Something New is Wanting to be Born

The Orphic Hymn of Prothyraia and the Magic of Liberation

Prothyraia made it ABUNDANTLY clear over the last few days that this post AND the translation should be FREE and unhindered by paywalls, etc. Once you read it, you’ll understand why.

Tbh, I feel sorta dumb that I didn’t see this one coming.

Sigh. Live and Learn.

Enter Prothyraia

The first picture of me and my son at St. Vincent’s hospital in Manhattan nearly 19(!) years ago. My tears were a mix of exhaustion and happiness after a labor of more than 30 hours.

She was born: my translation of the Orphic Hymn of Prothyraia, aka Artemis Eileithyia, aka Swift-Birther, aka She Who Stands Before the Door, aka Comrade and Charm of Labor’s Pains.

It seemed appropriate that in the weeks leading up to the recent eclipse, followed by the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction and a Scorpio full moon, She wanted to make Herself known.

For She is the One who appears when times get tough, during the throes of labor, before anything new is birthed—not only babies, but also any creative project, any ritual or spiritual undertaking, and most especially, any initiation designed to “birth” a new awareness or remembrance of who we really are. (Which, if you’re reading this, you probably already know is Children of Earth and Starry Sky. But follow that link if you want to read more.)

And don’t you feel Her in the collective mood right now? Something new struggling to be born? A new (and also very ancient) way of being in the world? A new (and also very ancient) relationship to Earth and Sky? And crucially, a new (and also very ancient) relationship to each other?

And perhaps just as strongly, we feel something (perhaps many things) blocking the way of this new birth. Habit. Greed. Force. Violence. Corruption. Laziness. The list is potentially endless.

Enter Prothyraia, whose job it is to smooth the passage, quell our fears, and relieve the pains that wrack our individual and collective body as we labor to create something new and beautiful and fresh and also wise and very very ancient — as ancient as the Earth and Starry Sky themselves.

So if Prothyraia is so important, why have most of us never heard about Her? The Hymn makes it clear that she IS known by names that are perhaps more familiar to the Greek myth fans among us — Artemis, or the goddess of labor and childbirth, Eileithyia (pronounced Ay-LAY-thooey-ah, a name whose literal meaning is “She Comes,” referring to the onset of birth pangs).

In the ancient world, these two names were sometimes combined into one, “Artemis Eileithyia,” though often left separate to designate different facets (or fractal faces) of the Goddess.

But though the Orphics make it clear they’re aware of her Artemis/Eileithyia names, they chose a different moniker for Her: Prothyraia (pronounced Pro-thoo-RAI-ah). So who is She?

Goddess of Childbirth, Magical Facilitator of Smooth Passage

Let’s start with Her name.

Prothyraia, translates loosely as “In Front of the Door.” It’s very clear from the Hymn that “the door” in question is, at its most exoteric (or surface-level) meaning, a reference to the “doorway” of childbirth. Prothyraia, then, is the goddess in charge of opening the “gateway” of the birth canal, helping to ease the pains of labor by ensuring a straight and easy passage into the world.

We can see this aspect of the goddess in her epithet “She Who Loosens the Belt”—the belt in question being most obviously the zona, or girdle, that Greek women wore to close their cloak-like shirt (peplos). (For more on the esoteric meanings of the belt, keep reading!)

Ancient Greek women, like many others in the ancient Mediterranean, gave birth in the company of other women, often using a special birthing stool or chair that facilitated the downward movement of the baby. Loosening one’s belt at the onset of labor was among the first steps of preparing for birth, which was a harrowing and extremely dangerous time for ancient women.

A heartbreaking scene from a grave of a Greek woman who died in childbirth. Her husband stands in front of her; the woman holding her hand gently to the side of the birthing stool is likely a relative or servant/slave who has accompanied her during labor. Note both the woman’s loosened belt that allows the peplos to fall open, and the special chair/stool and footrest that help position her for an easier birth. Attica, c. 330 BCE, Harvard Art Museum collection.

“Belt-Loosening” was not only a practical step, however. It was also magical. At the first sign of labor pangs, Greek women sprang into action. Not only was the laboring woman’s peplos freed up, but so were many other things in the immediate vicinity. Doors were unlocked. Anything that was crossed, crooked, or knotted was taken out of the birthing room. The people present (and even other interested parties elsewhere in the house or community) didn’t interlace their fingers or hands, didn’t hug their knees to the chest.

These were all magical ways to make sure that the “knots” or “bindings” (Greek: desmoi) that attached the placenta to the uterine wall (and hence the baby to the mother’s womb) were loosened, allowing the infant free and safe passage into the world. We see explicit references to these folk magic practices in Prothyraia’s Orphic Hymn, which not only evokes the goddess as door-opener, but also in other epithets: “Charm of Labor’s Pains,” “Keyholder,” “Liberator of Labors.”

This trope of knotting/loosening and locking/unlocking is found in all sorts of Greek spells and hexes, which were conceived as a kind of supernatural knot, fetter, or binding (desmos). These “binding spells” (Greek: katadesmoi) were used in all facets of life to bring about desired outcomes — athletic contests, courtroom litigation, domestic disputes, and erotic encounters. (I’ve written about them previously in my discussions of Sappho, the Orphic Hymn of Ares (especially note 3 in my commentary), and spoken about the Greek Magical Papyri in this interview with

Vivi Henriette

)

Archaeological drawing of a Greek katadesmos tablet from Pydna, Macedonia. The initial word, katadesmeuō reads, “I bind,” followed by a long list of the person’s legal opponents. Figure from Jaime Curbera and David Jordan, “Curse Tablets from Pydna,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 43 (2002/3) 109-127

Antidotes and salvific charms were, conversely, seen as bond-looseners — means by which the knots of circumstance or fate were untied. In childbirth, then, “loosening the bonds” was both a practical medical necessity (loosening the “ties” that kept the placenta in the womb) AND an important magical warding. To ensure a smooth birth, those present made a point of undoing any knots or interlacing, or even crossing of knees and fingers. Everything had to be untangled and free.

(For those of you looking for more reading on this subject, see the brilliant and evocative study of Greek childbirth ritual, including its relationship to binding, knots, Eileithyia and the Moirai in Maurizio Bettini’s Women & Weasles: Mythologies of Birth in Ancient Greece and Rome. University of Chicago Press, 2013. Translated by Emlyn Eisenach.)

To sum up: for the Orphics, Prothyraia’s role — in literal childbirth as in Orphic ritual — was to make sure all bonds were loosened so that the “doorway” for the birth to be successful. In literal childbirth, the result was a healthy baby. In Orphic ritual, the result was a “re-born” initiate who was now a fundamentally different type of being than the person who had walked in the door.

We’ll get to the “mechanics” of this initiate re-birth and Prothyraia’s role in it later in this essay. First, I want to digress a bit into the realm of Hellenistic astrology, because the astrologers in the house are probably eager to explore the somewhat glaring overlap in vocabulary between this Orphic hymn and the astrological technique known as “Zodiacal Releasing,” and its associated method of “Loosening the Bonds.”

A small statue of a woman on a birthing stool, with a loose (ungirdled) peplos. Ptolemaic Egypt, c. 1st c. BCE.

Goddess of Bond-Loosening: Prothyraia, Necessity, and the Astrological Technique of “Zodiacal Releasing”

Simply put, the Hellenistic astrological technique of “Zodiacal Releasing,” is a way of determining periods of one’s life when there is a marked shift in one’s fortune. The idea is that by knowing when you are likely to experience dramatic shifts in fortune, you can make your life-choices accordingly, thereby increasing the chances of a favorable outcome. “Loosening the bonds” is one aspect of the larger Zodiacal Releasing technique, and it is associated with particularly dramatic or unexpected changes.

A comprehensive review of techniques used in this method are beyond the scope of this article, but what I DO want to talk about here is the language of the technique, which owes a great deal to both the Orphic Hymns and Greek folk magical practice.

In contemporary practice, Zodiacal Releasing is largely conceived — as many timing techniques are — as an indicator of when certain facets of an individual’s “fate,” seen as set from the moment of birth, will manifest. This relatively deterministic view of Fate owes much to later Greek and Roman Stoic philosophy, as well as later monotheistic forms of astrology.

However, the ideas about bond-loosening in the Orphic Hymns presents us with a much more fascinating and pliable concept of Fate — one that is rooted in notions of co-creation and co-becoming. (More on that below.) It’s my rather bold belief and proposition that the bond-loosening language at the root of this technique’s formulation do NOT presuppose a pre-determined cosmos. Instead, they offer us a way of working with Fate (and astrology generally) as a collaborative endeavor.

(In the upcoming cohort of STAR: An Orphic Initiation, the class I teach alongside astrologer Drew Levanti, we’ll be digging a little more deeply into possible implications of this alternative take on Fate for Zodiacal Releasing.)

So let’s break this all down.

I’ve talked elsewhere (in my essay on the Orphic Hymn of Chthonic Hermes) about the important image of Necessity’s web and the “twirled cords” of the Fates (Greek: Moirai) that bind us to a particular destiny. This image of Necessity and the Moirai creating twisted or twirled webs of Fate is critical to understanding Prothyraia’s role in untangling them.

The Orphic Hymn of Chthonic Hermes, Fugitive Trickster of the 5th dimension

The Orphic Hymn makes Prothyraia’s role as cosmic de-tangler very explicit in the line “Liberator of Labors of those held in Fearsome Necessity.” In other words, when we are caught in a particularly gnarly web of Fate, Prothyraia is there to help free us.

Once we understand her role as liberator of Necessity’s bonds, we have a clue for how to read the hymn to extract potential the astrological implications. For instance, that same line “Girdle-free, Having loosened the zone,” can be read not only as applying to the literal girdle (Greek: zona) loosened in childbirth, but also the celestial pathway (zona) Prothyraia helps clear by loosening the bonds of Fate.

This is where things get interesting in terms of the hymn’s relationship to Hellenistic astrology.

First, a caveat: I’m not proposing that the Orphic Hymn encodes a specific technique of “Zodiacal Releasing.” What I DO think is that this Orphic Hymn provides us with the mythical/poetic/esoteric language and conceptual framework out of which those later traditions of Zodiacal Releasing developed.

For instance, the astrological technique of “bond loosening” involves predicting times when the “path is clear” for certain events or activities. The astrologer begins by, first, calculating the person’s “Lot of Fortune (Tuchē),” a point on the chart that indicates general levels of bodily health, wealth, and prosperity — i.e. one’s overall circumstances in life.

Once the Lot of Fortune is determined, the technique of “Loosening the Bonds” quite literally requires the astrologer to leave the usual belt-like path (zona) of the zodiacal order and move across the chart in unusual ways. In other words, to “loosen the zona.”

(For a fuller discussion of the ins and outs of this technique, see Chris Brennan’s Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune, pp 576ff, or Demetra George’s excellent work Ancient Astrology in Theory and Practice, Volume 1, Chapter 34.)

Here, I’ll simply point out the obvious overlap in both vocabulary and conceptual framework, and suggest that later astrologers drew upon Orphic esoteric Mystery teaching, giving it specific mathematical/astronomical parameters that eventually became Zodiacal Releasing as we know it.

One more caveat: For those who know the Lots primarily as Hermetic developments, it’s important to point out that:

a) the Hermetic tradition draws upon earlier Orphic material in all sorts of ways, and

b) both Hermetic and Orphic material draws upon much, much earlier Egyptian astral lore. So saying that the Lots use Orphic vocabulary and concepts doesn’t negate the Hermetic influence, it simply places both astrology and Hermeticism within the wide stream of Orphic-inspired ancient esotericism.

My visual of some of the esoteric “stream(s)” that influenced Hellenistic Astrology.

Goddess of Bond-Loosening: What (or rather, Who) are these Bonds, anyway?

And now we come to the real heart of the Orphic understanding of Prothyraia — Her role in creating a new type of being, the Initiate.

In this original Orphic understanding, Prothyraia is not associated with an astrological technique, but rather, as a relational Being who works to loosen the bonds of “fearsome Necessity” that bind the initiate to the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, freeing them up to remember who they — who WE — really are.

Get ready to go spelunking, because this esoteric Prothyraia stuff is about to get DEEP.

As I wrote about in the Chthonic Hermes piece, one way the Orphic Hymns picture the cosmos is as a four-dimensional web of Fates (Greek plural: Moirai; singular: Moira): the three dimensions of space, plus time that together, make up the animate body of the universe. Each Moira is a living being who embodies one of those strands of Fate that is “birthed” whenever a soul is born into the world. (I put “birthed” in scare quotes because as we know, nothing is truly born or dies, since we are all always already part of the All...but for the conventions of language, we can say that we are “born,” “die,” and so forth.)

The Moirai criss-cross each other in a tangled, twisted net/web/weaving that not only includes each human soul born into the cosmos, but EVERYTHING IN IT — animals, plants, stones, air, fire, stars, water, and so forth.

And each one of these Moira can in turn be mapped, or charted, on the two-dimensional surface we know as an astrological chart. It’s a 2D representation of our 4D Fate (or Moirai) — who we are, where we live, what we do, etc. etc. (our life in 3D consensus reality) as captured at a specific moment in time (the 4thD).

A visual of the moirai and how they "map" onto an astrological chart, in this case, Leonardo da Vinci's birth chart. (Chart from astro-seek.com)

But here’s the thing. Whereas some later philosophical and astrological understandings of Fate see it as something immutable, a dictat ordained by some Supreme Cosmic Commandante, the Orphic understanding of the Moirai as LIVING BEINGS means that Fate is RELATIONAL.

Think about it: in a living cosmos, EVERYTHING is alive, including Space-Time. (You can listen to the audio version of my essay on the totality of Space-Time as the body of Kronos using the link below.)

Audio Teaching on Kronos/Saturn & the Time-Space Continuum

And on this living bodily field of Space-Time (aka Kronos), we each are traveling around (and locatable via) specific 4D points on and in that space-time body.

Maybe an apt image would be cellular: the microorganisms that traverse and compose our own body. In theory, if we could attach a little GPS tracker to each one of them, we could locate them not only at a specific point in time, but also a TRACE that would appear as a line or thread, like the lines on a GPS tracker. Those traces, in this analogy, would be the microbes’ Moirai, a representation of their localization in space and time.

Our Moirai can be thought of the same way: as traces of our soul’s movement through and in the body of Kronos (aka living space-time).

But here’s the REALLY trippy part: those traces themselves, the Orphics believed, are alive and capable of interaction. So it’s not just the individual (human, plant, event, microorganism) who is alive, but their track or thread through time is ALSO alive.

THAT is what Fate (Moira) is. Or more appropriately, we should probably say WHO Fate is.

(I couldn’t resist giving the Moirai in Leonardo’s chart some googley eyes!)

Goddess of Bond-Loosening: Prothyraia as the Divine Embodiment of Liberation

I want to take a moment to reflect on the enormity of the cosmological shift we’re talking about:

From Space-time as an inert field (“background noise”) that we move through

To Space-Time as an embodied BEING (Kronos), with whom we can have a relationship

***

From Fate as a GIVEN circumstance or set of decrees that we enact

To Fate as an embodied BEING (Moira), with whom we can have a relationship

***

From inert-ness, immutability, and bonds

To life, relationally, and liberation

That difference? That difference is Prothyraia.

She is the living embodiment of the mutability of Fate.

When we are born, when we are re-born, when we birth something new: Prothyraia helps us tinker with and loosen the bonds of Fate and clears the pathway for a new, more vivid and flourishing life.

From the womb to the first breath: Prothyraia clears the way.

When we are undertaking a new creative project or relationship: Prothyraia clears the way.

And when a community gathers in ritual to teach new initiates about how to remember who we really are (Children of Earth and Starry Sky), Prothyraia clears the way.

For She is the living embodiment of path clearing and bond-loosening. She is the One who negotiates and fusses with the Moirai, coaxing them into new, freer forms that are more conducive to life.

An Important Caveat about Untangling Fate (and why Prothyraia is an important Comrade and Charm)

Now, if you’ve been paying attention, you may come to wonder: why not cut out the middle-person and relate directly to the Moirai themselves, who, after all, are living beings?

Well, the quick answer is that in a certain sense, we are relating to the Moirai directly all the time — because our relationship with the Fates is what philosopher Bayo Akomolafe would call “processual” — meaning that we are engaged in a relational, open-ended co-becoming with them.

As I was writing this essay, Bayo posted this on his Facebook page. A deep bow to you, Brother Bayo!

In this understanding of Fate as processual, Fate is not a “thing” that happens to me, or even a Being who “I” can relate to. Rather, both Fate and “I” (my apparent discrete self) are co-woven together. Every single moment my Fates and I are both being born together and birthing something new together.

Together, my Fate(s) and my “self” arise as an assemblage, a tangled ball of four-dimensional cosmic yarn.

And here’s the important caveat about trying to relate to or untangle your own 4D Yarn-Ball of Fate, especially in ritual or magic: it can be a tricky and dangerous business. (The dangers of childbirth are, not coincidentally, a helpful comparison.)

Honestly, engaging directly with one’s own Moirai in a ritual way is not necessarily something I’d recommend trying at home, judging from how careful the Orphics themselves were in their summoning of the Moirai (and the HUGE amount of very specific ritual warding they put into place before doing so). Perhaps there’s something a little dangerous about distancing oneself from one’s Moirai enough to view oneself separately from them. (At the very least, the risk of dissociation seems high.)

But Prothyraia? As the Hymn tells us, She’s both your Comrade and your Charm. And a f*cking powerful one, at that. Invoked right off the bat in the collection of Orphic Hymns, She inaugurated the whole Mystery ritual, clearing the path for the awesome rites of memory and rebirth that were to come.

When She was called in to loosen the initiates’ bonds, it was with the intention of untangling their Moirai — the path in life they had hitherto been on, the false narratives and forgetfulness in which they’d been enamored. Prothyraia’s presence as soother and smoother opened up new, more vital and nourishing ways of being.

Later in the same ritual sequence other deities would be called upon, each to add their own “special sauce” into the mix, so that the initiate could truly come to know their fundamental kinship with the All. But Prothyraia came first so that the unhelpful tangles of Moirai would be looser and freer, more conducive to Life, capital “L.”

What this tells us is that She’s the One you want by your side if you want to engage ritually with your Moirai. Calling on them directly might be a like going it alone in a dangerous childbirth, where both Mother and Baby are imperiled. But call on Prothyraia, and She’ll be the perfect midwife to clear your path.

As we all struggle to birth something new in this strange, terrible, and beautiful, beautiful world we inhabit, I can’t think of anyone better to invoke than Prothyraia, the bond-loosener.

May She untie that which tethers us to inertia and death, and facilitate our recognition of kinship with each other, and with Earth and Starry Sky.

As my friend Emma taught me to say,

Blessed 👏 F*cking 👏 Be! 👏

Many, many thanks to my colleague and co-teacher Drew Levanti for reading through an early draft of this article and helping me refine my language around Zodiacal Releasing techniques. Drew is a brilliant teacher of astrological timing, and I’d highly encourage you to check out his personal course offerings on his site, Arche.

***

Of Prothyraia

Incense: Storax

Hear me, O Manifoldly Majestic Goddess,

Daimon of many names,

Comrade and Charm of labor’s pains,

For those in childbed, 

You are pleasant to behold.

Sole Savior of Females,

Easy-tempered Lover of Children,

Swift-birther, You are present 

in the girlhoods of mortals,

You stand by young women,

and are in attendance here

in the rejuvenation of the dying.

Prothyraia, 

She Who Stands Before the Door:

Keyholder, Custodian, Priestess, 

Gracious One,

Fond of nurturing, Soothing to all,

who commands the houses

of everyone, everything,

and rejoices in abundant good cheer.

Girdle-free, 

Having loosened the zone,

Unseen—starless and secret—

You bring to light all possible things—

The Absolute—in works, deeds, and matter.

You feel with those in the throes of birth

and you rejoice 

in easy and prolific deliveries,

Eileithyia, 

She Who Comes to Mind,

Liberator of the Labors

of those held in Fearsome Necessity.

For women in childbed

summon You Alone, 

Repose of Souls.

For in You, 

the banes of childbearing

become pain-looseners,

Artemis Eileithyia

and Revered Prothyraia.

Listen, Blessed One,

Being present as 

comrade and charm:

Vouchsafe a birth!

Grant offspring! 

Bestow a lineage! 

Save!

For You are by nature

an Antidote:

Eternally a Savior,

You produce generations

of everyone, and everything:

You engender Eternity

forever and ever.

Quince blossoms from my terrace garden. A sign of something new being born.