We passed the old excavations of the Roman forum in Tomar and Ton is tuning in to the Roman times.
“In ancient Roman time in Tomar, there was a temple for the Roman goddess Ceres, the goddess of abundance, of fertility and of the grain. She was the goddess of the summertime. On the other side of the river was the temple of Cale, much older, from the ancient times of the Celtic tradition. When this town was a Roman town, all these cultures mixed. Celtic traditions, Roman traditions… and these two goddesses, the summer goddess and the winter goddess, were equal. They met each other: the dark and the light one, the dark feminine and the light feminine. Cale was a goddess that was going down, together with the Celtic culture, while the Roman culture was coming up: a more rational, structured, masculine culture, which later on introduced Christianity. And thus a patriarchal time set in, with a monotheistic god, and the goddess completely disappeared from our consciousness, from our memory.
Your task is to bring the goddess back; the connection with the land, the connection with fertility and the connection with the dark goddess, the deeper realms of the soul. In Tomar the story of the dark goddess Cale had its incarnation in Santa Iria, who went down into the water, who was raped by a Christian monk and later on murdered – which is symbolic for the Celtic tradition that went down, and the rise of Christianity.
Let’s focus on Ceres, goddess of the grain. She was the origin of the Festa dos Tabuleiros – hence the flowers, the bread, the grain. The people of that time had their procession, going from this side of the river to the other side of the river, to meet the goddess of the winter. As long as there was a cooperation between light and dark, there was balance in the kingdom and everything flourished: there was life and there was death. There was summer and there was winter. There was growth and there was decline. But as soon as the Celtic goddess, the dark goddess, went down, the balance got distorted and people only wanted to look at the light side: growth and abundance… This has grown into capitalism, into greed, into the quest for money. And since we lack the dark goddess, we can no longer see the value of decline, of death, of going down, which is necessary to bring balance to a society.
So in a way you represent that part that is diminishing, but by diminishing you call forth also Ceres, the goddess of abundance and growth. Your working place could be a temple for Cale, the energy of decline, of winter, but you also represent the upward movement of Ceres. It’s like communicating vessels: the more things go down, the more things will come up. You always work in pairs, like the two of you work in pairs: the masculine and the feminine.
In Roman times there was a flourishing culture. There was an abundance of food, of meat and fish, of culture and religion, of writing… This culture referred back to a much more ancient time, 2000 years earlier, when there was a high culture too. And you can even go further back and back and back. You only see the upper layers, but the more you connect deeply into the earth, the more you will see the continuous line of history that is here in this place. By connecting with those deeper layers you will start to understand the future and the role of why you are here: to open a door, to open a gate towards the future. Your role is not to fight the present situation, your role is to envision the future. And to plant the seed for new generations to come in the next 2000 years.”
(21/02/2025)
