Love Conquers All

The Demeter and Persephone Story: The Genesis

As the legend goes, Hades rarely ventured out of the underworld. But, the few times he did, he encountered Persephone. She was the alluring daughter of Zeus and Demeter.

From the moment he first set his eyes on her, he was drawn to her and instantly fell in love. So, Hades went to his brother Zeus to consult him. Zeus had previously promised Hades one of his daughters in marriage. And when Hades told him that he wanted to marry Persephone, Zeus obliged.

He knew, however, that Persephone’s mother Demeter would never allow her daughter to marry the dark god of the underworld. Hades was heartbroken that he would never be able to have Persephone as his wife. So, the two brothers hatched a plan that would see him marry the woman he desperately loved.

The next morning, Demeter and her daughter descended upon the earth. The two were incredibly close just as most mothers and daughters are when girls begin to transition into womanhood.

Demeter was the life-giving goddess of agriculture, grain, and harvest. She provided mortals with plants, food, and vegetables. She also gave them the ability to cultivate wheat.

She showed them how to plant the seeds, nurture them, and harvest them. She even taught them how to grind the grain to produce flour, which they could turn into bread. Demeter left her daughter with the nymphs of the sea to watch over her while she went to tend to her earthly duties.

Zeus knew that the nymphs would never let Persephone out of their sight for fear of Demeter’s wrath. So, he had Gaia plant an enchanting narcissus flower in a nearby garden. As Persephone wandered away from her mother and into the garden, she saw the flower and was immediately drawn to its beauty.

The Abduction

No sooner had she stooped to pick it, than the ground beneath her feet began to quake and a gaping crack soon appeared. As the crack widened, Hades and his chariot of black horses emerged from it and began charging towards Persephone.

Before she could even master a scream, Hades grabbed Persephone and took her down with him to the world of the dead. The nymph named Sion witnessed the abduction and had tried to rescue Persephone, but there was nothing she could do.

She was no match for Hades. Sion was so distraught over her friend’s abduction that she cried until she melted into a pool of her tears, forming the river Sion.

When Demeter returned, she couldn’t find her daughter anywhere. So, she asked the nymphs about it, but they had no answer. Demeter was furious that they didn’t protect her daughter like they were supposed to.

Her wrath rained down on the nymphs, and she cursed them with plumed bodies, scaly feet, and wings. They would no longer be called nymphs of the sea. They would henceforth be known as sirens.

When Persephone’s belt was washed up by the river Sion, Demeter knew that something dreadful had happened to her daughter. She roamed the earth for days on end driven mad by her beloved daughter’s disappearance.

She searched endlessly, neglecting her duties to tend to the earth to nourish the mortals. Plants withered, animals died, and famine ravaged the earth resulting in untold misery. The cries of the mortals reached mount Olympus, and Zeus knew that he had to intervene to calm Demeter’s wrath and spare humanity.

Persephone: The Dark Queen

Zeus sent Hermes to the underworld to bring Persephone back home to her mother. When he got there, he was surprised by what he found. Instead of finding a sorrowful grief-stricken maiden, he was met with a radiant Queen.

During her time there, Hades had beautiful gardens built for Persephone. He treated her with respect and compassion, and she inevitably began to fall in love with him. She saw a side to him she had never seen before, and she embraced her new home helping the spirits of the dead to cross over.

When Hermes requested her return, Persephone was conflicted. On the one hand, she loved Hades and wanted to remain with him, but on the other, she loved and deeply missed her mother.

Hades was terrified that if she was presented with the choice of staying with him of returning to her mother, he would lose. So, he gifted her with six pomegranate seeds to eat, and she did. In Greek mythology, it was believed that if one ate food given to them by their captor, they would always return.

Love Conquers All

When Hermes brought Persephone back to Mount Olympus, Zeus asked her where she would like to live. She expressed that she wanted to stay by her husband’s side.

Demeter was infuriated by her response and was convinced that Hades had something to do with it. She wouldn’t have any of it. She said made it known in no uncertain terms that if her daughter did not return to her, she would never again tend to the earth.

Zeus decided that Persephone would split her time between her mother and her husband. Since she ate six pomegranate seeds, Persephone would spend half the year with her mother at Olympus and the other half with Hades.

The Changing Seasons

Many believe that the Demeter and Persephone story explains the seasons of the year. During the time that Persephone spends away from her mother, Demeter causes the earth to wither and die. This time of year became autumn and winter.

Persephone’s arrival to be reunited with her mother signals a renewal of hope. It represents the rebirth of untold splendor and abundance. The earth once again becomes fertile and fruitful.

All Photographs by Michelle Gemma

and featuring a collage by Ellery Twining on the last photo for “The Changing Seasons”
featuring Models: Jane Anderson & Julia Farrar
Gungywamp, Groton, CT USA

text courtesy of https://www.theoi.com/articles/what-is-the-demeter-and-persephone-story-summarized/

this is the resurrection prequel to my next photoseries:
Stay Tuned!

Full Moon in Sagittarius at 23 degrees

“The body’s wisdom musically in touch and in tune, sensing the resonance of cellular awakening. Eager and enthusiastic and bright, you have given over to the process. Always in midstream. Seizing upon opportunities, challenges, openings. Needing to know just how it feels at the micro levels. What is it like to be free, to be joyous, to be unrestricted, here in the body, in the world? You seek the full-on motivating spark of knowing what it feels like to be tuned out and discovering what it really means to be tuned in all the way.” from Sagittarius at 23 degrees by Ellias Lonsdale

In much the same way in which he characterized planets and asteroids as powerful, gendered beings in Inside Planets, Ellias Lonsdale gives new depth and nuance to degree analysis, an area often seen as technical or reduced to cliche.

Lonsdale builds on three main degree interpretations: Dane Rudhyar’s concept of the Sabian Symbols described in The Astrology of Personality and An Astrological Mandala, Marc Edmund Jones’s Sabian Symbols in Astrology, and John Sandbach’s recent Chandra Symbols. Beginning in 1988, Lonsdale worked with his wife Sara in tracking the Sabian symbol, the Charubel Symbol (the most useful of the other sets of degree symbology) and the Chandra Symbol. After Sara died in 1993 Lonsdale worked with her (as Theanna) and their friend Alita “to pierce through the veil,” as he says in his Introduction, “to find the angel behind each degree. This ultimate version is won from death and fused with rebirth and each word shows this power.”

The degree symbols are most useful in elaborating a personal birth chart. One can learn about personal cycles from studying the place of a transiting or progressed planet by degree at a given time, revealing collective as well as personal timings. The Zodiac degrees also act as an oracle. One can open the collection anywhere for a given day, or in reponse to a question. The degrees will reveal what is happening now and if we are attentive and responsive to the cues, what is required of us. Comparing charts of friends and famous people who are known for certain qualities, one can gradually discriminate among the degrees.

These beautifully written and fully imagined readings of the Chandra degree symbols speak to a deep level of personal change and authenticity.

Ellias Lonsdale is the author of Star Rhythms, The Book of Theanna, and Inside Planets. He lectures widely on astrology and is an astrological counselor in Santa Cruz, California.

https://aquaorfire.net/astrology/inside_degrees/inside_degrees.html#sagittarius

featuring Model: Titus Abad
as Sagittarius for the Personal Universe Series
Photograph by Michelle Gemma

FULL MOON IN SCORPIO 26 APRIL 2021

EVERYTHING MATTERS
featuring Model: Emma Rocherolle
as my Scorpio on the Full Pink Moon
Photograph by Michelle Gemma
shot with the Mamiya 7
on Ilford Delta 400 Pro film
Inspiration: Flatliners by Peter Filardi

Waiting in Sagittarius for the Last *FULL MOON* of the year and decade in Gemini

GEMINI 20
A bull stung by a scorpion.
The elaborate ritual of putting yourself through life or death crises to determine what you are made of and how far you are willing to go in this life.
Choosing from expanded faculties the optimal situations to enact this battle royale.
Selecting what is karmically familiar. Variations on old themes involving bondage and freedom.
When you are trapped, caught, stuck, a furious inner force asserts itself and can reconfigure everything. But it is a high-stakes ritual drama and loaded with real dangers.
You must check yourself out in ultimate ways, for there is surging in your blood an impulse toward liberation, which cannot be distorted in any way.
An extraordinary journey through radical tests and trails of an initiatory intensity.
It is all about guts, and stripping away everything but the true inner direction.
And if you must slay and move through illusions on every front, that is just how it is.
You cannot survive any longer on old ways to do it–it is time to welcome the enemy into your very midst and discover that there are no enemies.”
Text  by  ELLIAS LONSDALE © Copyright 2019 published on https://www.mysticmamma.com/full-moon-in-gemini-december-11th-12th-2019/

Photographs by Michelle Gemma
All clothing by Susan Hickman
Models: Caroline Walz, Liz Walz, Alycia de los Santos, Vicki Rock, and Julia Farrar.

Last Quarter Moon

The LAST QUARTER MOON occurs on Thursday, November 29th, 2018, at 7:19 PM EST.
Thursday evening, the Last Quarter Moon is exact, when the Sun in Sagittarius forms a square with the Moon in Virgo.
The Last Quarter Moon phase points to some sort of crisis of consciousness.

Outtake from “The Balance of Power”

a new photo narrative featuring Model: Jane Alice
as my LIBRA
for the new series: Personal Universe, an astrological study starring the model stable of Michelle Gemma (2017-2018)
Photograph by Michelle  Gemma
27 July 2018
Stonington Boro, CT  USA
Full Moon Lunar Eclipse

https://michellegemmaphotography.com/
https://michellegemmaphotography.wordpress.com/

 

Destroy The Negatives

“Hi Michelle,
Although I have not run into you around Mystic in a very long time, I am sure you remember me since in the past you took photographs of Maria.

 

I have been meaning to call you, but usually do not remember until it is too late at night to do it.

 

As you know, Maria’s father was not at all pleased with the pictures of Maria.

Since the art festival is quickly approaching, I am emailing to ask that you absolutely do not use any photos of her in your booth this year or in any future years

– or show them at any other local events.

We have a friend who seems to go out of his way to check your booth each year and report back to her father, which always sends him into a tirade about how it was never the right thing to do.

 

I truly think it would be best if you destroyed all negatives of her pictures.  I know some were exhibited at the Wayne Richard Barbershop when it first opened, because someone else mentioned that at the time also.

 

Sorry this did not work out well.

Thank you for your consideration.”

—-Maria’s Mother

note: the photographer’s father was protective, also.

 

“This Night Has Opened My Eyes”

“The dream has gone
But the baby is real
Oh you did a good thing
She could have been a poet
Or, she could have been a fool
Oh you did a bad thing
And I’m not happy
And I’m not sad”

—-the Smiths, “This Night has Opened my Eyes”, from Hatful of Hollow, a compilation album released 12 November 1984, Rough Trade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatful_of_Hollow

featuring Model: Liz Walz wearing a handmade dress by Susan Hickman for Crocker House FashionShow
Photograph by Michelle Gemma

33: THE MAGIC NUMBER

“Since the most ancient of times numbers and numerology have been believed to conceal secrets and messages. For some, numbers have very special significance, with the ability to conceal true meaning from all but the initiated. To some, certain numbers can convey that something of particular importance lies within the text under their study. Such numbers needn’t even be written to convey the presence of a hidden code within a sentence or paragraph, only that the sum of letters included adds up to a particular number.
No number holds more esoteric significance than “33.” The number three is significant in all major religions. There is a Trinity for Christians, and a Triple Goddess for the ancients.”

“In the written words attributed to Shakespeare, to Francis Bacon, to Spenser, Dante, and others we can find hidden code words and paragraphs that use this number to alert the initiated reader that something important is connected.
In the works attributed to Shakespeare there are many phrases and passages referencing the number 33. Julius Caesar is stabbed 33 times. The body of work shows a mastery of numerology. The number 33 reflects the interface of the familiar world with the higher spiritual realm. In Hamlet, the Ghost is represented in the first scene with an entrance described in a sentence with 33 characters. And Horatio addresses the ghost in 33 characters as he leaves. “Stay: Speake, speake, I charge thee, speake.” In Julius Caesar, the ghost of Caesar visits Brutus in a passage that starts with a 33-character sentence, “That shapes this monstrous apparition.” Brutus recovers from the shock and addresses the ghost in a 33-word sentence.”

“From Iraq through Phoenicia to Phoenix Arizona, whether by design or coincidence, the 33rd parallel passes through some very significant places.
The ancient city of Babylon was very near the 33rd-degree latitude line while modern Baghdad is on the 33rd parallel. This area was once thought to be the Garden of Eden. Heading west, the line passes through Damascus, Beirut, and onto two Templar castles one exactly on the 33rd latitude the other at 32.71. The light of the sky is embodied by the Sun with the solar year divided by the sun’s cycle of 11.06 years, equaling 33. The Sun, defined as a circumference of 360 degrees divided by 11, equals 32.72.”

Crossing the ocean, the 33rd parallel brings us to Charleston, South Carolina. This city is the original site of Scottish Rite masonry in U.S. Charleston’s Fort Sumter is the location of the first shot fired in the Civil War as that state succeeded from the Union.
Coincidence or not, Dallas, Texas, was of course where President Kennedy was assassinated. Not only is it on the 33rd parallel, but also the date of 11/22 adds up to 33. During Kennedy’s administration Papa Doc Duvalier of Haiti was upset because aid from the U.S. was cut off. He claimed to put a curse on JFK, which caused his death on the date of those powerful numbers.
While writers on this subject often include Roswell, New Mexico, we’ll go on to Phoenix, Arizona. This was once the center of the Hohokam culture. The largest site, known as Snaketown, was only five miles from the 33rd parallel and the observatory called Casa Grande is five miles from the line as well. Here this advanced ancient culture built 500 miles of canals irrigating 25,000 acres.”

“Despite the reputation given to such beliefs by organized religion, science in modern times has come to understand the concept of a body clock, the effect of the lunar cycle on animals, and most likely people, and the reality of circadian cycles. Ancients might have known this as well. There are 33 vertebrae in the spine. In India, it is believed a vital energy is needed to awaken the spiritual energy located at the base of the spine. This coiled-up energy is known as Kundalini, and through Yoga energy it ascends to the brain and beyond. Both Hindu and Tantric arts seek this awakening.”

“The spinal column is often referred to as Jacob’s ladder, or the Serpent. It is also compared to the caduceus symbol of Mercury, Thoth, and medicine. Did the ancients also know there were 33 turns in a complete sequence of DNA? Could the Caduceus symbolize the two intertwining snakes apparently reflected in the 33-sequence, double helix DNA ascending a vertical pole, which could be the 33-vertebrae spine?”

“When the two threes are put together facing each other they offer a design that is said to represent the ancient Hermetic maxim  ‘as above, so below.’ ”

 “The heavens mirror the earth; the spirit reflects humankind.”

Photo Narrative featuring Writer Royal Young on location in Great Neck, New York

Excerpts from the article, “33: The Magic Number, Why Is This Number So Important To So Many?” by Steven Sora, Atlantis Rising magazine, March/April 2015 Issue #110

https://atlantisrisingmagazine.com/article/33-the-magic-number/

Photographs by Michelle Gemma