Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Equinox Blessings to You!

 

I love fall, it is my favorite time of the year. The temperatures begin to cool off after the heat of the summer days and that brings the vivid colors of red, yellow, orange and purple. Some of my favorite foods are only available during the early fall months and I make a point to visit our farmer's market to stock up before they close for the season.

From Mabon until after the beginning of the new year my home is dressed or decorated in the appropriate style. For now we have the beginning colors of fall which will progress into Samhain right around the first of October. This is the current mantle piece and I've got another design in progress for Samhain.

 

I also have a wreath on the front door that coordinates with these colors and design, and we've begun putting up the outside fall decorations of hay bales, potted mums and pumpkins. I'm sure there will also be copious amounts of spider webbing hung in and out and all over the bushes in front of the deck. LOL! 

There are so many traditions associated with the Fall Equinox and among them is the story of Demeter and Kore/Persephone. So many stories offer the perspective of Demeter as she lost her daughter to the underworld which results in the months of the earth being barren and unfruitful. However, in my world, there is another "side to the story" ...

Of all the different version of the story of Persephone and Hades, this is one of my most favorites. I wrote it (along with many more dark and twisted stories) while I was an active member of Vampire Rave (between 2005 and 2009) oh so many years ago. It's been previously shared on my blog and on one of those occasions I found out there is one written very similar by Dianne Sylvan. These are my words, originally written September 9, 2006.

Persephone's Side of the Story


They thought I’d been abducted. Maybe it's best that’s what they believe.

How do you explain to the mother who has your entire life planned out, you weren't the lily-white daughter she had built all her hopes upon? When I saw her last I was a slender, young maiden with flowers in my hair. My cheeks would turn pink each time a boy so much as looked at me, my innocent sighs so charmingly executed.

Some days I still yearn for flowers, but wake up to find jet roses in my bed and at my feet. No longer the tender young thing, now I’m full, red and ripe. I have no use for sonnets or ribbons in my hair. I clothe myself in spider silk and shadow, and speak with the tongues of nightmares.

Mother would have had me wed to some milk-faced boy, who would follow me around blindly and paw at me when the lights were turned out. I cannot see myself sitting idly in the sunlight, fanning myself and drinking watered wine. I’m addicted to the darkness, where I can submerge myself in the night and drag my fingernails across Death’s shoulders.

She had always talked about grandchildren, and it never occurred to me to disagree. How do I explain to her I find the cries of the dead far more pleasing than the thought of a whining child at my breast? I know she would be astounded to know, here in this place, I have no need to bow my head. I am much more than a wife and the things I say are law.

Now that you have seen me and fulfilled your duty, return to her and if you wish, tell her I was afraid, that I begged him to release me and let me go back. Tell her I screamed when he held me down and forced me to submit. It’s for the best she doesn’t know my screams were not from fear.

By now, I’m sure she’s gone to Zeus begging for him to hasten my release. I’m pretty sure her cause is lost, you see, I swallowed much more than seeds that night. Mother will feel better if she thinks I grieve for those scattered blossoms, lost on Enna’s rolling hills. She must never know I have learned to love the taste of blood and I’m not going anywhere…