Calendar of the Moon
3 Duir/Skirophorion
Arrephoria
Color: White
Element: Earth
Altar: Upon a white cloth lay two white candles, incense, a shed snakeskin in a basket, and one
of two special carved boxes with the lid open. The other, matching, box has been taken out the
year before and placed in a special below-ground shrine, where it has been a sacrifice to the earth
gods all year.
Offerings: Each member present should bear some secret thing, wrapped in cloth, that they wish
to send into the Earth. None should ask to see what each bears; it will be known the following
year, when this box is returned.
Daily Meal: Root vegetables.
Arrephoria Invocation
Hail Athena, virgin who holds herself apart!
Lady, you have sacrificed the part of yourself
That might have been earth,
That might have borne children,
That might have given comfort of the body,
That you might be Athena,
Great and glorious goddess in armor.
Yet when Hephaestus attacked you and spilled his seed on you,
Although you turned him easily aside,
The seed fell to Earth and became a child,
Half-serpent like your Gorgon-headed shadow side,
Showing that there was something of Earth left in you yet.
You gave the child in a basket to a mortal family,
Instructing them never to lift the lid,
And the secret spawn of gods therein would bring fortune.
And so it is with our secrets,
That we give them unto the Earth
For the time of one year
Until they are ready for the light of your gaze.
Hail, Lady of the penetrating mind!
(One who has been chosen to do the work of the ritual walks around with the box, and each
places into it their wrapped secret. At the last, the snakeskin is placed into it, and all cry "Hail
Erichthonios!" The box is closed, tied with cord, and each present makes one knot in the cord.
Then two women take the box to the shrine and bring back the other box, which is opened, and
the secrets shared with all present. No secret can remain hidden in this way for more than one
year. Afterwards, the secrets are placed on the house altar or given away or burned.)
[Pagan Book of Hours]