Happy International Non-Binary People's Day!
Today we have a very special episode interpreting Artemis as a demi-woman non-binary person.
Artemis is the wild deity associated with forests, mountains, and other wild spaces. Yet as a hunter, Artemis is as at home engaging in men's hunts like stags, boars, or lions as they are engaging in women's hunts like doe, fauns, hares, and small cats like lynxes. The very fact that Artemis hunts with a bow at all could be seen as a facet of gender nonconformity.
Artemis is the Moon. In antiquity as today, Pagans viewed the Moon as an androgynous being manifesting the masculine power of the Sun with the feminine power of the Earth in a single being.
The story of Actaeon, the tragic hero who saw Artemis against their will and was turned into stag and ripped apart by his own hunting dogs. Yet it is in the way Artemis is scraping the grime of a hard day's hunt when Actaeon intrudes into this space.
Yet Artemis is also a patron of women in childbirth, nurses, and young children. Artemis is looked to when women and children are in their most vulnerable moments. This key religious function of Artemis is more feminine.
Artemis shows wild unpredictability and ironic cruelty when insulted by mortals. Yet when Artemis does try to take part in a masculine pursuit like conflict, they fail every time.
So Artemis blends masculinity and femininity in a wild non-binary deity.
Thank you for exploring Artemis the Non-Binary with me today!
Have a great Non-Binary People's Day everyone!