[image: Demeter-statue-London-British-Museum.jpg]
*Demeter:  Distraught Mother*
First of all, we should point out that nobody blamed Demeter for having
eaten that young boy's shoulder.   She was, as the subheading above states,
distraught at the time.    Though the back story is well known, we review
it again in order to defend this flesh-consuming goddess.    One of six
children conceived by the titans Cronos and Rhea, Demeter quickly matured
to become the goddess of harvest and fertility: one of the twelve Olympian
gods.   Demeter presided over all of the crops, fields and forests of the
world.   All arable land was her domain and she tended to it all so
diligently that all crops flourished and every speck of soil was dark, rich
and fertile.      With her brother Zeus, Demeter conceived Persephone, her
only daughter.  Demeter and Persephone delighted in each other's
company and spent many years together exploring the wild regions of Earth.
Unfortunately, the beautiful Persephone caught the attention of Hades, god
of the Underworld.   Initially, Hades was content merely to admire her from
afar.  Eventually, though, his desire became so overwhelming he resolved to
make her his wife.     One afternoon Persephone was outside gathering
flowers while her mother was elsewhere.   To Persephone's amazement, a
widening fissure suddenly opened in the meadow.  Arising from this fissure
was Hades driving a chariot led by fierce black steeds.    Hades swept
Persephone into his arms and promptly dove back down the fissure en route
to the Underworld.  As soon as he was gone the ground closed behind him,
leaving no trace of the opening.  Demeter soon came in search of her
daughter but couldn't find her.    For the following nine days and nights,
she roamed the world trying to find Persephone, but to no avail.
Eventually Hecate, goddess of witches, encountered Demeter and advised her
to consult the Sun god Helios, the one deity capable of simultaneously
seeing everything that transpired on Earth.     When Demeter sought out
Helios, he told her that Hades had abducted her daughter in order to make
her his wife.     Helios added -unhelpfully- that the situation was all to
the good as "Hades will prove to be a fine husband."     Unconsoled by
Helios' interjection, Demeter lapsed into despondency.   Not only did she
miss her daughter, but she assumed that Persephone would never return to
Earth.   Quite soon after her meeting with Helios, Demeter and the other
Olympians were summoned to Tantalus' palace for dinner.   Despite her
distress, Demeter attended the feast, albeit out of obligation.     The mad
Tantalus, intent on testing the gods' omniscience, served his guests a stew
made out of his son Pelops.    While the other attendees immediately knew
the content of their gruesome meal and pushed it away, Demeter
absent-mindely ate the stew and, in so doing, consumed Pelops' shoulder.
 The furious Zeus promptly resurrected Pelops and sent Tantalus down to
Tartarus to experience an eternity of burning thirst and ravenous hunger.
Hephaestus fashioned a shoulder of ivory for Pelops to replace the one
Demeter had eaten.      It wasn't long after that ghastly meal that Zeus
had to contend with a much greater problem:  Earth had grown cold and
desolate.  The plants and crops were dying.    All the humans were
miserable: cold, hungry and on the brink of starvation.     Realizing that
Demeter was responsible for this famine, Zeus commanded his brother Hades
to release Persphone back to her mother's care.     Though incensed at his
brother's demand, Hades relented, or at least seemed to do so.  He spoke to
Persephone through the door to her bed chamber, where she had obstinately
remained since her arrival at Hades' palace.    He told her that Zeus had
compelled him to return her to Earth at once.   Delighted at her imminent
liberation, Persephone emerged from the room.  She looked haggard and
gaunt, both from her profound sorrow and hunger, for she had not eaten so
much as a morsel since her abduction.   Hades "kindly" offered her some
pomegranates prior to their departure.   She accepted them gladly and
consumed them at once.    Hades then informed Persephone that by partaking
of food in the Underworld, she was obliged to remain there.      Hermes,
who, at Zeus' request, had been spying on Hades to make sure that he
released Persephone, returned to Olympus and told Zeus of Hades' trickery.
  Zeus, now incensed himself, realized that Persephone was required to
remain in the Underworld.   Even he could do nothing to free her of this
obligation.   However, he did broker a compromise with his brother.   For
part of the year, Persephone would be allowed to live with her mother on
Earth.   She would then be required to live with Hades in his palace during
the remainder of the year.      (We sadly acknowledge that nobody asked
Persephone for her opinion on the matter.)    Whenever Persephone returned
to Earth, Demeter became so joyous that the land turned soft and fertile,
crops flourished and all vegetation grew luxuriantly.  However, when
Persephone returned to Hades, Demeter became so morose that all crops
withered, the ground hardened and the world grew cold.   In the
mythological world, the change of seasons was ascribed to Persephone's
vacillation between Earth and the Underworld.

[image: 218411-425x258-Virgo-constellation.jpg]

Persephone is the Greek counterpart to the zodiac constellation Virgo the
Maiden.   The Sun progresses through Virgo from mid September to the end of
October: the time period between summer's end and the end of summer-like
weather.   Virgo disappearance behind the setting Sun corresponds to
Persephone's return to the underworld and the start of the protracted cold
season.      Virgo rises when the Sun sets in March, the time when
Persephone ascends back to Earth and the frozen world begins to thaw,
albeit with frustrating slowness.

[image: Thesmophoria_by_Francis_Davis_Millet_1894-1897.jpg]
The abduction of Persephone, the subsequent search conducted by Demeter and
her daughter's ultimate return to Earth were the theme of the sacred
rituals now known as the* Eleusinian Mysteries. *That these rituals
were* c*onducted
annually at the Panhellenic Sanctuary of Eleusis is about all that we know
of them.   Initiates into the mysteries were bound to a solemn oath of
secrecy that apparently nobody broke as knowledge of them remains scant.
 It is known that during the mysteries, a single ear of corn was presented
to the participants.   Though that act seems prosaic, it is said those who
participated in the mysteries experienced an intense rapture rarely
bestowed onto mortals.    A rare moment of Aether and Olympian ecstasy on
Earth.   As the Eleusinian Mysteries remain profoundly mysterious, that
claim could be readily believed for it will never be disputed.

THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
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Founded January 1970
Julian Date: 2459192.16
2020-2021:  LVI


THE DAILY ASTRONOMER
Tuesday, December 8, 2020
Remote Planetarium 130:   The Pisces-Cetus Supercluster Complex

Our next step in the cosmic progression is a doozy,  a technical term
lifted from the "Astrophysical Journal."   The Pisces-Cetus Supercluster
Complex, seen below in an artistic depiction, is the structure that
contains the Virgo Supercluster and a vast array of others.

[image: Superclusters_atlasoftheuniverse.gif]
This incomprehensibly large structure is one billion light years in length
and approximately 150 million light years wide.  One can separate this
Supercluster  Complex into five distinctive regions: (1)    The
Pisces-Cetus Supercluster.   The Pisces-Cetus Superclusters are its richest
clusters and consequently became the complex's namesake. (2) The
Perseus-Pegasus chain of superclusters, including the Perseus-Pisces
Supercluster.  (3) The Laniakea Supercluster, which, as we learned during
the last Remote Planetarium session, contains the Virgo Supercluster.  This
supercluster contains the Local Group of which the Milky Way is a part.
 (4) The Hercules and Sculptor Superclusters as well as the other members
of the Sculptor Region and (5) Pegasus-Pisces Chain of Superclusters.

According to recent estimates, the Pisces-Cetus Supercluster Complex is
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 times more massive than the Sun.       This value
is determined by observing the motions of galaxies within the clusters
comprising this complex.      Our own Virgo Supercluster of Galaxies
accounts for 0.1 percent of the complex's mass.  While not exactly
negligible, our entire home supercluster is miniscule relative to its home
complex.

University of Hawaii astronomer R. Brent Tully only discovered this complex
in 1987!     As we can see in the above image, this complex also contains a
few voids that, like the other clusters, are named for the constellation
regions in which they were observed.

As we will discover next week as we continue our progression toward the
outermost reaches, the Pisces-Cetus Supercluster Complex is not the largest
structure.      We will move from the realm of the utterly incomprehensible
to that of the mind-numbingly incomprehensible.    That one syllable
difference will prove quite substantial.


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