Lions and Bees: What’s the Connection?

October 16, 2015
Lions decorate the sleeve of Artemis of Ephesus. From a 2nd century Roman reproduction. Photo: Miguel Hermoso Cuesta.
Lions decorate the sleeve of Artemis of Ephesus. From a 2nd century Roman reproduction. Photo: Miguel Hermoso Cuesta.

The following research is related to my next book (in progress) about animal divination.

Most people are aware of the connection between lions and bees through the biblical story of Samson. The hero featured in the Book of Judges was on his way to meet his betrothed when he encountered a lion, which he killed with his bare hands. Some days later he passed the carcass and found a swarm of bees in it, and he scraped out the honey and shared it with his parents without telling them where he found it. The biblical account is quite clear on this point, perhaps to reconcile some inconsistencies in the tale, such as that honey coming from a dead carcass would not have been kosher. A kernel of this story originates in the cult of the bee goddess of Anatolia, as does the myth of Aristaeus recounted by Virgil near the start of the Common Era. Before moving back to Anatolia, let’s look at the Greek myth.

Aristaeus was the child of the huntress Cyrene, who liked to wrestle lions barehanded, and the sun god Apollo. He was fostered by myrtle nymphs, who taught him the cottage industries of olive curing, cheesemaking, and beekeeping. One day he was distressed to find that all his bees were dead or dying. He traveled to a pool of water and asked his mother what to do. She directed him to a seer, who revealed this was punishment for his role in the death of Eurydice. (This occurs in a well-loved tale that is only tangential to this story.) Aristaeus sought his mother’s counsel again, and she instructed him to build four altars to the wood nymphs and on them sacrifice four bulls and four heifers. He was then to leave the sacrificial place and return on the morning of the ninth day, bringing poppies, a calf, and a black ewe. When Aristaeus returned with these offerings, he found bees in a rotting carcass, which rose in a swarm to a nearby tree.

Seated woman of Catal Huyuk. 6,000 B.C.E. Photo: Roweromaniac.
Seated woman of Catal Huyuk. 6,000 B.C.E. Photo: Roweromaniac.

That Aristaeus is raised by myrtle nymphs is significant. It reveals him as a shamanic deity who travels to the underworld to gain knowledge. The myrtle tree is a symbol of love and marriage today due to its association with Aphrodite, who is remembered by most for her love goddess aspect, but myrtles in ancient Greece were used for funeral wreathes. While the flowers and even the leaves have a sweet fragrance, the sweetness was associated with death, perhaps because corpses emit a sweet odor as they decay. The idea of honeybees swarming on a dead carcass of any kind is absurd, although they do gather around the myrtle tree.

Bee and lion imagery in Anatolia goes back to before the fifth millennium. The Seated Woman of Catal Huyuk, who is flanked by two felines usually identified as leopards (which could as easily be lionesses), looks strikingly similar to classical statues of Cybele. The goddess Cybele is unmistakably enthroned between male lions.

Cybele’s myth, as told by the Greeks, starts with her arrival from outer space in the form of a meteorite. Cybele eventually falls in love with the beautiful god Attis, who returns her attentions for a time, then becomes infatuated with another. The infuriated Cybele harasses him ceaselessly until he goes insane. In remorse, Attis tears off his genitals and dies of his wounds beneath a pine tree. Cybele tearfully shrouds his body and buries it at the mouth of her sacred cave shrine, along with the transplanted pine tree.

Perhaps it was Cybele’s fiery form across the sky that first evoked the image of the fierce, fleet, destructive lion. The tormenting Cybele is the angry bee. The emasculation of Attis refers to the death of the drone after copulation. The pine is of a species found in Turkey which draws a type of aphid that sweats a sweet nectar. Bees congregate around this pine, attracted to the aphid nectar. The resulting honey is renowned for both its taste and its healing properties, and it is mentioned in Classical medical literature.

Another healing agent known to ancient physicians is the opium poppy, which strongly attracts bees. The bees gather poppy pollen granules to take back to the hive. Bees, lions, and flowers that could be poppies appear on the statue of Artemis of Ephesus, along with cattle, goats, and the animals of the zodiac. Whatever the name and personality of the mother-goddess as she was first worshiped at Ephesus, she evolved into a goddess exhibiting hybrid traits of Cybele and of Artemis, who had already absorbed many other goddesses by the time the Greeks colonized the Anatolian coast. That the bee is meant to be a significant and not a minor facet of Ephesian Artemis is demonstrated by the coinage of the city-state: deer on one side; bee on the other.

Coin from Ephesus. 4th Century B.C.E.
Coin from Ephesus. 4th Century B.C.E.

It is in Greece that art specifically linking the bee and the lion first appears, yet the association seems to have been imported from Anatolia. The swarm of bees arising from the heifer/bull sacrifice rather than from a lion is a Greek permutation of another myth. Normally bees are assumed to be linked exclusively with bulls in pictures, but we often forget cows can also have horns. Bees and cows are alike from a human standpoint, in that they provide nourishing food from their bodies. Bees like cows are normally fairly docile and allow themselves to be “herded” into a new field or nest site. But bees are like lions in that they roar, they like the sun, they hunt in an open field, they are territorial, they attack in a coordinated fashion, and (when possible) they make their home in caves.

Sources

Gough, Andrew. “The Bee” (parts I-II-III). June 2008. http://andrewgough.co.uk/articles_bee1/

Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. London: Penguin, 1992.

Monaghan, Patricia. The Book of Goddesses and Heroines. St Paul, MN: LLewellyn, 1990.

New English Bible. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1972.

Nap Time’s Over: Mercury Goes Direct

October 9, 2015

samhain_inbasket

Mercury retrograde (when the planet Mercury appears to be moving backward in the sky from our Earth perspective) is a time for taking care of things we’ve been neglecting. Often that thing that’s been neglected is sleep. Mercury goes direct October 9th at 10:57 am Eastern Time (14:57 Universal Time), so it’s time for things to start moving forward again. What a relief!

Thoughts on Sunday’s Eclipse

October 2, 2015
Photo taken from Tampa Florida by Patrick Murtha.
Photo taken from Tampa Florida by Patrick Murtha.

This week was my first opportunity, believe it or not, to view a total lunar eclipse. Times when I might have theoretically been able to witness the event, the sky has been overcast. I watched the eclipse from the parking area in back of my house, a rather unromantic spot to commemorate a great occurence but one that afforded clear unimpeded observation. I had to stay up rather late to be visually present, but I was still very alert, and I can corroborate that the moon at first seemed to disappear bite by bite, and then to be present in a greatly diminished state. At first I was incredulous, despite intellectually understanding and accepting the event, as the immediate impact was surreal.

Of course I have been present for every partial and total eclipse in my lifetime, whatever the time of day or atmospheric condition. Without access to a spaceship there is no other choice. I think this eclipse has been unusually impactful, and I mean that in an uncomfortable karma-as-teacher kind of way. A lot of unbalanced accusations flying, with less self-aware people reacting to internal conflicts in a projected manner. I don’t know whether this heightened eclipse syndrome is related to this being a supermoon (moon at its closest orbit to earth), the eclipse occurring so close to the equinox, or Mercury retrograde adding communication problems to an already difficult aspect. Usually I do not do any magic around the time of an eclipse. I find the spell dampened or ineffective and prefer to wait for a more productive time. Beginning a day or two before the solar eclipse and continuing until the lunar, I try to affect my will magically as little as possible. Sometimes other events make this policy impractical, such as the Fall Equinox/Harvest holiday occurring smack in the middle of the two events. Even in this situation, however, I tend to keep the focus on worship rather than tangible goals. I have been taking a vacation even from larger writing projects and spending more time in the woods. I had to come out of retreat temporarily last week nonetheless to use magic to aid someone in a crisis that needed immediate intervention.

For me the eclipse seemed to be winding down even as it began, since I am an Aries and we tend to experience transits before they happen. I think this has to do with the Aries attraction to novelty manifesting as recognition of new vibrations in their prodromal phase, giving way to boredom with them as they develop. In fact, I’m surprised I’m even interested in debriefing this recent astrological event. It was, however, an exceedingly powerful one.

Nine Day Solstice Program – Mago Academy

September 25, 2015

nine-day-solstice-celebrarion-poster-2

Regarding last week’s call for contributions for the book program, here is more information:

“We anticipate the Nine-Day Solstice Celebration to be an event of joy, solidarity, and self-empowerment for us, Goddessians/Magoists and all in WE! Why the Solstice season? Celebrating the day of December Solstice would be a way of balancing ourselves, as human members of the terrestrial community including the moon, with the songs and dances of the cosmic community. Traditionally, Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere marks a new beginning of the year’s cycle for the earthly community in the North. We would take this seasonal mark as a symbol for us to recognize the oneness of the whole community, as our ancient ancestors did.”

Web page for the event is here. There will also be a program on meditation guides and possibly one about women artists.

Here is the tentative schedule:

Day 1 (Dec. 14): Opening by Mago Sisters and Mago Circle Members hosted by Helen Hwang, Trista Hendren, and/or Kaalii Cargill
Day 2 (Dec. 15): Mothers and Daughters hosted by Trista Lee Hendren Løberg
Day 3 (Dec. 16): 2015 Published Goddess/Female Divine Books hosted by Hearth Moon Rising
Day 4 (Dec. 17): Seeking Inner Voice of S/HE (Meditation Guides) hosted by Marie de Kock
Day 5 (Dec. 18): She Rises Contributors Speak hosted by Barbara Daughter
Day 6 (Dec. 19): Goddess Pilgrimages hosted by Kaalii Cargill
Day 7 (Dec. 20):
Day 8 (Dec. 21):
Day 9 (Dec. 22): The Collective Rising: Our Visions and Dreams for 2016 hosted by Trista Hendren, Kaalii Cargill, and/or Helen Hwang

More information and links for accessing the programs will appear closer to the event.

Call for Contributions

September 18, 2015

Painting by Harriette Ronner
Painting by Harriet Ronner
Seeking contributions from authors whose books were published or will be published in 2015 for an hour-long presentation and discussion during the Nine Days of Solstice event December 16. Books must have a spiritual feminist focus and can be fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. Books only! No articles, CDs, or videos. Publication date must be 2015. Submit a picture of the book cover and your own photo in jpeg format along with a 100-200 word summary of your book in a Microsoft Word or Text file. Also include a 1 or 2 sentence biography. State whether you would be available for a short live interview and if so whether you have a WebCam. Interview and WebCam are optional. Entries will be selected to provide a good mixture of material for an hour long program and not all entries will be included. Authors selected for interview will be notified by email. Authors whose books will be included will be posted at the Mago Academy website http://magocademy.org by December 1. Send entries or questions to Hearth Moon Rising (hearthmoon@gmail.com)

What’s in a Name? Part III (Shaman)

September 11, 2015

vennshaman

Their priests (whom they call Quiokosoughs) are no other but such as our English witches are.
Reverend Alexander Whitaker, Good newes from Virginia (sermon), 1613.

A question arose after my post on Witches and Wiccans regarding the difference between a shaman and a Witch. The answer is both simple and complex. The simple (and correct) answer is that there is no difference, except that one category is larger than the other. To give an analogy, what’s the difference between a Lutheran and a Christian? They are not different, are they? Not all Christians are Lutherans, but all Lutherans are Christians. The complexity with Witchcraft arises from the illogical but determined efforts of anthropologists to turn “witch” and “shaman” into discrete categories.

Let’s turn to the dictionary definition of “shaman” first. This is from Random House:

(esp. among certain tribal peoples) a person who acts as an intermediary between the natural and supernatural worlds, using magic to cure illness, foretell the future, control spiritual forces, etc.

Witches act as intermediaries “between the natural and supernatural worlds” by performing complex rituals or more simple spells that are usually geared toward healing, divination, or controlling the outcome of events (such as bringing rain or finding a job). Witches are not, however, the “certain tribal peoples” that the word typically refers to. The origin of “shaman” is contested, but most believe it to be of Siberian origin. It has an identical meaning in the Evenki language. It might properly be used only to refer to a similar group of magical practices from Siberia, but it is more generally applied. Attempts have been made to limit the application by specifying that it must refer to a tribal group, indigenous practices, the use of trance states, origin in non-urban societies, long-standing evolution in nature-based societies, and practices which have continuity. Witches contend that their religion meets all of these requirements while many academic scholars contend that it does not. Honest scholarship favors the Witches’ point of view, but some might ask whether the quest for a shamanic definition that excludes Witches is itself rooted in dishonesty about the tenaciousness of Europe’s magical legacy, as well as visceral prejudice against Witches fostered by Christianity.

My definition of a “shaman,” a bit tongue-in-cheek, is someone who doesn’t use that word. All “shamanic” traditions have their own word for their priests and priestesses, and outside of Central Asia that word is never “shaman.” In English, the word is “witch,” with all its baggage.

Nonetheless there is an unmistakable need for a generic word for “a person who acts as an intermediary between the natural and supernatural worlds, using magic, etc.,” because we need a word for comparing practices in a cross-cultural sense. That word has become “shaman.”

Marketing has also created or exacerbated a perception of a dichotomy between Witchcraft and other forms of shamanism. Books and courses that are not related to Witchcraft are frequently described as “shamanic” to their intended audience, with “shamanic” meaning everything but Witchcraft. Quizzing the purveyors of this material, they acknowledge that Witchcraft is a form of shamanism, but they feel that including Witchcraft under their shamanic banner hampers their marketing efforts. Doubtless this relates to the fierce prejudice against witchcraft which still resides with the general public. On the other side of the equation, Witches themselves sometimes object to the word “shaman,” feeling like a word popularized outside of their religions should not be applied to them.

So all Witches are shamans, but not all shamans are Witches. Are all Pagans shamans? No. Paganism and Witchcraft are polytheistic religions with a European or Mediterranean origin, but not all Pagans cast spells or perform magic with the intention of influencing events. So all Witches are Pagans, all Witches are shamans, some Pagans who are not Witches are shamans, but not all Pagans are shamans. Got that?

You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling: Another vlog post

September 4, 2015

Venus is stationary and about to go direct, so maybe that’s why social media has been unusually crazy lately. Here’s my short take on it.

Easier to trash than to confront
Easy to assume bad motives
Easy to assume stupidity
Hard to trust that women have made choices based on experience and reflection
Don’t trust women don’t trust women trust women to have made decisions to harm you
Impossible to speak directly and then let go
Impossible to speak
Easy to trash.

Server Update Alert

August 27, 2015

I have been informed that my web host provider is upgrading me to a new server tomorrow (Friday, August 28). The blog will be unavailable starting at 1:00 pm EDT, I hope for a brief period. It should be back up by Saturday.