“Philotheros [lover of the wild], I desire to feast, not in the city, but at Hera’s shrine, enjoying gusts of the west wind. A linen pallet on the ground beneath my body is enough for me—a bed close by a native tree (promalos), and a willow (lugos), ancient wreathing (stephos) of the Carians. Let wine be brought and the Muses’ charming lyre, that, drinking to our hearts content, we may sing of glorious Hera, mistress of our isle.” (Nikainetos quoted by Athenaeus 15.637b-c Kaibel 1890)
Nikainetos was a poet who lived in Samos in the 3rd century B.C., around 290 B.C. and is often included as one an Abderite, a student of a pre-Socratic school of thought that was founded between 440-430 B.C. The fragment above helps to illuminate a more fragrant view of the sociology surrounding the Temple of Hera and how is was likely a common practice to lounge about the Temple feasting in merriment until lulled off to sleep on a convenient pallet, bed, or couch there on the grounds, to dream dreams and have divine visions of the Mother Goddess while resting there.
One can’t imagine that the noise, smells, and hustle and bustle of city life offered much by way of peace and divine dreaming. Before all Hera was a nature Goddess with rituals founded for river gods and votives proper for a deity of both protection and fertility, the latter extending to crops and the renewal of life from death as a Goddess of Spring. She was also held as a mistress of wild animals that included griffins, oxen, horses, lions, and several birds. And in as many as twenty separate cult houses, throughout time, there is solid evidence that Hera was the Goddess of hearth and home. We may also allude to Hera’s Rite of Spring and the conclusion of the cycle in the autumn with The Harvest of Hera; a seasonal pattern that illustrates the notion that the giver of life (The Earth Goddess) also takes life away. The same notion can be seen in the mythos of “hero”, (Hero/Hera – Those glorified through Hera) who almost always died a young death.
Hera was the most influential and honored at one point in time while Zeus, who many attempt to place above her, can be viewed as a paranoid degenerate whose life and actions only served to back that point of view. His mortal gifted esteem and position was granted primarily by the sexist feminine suppression and social upheaval of Homeric times. Where Zeus was all force and chaos Hera was nurture and serenity; attributes typical of a mother goddess. And so, it is to the Temple of Hera where one ventures to find peace and simplified comforts of life.
It does not take a stretch of the imagination to see a clear vision of what a common Temple visit would have been like. A visit based in relaxation and merriment honoring Hera until one is mused to curl up on a soft pallet and be lulled into dreamful sleep in the arms of the Goddess herself with a belly full of food and drink that only serves to allow Sleep to visit more easily and dreams to become much more vivid.
How many visions came to the minds of mortals in such a manner? How many hidden, subtle blessings to the minds of men; to muse and encourage a much more rustic existence than anything we may experience in the modern world, still with all of its grit and grime. It’s so easy to slip between silken threads to touch the divine, so easy to find the sense of peace to the depths of the soul…and so easy to deny it all in the here and now. Perhaps we have forgotten what is important.
So, we come to the Temple of Hera to feast, sleep, and dream on a common day with common foods. What we might find there are things such as: arugulas, cucumbers, artichokes, cress, fennel, radishes, squash, grapes, olives, figs, pears, plums, apples, pomegranates, peas, lentils, sardines, an array of sea foods, goat, goose, boar, chicken, deer, rabbit, lamb, a variety of breads, and the fragrant bergamot oranges that, today, the essence of which is commonly used in the making of Earl Grey tea. All such foods may be seasons with things such as pepper, dill, salt, thyme, saffron, coriander, mint, and oregano.
Bread was a staple in ancient times with the inclusion of a small amount of vegetables, olives, and wine incorporated into everyday consumption. All of which was eaten by hand rather than with utensils. Raw fruits and olives were common as side dishes with any regular meal and often that meal was not a “fancy feast” but a feast of simplicity. It was perhaps an unrealized effort to take something really good and not screw it up.
All of this there in the cool shades of Hera’s Temple, a wide open space beyond highlighted by pools of golden sunlight. The soft caress of the west wind mixing and mingling the scents of the foods and the Temple together into a new form of ether unique only to that moment. A ghostly, fluid, lubricant that allowed one to slip from mortal form and into something more, however briefly. A simplistic feast set in the divine, an afternoon nap in the lap of a Goddess…a slow, steady, nurturing, and stress free life full of magic, mystery, and wonder known only to those who, with bellies full, dream.
How quickly mortals forget.
