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(by Lady Svetlana) Priestess: The God Who severs our umbilicus from the Maternal Womb of living tissue. We pray for You to bring a painless and merciful death To each innocent creature who reveres Earth and Cosmos, Consciously or even unconsciously. Aidoneus, the Invisible One. Who releases our Astral Selves and hides us from this mortal dimension So we may shed outworn flesh… Let Your Presence be felt. Envelop us momentarily, in this Season of Samhain, with Your awesome Shroud So we may no longer fear our inevitable transition. Chtonius, Bringer of Death, Let us see the Underworld as a place of rest followed by journeys to other Holy Realms. Oh Great Master of obsidian chill and muted jet – Help us remember our past lives in all layers of being And allow us to evolve awareness of our passage from one world to another Mighty Plutos, the wealth You give, Is the gift of never-ending possibilities through labyrinthine spaces And inextricable mazes of time… Hail Hades! Hail Ais! Hail Plouton! EVOE DARK DIONYSOS EKKA EVOE KORE KAI KOUROS AWEEYA!" Priest or Priestess: Prepares bowl. A Tibetan singing bowl, large, to be played later. Or substitute Echeion, a large gong ( Wu Han gong) is also good.  Praise to Persephone (by Lady Svetlana) Priest or Priestess: "Awesome Death Goddess- Persephone – Queen of the Underworld – Ruler of the Dead – Lady of the Dark Sky – Black Diamond glowing at the starry Gates between worlds. We beseech You to appear as the guiding light to each soul leaving the earthly abodes for the nether planes. Lift the translucent veil between spheres that rifts us from our sense of immortality which You guarantee to each one of us. Ah! Persephonia, Pherephatta, Basilissa Kekmekotia – Goddess of Regeneration – our hope lies with You. The quivering strings of our hearts breaking at the moment of dying are reattuned by Your infinite Kore care. Come to us, Black Translucent One of multi-emanations and endless opalescent permutations. Comfort us…. Oh, comfort us – beauteous, ethereal Transformer of souls – As Brimo, who gives birth to Brimos says: Divine Benefactress – Phanis – float forth… Fly! Appear – transcendent Maiden…. Come!!!" Priest: (Plays big bowl or Echeion) Priestess: (Speaks in high pitch) "Persephone, Persephone, Persephone – Great Goddess of the dead, Guardian of the spiral bridge, Transformer of souls -–before Your platinum Gates receive the spirits of the newly deceased and as the Gates open let the dead stand at Eleusis before Your shimmering translucent black veils and judge themselves. When they become worthy let Hermes lead them through the twirling dark Tunnel of Aidoneus to the glittering bright light at its end. Then the beauteous Charites will take the transformed ones and lead them further to the Emerald Isles of Elysium beyond, where the glorious Aphrodite Morpho, Aphrodite Kallipygos, Aphra-Urania as well as Aphrodite Epitymbidia and Tymborychos connects Her great Majesty to Queen Persephone. The fertile blood red of the pomegranate connects these two realms of Death and Paradise." Shows cut in half pomegranate. The celebrants go to the underworld chamber of Persephone and Hades with drum accompaniment. Priest or Priestess: "I will sing the Dirge to Hades as the labyrinthine cloth is removed from the skull of Aidoneus." Use an imitation, no real skull, to reveal. A wooden drum is played simultaneously. Ruler of the dead – Who snatches up our souls into the nether world – Adis – Adis!" A cup with salt is passed around. Receive the salty blessings of the root – woven underground Life can be difficult and bitter." Each person puts a finger in the cup and tastes the salt. Priest or Priestess: Sings transformative song in front of icon of Persephone. She who transforms souls of the dead Let us taste your kindness and bliss." A cup with sugar is passed around. Receive the sweet blessings of the branch-shaded surface of land." Each tastes a touch of sugar. Priest or Priestess: All: All chant and carry candles. The celebrants depart for the upper chamber. They slowly climb the stairs. Above they stand before Callisto and chant : All: Sung or chanted. Callisto represent Aethe-ra The brand new crescent of arising life! Evi Luna, sweet Callisto! Evi Luna Artemissa! Eva Luna youthful crescent! Evi Luna! E-E-VI-I-I LU-U-NA!" Priest: Plays little bowl. EVOE CALLISTO The new moon has risen in our hearts." Celebrants: They descend to the main chamber, chanting several times: EVOE A-E-TH-RA" Music: Choose either 'Isle of the Dead' by Rachmaninoff; 'Night on the Bald Mountain' by Moussorgsky; or 'Dance Macabre' by Saint Saëns. Play it softly. Perse Speaks 'Rêve du Morte' (by Lady Svetlana) Priestess: "I dream of Death – I dream of Death – who has many masks. She is the dark Courtesan, Mistress of my soul. She sits alone with white rose face in elegant rigidity at her Salon at Marienbad or, perhaps, Baden-Baden. She awaits me stoically. She is the parched-face Mediterranean, an old peasant woman, who sobs awesomely as she covers me with her shroud – a caul of black. Death stands as Sorceress amidst the spider-webbed spiral. She turns Her head and Her contour reveals eyeless sockets that peal off noiselessly at Her pale delicate feet. She chants…. with gentle tears on Her pale, delicate, translucent face, the Mater Dolorous cradles me in Her long slender arms. Her blue mantle of Night, of star-studded sky falls on my bosom and dissolves my heart. She sweetly smiles. Thus long ago in the Quondam of the Nile, the Sphinx smiled in silence of stone. What do I see prancing gaily upon a wounded moth? It is She – a satiated plump little black cat gingerly pawing at the flailing winged creature. The flutter ceases. Little black one calmly licks her paw. Hooting of the white owl is interrupted only by a little mouse shriek. The vampire bat takes off on her ominous mission while the black crow cackles gluttonously as she consumes a stray robin. With Her preying-Mantis laugh Kale dances Her macabre jig upon the bones of the dead. Then the witching hour strikes. The great Devourer is weary. Death takes off Her mask. I look. Nothing is there. I falter not and continue to stare. In the immeasurable distance I see invisible hands releasing Her bound yowling paramour – the Great Annihilator – Warrior King of the Dead. He has till dawn to satisfy His murderous lust. He lifts His sword of Power and strikes a giant dolmen. Before my shuddering eyes multitudes of armies explode from the cracked orifice and scatter to the four corners of the world. In the endless white expanses of Saharan sands, a white man staggers weakly towards imagined oases. A score of white-robed, bark-skinned Arabs on white steeds gallop towards him from the horizon with raised scimitars above their heads. It is but a mirage. Soon the image fades. Heat waves undulate voluptuously above the ground. A head lies on the defiled spot of sand. It’s blue eyes stare in bewilderment at the blue sky above. The Sun stares back in knowing acquiescence. A group of hungry nomads, slant-eyed, broad Kalmyks descend upon the huts. The vast memory vault of the Milky Way consumes them all as the image of mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers vanishes. The silence returns… I stand alone – solipsistic dread seizes me as I sink into the snow. In the steaming tropics of equatorial Africa cicatrised black tribesmen slaughter their circumcised brown neighbours. I smell the putrid odour of disintegration. I drown in rotting flesh. The green grasses cry for mercy as soldiers trample the great plains. Flies settle gracefully on bits of flesh in confusing disarray... A cicada sings inside my head; a grasshopper buzzes within my breast. The cacophonous music invokes him again – Shiva – the Destroyer – prances madly in the Abyss. He prances towards me – he moves ever forward - forward – I run but my feet move as on a treadmill. The ground recedes beneath me. The earth gives way. Hekate chuckles in Her sleep while I am sucked into the maelstrom. As I am falling, falling in terror, in blackness without limit – the night-mare and white-stallion couple in the pre-dawn hours. I am in their ‘Bubble-Chamber’. Just before collision I see Her veiled Radiance in a particle second of a Hadron – at the end of the infinite Tunnel…. I explode…. Oblivion." Hekate Song (by Lady Svetlana) Priestess: Sings. Of pools in caves. We offer Thee a dance macabre Who chills our hearts With a dark unknown." Meditation on Death and Transfiguration (by Lady Svetlana) Music: 'Persephone' by Igor Stravinsky, text in music by André Gide. Priest of Kore: "Transformation, transfiguration, transcendence. Please try to feel in your depths the inevitability of your own demise, a time when one life ends and another begins in the paradisal afterworld, and then, perhaps, you are born again here or maybe somewhere else in transgalactic spaces of the Goddess. Pray that your transition be painless, peaceful, full of awareness of the wonder to come… then gradually turn your attention to the horrible and untimely deaths of other species that are becoming extinct. Let awareness of this cruel needlessness be elevated in all people and be transformed. May all those who have already perished be reborn somewhere in the universe where kindness prevails. Also, may all tortures of eco-systems, plants, animals and humans be eliminated! It is possible to create on earth a paradise if consciousness and shamanic spirituality is elevated, populations are greatly reduced and certain benign precepts followed! The taking and giving of life should be left to the Gods. Envision now the translucently black-veiled Persephone. Let Her envelope your body and soul. Soul and Pneuma of Divine AE-THE-RA! Touch is the essence of existence. Those who are not afraid to caress whether humans, animals, plants, water, sand, jewels, can become re-attuned to great nature and thus help re-establish linkage to Gaia. Persephone, Pherephatta beckons all of us to a glorious life here and beyond. Feel Her Presence and rejoice! IO EVOHE!" …From the Mouth of Cerberus (by Lady Svetlana) Priest or Priestess: "We are the Guardians of Tartarus, the Sacred Realm of Hades, the Death Healer – We are of one body but our heads are fifty in number and our hundred eyes are ever wakeful, ever watchful – for no one leaves or enters this gloomy domain, across the River Styx, except at Her appointed moment. Close by are the cheerless Fields of Asphodel where shades wander till they bestir themselves to drink from the Pool of Mnemosyne or Remembrance, by the great white cypress; beyond this is Erebus and then the Palace of Persephone and Aidoneus. The Mistress of Souls is not for us to see for we are surrounded by dark tributaries – opaque and dismal – the Acheron, the Phlegeton, the Cocytus, the Aernos and the Lethe or Forgetfulness – the woes, miseries, and sorrows of unregenerate death. We bark as one – (ouf – ouf – ouf) we are Cerberus – for lost souls seeking the white poplar of Pherephatta, Goddess of Regeneration as they wander through black poplar groves of seemingly endless blindpaths. We are devoted to the Lord of the Underworld but our adoration is for Her, who appears to each individual at some point on the way in the transition from earthly life to emerald Elysium. Here Aphrodite Morpho reigns in apple splendour. The darkly multi-veined luminous Lady of Transcendence and her opaque Sacred Companion of hidden values and secrets, Hekate, occasionally enter this paradisal abode, but Their duties call Them to other mystical and magical services throughout dimensions. And now we wish that you remember the tale of Her, who is nameless, unseen – but palpable to those who love Her. She, who was ravished but always returns, doubly – as a phantasm first and then in fleshly splendour. In the late vernal season of your earthly time this Nameless One, Great Daughter of Mighty Demeter; - the Kore – we were told by the Black Steeds – was gathering flowers with Her companions, when suddenly, the earth gaped open and Pluto Himself – Ais-Aidoneus, the Invisible One – appeared driving the horse-driven bronze chariot. He abducted the Holy Maiden and stole Her to His subterranean abode. We barked for joy for She would be our Queen, but Her Divine Mother, Demeter, was overcome with grief. When She learned from Helios through the help of Hekate that Her daughter was ravished by the Brother of Heavenly Zeus, Her sorrow turned to anger. As Demeter, all-giving, wandered throughout the lands of man, all growth stopped in obeisance to Her sorrow and anger or in empathy to Her mourning. She walked upon the barren earth till She came to the Well of Beautiful Dancers (the Kallichoron) near the hallowed-out place in the mountain slope which is the Door to the Underworld, and sat upon a rock. Thus the usurping male will was chastised for the life-force retreated and nothing would thrive anywhere till Persephone was returned to her Magnificent Mother. She sat upon this laughless rock, Agelastos Petra, and smiled not upon Her creatures till Hera sent Hermes to retrieve the Magic Maiden from the Land of the Dead. Our scent told us that she returned to earth to give succour to the human race and all creatures by reuniting with Her Mother. Meanwhile Demeter – the Great One – who had taken away the measure of all things, decreed that a Temple be raised in Her Honour at Eleusis. She showed Her people how to grow special food, for their bodies, through agriculture; perhaps, in happier times horticulture will again be our main source of food but, more importantly, She taught them how to gain sustenance for the soul through the Mysteries established here at Eleusis. Hail Demeter – the Great Provider. All those who spoke Greek, who could understand the Apporeton and who had not spilt blood or who had been cleansed, like Herakles at the Lesser Agrai Mysteries, would walk the Sacred Path and after days of ritual participation would come to know the Mysterious Daughter, Bestower of Immortality, the Transfigurative Essence of Divinity. They would come away possessing better hopes in regard to the end of life in the nether land and the whole Eon of Kore on earth. Like those of us who live in the land beyond, as Guardians of the Threshold, these Initiates, these Mystai, would look upon Death without fear and with assurance that each individual survives in all her uniqueness with all her peculiarities remaining intact. We now fall silent; we listen – our ears perk up. From the earthly domain we hear a shattering all-engulfing resonance. The Echeion has been struck. She has revealed Herself. The Self-sounding One – the Ineffable Maiden appears in the Anakteron. She bears a Magical Child Ploutos – maybe Iakhos – maybe the dark Dionysos – the One of Wealth from the Place where all souls issue forth. The Hierophant exclaims: “Brimo has given birth to Brimos! The Strong One has born the Strong One!” The celebrants rejoice at the mystic vision which spreads its splendour throughout the entire psychosome. The ears of Sacred Corn are significantly revealed as beneficence of Demeter. The plemochoi is re-enacted and more Kykeon is consumed. Hail Persephone! A-UF! We bark in acknowledgement as the Goddess returns to Hades till Her more imminent coming in early Spring." Music: 'Persephone' by Stravinsky; again just the chant. Charm of Samhain (by Fred McLaren Adams) Priest(ess): The Festival of Sinking to Soil and Prophecy The Divine Lovers make all Life snug for the long Winter Sleep. As seeds and litter settle to Earth, Dreams and all Souls rise from the dense, rooted Underground, To soften and fuse them. In the Faerie Twilight of the year, The Dread Doors between Worlds swing open. The Shining Lovers descend to their Bedchamber of living loam." Musike (by Lady Svetlana) Priestess: From dark wells of soil Wraiths arise to hallow the seeds of dream Wraiths arise to hallow the seeds of dream." Sung twice. Baba Yaga Boneleg and the Rusalkas (by Lady Svetlana) Priest or Priestess: "From the land of Mother Russia comes the figure of the Great Goddess as Baba Yaga – Hostess of the forest Who lives in a hut on chicken legs. The hut itself is surrounded by a picket fence, made of human bones and each spike is crowned with a human skull whose eyes flash red in the dark. The double function of Baba Yaga as Genetrix and cannibal witch expresses the fundamental paradox of Nature. In peasant tales Her dual nature is suggested. She is the Good Mother who saves Her son from the evil witch; She is also the Three Princesses or Three Ancient Ones who can either shelter or destroy. The Centre of Baba Yaga’s hut is a ‘Pech’ or round stove; all who come to Her house ask to be fed or are sacrificed to it. When the pech is not in use, it becomes the bed of Baba Yaga, who fills the whole house with Her Body. The stove is the repository of dead souls, the ancestors. Like the Hittite Goddess Salgusa, Baba Yaga guards the bones of the dead and through the Alembic – the oven or Athanor - makes new souls or renewed ones. On the other hand the ‘Rusalkas’ or guardians of life-giving waters, lived without men. Every incarnation of the water nymphs suggests the archaic imagery of the bird-headed transformational Neolithic Goddess. She is one yet multiple and chooses Her mate like the shamanic Mistress of Animals and confers power on the male, like the great Goddesses of the Neolithic, She then destroys. Then She is virginal like Artemis and yet the Giver of Life and death… The ancient Feast of Radinitsa in early Spring releases the dead souls to earth who were thought to linger in trees, fields and gardens and brought life and vigour to the surround. This continued till May – the time of the ‘Rusalia’, which originally was in honour of Adonis when He emerged out of the earth. At this time the Rusalki were symbolically brought from the forest onto cultivated lands. The ritual was presided over by a female Deity as the Tree of Life, probably the birch. Also in Greek mythology Demeter is husbandless though not without lovers. She incarnates the bond of mother and girl child. Hades carries Perse off in what seems to be a patrilocal bride capture. Humanity pays for the abduction by the coming of Winter and death. Only when Demeter is reunited with her Daughter, Kore, does the Mother become benign. The myth suggests that death, barrenness and suffering are associated with the division of the virginal and maternal feminine. It may also refer to the patriarchal denigration of the parthenogenic Deity in Her dual aspect, resulting in the figures of angry Demeter and despairing Kore; of the wrathful Yaga and dangerous Rusalki… The myth may also be connected to the intrusion of man in the cultivation of the soil through the use of the plow. In Russia and elsewhere, this rape of the land was surrounded by expiatory rituals in which virgins and mothers united to induce the earth’s production. This is one reason why trees should be the source of food; they are planted individually by hand. They grow many, many years, fertilise their own soil, and produce multitudes of fruits. Innocent food for an innocent humanity.  Next Page * Last Page * Samhain Index * All Festivals |