Fennel and The Listening-Returning Gods

Fennel is a plant of between, of translation. To translate is to listen and makeshift, substitute, rearrange, improvise. To translate is to listen with the next listener in mind. Fennel is beloved by gods who go between, who have been to otherworlds and return to tell the tale.

Fennel befriends god-thieves who steal cattle, steal fire, steal into the nooks and crannies of the world. Fennel loves torchbearers in the dark. Fennel allies with the gods who fetch powers, gifts, and other god-people from unreachable places.

Prometheus and Dionysus. Gods of substitutes, gods who transmute, translate, take-across. Prometheus who descended from Olympus to Earth with sacred fire. Dionysus who descended from Earth into Hades and fetched Ariadne and Semele.

And always, ever Hermes.