Rachel Alexander's Blog, page 304
December 15, 2018
thewordsthatbindme:
“They burst. Wound against one another, tangled and embraced, they burst in...
“They burst. Wound against one another, tangled and embraced, they burst in six-pointed frames of red against the life-giving leaves. Their forms were gentle: delicate and temporary. Each petal opened against the air, unbearable and tender. Their centers unfurled. They waited”— Receiver of Many, Rachel Alexander
December 14, 2018
thewordsthatbindme:
“Hope is hard-forged blade, keen and shining. Used recklessly, it will maim and...
“Hope is hard-forged blade, keen and shining. Used recklessly, it will maim and scar; but wielded with finesse, it will give you the power to carve a destiny of unsurpassed glory.”— Destroyer of Light, Rachel Alexander
owlmylove:
me, reading about women in Ancient Greece who could devote their entire lives to being a...
me, reading about women in Ancient Greece who could devote their entire lives to being a virgin priestess of hallucinogenic honey: god I wish that was me
Have you heard of the sooty owl? They are frightening and their eyes are probably hell portals.
i DID actually while i was looking up owls a while back oh MAN they have incredible faces, like some kinda confused ghost who ended up in a bird and now just has to live with it
looks like they come in lesser and greater sooty flavors, and theyre both pretty similar except for their sizes (about 43 cm for the greater, 37 for the lesser)
theyre like someone took a barn owl and just lowered the brightness, threw some speckles in there, made their eyes a direct portal to the infinite nightmarish abyss, called it a day
the YOUNG SOOTY OWLS on the other hand dont even look like real animals. they look like someone made a dodo out of felt and accidentally left it in a dryer. owls are great
thewordsthatbindme:
“What is happening to me? I can’t stop thinking about her; it’s as if she’s...
“What is happening to me? I can’t stop thinking about her; it’s as if she’s possessed me.”— Receiver of Many, Rachel Alexander
December 13, 2018
Will we be getting a Poseidon/Amphrite scene?
Probably not in this book. Subsequent books… likely.
Any more tiny teases?
I could show you a picture of my ankle, I guess.
therkalexander:
The marriage of Hades and Persephone blossoms...
The marriage of Hades and Persephone blossoms and their mysterious grove in the world below thrives…
…while the sunlit world withers.
Demeter holds out in Eleusis, pushing both mankind and the gods to frozen starvation in order to reclaim her daughter. The newly married rulers of the dead must reach an accord with Persephone’s mother to stay her deadly course— and come face to face with sacrifice, responsibility, and the balance of power among the gods.
Destroyer of Light concludes the erotic romance begun in Receiver of Many: a battle of wills among the gods is writ large across the dying earth, a cruel sorcerer-king faces his trial, and the King and Queen of the Underworld realize a destiny that the Fates alone could have foreseen.Destroyer of Light, the sequel to Receiver of Many, debuts on March 20, 2016. Available for Preorder in Paperback and eBook
Hi, how will you explain the Myth of Hades and Persephone to the people living in Southern Hemisphere ? Because when we have Spring, they have Autumn and when we have Autumn, they have Spring!
Well….
This is a story of some significant allegory, not necessarily hard and fast science explanation.
For the same reasons I’m not using the earth’s 22 degree axial tilt to explain why Persephone journeys to the Underworld, I don’t know if I can offer a satisfactory explanation that includes the Southern Hemisphere.
As far as seasonal religious holidays are concerned, I know that many neopagans in Australia and New Zealand celebrate the wheel of the year offset six months from the Northern Hemisphere so that their practices more accurately reflect nature.
To be perfectly honest, I actually “flipped” my telling in Receiver of Many so that it more accurately reflects weather in the temperate zones of the Northern Hemisphere rather than what actually happened in Greece. The reason I did this is because the temperate climate is what I’m familiar with. I’m not as familiar with the Mediterranean climate of Greece.
Here is why the Greeks came up with the idea of Persephone spending 4-6 months in the underworld:
The above graphs are the temperature and rainfall for Eleusis in Greece.
In the summer months, the rain virtually stops for three to five months depending on the severity of summer and the temperature rises at the same time. Wheat can only grow in temperatures less than 24 degrees Celsius, which means that it starts dying off in May and the winter wheat crop can be planted in October.
So when the Greeks were talking about Persephone being taken away and the crops not growing, they were thinking heat, and little to no rain. In fact, the Skiraphora, a threshing festival, took place in late June. The people of Attica would pray for a cool summer and some intervening rains during the festival in a bid to ask Demeter not to grieve the loss of her daughter quite so hard.
In a culture where this was the difference between life and death, they took the story of Demeter, Hades and Persephone very seriously.
