Elusive Eleusis

Eluesis, in all its glory

For some reason, the whole bus ride there I kept wanting to pronounce "Eleusis" the same way you would say "Ulysses," which, obviously, is incorrect. So Kyle gave me the phrase "Elusive Eleusis" to help me remember how to say it... and it works! And as a bonus, it's somewhat fitting, but I really doubt anyone else had that problem...

Is it possible to digress before you've even started? I don't think so... anyway, the next day we went to Eleusis, where the Greek goddess Demeter once existed. Eleusis is also home to the famous religious festival, the Eleusinian Mysteries, which to this day still remain just that: a mystery.

Hades' Cave! 

The story of Demeter & Eleusis (and the play we performed the day before) goes like this: when Hades kidnapped her daughter, Persephone, and brought her back to the Underworld, Demeter came wandering into Eleusis while looking for her (while in the form of an old, crotchety woman . It was there that she was welcomed by the Queen, who offered her hospitality in return for a nanny for their baby son, Demophon. While there, she only drank a concoction of barley water, and at night she anointed the baby boy with ambrosia and put him the fire (to burn away his mortality, obvi). One night, the Queen spied on the old woman, who dropped the baby (interrupting the ritual) and returned to her true form. Stupid queen, now her baby is mortal!

That's the long and short of it. The Eleusinian Mysteries were a kind of initiation ceremony that were held every year for a cult of Demeter and Persephone. Anything and everything surrounding these ceremonies were kept secret, as the secrecy was believed to unite the worshipper with the gods (and perhaps each other). Joe proposed a theory of his own, that the secret "rituals" may have been out in the open, but the average Joe (har har) wouldn't have known what was going on. The big daddy rituals were performed only once every five years, but ceremonies were held in Eleusis each year.

Again we were able to escape the heat by checking out the teeny tiny Archaeological Museum.




After Eleusis we went straight back to Glyfada for some free time... which naturally means gelato!! I was trying to hold out until I got to Italy... but that didn't work out so well.

What a glorious sight