Tuesday 30 May 2017


    Whenever I am walking from my house to Southampton center - usually heading to a church - I pass an old yew tree whose wide trunk is embossed with a mass of wooden hemispheres, recalling the the mother-goddess, the emblem of fertility, the fountain of nourishment, an Anatolian divinity, who was "Grecized" under the name of Artemis. She appears in the bible (Acts 19:34) when Paul and his colleagues were trying convert the "pagans" living there. It is recorded that "When (the crowd) recognised that (Paul) was a Jew, one shout arose from them all: 'Great is Artemis of the Ephesions' and they kept in up for about two hours." If you read out loud 'Great is Artemis of the Ephesions' it really doesn't sound like a decent chant at all; but if you walk along shouting (very quietly - I am English) "Megale-e  Artemis  Efesion" it really has a good swing to it for walking.
I stop singing when I get to the church.

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