Persephone (rituals, Earth, tradition, hell, myth)

[Feathers in Hair]

Originally Posted by nutshell

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The movie Gladiator had added meaning for me once I learned that the "field" the main character keeps seeing when he's close to death is the Elysium Fields. It was also nice that his wife and son were waiting for him. I suppose it appealed to my LDS Christian view of families being together forever in a type of paradise.

Oooo! I've got to see this now! It sounds wonderful! (And I think that view is an excellent one, of picturing one's family together in the afterlife. I'm not sure I'd have it any other way!)

[gnostic]

Originally Posted by Fluffy

Homer paints the underworld as a gloomy, weary place where even the Greek's greatest hero, Achilles, is miserable of death. This surely indicates that a heaven equivilant did not feature in Greek religion back then.

But Homer also wrote in that same book/chapter, where Heracles (Hercules) was a demi-god, his father is immortal and his mother mortal. His mortal half went to Hades, but his immortal half went to Olympus, married to Hebe, goddess of youth.

There is a bit of Orphic Mysteries here in Homer's writing, where each person have a mortal and immortal half. Have anyone heard of the Orphic cult?

It is in this Orphic creation myth, we have Zeus who was not only a father of Persephone, but he also had sexual union with to produce Dionysus. Here, Persephone's mother is Rhea, but who is also called Demeter. This Dionysus (sometimes named Zagreus) did not survived to adulthood and was lure out of his cave and murdered by the Titans. Athena saved Dionysus' heart for Zeus, who shared with the Theban princess Semele, and Dionysus was reborn - a reincarnation of the 1st Dionysus. (Actually there are 3 incarnations of Dionysus).

I have retold this story more fully at my website Timeless Myths - under Orphic Creation and a bit more of their belief in Orphic Mysteries.

Apparently, the Orphic cult believed that a person must 3 virtuous lives (they are reincarnated 3 times) before you can gain entry to the Elysian Fields. Persephone is the main judge, to decide if your soul can enter Elysium.

As to Elysian Fields or Elysium, being either Roman or Greek word, I am not certain because I am no expert in language. In the Odyssey, Homer wrote that when Telemachus, son of Odysseus, met Menelaus and Helen at Sparta, the sea-god Proteus foretold that they would lived in Elysian plain in Rieu' translation, or Elysian Fields in Fagles' translation. Hesiod mentioned in Works and Days that many of the heroes from the time of Oedipus to the Trojan War will reside in the Isles of the Blessed.

[alwayswondering]

Originally Posted by FeathersinHair

I think the amount she ate was a deciding factor in Zeus' ruling of how long she would have to stay in the underworld out of each year. For example, she ate 6 or 4 seeds out of 12, so she would stay down that many months of the year.

She was there three months, which is why we have three months of winter.

[Circle_One]

Ok, here we go, I've got a lot to write here.

On Persephone:

Persephone was innocently picking flowers one day in the field of Enna with some nymphs when Hades, allured by her smile, laughter and light surrounding her, burst out from the ground and abducted her.

He brought her to Tartarus (the Underworld), where he raped her, repeatedly, but eventually convinced her to fall in love with him.

Demeter, angered with the nymphs for doing nothing to stop Hades from stealing her daughter, promptly turned them into the Sirens. Forlorn at having lost her daughter, falls into a depression, and it is her despair that causes nothing to grow and the land to lie fallow, sending the Earth and it's inhabitants into near starvation.

Finally, Helios (the sun) eventually tells Demeter where she can find her daughter, but by the time Demeter gets to Tartarus, Persephone had already fallen madly in love with Hades.

Torn between the mother who bore her and the man she loves, Persephone makes the decision to eat six (not three, Alwayswondering, accounting for both fall and winter, at least, according to all I've read, though sometimes it is four) pomegranate seeds, which would force her to return to Tartarus, and her love, for half the year, and spend the other half on Earth with her mother.

On Elysium/Elysian (they ARE the same thing) fields:

The Elysian Fields (also called Elysium, as Feathers noted) are basically to Tartarus what Heaven is to Hell.

It's a paradise where heroes and the virtuous go when they die. Their life is lived as if they were alive, except of course, without all those they lived on Earth with. They do not even know they have died (unless someone were to tell them), and essentially continue living their lives.

Eventually, those who have gone onto the Elysian Fields forget all about those they loved on Earth, so they are able to go on with their life in the Elysian Fields in perfect happiness without the sorrow or grief of missing their loved ones.

Once their loved ones come to the Elysian Fields, however, all memories of them are returned and they can no longer remember not remembering them.

Passage between Tartarus and the Elysian Fields is forbidden and essentially cannot be done, except by Hades and Persephone themselves.

Ok.. I'm done I think..

[gnostic]

I usually associate "heaven" as being the home of the gods (ie Olympus), separate from the abode of the dead, and elysium is abode of the dead (not for the gods), like Hades, Erebus and Tartarus. But with Christian doctrines, heaven is both the home of God, angels and abode to those who had died.

Can Elysium really be defined as "heaven"?

[nutshell]

Originally Posted by gnostic

I usually associate "heaven" as being the home of the gods (ie Olympus), separate from the abode of the dead, and elysium is abode of the dead (not for the gods), like Hades, Erebus and Tartarus. But with Christian doctrines, heaven is both the home of God, angels and abode to those who had died.

Can Elysium really be defined as "heaven"?

I think it can be called heaven because it seems this is the best place mortals can go to. To my knowledge, they aren't able to go to Olympus.

[gnostic]

Originally Posted by Nutshell

To my knowledge, they aren't able to go to Olympus.

Only a few had reached Olympus. Heracles and Dionysus, Castor and Polydeuces (Pollux) are the only ones I can think of at the moment. There are certainly more. Though, I probably should discount Dionysus since he was already a god when he was born, but lived on earth, until he was ready to leave it.

In the Roman myth, Romulus went to Olympus too, and his name was changed to Quirinus, and possibly Aeneas (the Roman version at least). Psyche, but she didn't die to reach Olympus.

(Sorry, I can't think straight at the moment; I'm still feeling dizzy because I got the flu.)