Aphrodite’s Rhodophoria [2011]

There’s probably nothing like spending almost an hour bawling your eyes out in front of your shrine.

I didn’t celebrate the Rhodophoria the way many did. I wasn’t, and still am not, much in the way of celebrating festivals. I haven’t had enough spoons for weeks, even more so on Sunday. I don’t think She minded though. Or at least, I didn’t receive any sort of negative feedback afterwards.

I got the idea shortly before the festival to buy flowers and use each flower or bunch to represent one of my prayers for a person. The first two were centred around my love for other people, and asking Aphrodite for her help in those matters. The last bunch was for myself, which I think I really needed most of all, because I have so many issues with trying to love myself and living for myself.

I had a couple “breakthroughs” before and during the festival. One was finally getting over my fear of buying offerings and fearing they would “go to waste”. I actually went to two grocery stores before finally getting the damned flowers, because I couldn’t make up my mind and JUST DO IT. It came to me while I was walking in the mall, after having purchased LA Noire, and lamenting the high cost of flowers (although it ended up being not that high at all) and realizing, “Hey, I’m willing to throw away $40 on a game, but I can’t even buy $10 worth of flowers just to show how much I care?”. At that point I realizing how silly I was being, and went back to the first grocery store I had gone to and picked up the flowers.

The second was finally doing things from my heart, rather than by rote. My tears, my pain, and my words were genuine, and for all my forethought they still felt real. Reading off a list feels impersonal to me, and it makes the distance between what I’m doing that much farther. Doesn’t mean I won’t, however. Just that I’ll try and speak more from the heart when I say things, or try to memorize things enough that I can speak with full force behind my words, rather than having to concentrate on trying to say the right words. If that makes sense.

I ended up inviting Her into my dreams, if She chose to do so, to let me know anything. Interestingly enough, the only part of my dreams that I can remember involve me finding a dying tiny bird (a sparrow, maybe?) and running around trying to find a place that would take the bird and make him better. A couple times I remember thinking it was dead (or that I had accidentally crushed it in my hands), but then it would clutch my finger in it’s talons, or open it’s black little eyes to look at me. However I never did find a place, and that stream of the dream ended at a strip mall, having been taken there by my cousin and her boyfriend with my brother, and not finding a vet’s place (even though for some reason I had not brought the bird) and being incredibly distraught. (Also, for some reason I kept dreaming of a hot tub party full of teenagers, doing.. well.. what teenagers do. The last bit I had before waking up was not of me at all, but rather watching a boy and girl get in trouble because the dad came home or something, and they were heavily making out. Which was… weird.)

In the end, I was glad I did it. It broke barriers for me that I didn’t fully realize that needed to be broken, and what I did is slowly helping me heal, even if what I was originally wishing for doesn’t come true (which makes my heart hurt just thinking about it). I don’t think I’ll post publicly what I had originally written, only because it’s deeply personal even though I wrote it for a public audience.

Glittering-Minded deathless Aphrodite,
I beg you, Zeus’s daughter, weaver of snares,
Don’t shatter my heart with fierce
Pain, goddess,

But come now, if ever before
You heard my voice, far off, and listened,
And left your father’s golden house,
And came,

Yoking your chariot. Lovely the swift
Sparrows that brought you over black earth
A whirring of wings through mid-air
Down the sky.

They came. And you, sacred one,
Smiling with deathless face, asking
What now, while I suffer: why now
I cry out to you, again:

What now I desire above all in my
Mad heart. ‘Whom now, shall I persuade
To admit you again to her love,
Sappho, who wrongs you now?

If she runs now she’ll follow later,
If she refuses gifts she’ll give them.
If she loves not, now, she’ll soon
Love against her will.’

Come to me now, then, free me
From aching care, and win me
All my heart longs to win. You,
Be my friend.

~ Sappho

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