Photo for today:
Josey, with her EXTREMELY politely bored look, imploring me to play
with the Kong bone with her. ::laughs:: She’ll sit like this and just
stare at me with these super disappointed eyes until I cave and play.
Love that absurd pup!
So
I Am The Storm posed a question to me on my previous entry,
inquiring into the backstory of how I came into an alliance with the
Harpies. ::chuckles::
Even in the most liberal of Pagan circles, Harpies are typically not
an entity one works with other than in hex-craft, to be honest. And
sadly, this is but a tiny sliver of what they embody. So follow me down
the rabbit hole here and learn about my understand and my
workings/dealings with the Harpies.
Harpies (in Greek mythology) are children of Thaumas, a sea god, and
Electra, an Oceanids -aka- a sea nymph; and Iris (goddess who is the
personification of the rainbow and is the messenger of the gods) is
their sister. Now, here we will make a break from the patriarchal and
Christianize version of what the Harpies are. I have Medusa (another
one of those “scary” goddesses, until you peel away the bullshit
twisting of her mythology, again thanks to patriarchal/Christianizing)
to thank for the urging to look deeper.
Originally, the Harpies are described as half woman, half bird
personifications of storm winds. They are even described as beautiful
and fair-haired. Originally, they were storm deities, though they don’t
much care for the title of “deity” and they don’t behave in the same
manner as deities I’ve worked with in the past and present. I see them
more along the lines of Nature Spirits, and they are very much tied to
the storms.
Celaeno (whose name means “The Dark” – referring to the dark of the
storm, not negativity or evil) is the one I work most closely with. Her
other sisters, who I’m assuming are Aello (the “Storm Swift”), Ocypete
(the “Swift Wing”), and Podarge (the “Fleet-foot”) convene with Celaeno
quite often, but Celaeno is the only one who speaks to me. The other
sisters are just a wide array of bird calls, from twitters and chirps to
screeches and caws.
Ok, yes. I understand that this is just back story and history here, but not how I actually came into an
alliance
with them. ::chuckles:: Bear with me here. I have to dispel the
erroneous notions of what Harpies are before I can explain my
relationship with them. So originally, I was working with Medusa, who
was showing me how Greek mythologies (specifically hers) have been
perverted over the years due to Christianity’s fear of strong women and
its ancient hatred of the Goddess and Goddess-based faiths. Once I saw
the beauty and strength in Medusa’s tale that had been shrouded like
that, I got to looking at other “monsters” and peeling back the layers
there as well. And the Harpies took note of that, and like the wild
nature spirits that they are, it took a while to earn their trust and to
come to an understanding of how they work exactly.
And damn, did they school me when I made the mistake of attempting to
barter with them before truly knowing them. An on-line friend and her
two dogs were attacked by a pack of bear hunting dogs and I couldn’t
just sit here and do nothing. So I called on the Harpies, because, even
though they are predominately storm spirits, they are still the “hounds
of Zeus” and are swift carriers of justice/punishment. We had only
established an acquaintance level relationship at this point, and I came
to them asking for protection of my friend and for divine justice upon
those who had harmed my friend. And in my zeal, I knew I had to offer
up a sacrifice of some sort on my part, and so I just agreed to a
“sacrifice”. And the Harpies twittered about that for a while among
themselves before Celaeno came and asked me if this was what I really
wanted. I should have listened to the caution in her question, but
again, I didn’t know them very well and so I barged on ahead.
So they deemed I would give up coffee and I agreed, thinking it would
be for 30 days. ::laughs:: Little did I know that they would instead
take my favorite drink away from me. And I was working at Starbucks at
the time and was KNOWN for drinking only White Mochas…an
espresso based drink. Now, this was years ago, and even now, I don’t like the taste of White Mochas. ::laughs:: Damn tricky ladies!
So I learned my lesson there. If I must barter with them, I get all
the details long before we actually strike an accord. And because I am
significantly more shrewd in my dealings with them, I’ve earned a bit of
respect in their eyes now. They didn’t screw me over in the original
deal
just to screw me over. They did it to show me that one does
not make deals with spirits/deities/entities that are open ended. They
could have really screwed me over if they had wished. Instead, they
did it
just enough to hurt and to teach me a lesson, but not to completely fuck me over. Does that make any sense?
So now, I mostly deal with them in their storm roles. I can hear
them playing as the storms roll in. They appear as winged ladies, or as
amorphous ladies – think the way the ghosts in Harry Potter appear.
Wispy and fading in and out of sight, dancing and cackling among the
thunder, lightning, and rain.
When dealing with the Harpies, I use offerings of incense – typically
storm/rain based aromas though they are also a fan of sandalwood. Or,
if I need a “stronger” offering, extremely dark red wine – so red it’s
almost black in color – and it has to have a bite to it. None of that
sweet shit for them. ::laughs:: Feather offerings are made from time
to time. And I’m thinking of trying bird seed as an offering to them as
well and seeing how that pans out. It would feed the song birds, which
feed the birds of prey, so maybe it would work. I will just have to
try it and see.
