Where Is Baubo Now?

 

The seasonal rituals of ancient Goddess religions, based on the cycles of death and rebirth in Nature, offer a very different perspective from current patriarchal religious and scientific traditions. The ancient myths offer us stories of eternally returning, of renewable creative experience, personally and collectively.

On my first day in Athens I took the bus to Elefsina, a town about 18 kilometres northwest of the city. The bus moved slowly with the traffic along the ancient Sacred Way where people once walked in procession to celebrate the Eleusinian Mysteries. No one really knows what happened in the initiation rituals based on Persephone’s descent and return from the Underworld, but the rites were celebrated for thousands of years and were thought to keep the world in balance.

Today the Sacred Way is surrounded by urban development, and Elefsina is a major industrial area. Yet I could still imagine the sacred procession winding from Athens to Eleusis: initiates swinging leafy branches, singing, chanting, and shouting obscenities in commemoration of Baubo, the mysterious Greek Goddess who was bawdy, fun-loving and sexually liberated. Baubo – a ‘daughter’ of the ancient Mother Goddess, Cybele – was celebrated for consoling Demeter with ribald jesting when the goddess was mourning the loss of Persephone.

The modern and ancient exist side by side in Greece – a caleidoscope of images and impressions spanning millennia. It is easy to assume that modern life represents the pinnacle of civilisation, yet where is Baubo now?

Baubo has been degraded into over-sexualised images of women and girls. The obscenities that were once shouted in sacred play are now directed at women as aggression, hostility and violence. We have lost Baubo and so many of the myths and rituals that can connect us to ourselves, each other, and the world.

At the core of the Eleusinian Mysteries was the myth of Demeter and her daughter, Persephone. The maiden Persephone was picking flowers when she was seized by Hades and taken to the Underworld. Demeter searched but could not find her daughter. In her distress, she stopped tending the Earth. Crops failed, bringing famine and suffering. Zeus intervened and sent Hermes to retrieve Persephone from the Underworld. Mother and daughter were reunited, and the land flourished again. Each year the cycle repeated, Persephone descending and returning, symbolising the changing seasons and the eternal return.

It seems likely that the Eleusinian Mysteries involved initiates in symbolic enactment of Persephone’s journey. Symbolic enactment invites engagement and suggests a possibility of transformation. It can also be confusing and frustrating.  Symbols are not static – the meaning of a symbol changes from person to person and across time and place. Enactment ensures that the experience is alive in the moment, and ritual enactment ensures a safe place to engage the mysteries.

There remains a mystery about what exactly took place at the Demeter Sanctuary at Eleusis, but it seems likely that the ancients incorporated symbol and enactment in an initiation process. Initiation always involves a crossing – from one stage to the next, from one identity to another. We like to think we can choose our crossings, but life has a way of choosing for us, and we are devastated by loss, shocked by betrayal, left anxious and fearful of change. The Eleusinian Mysteries offered the ancients a map for the journey.

Imagine yourself as an initiate. You may become Demeter, grieving unbearable loss and withdrawing from the world. Or perhaps you are Persephone, your life abruptly changed by forces outside your control. As you walk the path of initiation, guided by story and by those who have gone before, you encounter the Underworld of your own psyche and you are transformed.

Symbolic enactment takes us into and beyond our fears. We cross thresholds and return with sovereignty over ourselves. Persephone returns to the upper world, and she is also Queen of the Underworld.

In the modern world, we engage symbols through expressing our creativity, working with dreams, and attending depth psychotherapy. Just imagine how it would be to wake one morning knowing that today you will walk in procession from the city to a sanctuary by the sea, chanting and singing, shouting obscenities to Baubo, who laughs loudly and shouts right back. Imagine that today you will make offerings to Goddess and be guided through a ritual enactment of one of the great teaching stories, descending and returning transformed. Imagine…

I caught that bus to Elefsina to walk the marble paths of Demeter’s sanctuary. The seasonal rituals of ancient goddess religions, based on the cycles of death and rebirth in Nature, offer a very different perspective from current patriarchal religious and scientific traditions. The ancient myths offer us stories of eternally returning, of renewable creative experience, personally and collectively. I caught that bus to Elefsina to visit one of the places where the stories were born.

- Dr Kaalii Cargill was on Goddess pilgrimage in Greece in 2015. Her PhD research explored ancient women’s mysteries. 

 

Top Image by Francis Davis Millet

  The Thesmophoria (Ancient Greek: Θεσμοφόρια) was an ancient Greek religious festival, held in honor of the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone. 

Bottom of page image: Baubo

Barcarole

Let us go to the shore;

there the waves will kiss our feet

With mysterious sadness

the stars will shine down on us.

*

 Aleksey Pleshcheyevo. 1825-1893

Artwork "Dreaming" by Victoria Kalaichi, 
Ukrainian artist 

 

*

Prayer

You can not reach all suffering humanity all the time.

You can hold all souls as whole in your heart, not just their horrors and losses.

This is the stronger prayer:

Wholeness despite holes through and through.

Hold all the injured as whole,

and on the torn red beribboned slingshot

of your heart...

aim, draw back hard, harder

and release all your holiest and  most healing thoughts 

to fly across all divides,

to fly across all big waters,

to vault across all insanities...

Bid the holy to fly - and to land at this moment

in exactly the places most needed.

Souls sense being fiercely prayed for,

on, over, with, daily.

Knowing that someone

who knows you not

is nonetheless praying,

pouring will and strength into you, 

for you, into and for those you pray for:

This is inestimable medicine for the soul.

Continue then and tend

to the poor in spirit,

the poor in soul,

the poor in health,

the poor in want,

right before you:

the ailing kin, the street man,

the road mother, the broken friend,

the innocent child, the torn,

the wondering, the wandering.

I tell you,

those who would care across the ocean only,

and not care for those they can wash

who are standing right before them,

are not fully caring yet.

I know you understand this:

That we desperately

want all humanity to not hurt...

and that this is one of the worthiest

prayers we know.

Thus, we bend to tend, 

in whatever ways we are called,

to those within our reach - 

wherever that reach reaches...

for there are times

when Creator has no hands,

only ours...

Thus, in this tending, we keep the greatest

blood contract with Creator,

with our Holy Mother, 

our souls have ever signed...

So may it be for thee

so may it be for me

And so may it be for us all.

Aymen

Aymen

Aymen

And with oceanic love...

Excerpt from: Untie the Strong Woman - "Remembering Our Billions" - by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Painting: "Ukrainian Praying Woman" by Fedir Krychevsky

The Child-Angel

They clamour and fight, they doubt and despair, they know no end to their wrangling.

Let your life come amongst them like a flame of light, my child, unflickering and pure, and delight them into silence.

They are cruel in their greed and their envy, their words are like hidden knives thirsting for blood.

Go and stand amidst their scowling hearts, my child, and let your gentle eyes fall upon them like the forgiving peace of the evening over the strife of the day.

Let them see your face, my child, and thus know the meaning of all things; let them love you and thus love each other.

Come and take your seat in the bosom of the limitless, my child. At sunrise open and raise your heart like a blossoming flower, and at sunset bend your head and in silence complete the worship of the day.

Rabindranath Tagore

Art: "Hope" by J. Kirk Richards

Peace

I WILL WRITE 

PEACE 

ON YOUR WINGS 

AND 

YOU WILL FLY 

ALL OVER THE WORLD

PEACE

Counterpoint

 

Counterpoint

The others they talk

oh, they chatter

so much, so much 

to tame

their fear

In my cocoon

I may seem trapped

but I merely seek shelter

to listen to the voices of birds

spin their magic songlines

and the shrieks of ravens

in my Eden

shrieks that rip open my

oldest scars

The moon knows my every scar

and she has turned them into poetry

flutter flutter

go my wings

in the gossamer spinning

of the muses in my head

Euterpe and Erato

my very own muses

They like to dance

until the moon gives way

and they, like dust motes

in a pathway of moonlight,

finally unwind

in the swaying cradle

of my poem.

Artwork by Victoria Pettella

I Sought to Find Where the Deity Lives

 

I sought to find where the deity lives

It wasn't far yet rather remote.

She invited me in to be with her

And shyly she showed me three robes.

The first one was of red jacaranda,

a cloak for the wind and the weather.

The second was made from the feathers of doves,

pastel in hue and blue like flowing water.

The last of the three which the deity revealed

was purest white wool and so smooth of weave,

She allowed me to feel how soft this robe was

perfect and sewn without seams.

Then she laid her cloak over my shoulders

and let me return from where I had come.

Since then I am robed in her protection

and bloom like the red jacaranda.

Maria de Groot,

Dutch Poet & Theologian

Translation by me.

The Rose in Blessing

 

Flowering, immaculate

grows the winter rose

inside of you

Your soul, in wonderment,

expresses its form

But hush..

wait just awhile

for the soft breath of the merciful divine

is flowing within you

And a light will be lit that never dims

by day it illuminates your acts

by night, your dreams

Feel how the divine love enfolds you

Rest now secure in her arms

while your angel spreads her wings

above the Rose in Blessing

The Black Madonna Returns

 Virgin in the Basilica of Montserrat, late 12th century, in wood

The Black Madonna Returns by  Andrew Harvey - 2004

The entire world is now going through a massive crucifixion on all levels.  It's going through an environmental crucifixion. Hundreds of species are vanishing every month. It's going through a personal crucifixion. There are two billion people living on less than a dollar a day. It's going through a crucifixion of all the patriarchal systems. Look at Enron and what it has shown us about Corporate America. Look at the Catholic Church's scandals of pedophilia and what it shows us about authority. Look at the growing disillusionment with politicians of all kinds. All of the systems are  being exposed as illusory and fantasy-ridden, as deeply corrupt and exploitative.

There's another kind of crucifixion going on: crucifixion of purpose and hope. Everybody is totally bewildered. They know that the world is potentially on the brink of  apocalypse. There's a tremendous danger that as people wake up to the horror of what is going on, they will run into political extremism or into fundamentalism of one kind or another.

So it's extremely important that the wisdom of the 'dark night of the soul' gets across, because if people understand the necessity for this crucifixion, and understand that it's preparing a resurrection and empowerment, then they will be prepared to go through it without too much fear, trusting in the logic of the divine transformation.

The Benedictine monk Bede Griffiths shared with me his experience of the dark night of the soul. He said he was sitting outside his hut one day when he felt as if a hand hit him on the right side of his being. He had suffered a massive heart attack that destroyed what he described as his patriarchal mind and gave him access to a much deeper elaboration of Oneness with all things.  

He said, "It's a very strange thing, but when I thought of surrendering to the Mother I of course thought of Mary--I often say the 'Hail Mary'--but it was Mary as the Black Madonna that came into my mind. She is the mother of the earth as well as heaven, of the body as well as the soul, the mother of the subconscious, the hidden, of all those powers that the 'masculine' mind represses; the Mother of the sacred darkness. In Her the Western Christian vision of the Divine Mother and the Eastern one merge and meet; you can think of her as both Mary and Kali, both preserver and destroyer. From that time on, I have turned to Her again and again. Invoking Her strength and grace, I find, makes the 'birth' go so much faster and more cleanly."

The power that is doing this to us is coming towards us simultaneously with terrifying destruction and extreme grace and prosperity. The destruction is, in fact, a form of that extreme grace. It's quite clear that humanity is now terminally ill, and can only be transfigured by a totally shocking revelation of its shadow side. And this is what we're living through, these shadow sides exploding in every direction because we have done nothing but betray the sacred in us. We have lacerated the sacred in others. We have betrayed the sacred in an orgy of fundamentalism. We have brutalized the sacred in nature. We are now terminally destructive.

So only an almost terminal destruction that reveals to us the full extent of our responsibility in this destruction can wake us up. And that is what is happening, and it will get worse. It's bound to get worse. But it is only being done to us for our own redemption.

Those who turn to the Mother in total faith, those who turn to the Black Madonna in total admiration, those who realize the mercy behind the violence will be given extraordinary protection, strength, and revelation. They will be empowered in the core of themselves to become what everybody who has a heart and a mind must now become - a spiritual revolutionary devoting their entire life and all their resources to the preservation of the planet.

Finding the Black Madonna, in whatever form you want to find her, realizing the massive task that she's doing and turning to her for protection is now crucial to the preservation of the planet. It's extremely important that people really come to understand the feminine and turn towards it, because it's our betrayal of the feminine in ourselves and in the divine that has led to this crisis.

© Copyright Andrew Harvey 2004-All Rights Reserved

Image above: Virgin de Montserrat, late 12th century, romanesque, scultured in wood

Image below: Mare de Déu, Basilica de Montserrat

The Last Word

 

There will come a time

When the last spoken words

Will be heard by the gods

And their hearts will break

And descend in a green rain.

The accumulated anguish of the creatures

Will become a stubborn poetry

Rushing in like the swift wind

That replaces the lost songs of the dead.

These broken shards of sacred language

And persistence, these fragments

That defended what was threatened

What was going extinct, will become

Like the scatter of stars,

A delicate light sufficient

To illuminate the dark we have imposed.

Those who had no words

Will be given words like amaryllis

And sunflower, porcupine and flamingo,

Endangered words for their salvation

Like manatee and rhinoceros,

Or river and corn.

In other words, they will be given

Their own bodies to declare to each other

So it will be impossible to distinguish

Meaning from their particular lives.

Each will contribute only the single word

Of one’s body and soul,

So when one speaks a sentence

One will always have to speak

Of more than oneself.

To speak at any length

Whether in the eloquence of wolf howl

Or arpeggios of bird song, or

The chastened whispers of a new

Human speech will be to invoke

All that is living in one’s cogitations,

And so it will be

After the last words are finally spoken

That the first words will,

Once again,

Conjure Creation.

*

Deena Metzger - The Last Word part 3
from published Essay's & Poetry
Rattle 2004

A Time for Everything

 

   

There is a time for everything

 and a season for every activity under the heavens.

Ecclesiastes 3

*

We are familiar with the expression ‘quality time’, meaning time meaningfully spent, perhaps in the company of a loved one, or doing something which we value. But in our vocabulary there is only one sort of time, whether that is spent in quality time or doing some routine chore. That time is the familiar past, present and future of our everyday experience. To us in the 21st-century, it is all just ‘time’. The paradox here is that so many nowadays complain about having no time at all.

But the Ancient Greeks saw things differently, and their vocabulary expressed more, for they had two words for time: kairos and chronos. Kairos means the right or supreme moment. While kairos signifies a time in between ordinary time, a moment of indeterminate time in which something special happens, chronos refers to chronological or sequential time – the past-present-future time familiar to us. While Kairos is qualitative, chronos has a quantitative nature.

Kairos is about time that lies outside of ordinary time.  It is the space we experience when we turn inwards, the kind of time in which everything is absorbed. In kairos all pasts and futures are contained in every moment: an eternal ‘now’ of infinite possibilities. There is no judgement, only immense space and gentle awareness - and the realisation that everything is connected with everything else, and assimilated into the loving unnamable Mystery. We can turn ourselves towards this state of being, and make space for our soul, our wisdom and our compassion. Put simply: if chronos is secular time, the time of clocks, busy schedules, deadlines, and feeling like we never have time enough to get things done, then kairos is sacred time, in which we have infinite time to restore our soul and connect with the eternal. 

As Ecclesiastes the Preacher says: there is a time for everything. Kairos is the beautiful kind of time where the divine mystery steps in and changes everything. Experiencing kairos can prompt pivotal moments, crucial moments of great consequence for our life, moments which prove to be turning points in our life which can change the direction of our journey forever.

The Preacher also says: There is a time for sowing and a time for harvesting. And so we need the time to ripen certain aspects within us before they can flower and be harvested. Here every moment is important in connection with the great Mystery which surrounds us. This is the true ‘quality time’: the time known as kairos. And it could even be true that every moment is the right moment once we accept and welcome what is - and the touch of love will be all that is needed.

Photograph: Planetarium of Eise Eisinga in Franeker, Friesland, The Netherlands.