A Temple Wild Podcast
Hypnos and the Poppy: Ancient Greek Dream Incubation
In this episode, we’ll be meeting the Greek gods of Night, Sleep, and Dreams — Nyx, Hypnos, the Oneiroi, Mnemosyne, and more. We’ll explore dream rituals in ancient Greece, in particular dream incubation as a means for healing and divination as occurred at the temple of Asclepius in Epidaurus and at the Oracle of Trophonios. We’ll learn about how the Greeks understood their dreams and how they are connected to the Underworld. And we’ll meet one of my favorite flowers of the Greek landscape, the often controversial — and even illegal in some countries — Poppy.
Plants of the Underworld
Journey down, into the depths of the earth, to meet the plants of the Greek Underworld — the trees, flowers, herbs, and shrubs that ancient Greek mythology associates with the Realm of the Dead. Along the way, we meet the Underworld rivers and entrances to Hades; learn about the sacred kykeon of the Eleusinian Mysteries; discover a shocking truth about Persephone's connection with the seasons; and meet the botanical allies for navigating through death, grief, and the Unseen Realm.
Persephone and the Descent to Hades
Persephone is a youthful spring goddess wandering in fields of Narcissus and Asphodel when Hades, the god of the Underworld, comes to take her as his bride. And while her disappearance inspires her mother, the goddess of grains, to instigate a world-wide famine, it is Persephone who is changed forever by consuming the Pomegranate seed, later becoming an equal to Hades and ruling beside him as a Queen in her own right.