So this is what I've been working on over the last couple of days. I've started a new project that I hope will be both informative and spiritually beneficial. I guess only people who visit it can tell me for sure. Personally, it's already enriched my experience of the Goddess.
I guess you could say I am doing it as much for me (probably more so) than for anyone else. I went looking for virtual Goddess temples and didn't really find what I was looking for. This virtual temple project is the result of that desire.
So, if you have the time please leave me some comments on this post and let me know what you think about the content of the Temple of Merope. More temples are in the works. Persephone and Demeter should be coming soon and at that time I will build an index page to house all the temples.
Connecting with the Goddess: Musings
(from Panthea's Temple of Merope)
We don't know for sure what her name was or what exactly her rituals might've entailed, but remnants of the Great Bee Goddess can be seen in recovered artifacts and the mytholgy of the Greek descendents of the Minoans. Though much of this Goddess is lost to antiquity, I believe versions of her (stripped of her Great Goddess stature) are found throughout later Greek mythology under the name Merope. But these may just be tiny pieces of her story.
I personally believe that Demeter herself is a later incarnation of the Great Bee Goddess. Demeter's priestesses were called Melissae (Bees) and some sources report that the priestesses believed they would be reincarnated as bees in the afterlife. Where did these ideas originate?
The Bee Goddess of Crete, of the Minoans, was intimately tied to the mysteries of life, death, and rebirth. Regeneration or transformation seem to be one of her primary functions. Most, if not all, Great Goddess figures can be given this distinction. Demeter and her various faces as Triple Goddess can certainly be equated with regenerative properties. Could Ancient Merope have also been a Triple Goddess?
Somehow this Goddess (an ancient and sacred face of Mother Demeter) found her way into my life. She settled down into my heart as if it were her hive and made a nice cozy home there. I have rather syncretically equated the Minoan Bee Goddess with the pleiadian star and the myth surrounding the Goddess it is named for. Though this star happens to be in the Pleiades, a constellation popular with the new age crowd, I don't feel anything is being "channeled" down to me. I simply feel her looking down from her hiding place in the vast blanket of stars above. Though her light is the faintest of the other six sisters, I feel it shining on me as the brightest star in the heavens.
Perhaps she has honored me as a modern version of one of her Melissae; her priestess. Since the bee is a common symbol for this Goddess, and thus a possible metaphor to be looked at allegorically, I wonder what the bee can teach me? I wonder what this little creature of the natural world can tell me about how to live and how to honor the Goddess? Might I be a worker bee? Or can I embrace the Queen within?
In this virtual sacred place I invite you to take on the title of Melissae yourself, and let your soul be opened up to this little known but largely felt face of the Goddess.
6 comments:
What I liked most about this post is that I learned something new! I'd never heard of Merope or the Melissae and so was interested to learn about this goddess. Actually, the bee imagery makes sense. Few species are more essential to this planet thriving than the bee. I've never been to Crete...did the Minoans have a major honey industry? Ancient cultures often adapted an image of something tied either to their mythology or vital to their way of life so I was curious.
I liked your altar suggestions and the meditation where I could imagine you doing one of those cd meditations. :) It'll be interesting to see the rest of your vitual temple as you expand. I hope you keep us posted.
I'm not sure how significant it was, but I know the Minoans kept bees for the purposes of harvesting honey and other bee products.
You kinda rock Jett. :) Your comment alone has given me a little boost to keep working on other temples. Thank you sincerely. I love that you gained something from the temple. I'm thrilled that it was useful.
Oh, and I have thought about recording the meditation to mp3 and have been looking for background music. What do you think? Good idea or no?
Thanks again. I am going to be hard on work on new temples.
*lol* Thanks for the compliment. I think recording the medititation would be pretty kewl myself. Mp3 would let you download and then it wouldn't matter where you were doing your meditation. So, yeah, great idea! The music can make or break something like that. You going to write and record your own or are you trying to find something out there to fit? Have yourself a good weekend!
I would love to have the musical skills and resources to record my own. That would be amazing. Alas I will have to find some royalty free transient tunes to inject into the meditations. :) I haven't found anythign just yet, but I would love to record them though so I am going to keep looking.
My weekend was good. My circle celebrated Beltane. How was yours?
Found your blog btw and I will be linking you the next time I do an update to the template.
I hope you find the music you need. If I get lucky and stumble across something, I will let you know. My weekend was good as well. Interesting actually in the magick arena. I'm a solitare so celebrated Beltane on my own but like I said it was a good one. Thanks for linking my blog! I appreciate it.
As the world is currently in dire need of bee magic, and since my current contribution centers around my Urb Garden, I've just planted a bee garden. I stumbled across your site via Google & am glad for the Temple you've created.
I'm also looking for a prayer, not so much for Merope to come to my aid but to praise Her and, in so doing, come to Her aid (in a Prachettian sort of way). Any ideas?
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