From Furies to Hope

Elpis, Goddess of Hope

or maybe Pandora

     Seeing as how I am following a thread about teachers on this blog, I thought I’d ponder about which teachers I’ve called upon in my search for calm and hope in these days. It seems only logical to first determine what my question for these teachers might be. One clue is what pops up often in my busy brain.

     I noticed that I’ve been asking, “Who is a Goddess of Hope?” I should know, should have known for years. I am a ritualist, after all, a priestess in the long tradition of those who celebrate the divine as female, as feminine. I can call up the myths about Goddesses whose provinces are the myriad expressions of nature, or women’s life cycles, or the eternal searches for justice, peace, good health, wisdom and more. But hope?

     Such myths matter to us in these times, even though they may have originated in other cultures and centuries ago. They have lasted through time because they are archetypal, they hold truth for us because they touch our common human experiences and thinking.

     So, I turned to the myths and that marvel of research methods, Google. I don’t exactly trust my memory these days of high stress and my books are packed away, which is a story for day. So, I typed “Goddess of Hope” into my search engine and up popped Elpis.

     Remember the story of Pandora’s box? The myth is recounted in Hesiod’s Works and Days. It seems the all-powerful patriarch and usually angry Zeus gave the gift of a sealed box or jar to Epimetheus, who had been warned by his brother, Prometheus, not to accept gifts from Zeus. But brothers don’t always listen and Epimetheus accepted the gift and apparently passed it along to Pandora, who opened it. The contents flew out: deadly sicknesses, evils of all kinds, and even additional “myriad other pains.”  So Pandora quickly replaced the lid. Too late and too soon. Hidden under the lip of the lid was Hope. Her name is Elpis. Hesiod doesn’t explain why She remained in the jar, but there she remains.

     For me, the metaphor is that we must search for Hope, for Elpis, in the dark places, in the details, in what we have closed off just as Pandora did with her box.  There is also the lesson about accepting gifts from patriarchal bullies, but that, too, is a story for another day.

     I have long believed that hope is a choice, that in times of despair or illness I must choose hope in order to survive. I worked for several years as an advocate for over 200 women (and a few men) who had been sexually assaulted or harassed. My coworkers and I were co-warriors for justice and healing. We fought with law enforcement officials and cops on the beat, with medical providers, with administrators of a large university, with fraternity sponsors and college boys and family members. Our fight – and it was a struggle – was to educate. In the end, it was about teaching compassion. All the while, there were the victims who came to us for solace, for help. Many of them were suicidal and I will always be proud that my brave compatriots and I helped keep those women here on this earth. We helped them heal, lead them to the experts who could help in deeper ways. I learned that the greatest force for healing was hope. They came to hope for their own futures because they found kindness and fierce company in their suffering.

     So, searching for hope must be my daily habit. Elpis, hidden but still There. So we can find Her. I search the peony blossoms, the smell after the rain, the smiles of my neighbors, my wife’s laughter and her singing, the kids jumping into the neighborhood pool, the numbers of people wearing their masks to protect us all, the wise ones who lead us in protest and demands for what is right and good. The young women organizing Black Lives Matter may well be Elpis, escaped and on the job. It occurs to me that the Goddess of Hope is present in change, in the change itself and what it produces.

     “Constant change is here to stay,” says my friend Sid.

     When it comes to change, I consult with one of my favorite teachers, astrologer Gail Fairfield. You can find her here: www.gailfairfield.com 

     These days, Gail tells me, the planets are engaged in a rare dance with one another. There are conjunctions, squares, trines, and other astrological arrangements in the heavens. It is complicated and some patterns reappear for the first time after 400 years. Gail reminds me lately that things will be messy for a while. Venus retrograde, Mercury retrograde, and more. Communication will be confusing and – well, messy. Gail’s recent blogs explain it all. The planets will move, things will change again and, we can see, become calmer. Eventually.

     As I struggle with personal stresses resulting from patriarchal bullies (hello, Zeus) and careless authorities and experts (and hello Epimetheus), those personal problems pale against the upheaval across the U.S. as we are called to face the evils that spill across the land (hello Pandora), as we must face our resistance to change. And there is the pandemic, bringing death and suffering and rampant uncertainty. We discover, yet again, that we know so little about a virus, about justice, about our own national history, about empathy, about how to live lovingly.

     What the myths tell me and what the teachers tell me is that we are in the midst of the messy chaos of change. And that is where Hope lives. Elpis may be stuck under the lid of Pandora’s box, but she is still there.

Oh, and there is Persephone – maybe She will visit next week.

I wish you blessings of hope in unexpected nooks and crannies.