The Story of Erysichthon
Ovid tells the terrible story of King Erysichton who orders his men to chop down a tree sacred to Demeter. Even the workers quake and try to dissuade him. He runs the main dissenter through with his sword and the rest, trembling, cut the tree down, the majestic, beautiful tree. The dryads scream in agony. Demeter sees and sends Hunger to inhabit Erysichthon's innards. As he sleeps she hovers over him; he breathes her in and he awakes with an insatiable hunger. He cannot stop eating and yet wastes away. Later he sells his young daughter into prostitution in order to buy more food. She manages to transform into an animal and escape. But he sees a business opportunity and sells her again and again.
In the end he ate himself. Demeter has spoken. When man destroys the natural world, he destroys himself.
Now today I witnessed a terrible murder. A gigantic fir tree, decades old, was cut down on the order of my new neighbors in Saint James. This tree was the first to catch the snow in winter, feel the wind as it coursed through our small town, shade my house from the summer sun. Now there is only a gapping hole where it had stood. The side of their house stands exposed in all it mundane banality. The power saws have been churning away for 12 hours and they drowned out the screams of the living being that was killed.
May Demeter note this act of hubris. this act of outrage. May she find a way to remind these sad little people that the earth is all we have...
