:: 2011 :: 100cm x 100cm in four 50cm panels :: Acrylics, Inks & Markers on Canvas ::
Here we see the public expression of the Eleusinian Mysteries, as told in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. This story was well-known in Antiquity, and conceals as much as it reveals. Persephone, while picking flowers at the hill of Nysa with her attendants, becomes entranced by a narcissus flower and upon picking it, the earth opens up to reveal Hades, who grips her arm and takes her to his Underworld realm. Demeter hearing only her scream is aggrieved and goes searching, first to Helios and then Hecate, who witnessed the event and loyally came running to the goddess. Demeter retires to a temple at Eleusis. Meanwhile, under the Earth Persephone is transformed into a Queen of the Dead, but returns to earth in a joyous reunion with her Mother. The final public image of the rite is seen overlain: the two goddesses Demeter and Persephone granting the Light of the World to Triptolemos in his chariot.
The Eleusinian Mysteries are mythically unique. Most mystery traditions have a heroic ideal - hero steps out to adventure and returns transformed, but at Eleusis the focus of the rites is always Demeter, not Persephone. Persephone is transformed but it is Demeter's grief and wounding which must be healed by the rites. This wounding underlies a historical secret: the removal of the goddess by force from the pantheon at the beginning of the Bronze Age created a cultural wounding we still have not yet healed. Through Demeter, the celebrants at Eleusis could seek to salve this wound and become whole again, identifying themselves with Demeter the Mother in their search for truth and wholeness.
