The Wicca Book of Days for July 19

The Adonia

The Adonia, a festival dedicated to Adonis was once celebrated today in parts of Greece. One story tells that this handsome youth was much loved by Aphrodite (Venus in Rome), and that when he was killed by the jealous Ares (Mars), the grief-stricken Goddess of Love persuaded Persephone (Proserpina), Queen of the Underworld, to let him spend a third of the year with her. His reappearance on Earth was feted to Spring, while women mourned his return to the underworld at the end of Summer, during the Adonia

Adonis’s Flowers

An ancient Greek myth relates that an Adonis’s blood soaked into the ground, anemones or windflowers, sprung up.  Either pick some anemones today, or do as women once did during the Adonia, and plant such quick growing, but short lived, herbs as fennel and basil in pots to create “gardens of Adonis.”