Thesmophoria:
Decanting an Ancestral Ceremony

Last Autumn marked the second iteration of our community’s Thesmophoria. It’s an Ancient Greek festival centered around Demeter and Persephone’s initiatory journey that catalyzed the creation of the seasons.

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I had been craving a communally held, perennially enacted space where we could all come together each year in celebration of connection and the land. So I looked to my ancestral lineages and could not help but bubbled with delight as I descended into the folds of this ancient tradition.

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For several years now, I’ve grown tired of American industrial culture’s rampant and excessive focus on hyper-individualism, self-aggrandizement, and the hierarchical pursuit of specialness. I desired access to more spaces that reflected the brilliance of collaborative intra-dreaming, and felt enlivened by visions of what can happen when a group of people come together on behalf of something larger, and the need for self-centering is set down.

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After its first iteration in November of 2023, a whisper came from across the veil that the story longed for fuller embodiment. And with help from a few kith and kin we created an invitational space that filled with the trembling and excited willingness of community participation.

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As bodies coalesced from near and far, beauty sprang into form. Community members stepped into an ancient story, allowing it to improvisationally move them.

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Guided by a rich telling of the story, simple and elegant stage design, the movement of day to night, the enveloping land, and all who came to bear witness, for the second time an ancient ceremony was decanted.

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Voices swelled with the sounds of love, longing, grief, despair, and hope. Bodies painted the darkness with vital memories of sacred theatrics. And a participatory audience confirmed the story’s existence.

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As we all wove together in a holy dance of wonder, I marveled at the exquisite beauty being birthed. Even now, looking over these pictures stirs an exuberant grief and unrelenting joy from the depths of my heart.

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“Look what we're creating!” are the words that vined out from my chest and wound throughout my whole body.

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I still don’t know how to fully speak to this experience. Not so secretly, I know words could never convey the sheer magik of such a bewildering assemblage. For there will never be this exact conjunction ever again. Other conjunctions, yes. All infused with their own spell casting brilliance, yes.

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But these kinds of moments live on more in body than word. They impregnate the very cells of our imaginations, and leave traces of transformation scattered about the contours of our shared desires. Longing continues on like a thunderous storm in the heart whose rhythm echoes off the chambers of our fleeting lives. And hopefully we are stirred into perennial devotion, hungry for the opportunity to honor the world with ancient and emergent dreams. Filaments of possibility that assist in the co-weaving and -unweaving of worlds.

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Photography: Ursala Hudson

Enactment, Storytelling & Stage Design:

Chris Haas, Erin Evergreen, Simone Hudson, Sarah McFarland, Katja Wehe, Matt Huntze, Tempist Jade, Jesse Shavel, Areion Raven