Ep. 120: Despoina: Mistress of the Eleusian Mysteries

This is katonia the world of the dark [Applause] feminine hello this is breach Burke before we get into this week's podcast I would like to thank my patrons personally gwin K PID Caitlyn n John H Tanya T Veronica s Gabby Helen M Ruth s Sunny H Scott K JRM Susie G eldrich priest Bel Lupita C Roberts Janette and DS I really appreciate those of you who have joined recently and who have stuck With me over these years our community is small and there's so much I would like to do in terms of providing courses conversation

on the dark feminine and extra content so please consider joining at patreon.com/crashcourse the podcast dealing with the dark feminine I'm Bri Burke and in this last podcast that we're doing for 2023 I'm going to cover a figure who is uh rather obscure and rather mysterious But most certainly connected to Winter and I try to do winter figures around this time of year and that is dusp uh DPA is a Greek word for mistress roughly or Mistress of the household more specifically according to the atmology um and this is a term that is applied to a

variety of goddesses including uh panie Artemis and Hecate they're all considered to be have this um this they've all had this title of mistress uh connected to Mistress of the Animals perhaps similar epithets that that are connected to them as well that's the one that's the most uh most common and that's usually commonly associated with either Artemis or Hecate um who I have argued in the past if you check out my past podcasts on both Artemis and HEC probably more on Artemis um I do actually mention the fact that Artemis is the HEC is really

almost like an underworld version of Artemis but um yeah among other things I don't want not Not merely that but there there's definitely a strong connection between the two of them very likely that AR that a role that HEC had played was later Taken on by aremis uh but despa is the the despa that we're referring to is connected in particular to the uian Mysteries now if you don't know what those are the the rights of elus are connected to a mystery cult that was extraordinarily influential I would say that that the Rights of elus

uh as a connection with the story of demer and pranie in which pranie is abducted by Hades with the permission of Zeus who is her and actually she Zeus is actually her father I think you know the Zeus and Zeus and demer panie as their daughter and then Hades who is Zeus his brother uh falls in love so Uncle Hades falls in love with panie and um he's given permission to uh take her to the underworld as his wife and of course This happens uh when deer has her back turned so then when she finds

her daughter is missing she goes on this long journey to find her and the story that involves despa is connected to this story um however that said also has connections to Arcadian religion now the arcadians are a group of people people that are are are in Greece I mean they are literally an area of the um pelonis the pelian island they're with where uh the they're just to the south of what They think of as AA and they the uh inhabitants of a uh Arcadia are connected with a group called the uh palasan who are

considered to be the oldest indigenous uh habitants of that Greek area the the whole you and that and that whole sort of Mediterranean region and the areas that are identified as being later as being part of Greece which in The Iliad would have been considered to be part of what they were calling the aan league The Iliad the Troops that were on what we think of as the Greek side refer to as aans so this particular yeah these this particular people the arcadians are definitely connected to the oldest people in the the oldest inhabitants of

of what we think of now as Greece and uh yeah and and the the two gods in particular that are associated with Arcadia have been heras or Hermes as some people like to say and pan and when we think of something as Being Arcadian we think of it as being very pastoral connected to the Wilderness or to the wilds and despa had a a temple and in a in a place called Leos surra okay and of course the term lyos actually I believe the actual name means wolf's tail but this is a place where there

we do actually have a temple of despa and there's a lot of interesting history and story around that particular Temple and around what is believed about this Particular goddess so let me what I want to what I want to do is I want to go first through you who despa is supposed to be and mind you despa is what they call an epithet it's a name or it's a it's a title or some you just you epithets are usually in the form of um like for for example in The Iliad Zeus is often referred to

as son of Kronos you know for instance or oxide Hera or you know there's like an epithet or a title there's like a little phrase that Goes with it so despa is considered to be like a title or a phrase that goes with the name uh we do not know the name of the Goddess that despa refers to but one of the things that as I went down the rabbit hole of investigating this particular episode I feel that we might be able to make some some educated guesses at least as to who she might have

have been now mind you I'm going to say this with the caveat of I'm not putting myself forward in in the Scholarship to say oh this is who this is who despa actually is because the reality is I don't know I don't know any more than anybody else does because the name of despa was a secret you had to be an initiate of the uian Mysteries to learn that name now the other name associated in the uian Mysteries was cor okay that was another title cor cor means young girl in Greek and is generally a

reference in the Bible that tends to be The word that's used for Virgin is the Kore at least in the Greek uh Greek versions uh but cor you know basically any any unmarried Maiden is is cor right before she becomes a guina or becomes a married woman or moves into that different stage of life and of course it is very openly said just as it is in the homeric hymn to demer that cor is a title that refers to pany okay so when one talks about the the the Kore they are talking about pany now

sometimes This title of just despa is is sometimes you know sometimes attributed to pany or sometimes attributed to emis or heade they're attributed at times or confu conflated with pany but there seems to be a definite difference between panie and uh this this DPA and as we as we talk about the story um you'll you'll see why this is so what I want to do is talk a little bit about about where what the parentage is where despa is supposed to come from And then what her story is and then look at paas's writings in

particular on her Temple at Leos liur and what that you know what that looked like and what the symbolism was there because even though she's an obscure goddess we don't know her real name and there's not a whole lot in the way of Story You're G to find that there's actually there there's a there's a it's jam-packed with symbolism this whole the whole Narrative of despa uh even in that little piece that we Have from panias and I feel almost like we have enough there to make some kind of a guess as to certainly what

type of goddess despa is and and what her associations were and who who she might have been even if we don't have the name okay and it may it may truthfully it may not even be a name that we know but certainly we can we can know what her entitle are and probably what kind of a goddess she was all right so let's start with the story of who despa is okay so I'm going to I I'm going to use the.com mainly which is I think as I've mentioned in many podcasts is a fantastic website

for the basics about Greek mythology and Greek mythological figures uh theoy t h eoi theoi.com which is a free website it does have some ads and stuff and it search engine is a little weird because when you search for anything you have to get past like the first three which are usually advertising or you know featured and Then you get to the real uh search beneath that um but inside from that theoy is has very very authoritative um descriptions of these different deities and figures in Greek mythology and it's always followed by any genealogies that

that may be involved and they also get into detail they actually list translations from all the primary sources and from all the major Mythic encyclopedias they they compile and aggregate all that information so it's a Really good website if you're trying to learn about Greek mythology but I'm going to read the the Wikipedia thing first and then I will switch over to Theo okay despa was the epithet of a goddess worshiped by the uian mysteries in ancient Greece as a daughter of demer and Poseidon and sister of Arion Arion being a a horse surviving sources

refer to her exclusively under the title despa The mistress a cognate of despot alongside her mother demer as her real Name could not be revealed to anyone except those initiated into her Mysteries and was consequently lost with the extinction of the uian religion writing during the 2 Century ad pania spoke of deer as having two daughters Kore being born first before Des despa was born with Zeus being the father of cor and Poseidon as the father of despa panus made it clear that cor is panie although he did not reveal despa's proper name in The

Myth Poseidon saw Deer and desired her to avoid him she took her archaic form of a May okay meaning a female horse but he took the form of a stallion and mated with her uh so she was trying to elude him by getting lost in with other horses and uh but he turned himself into a stallion and managed to find her from this Union Deer bore a daughter despa and a fabulous horse Arion due to her anger at this turn of events deer was also given the epithet arus okay which means raging But as we

all know the arus is also the Greek name for the furies and so yeah this is this is this is deer orinus and I've talked about deer arus again I've done did a podcast a long time ago a couple years ago now a few years ago on demer and we talk about demer orinus there and that is demer in the form of a horse and now the atmology that they mention here is uh despa is derived from the uh P root Dem meaning house or household the Sanskrit dhama meaning House and yeah then domus yeah

that's all of that so the Des has to do with is related to domos or or Dem like so to the household and related words are despot master Lord Domino master of a household Etc and the second element is from POA which is mistress lady or wife as in for example poia Theon which is the the Mistress of beasts which we hear as an epithet of of Hecate and potentially of Artemis as well at different junctures I think Jake Stratton Kent talks a little bit about this or he did in the last interview that I

had done with him on katonia conversations in I want to say it was late March or early April of 2022 uh before he became ill I know we had certainly talked about the idea of the Mistress of the beasts a poia Theon so literally it means little mistress or it has to do with mother of the house in some way so it's th so those are the those are sort of the different atmology Of that phrasing nonetheless we definitely have the idea that this title is mistress or there's you know she's a the Mistress of

something and the question the question is going to become of what okay so let's look at despa as they say in theoy here I'm going to look at Theo's discussion they said she was a fertility goddess of The Arcadian mystery Cult of aaxion which yeah that's there's another she was worshiped alongside her mother demer sister panie And Artemis her true name and function were only revealed to the initiates uh despa was closely identified with panie Artemis and Hecate all who Bor the title despa okay her parents as we said are peridon and demer so let's

look at what panus has to say about despa he says when demer was wandering in search of her daughter panie she was followed it is said by Poseidon who lusted after her so she turned the story runs into a mayor and grazed with the mayors of onos In Arcadia realizing that he was outwitted Poseidon changed into a stallion and enjoyed demer at first they say demer was angry at what happened but later on she laid aside her wrath and wished to bathe in the leadon demer they say had by Poseidon a daughter A despen whose

name they are not want to divulge to the uninitiated at and a horse called Arion and then another that these are all from paas's description of Greece okay and you can find all these on Theoi.com falia which is an Arcadian town is surrounded by mountains the second Mountain Mount leas is some 30 states away from falia and has a cave sacred to demer surnamed molena which means the black okay this is important the fagans accept the account of the people of Pusa about the mating of Poseidon and deer but they assert that demer gave birth

not to a horse not to Arion but to despa uh the mistress as the arcadians call her afterwards they Say angry with Poseidon and grieved at the RW of pany she put on a black apparel and shut herself up in this Cavern for a long time but when all the fruits of the earth were perishing and the human race dying yet more through famine no God it seemed knew where Deeter was in hiding until pan they say visit Arcadia roaming from Mountain to Mountain as he hunted he came at last to mount elas and spied

demer the state she was in and the clothes she wore so Zeus Learned this from pan and sent the morai or the fates to Deer who listened to the morai and laid aside her wrath moderating her grief as well for these reasons the the felian say they concluded that this Cavern was sacred to demer and set up in it a wooden image the image they say was made after this fashion it was Seated on a rock like to a woman in all respects save the head she had the head and hair of a horse and

there grew out of her head images of Serpents and other beasts her tunic reached right to her feet on one of her hands was a dolphin on the other a dove now why they had the image made after this fashion is plain to any intelligent man who has learned in Traditions okay so as I mentioned yeah she had this is yeah there there's there's there's so much right here they say that they named her molena black because the goddess had black apparel there is a Grove of Oaks around the cave and a Cold Spring rises

From the earth okay lots and lots of imagery here so let's go on with P panus from Aion in in Arcadia or aaxion is a four is it is four stades to the sanctuary of Des despa first in this place is a temple of Artemis hegemon which means leader probably heck with a bronze image holding torches which I conjecture to be about 6t high from this place there is an entrance to the sacred enclosure of Des despa as you go to the temple there is a portico on the right With reliefs of white marble on

the wall on the first relief are wrought the morai or the fates and Zeus surnamed uh Moes the guide of fate and on the second Heracles wrestling a tripod from apollon or resting a tripod from from apollon uh in the Portico by despa there is between the reliefs I have mentioned a tablet with descriptions of the Mysteries T which of course yeah this is the um the writings of the mystery cult on the third relief are nymphs and and panace You know panes being you type of um land god or household God and the fourth

is pbios the son of loras on the latter is also an inscription declaring that Greece would never have fallen at all and they puts you know for context to the Roman Empire if she had obeyed pus in everything and when she met disaster her only help came from him in front of the temple is an altar to demer and another to Des despa after which is one of the great mother okay meter magal Okay so all right so we've got deer we've got despa and we've got the the great mother okay this is important the

actual images of the goddesses despa and demer the throne on which they sit along with the foot stol under their feet are all made out of one piece of stone no part of the drapery and no part of the carvings about The Throne is fastened to another Stone by iron or cement but the hole is from one block this Stone was not brought in by them but they say in Obedience to a dream they dug up the Earth within the enclosure and so found it the size of both images just about corresponds to the image

of the mother meter in Athens these two are works of dapon okay Damon said to be a sculptor who was respons responsible for these which again that's um this is what panus is saying whether it's true or not we don't know deer carries a torch in her right hand uh her other hand she has laid upon Despa despa has on her knees a staff and what is called the Box okay we'll talk about what those are in a minute which she holds in her right hand on both sides of the throne are images by the

side of demer stands Artemis probably here identified with HEC again that's a note wrapped in the skin of a deer and carrying a quiver on her shoulders while in one hand she holds a torch the other two serpents by her side female dog of a breed suitable for hunting is lying Down by the image of despa stands uh antias represented as a man in armor okay and he of course is a Titan who is said to have raised despa now that's another thing too um and we have to think about the fact that the Titans

represent the kind of Primal forces of nature here those about the sanctuary say that despa was brought up by antus who is one of the Titans perhaps here the uh kites as they are called okay this is the same as the chantis and I'm Going to talk about who they are in a moment this is the story of antias told by the arcadians that Artemis was the daughter not of Leo but of demer which is the Egyptian account the Greeks learned from escalus the son of euphorion the story of the cites who are represented under

the images and that of the corantes A different race from the cores okay so he's making a distinction between the two although frequently they're they're discussed together Carved in relief upon the base I know but pass them by the arcadians bring into the sanctuary the fruit of all cultivated trees except the pomegranate on the right as you go out of the temple there is a mirror fitted into the wall if anyone looks in this mirror he will see himself very dimly indeed or not at all but the actual images of the Gods and the throne

can be seen quite clearly when you have gone up a little beside the Temple of despa on The right which is called the hall where the arcadians celebrate Mysteries and sacrifice to despa many victims in generous fashion every man of them sacrifices what he possesses but he does not cut the throat of victims as is done in other sacrifices each man chops off a limb of the sacrifice just that which happens to come to hand okay Des desena the arcadians worship more than any other God declaring she is a daughter of Poseidon and demer a

despa which means Mistress is her surname among the many just as they surnamed deer's Daughter by Zeus cor but whereas the real name of cor is pany as Homer and pampos before him say in their poems the real name of despa I'm afraid to write to the uninitiated beyond what is called the hall in is a Grove sacred to despa and surrounded by a wall of stones and within it are trees including an olive and an Evergreen Oak that's interesting an Evergreen Oak o Growing out of one root and that not the result of a

clever piece of gardening okay so it seems like an evergreen and a gr and an oak are growing out of one root Beyond The Grove are altars of Poseidon hippos which is Poseidon as a horse because you have to remember Poseidon in addition to being god of the sea and earthquakes is also the god of horses as being the father of despa as and of other gods as well on the last of them there's an inscription saying that Is common to all the gods Vin you will Ascend to a St by stairs to a sanctuary

of pan beside this pan a fire is kept burning which is never allowed to go out it is said that in days of old this God also gave oracles here is an altar of Aries there are two images of Aphrodite in a temple one of white marble and the other older of wood okay and then Apollo and Athena and he goes on and supposedly there's a sacred Peak here where they Say this is actually where Zeus was reared as a child okay so you remember Zeus was rescued uh from being swallowed by Kronos his father

when Ria gave him a stone to swallow instead of giving him the the swaddled infant Zeus and then Zeus was taken to Arcadia to be raised and again remember Arcadia is supposed to be this this place of Origins as well okay so yeah so we do see this also as a title of Artemis and HEC as it's mentioned but this Goddess that is Referred to is not Artemis or heate okay even though there may be a connection there now I was mentioning the corbon so let me tell you something about them they're the quites and

the docto or the dactyls okay so I'm just going to read a little bit about them from theoy as well for you the kites or dactyls were three five or nine rustic deons appointed by Ria to guard the infant God Zeus in a cave on Mount Ida in creit to keep the boy hidden from his cannibalistic father Kronos they drowned out his cries with a frenzy dance of clashing Spear and shield the kites were gods of the Wild Mountain Side inventors of The Rustic Arts of metal working shepherding hunting and beekeeping okay so these were

the keepers of early technology olog they were also among the first armored Warriors and gods of the orgiastic war dance performed by the youths of creit and uboya uh the five daalo meaning fingers Were usually regarded as identical to the kites these also had an equal number of sisters named H hakes who together appeared to have represented all 10 fingers of the human hand daalo being the Greek word for fingers the male and female droy also were joined in marriage perhaps imagined as a harmonious finger to finger folding of the hands and from this Union

were born born The Rustic satury the saturs uh the orad and the kures these younger cites were 100 in Number they married their sister Melia who asht tree nymphs and from their branches fashioned to the first Spears uh the kites were closely identified with if not the same as a number of other rustic demons namely the corantes of uh the yoan ones the sakian ones and the cabaro as well as um Hao and his gigantis and the corite antias which is the one who supposedly raised um Des despa yeah so okay so we have we

have this idea so you have okay so we have we Have a whole a whole lot of imagery here that we need to look at because this is the main story that we're dealing with when we talk about despa we we we see the context that she appears in that she is this child of demer orinus with Poseidon uh both both of them taking the form of a horse and that that Horse Association I think is is a very important one it's also said in some other places that despa is associated to a certain degree

with springs and with Water as well like there's this there's this kind of this association with um with Wells and we have this idea of her as being the mistress now uh Carl keni says at one point um that he feels that this title mistress May refer to the Mistress of the labyrinth uh in cre because the name of uh well this title of despa and and other association with it seemed to be not only in meinian culture but also in Manan culture and there's this IDE this idea of the Mistress of the labyrinth at

canosos okay canosos being a very famous um his site in cre very famous Royal site that had been excavated by Arthur Evans and in that we have this this idea of the Mistress of the labyrinth and this is the Labyrinth that has been associated with what correctly or not with King Minos of cree and the minor who is uh the result of the of minos's wife uh mating with with the with a with a beloved uh bull um that be that would And she was driven to do that because Minos had promised that Poseidon that

he would sacrifice his his best bull and then decided he liked his best bull and said no I'll sacrifice the second best one so Poseidon gets back at him by making his wife love bust after this bull and uh datalist constructs some kind of an apparatus so that she can mate with it um and the minur is the result of this mating okay so we see Poseidon here being involved again we Definitely have these ideas of these animals you have Bulls you have and obviously with with this um with with despa this this horse imagery

as well so I think the important elements that we are looking at here okay first of so okay we have this the idea of rings and water so we have this nature Spirit Association already you know the idea of these these nymphs of water and as we know Poseidon is also associated with the sea and water deer is Associated with with agriculture she's associated with things that grow because as we know in this particular myth when um in her grief over the loss of pany she goes and hides in this cave and that's when winter

comes like everything dies on the earth so they're trying to find her and make her come out and bring things back again and that's when there's this negotiation about pranie being up in in the world uh for a certain part of the year and then for Another part of the year she returns to Hades to be with her husband this becomes a kind of winter spring you know among the many other meanings of this story we have this definite winter spring thing okay so and so yeah and of course water sacred Springs Sacred Water definitely

Associated very heavily with uh sacred Earth Mother sites and and things like that okay the the horse now I have a Encyclopedia of Symbol uh that I wanted to I wanted to look up horse And that and there's like four pages of stuff on horse but I think the one in particular we're interested in certainly there is the element of the horse being connected with the moon mother or the mother goddess in Magic because their horses uh sometimes they were sacramentally eaten sometimes it was taboo to eat them they said that you know there's this

idea of there is this whole idea of the sacrifice of the Sun King honestly I'm not not sure if Any of that really I think there's there's some controversy over whether or not that's a real thing or not but you know certainly we have goddesses like ranan in the past or maybe maybe not in this podcast but I know certainly in my book uh that'll be coming out next year I do talk about the Morgan element uh Maka maka's race Chariot race and olster uh is certainly seems to represent her as a mistreated horse goddess

in its own way and the story of St Patrick and Maka Certainly Maka appears as White Horse so there is definitely this connection to the land and to horses now what they say here under Earth they say that the horse is associated with burial rights and katonic Cults represents the cyclical movement of the world of phenomena the underworld pranie had white horses they mention okay and also there are connections of horses with water the wave horses the blind Cosmic forces that surge out of primordial chaos related to Poseidon Poseidon created the horse but he also

hit among horses to avoid being eated by krono eaten by Kronos um identify identification of the God and His sacred animal and this is also panus Ria substituted a f for him as a stone for Zeus for Kronos to eat he had Stables with white horses for chariots with Brazen hoofs and golden Mane he coupled with deer who disguised herself as a mayor in the form of a stallion sea covering the Earth he is the inventor of Horse racing the horse hoof shaped moon is the origin of all water and rules the tides of the

sea okay so uh and it's also worth noting too those of you who read tarot or follow tarot that the Chariot card is a card of cancer which is a a water sign because you might think well you know the Chariot which seems to be seems to have more of a a Mars quality to it you know it's more of that aggressive forward moving taking control fiery energy but it's actually Water because the horses of The Chariot have a lot to do with and chariots and Chariot racing are are connected to this watery uh katonic

kind of an element let's see what else we have here in the myth of the isolated land of Arcadia Poseidon appears as a beast or horse Poseidon hippos as we've mentioned which represents the River Spirit of the Underworld the conception was usual in northern European folklore and not unusual in Greece the horse or numina Was related with the liquid element and with the Underworld the river god aalo is represented as a bull Poseidon mates with the mayor demer and from the union she Bears Arion the horse and a daughter who originally had the shape of

a mayor too so here there's this idea that despa originally was in the shape of a horse it seems that the Greek deities started as powers of Nature and they were given other attributes these powers of nature developed into belief in nymphs and Deities with human forms and the heads or tals of animals some of them such as Pan and the sanoi survived into the classical age the two great Arcadian goddesses demer and despa and they're saying later pany here which again that's that's not I don't think that's correct we're closely related to the springs

and animals especially to the goddess Artemis uh the Mistress of animals po neia Theon who was the first who in this way of thinking was the First nymph okay they said on a marble relief at Lura is the veil of desena okay now the veil of despa uh is worth discussing here this is a this is a one image that we have we don't actually have any statuary I mean panus talks about this stat statue of despa but there's no the statue of despa is gone there's no statue of despa and the name is unknown

of which goddess this actually is however there is an image still of her veil which exists this this Image of her is among images of demer of Artemis of an um antilus uh there there's there's a whole bunch there a bunch of different images of of heads you know of that are left over of these of the statues of these deities but there are that this particular image or carving of a veil is is interesting so I'm going to tell you what's on this carving if you're watching this on YouTube there's going to be an

image of this Veil among the images that I'm Going to be circulating okay so it says the veil of the upper level of the veil of despa has the following modes of decoration a series of triangular Rays a band of eagles and winged Thunderbolts a band of olive sprays a freeze of the nads riding seahorses and tritons with dolphins intermixed okay the nads and the tritons are all U these are all C deities these are all um Elemental demonic spirits of of the sea and of the ocean and a Tassled fringe the lower and larger

layer has from top to bottom a freeze of nikai carrying sensors while burying Olive sprays in front of themselves okay so uh Nik Niki have to do with their little um little Victory Spirits right pictures of of Nike little little winged um Spirit of of Victory uh a band of olive sprays a freeze of dancing animal-headed figures and a running wave Meander pattern okay so this is what they have have it suggested that the Veil is a representative of the types of tapestry or embroidered woven materials that were created by contemporary artists in that Community

the high level of detail is cited as the Hallmark of Damon's technique the freeze of marine deities and the running wave Meander to posidon in Throne the band of eagles and Wing Thunderbolts may be a reference to Zeus the it say okay so then they talk about um what pania says now the other piece that okay so let's let's get Into this imagery from panus because you know we've talked a bit about the horses okay we have these these images you have this wooden image of demer that panus talks about okay in this cave now

the story of this cave is interesting because demer is wearing black which is a katonic color okay we we we associate it in the west Western thinking with death and it also tends to be associated with the North and and with the Earth Mother in general and that's also we Also see in this space that well the pasan describes that there's not only statuary of demer and despa but also the great mother okay which which is important here and this is where deer hides okay so this is where deer goes into hiding where she goes

into death mourning after she's given birth to DPA who is also associated with this now this Veil symbolism I think I've noted here well I'm noting in my own notes here that it it has its relationship Certainly to Isis we think of the veil of Isis but you know the veil is is definitely certainly this the symbol of mystery of that which is hidden of that which is not to be revealed now remember I've I've spent a lot of time talking about the Lial and about The Uncanny and this is yeah this is one of

the element of that it's the when we talk about things that are occult or hidden or things that are uncanny that we talked about the the difference Between the terms heick and unim uh and the fact that both of them refer to something in in their own way that is concealed and so this Veil represents that concealing okay there's this concealment that's going on there's a concealment of a mystery so obviously initiates of the mystery will probably have that revealed now in connection to that there is this uh you see this this statue of despa

who is wearing uh well she's holding okay she's got this box And she has a staff according to panus in the rights of elus there was something called the kist day or the basket that was part of the rights and uh and also this this staff or this scepter uh are definitely part of the Lucian Mysteries so the fact that you see despa holding these definitely makes this connection to the rights of elus and uh the kist day the basket you know with from what we again we don't really know what these Mysteries were from

the Freezes that we've seen uh that may detail aspects of these Mysteries or from the writings that may hint around certain writs and so forth we know that this kist or basket there was something in the basket there's some kind of a a mystery I'm trying to think there's at least one freeze that or or one I want to say I feel like it was the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompei I feel like that's where it was seen but that whatever is in this basket was something Uh this was a secret that the initiate

was to behold when you opened this box like Banas is calling it The Box but if you open this basket as kiss day um there is there is something there is something in there uh that is that is part of this great mystery so you have despa holding this box that holds this mystery and then she's also holding this staff that are are meant to that now what I also noted was the the type of sacrifice that is done in these Mysteries and rather than cutting the throat of a beast of whichever type was being

sacrificed they cut off a limb which to me feels like a direct you know symbolic reference to castration okay and the fact that you have these statues that are carved of a single Stone okay now we obviously we have the wooden meter statue and you have these these interesting Oak with the Evergreen so you have these you know these mixed symbolisms of the trees and and things That uh that he talks about but these statues carved from one stone by supposedly by demophon is there okay the the idea of the one stone I said the

first thing I thought of as I was reading that was that the one stone is very likely a black stone and the fact that that stone was found in the cave and that they dug it up after a dream so in other words it's something there's this is it's magical stone and that it's here and I'm going to bet that It's a black stone that these were carved from that these images were carved from uh this single block of stone because the black stone is very much associated with the Earth mother and the Earth mother

goddess in fact the name kibble actually uh is said to mean black stone if you I've mentioned this before in other uh podcasts in Islam okay in the Caba which is in um which is in Mecca they have the this what do they have there it's a big black stone that's Supposed to be something has to do with Abraham and and being placed there by Abraham or where this original um kind of sacred site was of Abraham but there's a black stone there and cabba also is a reference to a black stone now now of

course in Islam they're they're not bringing they're abrahamic religion right they're not bringing in this mother goddess reference but the black stone is the most primordial fundamental Sacred object or sacred thing along with these Springs and these sacred Wells connected to the Earth Mother okay connected to this uh this magnam mat or this meter um and the fact that deer is draped in Black in this particular cave uh this is really really strongly katonic and we're talking about the concealed Mysteries of the Earth Mother uh in this place which are very very profound and therefore

yeah you would have to be An initiate uh to have that revealed to you to have that name revealed to you you can have the name of of Cory or panie because I do believe I feel like cor as the young maiden or the girl panie is is a representation well not only of sort of death and rebirth but also of just life itself in her own way because the myth of pany is really a myth about coming into Womanhood really fundamentally you know she's uh the bloody rights of the earth mother right She's she's

um she ends up these are similar to tales that you have of uh you know virgins being captured by dragons and things like that there's there's this idea of the young virginal girl who is now um capable of reproduction because now now she has the that's the bloody initiation right you you are now once you start with that now you're now you are capable of reproduction now you participate potentially in that mystery of life so you've got uh the cor here And she is uh you know so this is panie so when we see panie

being Swept Away by hadti swept away to the depths of the underworld uh to become the wife of Hades and of course as I've mentioned in the pany podcast we see that that story ends it's not not the way we always tend to view this as oh isn't this terrible this poor young girl was carried away and her poor mother had to try to find her but I as I've often pointed out we're dealing with Gods we're not de Dealing with people and we and and to try to put a human social inflection on that

I think would be a mistake although people do it I mean people try to identify with the story in that way but it's not really about that at the end of the story it's been pointed out and I've pointed this out in papers that I've written and I'm not the only one to point it out I want to say it was Myers uh who wrote In The Classical quarterly he he was one of the ones who one of the Articles I always point to that pointed this out that the Greek for when when demer finally

encounters pan when she finds her in the Underworld when they are reunited with each other deer says to her well you you says to her well you didn't eat any of the food of the underworld did you and of course Hades has got she had presented her with the pomegranate and she took an eight depending you know six nine there're different numbers but she Takes and eats the pomegranate seeds and once she does this and of course the he smiles when she does this cuz this binds her to the underworld now everybody likes to portray

this as oh she was innocent she didn't know she was doing she knew what she was doing because she knew that entire time that she couldn't eat the food of the underworld anytime she was offered food she refused it when she looks at her husband and the pomegranate of all things I mean the Pomegranate is not only a a symbol of the really katonic you fruit associated with the with the underworld but it's also a very highly sexual fruit um it's if you just look at it I mean it's just it's got this very sexual

connotation it's used in you know people who make love filters and things will use pomegranate it's very much associated with love and love rights as well as the underworld you know which which are very closely connection connected you know Sexuality and so forth is definitely uh katonic in its nature and so when she takes and eats these seeds then she says to her mother with the way when her mother says that to her she says well um yeah I ate these seeds but my husband tricked me and now now I'm in love with him but

something to the effect of that it translates roughly to I now I am in love with my husband so I've I've I've often looked at that piece and again you know who knows what it means but there's Also this certain motif of the young girl who goes into Womanhood and now she may may turn in a direction especially with regard to her sexuality that may not uh meet with the approving eyes of her parents and I think I talk about this in the podcast on the hanging virgins uh as well as the pany podcast which

are ones I did probably like four years ago now but uh they were some of the earliest ones I did and yeah the whole idea of the cuz that was talking About diasis as the figure who was not not approved of by the parents and so the virgins who in despair hang themselves or or they they take on the role of ariad or something who's abandoned well actually diis Mary zarad but there there's this kind of these different roles that are played uh with regard to the the the dark the kind of the dark stranger

who represents this dark sexual katonic Force who takes the young Maiden away and of Course her parents are in despair about this but this is this is part of the drama this is part of what goes on so she you know she becomes queen of Hades at this point she is the queen of the underworld because Hades is very you you almost can't separate when we talk about konios which is the word that katonic comes from right um it's a word for it's not just a word James hman would argue that it has refers to

what's under the Earth and maybe not the Earth itself But I would suggest that it refers to both because I don't think you can separate the two um the katonic realm is the realm of nature it's the realm of nature Spirits it's the N Realm Of The Rustic it's the realm of the wild it's this Arcadian vision and of course this is H this is this particular cave and caves also by the way which are representations of the Earth Mother the womb of the Earth Mother the you know the creation and destruction of things In

this particular cave with the this very strong black symbolism and then also just the symbolism that she has she has the Dove and the dolphin we see the dove frequently associated with goddesses like Ishtar for example um later which later gets co-opted into the paraclete or the Holy Holy Spirit in Christianity but yeah you have these these these symbols of these um of Love of fertility and then just also the all that's sort of concealed by the Earth Mother everything that's both beautiful and terrible about the Earth Mother right and so this this mystery and

if you think about the eluan Mysteries the one thing that we do seem to know about these Mysteries were different levels of of the eluan Mysteries and this was these were this was sort of the first religious way of thinking that that kind of dealt with the idea of the immortality of the soul for instance uh certainly the the eluan rights were About overcoming the fear of death okay and that one kind of almost under goes a symbolic death to to be reborn in some way which is not not necessarily that weird for like ult

initiatory systems because there's always some kind of ordeal that one passes through and then one is uh transformed in some fashion after this ordeal and so the ordeal there certainly is connected to this journey to the underworld and then the uh at least Temporary restoring of pany or cyclical restoring of pany to the light uh but she you know so she comes to the light in Spring and then she you know for the winter months now she is now down as Queen of Hades and uh and yeah and this connection with Artemis and HEC because

we know that HEC is the companion of panie who lights the way in the Underworld you know Kate is shown with her torches so she is the one who shows the way in the darkness she's an UNC Concealer right she is the one who uh lights the way through what's occult or what's hidden okay because occult is just really the word occult we always associate it with all kinds of things but it literally is just the Latin word meaning what's what's obscured or what's hidden and uh despa is also obscured and hidden because that's the

type of goddess that she is she is she is a katonic goddess she has ties to HEC and thus she also Has ties to Artemis who is who is intimately tied also with the transition of young girls into Womanhood again I I don't want to repeat everything I've done on previous podcasts on that but it's yeah but Artemis is there there emis is a goddess of Chastity right and of virginity when we see her her mythologies there's a lot of stories of The Men Who uh either view her while she's like men who you know

they view her while she's naked or the young girl Who is dedicated to her who is a virgin dedicated to her in fact we even hear of panie to a certain degree being dedicated to Artemis in the sense of being virgin virginal being chased and then either and somebody coming along and taking that virginity away and in a lot of these cas that case is or or somebody seeing a naked emis by accident like there's no there's no RW involved here right it's not that's not involved it's it's it's more a case of Or or

there could be but literally you've got these these girls who are sort of virginal and innocent and then they all of the sudden get swept up into this uh sexual activity then they may become pregnant and what Artemis does in all of these stories as a pattern is I mean she she's vicious I mean she will uh usually turns them into animals and then they are torn apart by hunters this is so there there's a lot there were a lot of rituals cuz Artemis symbolically Is the one who opposes young girls going into marriage okay

and becoming losing their virginity and becoming mothers and parents and and wives and so forth there may be some relationship there to the Roman belief uh that with having to do with theis or the household Gods where we see this idea of uh the bride being car carried over the threshold uh and that's that's a tradition that still exists right you know you pick up the bride and carry her Across the Threshold Into the new house and that was from a Roman tradition because the this idea was that if you if the if the young

girl left the house voluntarily they would be in the the Lis would be insulted so similarly in these rituals Artemis would be insulted so yeah so the groom would have to come and like make it appear that the bride's being taken away by force so there's this whole thing about yeah the family and offending the spirits or offending emis so there has To be there almost has to be this trickery or this cuge around the girl leaving the household and you know getting out from under the Gaze of Artemis or getting out from under the

Gaze of the household Gods to uh to be able to embark on her life with a new family and in a new place and as a mother and not as a as a child or you know as a virgin or or whatever that that's not a state that women are going to stay in that you know they're going To move on to this uh to this married state or to the state of bearing children so uh and then of course as I mentioned with the in the podcast on the hanging virgins then there's all the

things that happen and on the aori as well what happens if they don't do that so yeah a whole lot here tied up in fertility so so where does this leave us like what does this uh tell us about um this particular statue so all right so you're In you're in the place of of the cites cites and the and the corantes right you're you're in this uh you're in this cave you're in this space that's associated with uh Zeus and Zeus's rise to power right this pastoral first place um you know the the progenitors

or the the um the Aboriginal Greek people if you will here in this place in Arcadia which is associated with what is pastoral in the hero myth this is an area that is associated with Where the hero's birth is so it's a place that births Heroes it's very sacred and in this place you have uh not only this this element of the eluan Mysteries but as they mentioned there's also these Arcadian Mysteries as well that are connected to it and and they might be the same and they might overlap to some degree one one might

be even be informed by the other although the uian Mysteries probably had a lot of other elements to Them as well potentially Egyptian elements and perhap potentially Persian elements again we don't know we we don't uh we just know there's just things that have been hinted at and the things that we know from those who did seem to be initiates but yeah you have so you have all this symbolism you have all this animal symbolism you have this idea of Sacrifice by hacking off a limb you have this this image of of Blackness you've Got

the great mother there the the fundamental original great mother with demer with the DPA with Artemis Artemis being this Mistress of the hunt or Mistress of animals and so and and with this kind of way with symbolism that that shows that she sort of has this also has this Hecate side to her as well you have these very deeply katonic deities and so uh and also these associations with kibbi the Fran goddess kibble and this this stone or this this Black stone now of course panus doesn't say it's a black stone but it's it's a

pretty safe bet that that's the kind of stone that uh these statues are made from that the ones that are carved out of a single uh piece of stone that that's what they're carved from because that black stone is the that is the one that's the stone stone that you worship that is the one that is uh that contains all of that um katonic element of of the Earth Mother okay that is that Is the Earth Mother embodied so despa and it's interesting because they in the mystery she's actually put demer is second to her

and to me that's also telling because I'm like no this is some kind of name whether it's one of the names we know or whether it's some other secret name that's referring to the Earth Mother herself Earth mother in her most veiled form to the katonic and its most veiled form uh so yeah again strong connections to HEC to Artemis and to the The Mysteries and of course Poseidon being there and also um you know this anitus yeah who is a Titan as I mentioned these are all representations and even pan himself I mean pan

means all and pan is pan has a little bit of the element of of baffet not not exactly the same I don't want to say they're the same but in the sense that you're dealing with a being that that is an all it's both animal and human in in in his characteristics so he is a Representation of of fertility of the all and pan and and just like the other Satur I mean they also sats are also born as we've seen out of this this group this group of sort of demonic kind of group that

is very closely connected to the Earth Mother and indeed they are sort of the fundamental demons or spirits of of nature so this is this is this is has to do with the fundamental mystery that that underly nature and the fundamental initiations connected to That so yeah so despa and I I mentioned her in being connected to Winter because obviously this uh the birth of despa takes place when demer is about to go into this dark period where she's already angry she's demer arus because she's lost her daughter so she takes on some of the

characteristics of the mother's anger at the loss of the child or a loss of her child to to Womanhood okay to no she's no longer a child so there's this this initiation this this Sort of Underworld initiation into this new um bloody Earth Mother space and in this and in this space um when deer is in there wearing black and in mour what happens when she goes and hides in this cave the world around her dies so this is the this is the time of winter see this is so despa is very much connected the

birth of despa is actually connected to winter so in a certain sense she represents that mystery what we would now what I think a lot of people like Who practice modern paganism would talk about as being almost like Crone imagery because remember she's mistress she's not cor okay so she is she's not that's what I had I think about the difference of between that I said okay she's not she's not young girl she is mistress so this is a much more developed energy than that of panie who you know panie of course comes into her

own right as Queen of Hades but she is she is you know her her mythology is That of the younger girl becoming a woman so despa represents some mystery that's much deeper and much more potentially terrible to people or something that is not to be revealed to the uninitiated as we've said because it represents a deeper mystery that that probably has to do not only with life but probably life's connection to death as well and that is something that probably the average person doesn't doesn't deal in just Bring up this subject anywhere and just how

comfortable it makes people um and i' I've talked about that I talk about that in the F in the introduction to my book as well uh death in the maiden but it's yeah it's it's very um yeah it's it's not a comfortable this is an aspect of things that's not comfortable for people is not necessarily understood people tend to understand it in good or bad black and white terms uh in the sense of oh well life is good and death Is bad we we there's you have to really be able to get beyond that to

see what is be behind these Mysteries and what is behind this kind of workings of nature which uh which in which life feeds on itself you know life feeds on life uh that was one thing I remember Campbell had said this and I've repeated this a number of times in different places too but they he talks about the story of uh ktim Muka uh with Shiva the monster that that he creates to to eat this demon That's coming coming to take his wife away and then when the demon throws himself on shiva's Mercy Shiva of

course who will switch on a dime says oh okay we won't he won't eat you now and the Demon's like well you created me to eat him so now what am I going to eat and Shiva says well eat yourself and so the monster starts with its feet and then just devours itself and there's nothing but The Shining face left which Shiva puts at the top of his Temple because He's such in such a mar he's Marvels at it because that's that representation of the mystery of life life and death are you know life feeds

on life it's a it's a it's a terrible Sublime kind of a of a mystery that you can't necessarily approach with ethics and with the rational mind so I feel desena is very likely a reference to this very type of mystery which is why her name will always be obscured uh thank you so much for Listening if you enjoy the these podcasts and you're new to them please consider subscribing um on I'm on spreer on whatever podcast app you follow on YouTube My katonia Channel on YouTube uh all my work is listed on katonia Donnet

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have a a great start to your 2024 and we'll see you in the next [Applause] episode