Elizabeth's Ana Suromai

Lifting Our Skirts
Background information

Setting: Greece
Time: lost in the mists BCE
Event: Demeter is raped by Zeus gives birth to Persephone.
Persephone is raped by Hades (with the support of Zeus) gives birth to Iaachus
The Eleusinian Mysteries follow
Involving the pivotal act of ana suromai – the lifting of the skirt

The mythic moment of ana suromai:

The Goddess is laden/troubled/despairing. Her daughter has been ravished/raped/ abducted and her rage has brought an end to productivity/fertility/invention. The world trembles at her vengeance. All fear catastrophe. They claim this very thing has happened before.

But by the wild fig tree/poor peasant hut/crossroads, a hearty serving maid/pregnant wife/ wild woman waits. She waits, her desire restrained/tucked/concealed, secret beneath her skirts. She waits and so is there when the Goddess passes.

The maid/wife/woman throws/falls/dances herself onto her back, her thighs spread and beckoning. She murmurs/whispers/laughs lewdly.

An intoxicating whiff of desire escapes the Goddess. She marvels as this bubble of life force erupts from the blight of her mourning. She wonders at the maid/wife/woman’s rashness: how can the mortal know it is good that looks her in the eye? The maid/wife/woman winks provocatively. Should it matter?

The Goddess finds her grief/despair/rage relieved infinitesimally, but it is enough. Possibility has reinvented itself in the distraction, whispers of negotiation and compromise have been impressed on her divine ear. She walks
in reverie, her passage marked by bounty, abundance escaping her skirts.

The Exhibit

In order to present this complex material so that it's comprehensible and can be enjoyed it will take this form : we have used as a start point four of the powers of a woman with her skirt raised (from ancient sources), they are Cow Bulls, Still Waves, Blind or melt the Devil, Defy Death the core of everything is Defy Death.

We have also used the two ideas of "ana suromai" (the raised skirt gesture) and the myths of what is under a woman's skirts (such as is represented in the Sheba story below {older post}).

Some of our main resources

Here is our basic resource list for the mythology from which we have built the stories and the imagery.

Winifred Lubel: The Metamorphosis of Baubo
Carl Keneryi: Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother And Daughter
Marina Warner: The Beast and The Blonde
Robert Graves: Greek Myths
Robert Graves: The White Goddess
Rian Eisler: The Chalice and the Blade
Nor Hall: The Moon and The Virgin: Reflections on the Archetypal Feminine

Bridge of Jests

I am working on this image called the Bridge of Jests. In many forms, this is a digital collage from an original drawing.

At the Eleusinian Mysteries the Bridge of Jests provided the transition point between regular life and the place of ritual for the participants. The participants arrived at Eleusis after a solemn procession of several days during which they left behind their daily concerns.
As the participants approached the place of ritual they had to cross a bridge on which was performed the ana suromia gesture. This had the purpose of provoking ribald laughter following the solemn walk, preparing the participants for the many and varied complementary transformational experiences of the Mysteries.

a dream; Baubo

This is from a dream I had about the extraordinary character Baubo.
If you are new to this blog read down to find out more about Baubo.