Another aspect of the story of the earth goddess Demeter is her relationship with the sea god Poseidon. Poseidon pursued Demeter when she was mourning the loss of her daughter Persephone. The goddess took the form of a horse and hid among the herds of Arkadian Onkios, but Poseidon found her, took the form of a stallion, and raped the goddess. As a result, she bore him two children - the horse Areion and the goddess Despoine.

America’s veneration (or worship) of Demeter has taken an odd form which suggests that we are at least subconsciously aware that the so-called “Statue of Liberty” (SOL) is indeed Demeter and not Libertas. I say this because we have had three major celebrations for the SOL:

• dedication ceremony on October 28, 1886
• 50^th anniversary celebration on October 28, 1936
• 100^th anniversary celebration on October 28, 1986

On each occasion, the ceremony was the same: an armada of ships filled New York harbor. In other words, we brought the sea god Poseidon into the harbor to honor the earth goddess Demeter.

As an interesting sidebar, the flagship of the armada for the 1936 celebration was the USS Indianapolis (CA-35). You may remember the Indianapolis from the discussion between Quint and Hooper in the movie Jaws. On July 30, 1945, the Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine on her way back from having delivered the parts for the atomic bomb which destroyed Hiroshima. Nearly 900 of her crew went down with the ship or perished in the sea; many were eaten by sharks.

Because she was making simulated bombardments of Johnston Island on December 7, 1941, the Indianapolis had been spared the fate of the other ships at Pearl Harbor. The Indy had been President Roosevelt’s flagship during his 1936 “Good Neighbor” tour of South America. The fact that she had been sent out on a mission a few days before the attack on Pearl Harbor suggested to some members of her crew that Roosevelt knew the attack was coming and had taken steps to save his favorite ship.