The Distant Wildness
Whilst out today, walking the dog (after falling on my ass for the first time since the snows started a week or so ago - damned ice), I came to the group of dark trees at the edge of the park that remind me so vividly of Artemis. The darkness stretched from tree to tree; I saw a gang of black birds (I don't know the exact species) and three squirrels, who fled up a tree as soon as me and the dog passed.
The instant the squirrels fled, the atmosphere turned from calm and lazy to eerily unwelcoming--not hostile, but close to it. I didn't belong, I'd disturbed the peaceful balance; it was acceptable for my dog to be there (a product of nature, a predator returning), but not for me. I left quite quickly after that, and it had me thinking on my trek back home.
How close, exactly, does Artemis let non-devotees come to her? Unless you're devoted to, or patroned by, her, how much of herself does she truly reveal? She isn't like Aphrodite, warm and accepting; she's the glint of a spear, the teeth of hounds, the call of the wilderness. If you spent enough time in her realm--untouched nature that survives in and of itself, quite apart from human influence--I think that you would become truly Wild - touched by a madness not unlike that of Dionysos' maenads. It would be the only way, reverting back to primality, becoming predator and prey once again in the cycles of the forest.
Although I've always had deep respect and awe for Artemis, it's only today I've realised just how ferocious she can be when she needs to. This is the goddess that slaughtered Niobe's children in myth due to the inbalance they and their mother created. She defends the balance--the peace of the earth is hers, harsh and unyielding to mankind. She is the forest that fights back; the teeth and claws, and the spreading darkness. She has influence over pain and war, love and life; helper of births and bringer of deaths.