#226 - I felt bad for the guy monkey trying (and failing) to impress the girl monkey.

Elaphebolia: The Deer-Hunting Festival

One day I thought to myself about how peculiar it is that Artemis would hunt for food since She is a Goddess, and the Greek Gods supposedly only eat ambrosia. First I checked in ancient sources to be sure that She did in fact hunt animals for food. In Hymn III, Callimarchus explains that first Apollo and then Heracles would take the animals Artemis hunted when She came to Zeus' palace, saying that Heracles would be "waiting to see if [Artemis] will come home with some fat meat." The impression given is certainly one that the animals would be butchered and the meat would be eaten. Thus it is somehow significant, even if only metaphorically, that the animals Artemis hunts would be consumed.

I think that significance is twofold. First, as a Goddess of Nature, Artemis must exist within the natural laws of conservation. Nothing is wasted in nature. Everything goes to some use, be it through consumption or decomposition or any other means. Somehow everything always ultimately feeds everything else. Therefore the animals She hunts must also feed something. In celebrating this aspect of Artemis we can acknowledge how interconnected we are with everything else on this earth. Secondly, Artemis as the Huntress is also a Goddess of self-sufficiency. A hunter can go out and find her own food, and does not need to depend on anyone else for sustenance. Here we find another way that modern people can identify with a Hunting Goddess: she helps us not only with our own personal hunts in whatever form they might take, but She can also help us to be independent and self-sufficient individuals.

[. . .]

The Elaphebolia helps us to understand the hunter within us. We all possess the instincts of pursuit, and with Artemis' help we can learn to embrace and understand our own drive to hunt, and become more respectful and effective hunters.

-Thista Minai, Dancing in Moonlight: Understanding Artemis Through Celebration

Can you believe this? I went out to the Lincoln Park Zoo today in honor of Elaphebolia, and their gift shop didn't have any deer figurines or anything like that! I wanted to buy one and dedicate it during the quasi-ritual later tonight (which I'll do once I rest a little from having walked around all day), but zip, zilch, zero. I guess I could've gotten something similar like an antelope, but it felt kind of wrong to me. Le sigh. Thank the Gods (and I think I mean it literally this time) that it was gorgeous out today. Perfect walking weather, seriously. I was afraid it might be on the chilly side, but it was just right for walking to, around, and from the zoo.

Anyway, yeah. I forgot my phone this morning. That was traumatic. NEVER AGAIN.

-Reileen
Artemis, please be kind to me, my own wolves will soon devour me