Lifting Our Skirts
Background information
Setting: Greece
Time: lost in the mists BCE
Event: Demeter is raped by Zeus gives birth to Persephone.
Persephone is raped by Hades (with the support of Zeus) gives birth to Iaachus
The Eleusinian Mysteries follow
Involving the pivotal act of ana suromai – the lifting of the skirt
The mythic moment of ana suromai:
The Goddess is laden/troubled/despairing. Her daughter has been ravished/raped/ abducted and her rage has brought an end to productivity/fertility/invention. The world trembles at her vengeance. All fear catastrophe. They claim this very thing has happened before.
But by the wild fig tree/poor peasant hut/crossroads, a hearty serving maid/pregnant wife/ wild woman waits. She waits, her desire restrained/tucked/concealed, secret beneath her skirts. She waits and so is there when the Goddess passes.
The maid/wife/woman throws/falls/dances herself onto her back, her thighs spread and beckoning. She murmurs/whispers/laughs lewdly.
An intoxicating whiff of desire escapes the Goddess. She marvels as this bubble of life force erupts from the blight of her mourning. She wonders at the maid/wife/woman’s rashness: how can the mortal know it is good that looks her in the eye? The maid/wife/woman winks provocatively. Should it matter?
The Goddess finds her grief/despair/rage relieved infinitesimally, but it is enough. Possibility has reinvented itself in the distraction, whispers of negotiation and compromise have been impressed on her divine ear. She walks
in reverie, her passage marked by bounty, abundance escaping her skirts.
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