Prayer to Gaia

A modern LABRYS text (see greek-agathodaimon-001) for the anniversary of a death.

The occasion is ancient: the Greeks commemorated the dead by a reckoning — on the third day, the ninth, the thirtieth, and after a year, ta eniausia. The sequence was strictly kept, and each date had its rite.

The epithets are taken from the Orphic hymn to Gaia: all-nourishing, all-giving, all-accomplishing, "seat of the undying world". But the closing thought does not occur in ancient texts, and it is a good one: they have come "to give thanks for the hospitality you extend to the body".

The earth is called a host who has received a guest, and burial is xenia, guest-friendship, which carries obligations on both sides. The guest behaves decently, the host does not oppress; a year later the family comes to give thanks.

The turn is worth setting beside the Roman one. Latin epitaphs ask the earth not to press down, not to torment the ashes with its weight (terra-funerary-007), and the relation there is one-sided: the earth lies on top, the dead endures. Here the same situation is described as an agreement about lodging.

The thought is not ancient, but neither is it empty: it answers the same fear as the Roman formula, from the other end.