My First Touch with the Goddess

Since I was a child, the wild nature had a sort of magic power on me. All the times I visited woods, groves, and springs, I always felt unbelievably excited, without knowing the matter. Until the age of twenty eight, I thought the woods to belong to Dionysus and Pan, and to be inhabited by Satyrs, Sileni, Bacchae, and Nymphs. I believed these spirits to be those who inspired me that excitation. Unfortunately, I lived in the Italian town of Venice, interesting and amusing under many points of view, but made of stones: being an island detached from the mainland, it was not easy to reach natural landscapes. Any way, not very far from Venice lie the first southern face of the Alps, the highest European mountains, so I visited its woods as often as I could, to get in touch with Satyrs and Nymphs.
When I was twenty eight I moved to a small town in the mainland, at about twenty miles from Venice. At a few miles from my home lay the springs of river “Sile”, among woods, groves, and meadows. I spent many week-ends losing myself in that wild nature, at all seasons.

However, the observation of the annual renewal of nature, my studies in Greek philology, and my previous relationship with a Mistress —Who clearly showed me all the Power of the female element— changed my mind about the spirits who inspired me the divine excitation. I early understood that behind that magic could be only a female spirit, a Deity as the Minoan Goddess of Nature, who dwelt in Crete, or the Phrygian Goddess Rhea-Cybele, who dwelt in Western Anatolia. I did not deny the presence of Dionysus and Pan, but those spirits should lie below Her, the Goddess. Perhaps, they were nothing more than Her toy-boys.

One day of summer, walking in the wood, I discovered, hidden behind the vegetation, an idol of the Madonna (the Virgin Mary), with a notice where you could read Rispettate la Madonna delle Piante (= “Have regard to the Virgin of Plants”). My mind immediately went to the 18th Idyllium of Theocritus, line 48, where on a plane tree, sacred to Helen, was written “sébeu: m’ Helénas phytòn eimí” (= “worship me: I am the plant of Helen”). Now, Helen’s assimilations to Goddesses of Trees often lie on a possible link between the Rhodian cult of Heléne Dendrîtis (= “Helen of the Trees”) and the Arcadian cult of Ártemis apanchoméne (read “apank-homéne”; = “Artemis hanged”). Furthermore, all around the idol, among other kinds of plants, I reckoned nine palm trees. The species of tree, believed to be sacred to Artemis and especially common within her shrines, and, moreover, its number —a multiple of three, symbol of Moon Goddesses— led me to think that the “Virgin of Plants” should be a heritage of Artemis, surrounded by nine nymphs while dancing a circular dance.

Although my family and I were been always proud to be atheist and anti-Christians, that idol frightened me so much that I escaped. However, the day after I was again in front of Her: I invoked Her, uttering Homeric formulae as Ártemi pótna theà, chryselakátou keladeiné. I asked Her to protect me, offering Her, in return, my total fidelity.
At those times, with striking surprise I had already seen that, at any country-crossroad, lay an idol of the Madonna: it was impossible for me not thinking to Hecate, the Protectress of Crossroads.

In the Full Moon nights, the dogs, sacred to Hecate, were used to bark around those crossroad idols. The natural overlap of the two Moon Goddesses, already present in the sixth century B.C.E. (cfr. Hesiod, fr. 23a.15-26 Merkelbach-West), led me to reckon myself as a worshipper of both Deities, perhaps only two different aspects of the same Goddess.

Now, living in England, I meet Her every Saturday and Sunday in the enchanted groves of this fairy country.