Holiday Gift Ideas & Traditions Blog

During times of mourning, the Naenia, or lamentation song, was traditionally sung to the accompaniment of a single flute. It was similar to a chant with several phrases repeated over and over again. Naenia, also the Goddess of Funerary Lamentations, had a little temple near one of the gates leading into Rome. Dance, considered an invention of the goddess, had a place in many religious festivals from joyous occasions to times of mourning. The Etruscans especially danced at their funerals. A dance of mourning featured women and men moving to music and song in a slow procession. As they moved, they showed the gesture of mourning, a hand held before the face or touching the forehead.

• Choose some slow, thoughtful music that holds meaning for you.
• Choreograph a dance of loss. Mourning and searching. Your movements do not have to be elaborate, but should be heartfelt. They can be planned and danced in a group, yet this can also be a private dance performed alone.

We share something in common with those who lived two or three millennia ago-we all experience loss. Different cultures, different religions, different eras all reflect a diversity of responses to loss. A reenactment of the myth of Ceres and Persephone by participation in the ritual of the Eleusinian Mysteries provoked a personal encounter with the goddesses, who offered hope, faith, and strength to the ancient Greeks and Romans. The ancients looked to the power and mystery of the Divine Feminine for comfort and guidance through loss and the somber days of September.

Modern Ritual:

A Libation to the Dead

The Romans honored their dead and those spirits who dwell underground by making a libation, an offering that the earth drinks. Often, a permanent libation hole was dug into the ground near family tombs to serve as a gateway to the dead spirits. The family would then make libation, using wine, or honey throughout the year to deceased relatives.

• Find a secluded quiet place and pour a libation into the Mother Earth as you remember those who have gone before, those you have loved.

 Mourning and Searching

We humans are bound to the earth in the natural cycle of life and death, really no different than the plants and animals-something that we easily forget, but can never avoid-for the dead return to the earth and the womb of the Mother. And we search for answers and reasons. For the initiates, the September rites of Ceres and Persephone described a ritualized time of mourning and searching.

We can never know what exactly the thousands of initiates in the September rites were seeking or what they experienced with days of fasting, a demanding fourteen-mile walk, purifications, fatigue, fear, and anticipation of the unknown. We can be assured that every man and woman was personally committed to experiencing the ritual, which involved physical and emotional hardship and demanded spiritual courage. This was a quest, a search into the deeper mysteries of the inner self.

Our knowledge is scant and suspect, since few have spoken of what actually occurred in the Telesterion, the building that housed the rites. Clement of Alexandria, a Christian and initiate, tells us, “I fasted, 1 drank the kykeon, 1 worked, and deposited in the basket and from the basket into the chest. Kykeon was a drink of barley, water, and herbs that some suggest contained traces of barley mold (ergot), a substance similar to LSD.

We can infer, however, that a visionary state was induced from days of fasting and little food followed by a fermented beverage. But just what vision did the initiates behold? Did they find what they were seeking? The grieving and searching process was an integral part of the weeklong rite, and this experience marked a profound transformation in the lives of many men and women.

I once joined a group of women celebrating the September ritual at a mountain retreat. At night, when all was dark, we lit a huge bonfire, read the myth of Ceres and Persephone, and then shared some painful moments of loss, separation, abuse, and denial. Then, carefully, we each took a lit branch or candle and wandered off alone for a short distance down darkened paths as we searched within ourselves, to grieve and to meditate upon our own personal losses.

Joy and Belief

Much as Easter confirms the resurrection of Christ for Christians and revolves around the sacred story of a divine Parent and Child, the September rituals to Ceres confirmed the cycle of life, death, and rebirth to ancient pagans. Yet, contrary to the Christian version of the divine Father and Son, the pagan story was based upon the Holy Mother and Daughter, the principle of the Divine Feminine.

The great Roman statesman Cicero, as an initiate into the September Eleusinian rites, had a very personal encounter with the goddess Ceres and her daughter. He confessed this profound and intimate moment of self-enlightenment in a letter to his friend Atticus: “We have come to truly understand the first principles of life, and we have accepted with joy not only a rationale for living, but even for dying with better hope”. We all seek happiness on earth and blessedness after death. How powerful it must have been to hear the myth retold, to actually reenact it and participate in the cycle within a spiritual community, and to take partake in the mystery. September challenges us to face endings; it is a month of separation. September also conditions a belief in the sanctity of nature, the Divine Feminine, and the continuous natural cycle of all things. And it gives us hope for what will come as we do what we are compelled to do, “harvest life.”

An Ancient Prayer for the Seeds

O grant unto the tender seedlings unbroken increase,

Let not the sprouting shoot be nipped by chilly snows. When we sow, let the sky be cloudless and winds blow fair;

But when the seed is buried then sprinkle it with water from the sky. Forbid the birds-pests of the tilled land-to devastate the fields of grain with their destructive flocks.

You too, ants, spare the sown grain; so shall you have a more abundant harvest. Meantime may no disease blight the growing crop nor foul weather turn it a sickly hue;

May it neither shrivel up nor swell unduly and be choked.

May the fields be free blight and no barren oats spring from the tilled soil. May the farm yield many times crops of wheat, barley and grain which can be baked.

May the Two Goddess grant our prayers.

Long time did wars engage mankind and the plow gave way to the sword.

The plow ox gave way to the war horse.

Hoes were idle; a helmet was made out of a heavy rake. Thanks be to the Goddesses and to my house.

Let War be laid in chains.

Yoke now the oxen and sow the seed in the ploughed earth.

Peace is the nurse of Ceres and Ceres is the Child of Peace!

Ancient farmers were advised to paint the wine jars with pitch, pick apples, and loosen the soil around the roots of the trees. At the equinox, the farmers were to cut straw, harrow the ploughed land, and gather in fodder.  September, when the summer growing season is over and the harvest nears completion, is a month of endings. Although many days remain sunny and warm, the intense heat of summer is past and the first cooler days appear, as the sun continues its six-month journey toward the winter solstice and the hours of light are noticeably shorter approaching the equinox. A few leaves turn brown and fall from the trees, harbingers of the glorious, but so brief, display of nature’s magnificent color before the dull tones of late fall and winter set in. In the Roman rustic calendar, September represented a quiet time for the busy farmer with the winding down of the harvest, for the summer fruits and vegetables had been picked and the sheaves of grain had been cut down. In the countryside, September was a time for thanksgiving. Wine or honey mixed with milk was poured directly into the ground as libation, and spontaneous dances and songs were offered to Ceres for a bounteous harvest by oak-leaf crowned young men and women. September was also the month of grief and the time to mourn the loss.

In the agrarian calendar, the jubilation brought on by a bounteous harvest of summer crops now gave way to a sadness and preparation for the end. September is a month to acknowledge the end, and it is a time for closure. Yet this too is only part of the natural cycle. As in August, powerful goddesses prevail this month, but with a difference. The goddesses of September do not strike out, but instead serve as reminders of the eternal life cycle. These goddesses offer hope and restore faith.

The story I am about to tell has been retold and reenacted for thousands of years at countless secret rituals to the Greek goddess Demeter or Ceres, her Roman counterpart. There was a time long ago when men and women attended the rites to Demeter in September, marching from Athens to the small town called Eleusis, some fourteen miles northwest of Athens. What was it that drew them for the weeklong ceremony? What compelled them to take part in this ritual, the most famous mystery of the classical world, a rite no initiate could ever discuss openly for fear of death? We cannot answer that question with any certainty; we can only infer. Because this was a very solemn rite and the initiates took their oath seriously, no reliable source exists to describe the events in any detail. Thus, the rites of the Eleusinian Demeter have remained enigmatic-a mystery-for nearly three thousand years.

Let this sacred tale of mother and daughter, possibly the most powerful of all the classical myths, serve as an introduction to the Greater Eleusinian Mysteries, held in the last half of September, and to the Thesmophoria, which occurred shortly thereafter. This sacred and truly feminine myth delves deep into the earth, into nature, and into our psyches, drawing strength from ageless archetypes. This is a story of loss, grief, and suffering, and it is appropriate for September.

Originally an oral poem, the myth of Ceres and Persephone was written down sometime between 650 and 550 B.C.E. by an anonymous Greek bard. The version you will find here is Roman; it begins in Sicily near the modern town of Enna and was composed by Ovid in the first few years of the common era.

This rite to Ceres and Persephone was held in late September or early October and was not restricted to Greece, where it lasted three days, but was practiced in cities around the Mediterranean. In southern Italy and Sicily the ritual could last up to ten days. There, “older women respected for their noble birth and character” served as priestesses.The Thesmophoria differs from other rites in that it is practiced only by women, young and old, mothers and daughters, “maidens and matrons.” Here, too, the myth of Ceres and Persephone lies at the core of the ritual. The three aspects of the myth, the separation, the mourning and search, and the joyful reunion, were reenacted and collectively experienced by women in antiquity.

In preparation for the ritual, one month in advance, the priestess of the Thesmophoria threw live pigs into a sacrificial pit. On the first day of the rite, the women made a procession to a building or specially constructed huts at the outskirts of the town where they would live for the duration of the ritual. They refrained from wearing crowns of flowers on their heads as Persephone was collecting flowers when she was abducted. The women carried with them closed baskets-what they contained we don’t know, perhaps clay phalluses or sheaves of grain. Later this day, they would open the pit, and a priestess would descend and bring up the rotted remains of the pigs to be placed upon an altar.

This unusual ritual of resurrection of the dead from underground began a period of mourning that lasted through the second day. The women remained secluded, fasting and sleeping on freshly cut green boughs and branches. On the second night, they would run through the streets with torches, stopping at crossroads to shout, reenacting Ceres’ frantic search for Persephone.

The third day, or last phase, was festive with special meals, singing, and dancing. Though sexual abstinence was mandatory, sexual symbolism predominated. Phallic-shaped cakes were baked and eaten. Obscene gestures, songs, and dances were encouraged, to the great delight of the men passing by. Blood-colored objects, such as red wine and red pomegranates, were part of the ritual. In honor of Persephone, however, the pomegranates were not eaten. When all was over, the women returned home to be united with their families, as Ceres was with Persephone.

In September, we now look to the end, to a time when “Now all the fields and meadows appear the same somber color and a dark shadow covers the world. Now the watchdogs are silent … “-a time of closure, withdrawal, and death. The goddesses guide us with burning torches, for the two gifts that Ceres gives to humans are the grain harvested in the fall and the mystery rituals.