and am struggling with the complexities. I also feel uncreative, blocked, and disappointed.
Astrologically, this is just a crappy time of year. Neither the Solar or Telluric currents bring particularly appealing gifts.
But fear not. Things will begin to change from the Full Moon, hopefully.
Jonathan: I already tried the Wayback Machine, and it only tantalizingly had the index page. None of the actual prayers or hymns.
Euandros: Now see, if I was an ADF member instead of just a casual ADF hanger-on, I could access the Samhain Ritual to Persephone and Hades that they have archived on their website, for members only…
Orphic Hymn to Pluto (Thomas Taylor’s translation from the Greek):
PLUTO, magnanimous, whose realms profound
Are fix’d beneath the firm and solid ground,
In the Tartarian plains remote from sight,
And wrapt forever in the depths of night;
Terrestrial Jove, thy sacred ear incline,
And, pleas’d, accept thy mystic’s hymn divine.
Earth’s keys to thee, illustrious king belong,
Its secret gates unlocking, deep and strong.
‘Tis thine, abundant annual fruits to bear,
For needy mortals are thy constant care.
To thee, great king, Avernus is assign’d,
The seat of Gods, and basis of mankind.
Thy throne is fix’d in Hade’s dismal plains,
Distant, unknown to rest, where darkness reigns;
Where, destitute of breath, pale spectres dwell,
In endless, dire, inexorable hell;
And in dread Acheron, whose depths obscure,
Earth’s stable roots eternally secure.
O mighty dæmon, whose decision dread,
The future fate determines of the dead,
With captive Proserpine, thro’ grassy plains,
Drawn in a four-yok’d car with loosen’d reins,
Rapt o’er the deep, impell’d by love, you flew
‘Till Eleusina’s city rose to view;
There, in a wond’rous cave obscure and deep,
The sacred maid secure from search you keep,
The cave of Atthis, whose wide gates display
An entrance to the kingdoms void of day.
Of unapparent works, thou art alone
The dispensator, visible and known.
O pow’r all-ruling, holy, honor’d light,
Thee sacred poets and their hymns delight:
Propitious to thy mystic’s works incline,
Rejoicing come, for holy rites are thine.
(from here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hoo/hoo22.htm )
I’d love to give it to you, but I didn’t write it so I can’t
However, I know Sassafras Grove wrote that one. Why don’t you hit up Earrach (who I believe is the Senior Druid of that Grove) at info@sassafrasgrove.org and ask him for a copy?
Pax,
Euandros
OK, how about reocities.com?
Subterranean is your dwelling place, O strong-spirited one,
A meadow in Tartaros, thick-shaded and dark.
Chthonic Zeus, sceptered one, kindly accept this sacrifice,
Plouton, holder of the keys to the whole earth.
You give the wealth of the year’s fruits to mankind,
And to your lot fell the third portion, earth, queen of all,
Seat of the gods, mighty lap of mortals.
Your throne rests on a tenebrous realm,
The distant, untiring, windless and impassive Hades,
And on dark Acheron that encompasses the roots of the earth.
All-Receiver, with death at your command, you are the master of mortals.
Euboulos, you once took pure Demeter’s daughter as your bride,
When you tore her away from the meadow and through the sea.
Upon your steeds you carried her to an Attic cave, in the district of Eleusis,
Where the gates to Hades are.
You alone were born to judge deeds obscure and conspicuous.
Holiest and illustrious ruler of all, frenzied god,
You delight in the worshiper’s respect and reverence.
Come with favor and joy to the initiates. I summon you.
And coincidentally, it also can be conceptualized as the threshold between fall and winter, which in Greek Mythology is the time when Persephone leaves her mother Demeter and goes to reign in the underworld with her husband, Hades. Demeter’s grief at the loss of her daughter inaugurates winter, when plants turn brown and die and the earth goes cold, and it stays that way until Persephone returns in the spring, bringing with her the rebirth of the living world.
Actually, no. In places like California or Hellas, the barley and wheat is planted in the autumn, the winter rains feed the grass, and then the harvest is in May. The summer heat with no rain is what drive Persephone (at Skira in June) underground. In Mediterranean climates no green thing can grow in the summer w/o a lot of irrigation.
The reunion of mother and daughter is Septemberish. You can thank bad Victorian translations by Northern European’s in ivory towers for the confusion.
An easy to access book on the subject is Reif’s “Mysteries of Demeter”. The ritual scripts might bug your recon pals, but the calendar chapters are academically tight. (They have the calendar stone from the temple, and the dates are clear)
ANYHOW, I am just pointing this out because this is one of those truths that is not really “universal” but “location-location-location” and I am in the camp that suggests you listen to the land spirits, your local county ag, see if any hippies in your area have an organic garden store, and try growing a pot of your own wheat. Then see what Demeter has to say to you.
-Zoe, full of wacky ideas