#despoine

[rottenguppy]

Young Melinoe and her aunt Despoine

Chibi edition

[genericpuff]

Does anyone else wish that more Hades x Persephone stories made use of Despoina, the daughter of Demeter and Poseidon? Some accounts have her as a goddess of winter and it would have been interesting to see how that would have played out.

So I actually have a lot of thoughts on this and it goes beyond Despoina a little bit, but bear with me here because I still think it's worth talking about. Note that I'm obviously not an authoritative figure on this topic, this is simply my two cents based on the research I've done on Despoina, the Eleusinian Mysteries, and the context of The Hymn to Demeter as a whole.

Frankly, I think the reason that the modern retellings of Hades and Persephone don't make more use of Despoina is because we still don't really know a lot about her. Even in my own research of her, from what I've gathered (i.e. I could totally be wrong on this so if I am please send me resources if you have them!!!) the claim that she was the 'goddess of winter' is pretty much on the same level as claiming there's source material about Persephone going down to the Underworld willingly - i.e. it seems like something someone said maybe 20-30 years ago and people just kind of went "yep, that's canon!" and claiming there were sources surrounding it while never actually being able to provide those sources... probably because they don't exist.

In reality we don't know much about Despoina - and thus she tends to not be depicted in these modern retellings - because she's affiliated with The Eleusinian Mysteries which are, well... a mystery! The Mysteries itself was an initiation process for a cult dedicated to Demeter and Persephone, the members within were sworn to secrecy so all of the writings we have about it are pretty minimal and theoretical aside from knowing for a fact they were associated with Demeter, Persephone, and Hecate (and in some versions, Aphrodite). So unless someone who was actually there is able to appear and tell us what the actual fuck was going on behind closed doors, all we have are the word of mouth stories and depictions told through Greek poets such as Callimachus.

By extension, we don't know all that much about Despoina who was strongly connected to the Mysteries. We know she was the offspring of Poseidon and Demeter, we sort of know she's an actual tangible goddess but there are also other works that claim "Despoine" was simply a title within the Mysteries (as it means "the mistress") used to describe certain goddesses such as Persephone, but when it comes to her as a goddess affiliated with winter specifically, really she seems to only be mentioned as a consequential footnote in Demeter's search for Kore (which led to the drought / winter season) and frankly from what I can glean, I think that's the only real 'connection' there is that people tend to conflate as "goddess of winter", because she was born the same time Demeter would have started winter.

But why would there be a goddess of winter, really? In the Mediterranean where it doesn't traditionally snow aside from on mountaintops and at higher altitudes? It does get colder, yes, but Mediterranean winters still tend to be mild and wet, you wouldn't find blistering cold "Canadian" winters in Athens as we imagine them to be when we think of Demeter and the creation of the seasons. Even the notion that Demeter used winter to kill the mortals is told in such a manner to describe the seasons but they don't necessarily mean snow literally, they mean drought, the lack of summer harvest, when Greece would go through periods of drought where harvests were minimal and mortals were at a higher risk of starvation. Remember that these myths still come from a specific regional context so what we call 'winter' isn't precisely the same as what Ancient Greek poets like Homer called 'winter'.

If there was a goddess of winter, it would technically be Demeter, but again, not exactly because it's more the absence of the Mediterranean heat and sun needed to grow the plants they traditionally consumed. The closest thing we know to be a "goddess of winter/snow/frost" with actual text and sources is Khione, a mountain nymph whose name literally translates to 'snow' due to snow being more common in, you guessed it, the mountains of Greece.

Anyways, I'm digressing now, but my point is that a lot of modern retellings frankly struggle to depict Despoina because there just isn't enough on her to know who she was like we have with Demeter and Persephone. She was an enigmatic figure spoken of within cults that kept their information behind closed doors. And a lot of the research that is out there is muddied with made-up headcanon stuff. None of this is to be argumentative, but I did want to talk about it because in all my readings of Despoina (which there are , again, not a lot of!) there just doesn't seem to be anything backing up the claims that she's the goddess of winter and frost, it seems to all just be "well I read it somewhere" only for that 'somewhere' to be a poorly-made Wiki page with no scholarly sources or references, Tumblr posts that also don't have scholarly sources (or are using sources from those aforementioned Wiki pages), or to just not exist, period.

But hey, I'm very aware I could be entirely off base on this; again, if there's actual writings about her being the goddess of winter that I've missed, please by all means send them my way. I'm just really struggling to pull up anything tangible that has her cited as such that isn't rooted in modern day hearsay or fanfiction.

[polyteleology]

Dear dirt, I am sorry I slighted you, I thought that you were only the background for the leading characters—the plants and animals and human animals. It’s as if I had loved only the stars and not the sky which gave them space in which to shine. Subtle, various, sensitive, you are the skin of our terrain, you’re our democracy. When I understood I had never honored you as a living equal, I was ashamed of myself, as if I had not recognized a character who looked so different from me, but now I can see us all, made of the same basic materials— cousins of that first exploding from nothing— in our intricate equation together. O dirt, help us find ways to serve your life, you who have brought us forth, and fed us, and who at the end will take us in and rotate with us, and wobble, and orbit.

--Sharon Olds

[sag-dab-sar]

Working on researching more obscure non-Attic Ancient Greek religion be like:

Me: Which deity was worshipped most in this region

Google: a Goddess who was not named but used this title, Despoine, in the mystery tradition, later conflated with these other goddesses from these other mysteries

Me: Yeh but who was the original goddess, before the conflations

Google: Bitch I just said it was a mystery didn't I?

[sburbian-denizens]

What would you suggest for a male Bard of Void on the Land of Butterscotch and Tentacles? He uses either cardKind or diceKind (cardKind being more along the line of tarot cards). The current Denizen I have for him is Cthulhu, and his quest is to dismantle the temples that the consorts have built for the Denizen, allowing his corruption to passively spread.

Cthulhu is actually really good!, if you want other options, I suggest either Despoine, Harpocrates, or Epiales.

Despoine, because she has the whole mystery cult thing going on.

Harpocrates, if you want the corruption the be something that spreads Disturbingly Complete Silence.

and Epiales, for the good ol’ nightmare plague option.

Hope this helps!

[rottenguppy]

Rough art today, mostly lighting and detail practice.

Pandeia and Despoine for a Hades au I want to make, these are their rough designs

Pandeia (left) and Despoine (right) trapped behind golden curtains

[practical-magick]

One of my favorite things about the pagan and polytheist communities is seeing how things spring up over time. Or other people come to the same upgs as you despite any references to it in any lore or even academic sources.

A great example is the goddess Despoine/Despoena. She’s the daughter of Demeter and Poseidon and the central goddess of the Arcadian Mysteries. Her true name is known only to her initiates. When I first began working with her a decade ago information on her was SPARSE. Even more academic sources had little information. The bright side is I got to reach out and connect with her without any biases or expectations from the experiences of others. I couldn’t even find anyone else that worked with her. Every once in awhile I Google her and search the tags for her. I was surprised recently when more things started popping up. And even more surprised to see people coming up with very similar upgs to the ones I’d formed so many years ago. Examples being that she was raised by a male lesser god instead of by Demeter, possibly for her protection. And another being that the “Artemis” depicted in her temple isn’t the Artemis we know but a separate young goddess with similar attributes (my personal upg is that it is her daughter and she was later syncretized with Artemis). And I saw another that her consort was a king! (My upg is that her consort was Rhadamanthus and that he ruled Crete before his brother Minos). Or that she would have similar associations to her mother and sister, but more associated with reaping (I see her as the autumn to Persephone’s spring). And I saw another that she would look older than her sister despite being younger which I’ve always felt was the case!

It doesn’t make them any less upg and it’s definitely not enough consensus to start putting them in the category of shared personal gnosis (there’s still not really enough of us for that yet it seems). But its a bit validating so see others come to the same or similar conclusions from their own work with her!

I like to think it shows that the gods call their followers to them in their own time, when they want to.

Hail Despoena!

[practical-magick]

So last night was the final night of the Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries and my Initiation. The ritual was beautiful and powerful, even though it's so radically different from the way we do rituals in Wicca. I felt incredible afterwards. But as I laid down to sleep, my old friend anxiety crept in. It told me my initiation was fake and didn't count. Now, the importance of being initiated into the Mysteries is that following death, when you arrive in the Asphodel Meadows (where the average Greek polytheist goes. Demi-gods, Heroes, and other extremely pious or blessed individuals go to the Isles of the Blessed/Elysian Fields aka Elysium. The wicked go to Tartarus) the won't have to drink from the river Lethe (the river of forgetfulness whose waters remove memories), nor would you have to drink from it before reincarnating. Instead you would be blessed my Mnemosyne with your memories, and be allowed to keep them even into the next life. But eventually I managed to fall asleep (praise Hypnos!). I often astral project in my sleep (that's irritating since I can't seem to do it when I'm awake) or have visions. I'm not sure which it was. But I was approached by a lady who I presume to be the Despoena, The Lady. Though it could very well have been either Demeter or Persephone, she looked the way I have often seen the Despoena. She took me by the hand and assured me that now, in our age, there is no such thing as a false initiation into the Mysteries. If one but seeks for the Mysteries and does what they can to find them and live them and keep the festival days, dedicating themselves to Our mother Demeter, then that counts just as fully as Initiation in the old days. There are no leaders, not rituals handed down, and so one who takes it upon themselves, even with the help of others, to recreate the rites and fulfill them, they have already undergone an immense trial. Through it, they have proved themselves to the Theoi (gods) and are thus truly Demetreioi (beloved of Demeter). Stubbornly I asked her how this could be so. So she explained to me (though logically I already knew this to an extent) that two people who grew up next door to each other, as they go through life and marry and work and have children, even if they never leave their city state, will in the end have a religious practice so different from each other that it would almost seem to be a different religion in our modern eyes. But to them, it was the same. While there were standard practices that most everyone did, many practices were personal and existed solely between the individual and the theoi. And things changed over time. It was not a stagnant religion. The ways the Mycenaean Greeks worshiped the theoi and the way the Hellenistic Greeks worshiped the theoi is as different Catholicism and Islam. Same gods, same myths, but the context has changed, the style has changed. The Mysteries were not stagnant either. When the last initiates celebrated the Mysteries, it was much changed from when the first initiates celebrated them. Demeter was the same. Kore was the same. The myths were the same. Even the Mysteries were the same. As they are today. But how it was done, the style and context changed. As it has again. Then, people all over Greece and its colonies traveled to take place and become initiates to the Mysteries. They thrived. Now, they are all but dead. Now, those who would seek initiation are tasked with keeping the Mysteries alive, so that someday they may thrive again. Now, of course there's always a chance with this sort of thing that it really was nothing but a dream. Just my subconscious telling me what I want to hear. But the way the contact felt, the way I felt upon waking and feel still, that tells me all I need to know about it. I'll file this under "UPG". But felt the need to share it too.