02 Feb H E K A T E – MYTHIC EROTICA SERIES, PART 1
PART 1 – ANTHESTERIOS
On the morning of Khytri, as has been our private tradition for many, many years, I woke up in Hermes’ bed. His warm breath on the back on my neck roused me to day breaking on the third day of Anthesterios. Hermes’ typically swift-running, golden body lay resting in deep slumber upon the stone floor of his cave which he lavishly covered in plush lambskins. I studied his pretty face and listened to his quiet snore. Laying naked, locked in his embrace, I silently looked around his dwelling observing his few belongings meticulously put in their place. His double serpent twined staff, winged sandals and cap were arranged by the cave’s opening. From the stone cleft I watched the white crown of the full moon sink behind the mountains as dawn light spilled into the chamber, tinting our flesh pink.
My head was pounding, and my mouth was dry. My thighs were wet with ambrosia. I felt a quickening in my womb as I began to recount to myself the events of the previous nights. On Pithíyia, two nights ago, I had purposefully arrived late to the festival. Joviality is not my nature, but I put on my best face. I wore my shining headband and a short linen chiton. Some say that I am Indalimos, ‘Beautiful’ and others say that I am Phoberos, ‘Terrible.’ My appearance matters not to my lovers as we are each duty bound below ground in the Eternal Dark. As the seasons change from winter to spring, each year Hermes and I go to Hades in the service of Lady Demeter – The Mother – to retrieve her precious daughter Kore – The Maiden – and her child Zagreus-Dionysus from the Underworld. If our annual task were neglected, the consequences would be catastrophic. Demeter would withhold her life-sustaining abundance of vegetables, cereals, and legumes. All mortals would starve, and the gods would be deprived of their rightful offerings.
As I expected, when I entered the vineyard where the Pithíyia celebration was underway, Hermes was surrounded by a large crowd cheering as he verbosely proselytized the immanent return of his youngest brother. Vintners opened jars of wine. Their young daughters presented Hermes with oenochoae garlanded with first flowers. Men slaughtered and roasted mutton for a grand feast. All were dizzy from indulgence and delirious with anticipation for the epiphany of Dionysus. I watched from the periphery, observing Hermes’ vast Olympian vanity on display, inflamed by the adoration of the celebrants. As much as I find his arrogance to be utterly exasperating, I too am drawn to his bright, smug grin like a moth to a flame.
I will not enter without invitation. After watching from afar I caught Hermes’ eye and he called me to his side, charmingly presenting me to the crowd as Kyria, ‘Supreme,’ Hekate. A collective flinch of fear ran through the throng. My reputation is multiplicitous, and impossible to comprehend from the pitiful vantage of one mortal lifetime. I am the saffron clad virgin. I am the huntress flanked by hounds. I am the midwife. I am also the Queen of the Dead.
Hermes took my hand in his and demanded the musicians resume their playing. He spun me like raw wool though his fingers and wound me on to his spindle. When the music changed, he cast me, twirling, back to the edges of the crowd where I became a shadow again. I watched him for hours pulling maidens and lads alike into his arms for a dance that sometimes led them into the woods for a while, only to return with ruddy cheeks, their robes and hair disarranged.
My recollection of the Pithíyian festivities ended when Hermes stirred beside me. He awoke to see my gray eyes fixed on him like an owl tracking prey. My presence surprised and pleased him. He smiled broadly and bellowed with a deep drumbeat of laughter that echoed loudly through the cave. “Maera Mene,” ‘Shining Moon,’ he called me by my favorite epithets. He cupped my breast with one hand. The other slid between my legs. I closed my eyes in ecstasy and everything went black.
In the dark of my mind, I began to see the light of torches burning, guiding me back to the night before, the festivities of Khoai. Once the sun had set that evening, I left Hermes’ cave as the moon was rising. I climbed down from the hills and followed the path into the valley. My golden sandals, stepping through loose gravel, hissed like rattlesnakes underfoot. In the distance, I heard the drone of a large group gathering in the village below.
As I approached the crowd, I saw Hermes on the road far ahead. He began leading the Procession of the Sacred Marriage to the Temple of Dionysus. I trailed behind the parade of loud, drunken mortals and walked silently, accompanied by the dead. Passing between veils of opacity and transparency, my apparition flickered like a hologram in the dark and I mostly went unnoticed by the revelers. The restless souls of the deceased groaned with impatience and pressed in close to me. They too were eager for the spectacle the sowing of the sacred seed that promised new life.
At the Temple, bodies and bodiless souls pushed toward the center where the Basilissa, the Queen, would perform the annual rite of marriage to the vegetal god of renewal, Dionysus. Maenads entered the space and brought the people under a trance. They passed cups of psychedelic wine and enchanted everyone with their serpentine dance and shrill mantras. I too was moved as the coil of dormant life within the Earth, and within my body, began to unfurl in expectant, erotic slow motion.
For a second time on Khytri, I woke laying bare on Hermes’ floor. He had made a small fire and was sitting beside it playing lalémos, lamentations on his lyre. For a while I rested as still as a deer and watched him with unblinking eyes. The bright midday sun was now shining into the cave from the south. It shone through his dark hair and cast shadows across his face. The whole room was now in harsh high contrast. I could see that Hermes’ mood had also changed, as if with the shifting light. No longer leading crowds of adoring worshippers, as he had done the past two nights, he ceased his performed hospitality and withdrew into himself. His face relaxed, became humble, and pensive. He was going below ground, into the depth of his interior, and becoming Hermes Chthonios, as I know him best.
Watching him sink below the surface of his archetypal character, into the physicality of embodiment, I also began to morph. I rose silently onto all fours. We made wordless, knowing eye contact. Before him I transformed into a doe. With the flick of my tail and click of hooves on stone, I bounded out of the cave.
Following my animal senses, I kept my nose close to the ground, searching between stones for sparce grass. All the while, my eyes and ears stayed alert. Sometimes I am prey and sometimes I am preditor. The sun warmed my flesh while chill sea breezes lifted the hairs on my skin. After hours of delighting in the agility of my deer legs, I arrived at water’s edge. I shed my hide, anthropomorphized, and entered the sea. To be a god is to know the pleasures of wearing the skin and senses of any species. I have many wild costumes in my wardrobe.
The water was brisk but I invited its invigorating jolt. The salt cleansed my hair and skin, and my sex. The cold, fluid embrace brought me back to myself.
Floating on my back, breasts rising above and falling below the waterline, I watched the sun set behind the western hills. I said a silent farewell to my kin, Shining Helios. I would not see his light nor feel his warmth again for many months. Being that it was full moon night, Selene was following him closely, rising from the opposite horizon. Her appearance told me that it was time I made my way to the final celebrations of Anthesterios, the Feast of Souls.
Moonlight on water, I stepped from the sea wearing the sheer glow of dusk. The kíræs, souls of the dead, adoringly awaited me, their mother, at the shoreline. We walked together as an invisible mob, stirring up winds and mayhem through the streets. Our destination was the necropolis, where the living were gathered for the final festivities of Anthesterios.
As I entered the cemetery, the moon crested over the surrounding trees, casting a spotlight onto the spectacle of mortal devotion to the psychopomps, Hermes and myself, who guide souls through death and rebirth. I walked toward the center where a fire was burning and smiled approvingly at the scent of strong, herbaceous smoke. The living poured wine on the tombs of their lost loved ones. Seeds littered the ground and panspærmía, seed cakes, were offered to the souls waiting to be born again. Hermes Chthonios, my occasional consort, was waiting there. “Anassa Eneroi,” he greeted me as Queen and bowed. Soon I would take my throne again in the bowels of the earth.
In the darkening sky above, it was apparent that the Hierogamy, the ‘Sacred Marriag,’ of Khoai, the night before had been successful. The seed of the god had been planted in the queen and now the womb of the moon was full. I listened down into the depths of the bottomless earth and heard moans of labor. The cries of Persephone were my call to attend Demeter’s daughter in childbirth. The return of Zagreus-Dionysus was imminent.
All around me there was wild folly as the living and the dead rejoiced in momentary reunion. At midnight the presiding priest made his rehearsed performance of expelling the dead from the land of the living. Beloveds on both sides of the veil bid each other farewell once more. Then the souls of the deceased obeyed the hierophant and followed me and Hermes back below ground.
Catherine Brooks, 2023