-------------------------------
King Bee
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Those who say that our ancestors in these lands
did not use a drum in the old traditions
have simply been looking in the wrong places.”*
- Simon Buxton
The Shamanic Way of the Bee
He began to beat upon the metal drum with two sticks
held together in his right hand, in a regular rhythm.
This technique, I was to learn,
is known as tanging:
hitting a piece of metal in such a way
that bees respond to the sound
- Simon Buxton
The Shamanic Way of the Bee
Tanging is dismissed as superstition
by modern beekeepers, but
seen through shamanic eyes,
it has exactly the same function
as the shaman’s drum
- Simon Buxton
The Shamanic Way of the Bee
It puts the shaman into what is known as
a Shamanic State of Consciousness,
and it is in this state
that the bee shaman does his work.
- Simon Buxton
The Shamanic Way of the Bee
dancing to the beat of the drum
which stirred their blood'
[or 'staggered drunkenly
with what was known as the Dionysus gait'].
'In this state of ekstasis or enthusiasmos,
they abandoned themselves,
dancing wildly and shouting 'Euoi!' [the god's name]
- www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysian_Mysteries
Now, let us go to the dance floor.
Now, the flames are burning.
Now, something is happening.
- The Very Best
Warm Heart of Africa
The tradition of tanging bees –
calling them into a hive
by beating on metal implements
- Claire Preston
Bee
going boom, boom, boom
- Peter Gabriel
Solsbury Hill
Boom, boom, boom
boom, boom, boom.
- X Ambassadors
Boom
They’ve come to take me home.
- Peter Gabriel
Solsbury Hill
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At first, all Louis could see was a golden cauldron moving toward him like a mysteriously shining ship over a sea of silent humanity. Louis quickly realized the giant bowl was held aloft by a crew of high-priests, their bodies and heads hidden in the crowd. A soft clinking sound found Louis’ ear concurrently with his catching his first glimpse of the high priestess dancing around the cauldron. Her graceful movement wove a tale of mystery and revelations. Every one of her steps and gestures was free flowing, wild, and spontaneous while simultaneously exhibiting sophistication of forethought bordering on god-like predetermination. She was prophecy as motion, an ocean of prescient poetry. The gentle clacking he heard was caused by the countless small cowrie shells which hung from the woven plant-fiber belt girdling her fish-scaled, full-length skirt. The shell’s musical tinkling, as they clattered against each other, accentuated every twist and swing of her hips.
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Twistin’ like a flame in a slow dance, baby
You’re driving me crazy
Come on, little honey
Come on now
Fire
Smoke,
she is a rising
- The Cult
Fire Woman
Now, the flames are burning.
- The Very Best
Warm Heart of Africa
Now is the time the moon is in alignment
With the unknown zodiac, the untold sign
Of the fiery maniac within each breast
- Blue Oyster Cult
The Old Gods Return
-------------------------------
At first glance, Louis was not certain she was entirely human. His impression was of some hideously beautiful, monstrously deformed, blue-skinned gorgon from Greek myth. Unlike the classic gorgon, but exactly like the snake-tree-phoenix deity of his dream, the blue-skinned high priestess had dozens of breasts that swayed pendulously as she danced. As he looked more closely, he realized her blue skin was due to a paste coating similar to the muddy woad of the Scottish Picts, and her “breasts” were only a multitude of bulbous dilly bags that hung around her torso, tethered to the pointed rays of her golden crown by long plaited tassels. Louis had seen other gnome women using this style of portage during his stay with the tribe. Based on these earlier observations, he guessed that the priestess carried detoxified yams, cycad bread, and honey cakes in her bags to distribute to the initiated adults of the tribe.
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There before him was her cult statue –
the very woman who had appeared in his dream.
- Philip Freeman
The Philosopher and the Druids
The most intriguing example to be found
among the later ancient peoples of the Mediterranean
is a cult statue known as the Artemis of Ephesus.
The origins of this certainly stretch back into the mists of prehistory.
Although the original statue has long since been destroyed,
a copy made in Roman times has preserved its appearance (see opposite).
As can be seen from this, the goddess has a headdress
formed of what seem to be several head-rings
of the kind used for suspending dilly bags.
Perhaps her most notable feature, however,
consists of some fifteen or more oval-shaped protuberances
hanging all around her chest.
- Ian Wilson
Lost World of the Kimberley
features that since Minuciuc Felix and Jerome’s
Christian attacks on pagan popular religion
had been read as many breasts or “eggs” – denoting her fertility
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Artemis
identified as Bee eggs
given that a typical Queen Bee will lay
thousands of eggs in her short lifetime.
Alternatively, other believe that the abundance
of small spherical objects represent bull testicles.
- www.andrewgough.co.uk/articles_bee2/
As far as I know, no-one has ever suggested
they might be dilly bags
- Ian Wilson
Lost World of the Kimberley
full of yams
suspended from a head-ring,
- Ian Wilson
Lost World of the Kimberley
the kulama yam.
Its hairiness, in conjuction perhaps with its gonadic shape,
apparently constituted for native medical thinkers
presumptive evidence of a property
capable of promoting desirable sexual characteristics
and, more generally, good physical condition.
- Lester Richard Hiatt
Arguments about Aborigines:
Australia and the Evolution of Social Anthropology
I know its strange
- TV on the Radio
Wolf Like Me
but intriguing nonetheless.
- www.andrewgough.co.uk/articles-bee3/
In either case, the connection
between Ephesus and the Bee is irrefutable,
for “Ephesos” is thought to derive from the word “Apasas”,
which was the name of the city in the Bronze Age
and a pre-Greek word meaning Bee.
- www.andrewgough.co.uk/articles_bee2/
A bee cult associated with a goddess
is preserved in relic form to the present day.
- Thomas V. Gamkrelidze & Vjaceslav V. Ivanov
Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans
This was that cult
- H.P. Lovecraft
The Call of Cthulhu
There before him was her cult statue –
- Philip Freeman
The Philosopher and the Druids
could this statue embody a memory
harking across many millennia
all the way back to Ice Age Australia?
- Ian Wilson
Lost World of the Kimberley
A myth from the Northern Territory
tells of how a great mother arrives from the sea,
travelling across Australia and giving birth
to the various Aboriginal tribes. In some versions,
the great mother is accompanied by the Rainbow Serpent
(or Lightning Snake), who brings the wet season of rains and floods.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Serpent
the myth surrounding this Arnhem Land Great Mother
was that back in the creation time
she had arrived from the direction of Indonesia
at a period when the country was suffering great drought.
- Ian Wilson
Lost World of the Kimberley
the normally wet tropical climate of Indonesia
was interrupted by a severe dry period
from around 33,000 years ago until about 16,000 years ago.
The period coincided with the peak of the last ice age,
when glaciers covered vast swathes of the Northern Hemisphere.
- www.asiansciantent.com/2014/04/in-the-lab/indonesian-dry-spell-amplified-ice-age-2014/
Her arrival coincided with the sea invading to reach its present level
and all the springs and waterholes becoming refilled.
She brought with her dilly bags full of yams
suspended from a head-ring,
and in the course of her journey southwards
she met up with a male partner,
from which encounter sprang children.
Thereupon she taught these offspring
how to plant yams and to prepare them as food
- Ian Wilson
Lost World of the Kimberley
Gods are distinguished from people
not only in being heavenly and immortal,
but also in having a special language and special food
distinct from those of people.
In Sanskrit the food of gods is Amrta-, which is itself deified.
In the Greek tradition it is ambrosia ‘food of gods’ and nectar ‘drink of gods’;
both words are based on the idea of overcoming or denying death:
the first contains *mer- ‘die’ (see above),
the second *Hnekh- ‘die; disappear physically’,
Skt. nasYati ‘disappears; gets lost’, Avest. Nasu- ‘corpse’,
Gk. Nekus, Lat. nex ‘death; murder’, cf. Thieme 1968a.
Both of these characteristics of gods
– their special speech and their special food –
are united into a single theme in the myth
about obtaining the ‘honey of verse’
- Thomas V. Gamkrelidze & Vjaceslav V. Ivanov
Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans
honey (n.)
Middle English hony, from Old English hunig “honey,”
from Proto-Germanic *hunagam (source also of Old Norse hunang,
Swedish honung, Old Saxon honeg, Old Frisian hunig, Middle Dutch honich,
Dutch honig, Old High German honing, German Honig “honey’),
of uncertain origin. Perhaps from PIE *k(e)neko- “yellow, golden”
(source also of Sanskrit kancanum, Welsh canecon “gold’).
- www.etymonline.com/?search=honey
The wording is very important here--
Midas specifically asked
that everything be turned into “yellow gold.”
- https://www.osieturner.com/2012/01/king-midas-and-alchemical-touch.html
king (n.)
a late Old English contraction of cyning
"king, ruler" (also used as a title),
from Proto-Germanic *kuningaz
(source also of Dutch koning, Old Norse konungr,
Danish konge, Old Saxon and Old High German kuning,
Middle High German künic, German König).
This is of uncertain origin.
It is possibly related to Old English cynn "family, race" (see kin),
making a king originally a "leader of the people."
Or perhaps it is from a related prehistoric Germanic word
meaning "noble birth," making a king
etymologically "one who descended from noble birth."
The sociological and ideological implications
render this a topic of much debate.
"The exact notional relation of king with kin is undetermined,
but the etymological relation is hardly to be doubted"
[Century Dictionary].
General Germanic, but not attested in Gothic,
where þiudans (cognate with Old English þeoden
"chief of a tribe, ruler, prince, king") was used.
Finnish kuningas "king," Old Church Slavonic kunegu"prince"
(Russian knyaz, Bohemian knez), Lithuanian kunigas "clergyman"
are forms of this word taken from Germanic.
- www.etymonline.com/word/king
Kallimachos has his future king eat the same “sweet honey”
that Hesiod’s Muses drizzle on the tongues of kings.
Much as in Hesiod, this nourishment produces a king
concerned with “straight judgments”,
whom Kallimachos describes as a “king-bee”.
While retaining the transformative effect of the honey on the king,
Kallimachos reclaims the image of the bee from Hesiod.
- Michael Brumbaugh
The New Politics of Olympos: Kingship in Kallimachos' Hymns
The ancient custom of placing a Beehive in the head of a bull
was at first a domestic exercise, and enabled the bull’s head
to be purified of all matter before being used for practical purposes.
Only later did the tradition morph into a highly symbolic ritual
where Bees found on a carcasses of dead bulls
represented the regeneration of souls.
As we shall see, the belief that Bees were born of sacred bulls
was especially prevalent in Egypt and Mediterranean cultures
such as the Greeks and Minoans.
- www.andrewgough.co.uk/articles_bee1/
related to the bougania belief
and more specifically with the belief
that the “king bee” comes out
from the head of an ox
(Geoponica 15.2.30).
- H.V. Harisssis & A.V. Harissis
Apiculture in the Prehistoric Aegean
The ancient custom of placing a Beehive in the head of a bull w
as at first a domestic exercise, and enabled the bull’s head
to be purified of all matter before being used for practical purposes.
Only later did the tradition morph into a highly symbolic ritual
where Bees found on a carcasses of dead bulls
represented the regeneration of souls.
As we shall see, the belief that Bees were born of sacred bulls
was especially prevalent in Egypt and Mediterranean cultures
such as the Greeks and Minoans.
Like the Sumerian
- www.andrewgough.co.uk/articles_bee1/
Their culture shared many similarities with the Egyptians,
including the veneration of Bees.
Although speculative, the notion of Atlantis
as a centre of bull and Bee worship is alluring,
and based on the evidence, not entirely unfounded.
- www.andrewgough.co.uk/articles_bee1/
Much speculation has occurred
about the statue of an Apis bull found in the Serapeum
and the object between its horns in particular.
The conventional belief is that it represents the Solar Disc,
as depicted between the horns of the Goddess Hathor
– the patroness of Alchemy, pictured below.
However, another school of thought is that it represents
the collective wisdom of Bees in the form of a bowl of honey.
As we shall see, the belief that Bees and Beehive’s represented
a ‘library’ of knowledge
was quite common in the ancient world.
- www.andrewgough.co.uk/articles_bee1/
Who wants that honey?
- Smashing Pumpkins
Cherub Rock
hive (n.)
Old English hyf “beehive,” from Proto-Germanic
*hufiz (cognates: Old Norse hufr “hull of a ship”),
from PIE *keup- “round container, bowl”
(cognates: Sanskrit kupah “hollow, pit, cave,”
Greek kypellon “cup,” Latin cupa “tub, cask, vat”).
- www.etymonline.com/?search=hive
Old English seems to have had the word *hægfore ‘heifer.’
The first element (*hæg-) presumably meant ‘enclosure’
(as do haw and hedge),
whereas –fore was a suffix meaning ‘dweller, occupant’….
- www.etymonline.com/?search=heifer
bees were considered to be connected to the souls of the dead.
Or even to embody them.
Because they were living in caves in rocks,
which were seen as entrances to the world of the dead spirits.
Later Greek philosophers write about the “bee-souls”,
connecting them to the belief of the transmigration of souls.
According to Porphyry, due to its sweetness,
honey is the pleasure that draws souls down to be born,
and it is also a symbol for aquatic nymphs.
- https://healthywithhoney.com/honey-in-history-ancient-greece/
She Who Holds a Thousand Souls,
which appears to refer to the 1000 bees – or souls –
that are regenerated from the body of an Apis bull.
- Andrew Gough
The Sacred Bee in Ancient Egypt
“the young bull of the Sun”.
- www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utu
whose wings beat
- Blue Oyster Cult
The Old Gods Return
with everyone
Going beat, beat, beat,
- Beck
Heart is a Drum
boom, boom, boom
- Peter Gabriel
Solsbury Hill
The beating of a million drums
- Justice
Civilization
she was the Mother Goddess
– leader and ruler of the hive,
and was often portrayed in the presence
of adorning Bee Goddesses and Bee Priestesses.
In addition to dancing Bee symbolism,
Gimbutas identified images of Bees
as stick men, or schematized figures,
with their arms arched over their head
like the Dancing Goddess motif
so common in Sumerian and Egyptian reliefs.
- www.andrewgough.co.uk/articles_bee1/
The awkward stance of the gorgon,
with arms and legs at angles
is closely associated with these symbols as well.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon
The priestesses in the temples
of Cybele, Artemis, and Demeter
were also styled melissae,
and Ephesian Artemis was a many-breasted bee goddess,
an iconography almost certainly connected with the use of honey
as a ritual or divine food, especially in baptism
and other ‘acceptance’ rites among some Asian religions
and in paleo-Christian practice.
- Claire Preston
Bee
Melissa
fem. Proper name, from Latin, from Greek (Ionic) melissa
(Attic melitta) “honeybee,” also “one of the priestesses of Delphi,”
from PIE *melit-ya, suffix form of *melit- “honey”
(cognates: Greek meli, Latin mel “honey; sweetness;”
Albanian mjal’ “honey;” Old Irish mil “honey,”
Irish milis “sweet;” Old English mildeaw “nectar,”
milisc “honeyed, sweet;” Old High german milsken “to sweeten;”
Gothic miliþ“honey”).
- www.etymonline.com/?search=melissa
mead (n.1)
“fermented honey drink,”
Old English medu, from Proto-Germanic *meduz
(cognates: Old Norse mjöðr, Danish mjød,
Old Frisian and Middle Dutch mede,
Old High German metu, German Met “mead”),
from PIE root *medhu- “honey, sweet drink”
(cognates: Sanskrit madhu “sweet, sweet drink, wine, honey,”
Greek methy “wine,” Old Church Slavonic medu,
Lithuanian medus “honey,”
Old Irish mid, Welsh medd, Briton mez “mead”).
- www.etymonline.com/?search=mead
Ancient Greek Μέδουσα (Médousa),
from μέδω (médō, “rule over”).
- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Medusa
MIDAS (Midas),
a son of Gordius, according to some by Cybele
(Hygin. Fab. 274), a wealthy but effeminate king of Phrygia,
a pupil of Orpheus, and a promoter of the worship of Dionysus
(Herod. i. 14; Paus. i. 4. § 5; Aelian, V. H. iv. 17; Strab. vii. p. 304).
- https://www.theoi.com/Heros/Midas.html
As I already stated,
Midas was previously initiated into the Bacchic Rites
and would have had some knowledge of higher spiritual matters.
However, because of his request
we know that he was still very much rooted in Earthly matters;
otherwise, he would not have misused this opportunity.
- https://www.osieturner.com/2012/01/king-midas-and-alchemical-touch.html
Possibly related, a female figure,
probably a sea-goddess
is depicted on a Minoan gold ring
from the island Mochlos in Crete.
The goddess has a monstrous head
and she is sitting on a boat.
A holy tree is depicted,
probably related to the Minoan cult of the tree.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon
he metaphorically became as one with the Tree of Life.
Osiris became the Axis Munde
around which the heavens appear to revolve;
he became the World Pillar,
the link between the terrestrial and celestial worlds.
- ancientegypt.hypermart.net/treeoflife/
Osiris, consort of the goddess Isis,
emulated the bee and provided instructions for knowing the “hsp’,
or sacred garden of the bee in the other world –
a domain believed to contain
the tree of the golden apples of immortality.
- Andrew Gough
The Sacred Bee in Ancient Egypt
He held the heavens in his outstretched arms,
and soaked up the word of God
from the waters of the Netherworld.
- ancientegypt.hypermart.net/treeoflife/
Now, something is happening.
- The Very Best
Warm Heart of Africa
like bees taking flight
or the smoke of a fire spiraling
upward into the distant clouds.
- Simon Buxton
The Shamanic Way of the Bee
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