PBP: Eos and Aphrodite

by Stanislaw Wyspianski

I mentioned in a recent post that Aphrodite's origins cannot merely be traced back to the golden Goddesses of Love, always associated with the stellar Venus, of the Fertile Crescent. She is also a manifestation of the Water-Bird Goddesses of early Europe, a Minoan-Mycenaean Goddess, and she is a hypostasis of the Proto-Indo-European dawn Goddess.

I know! Awesome, huh?

Eos ( Ἠώς, or Ἕως) is a Titan Goddess of the Dawn -- her name meaning "dawn" in Greek. The equivalent figure in Vedic myth is Usas, of whom I wrote last week. Deborah Dickman Boedekker, in Aphrodite's Entry in Greek Epic, points out that Usas is called the "daughter of the sky" (sky = dyeus, which is strikingly similar to Zeus, the Olympian sky God and Aphrodite's father). Aphrodite is given the epithet Ourania (Heveanly), which she shares with other sky-related Goddesses, but only she is called both this AND  the "daughter of God" (Dios Thugater). Boedekker points out that in the Vedic myths, it is only Usas (Dawn) who is called  "Daughter of God," but that Eos is never referred to in this manner.

Within Greek mythology, some of the characteristic of the Dawn Goddess within Indo-European tradition have been given to Aphrodite. (They *also* apply to Eos, of course. The argument here isn't that Eos is not worthily a Dawn Goddess, simply that Aphrodite is also a functional hypostasis of this same mythos.)

In particular, Boedekker points out that the Dawn Goddess often "figures in an episode that involves the snatching away, hiding, and preserving of another character" (39). There are three distinct instances in the Iliad where Aphrodite participates in just such an episode.

The first of these occurs when there is to be a decisive battle between Paris and Menelaus. Paris is defeated, and Menelaus begins to drag him away by his helmet strap, but Aphrodite snatches him away.  The second episode happens during a battle between her son Aeneas and Diomedes in which she covers her son with her shining peplos (a robes) and her "bright arms" to hide him. The third occurs when Achilles tries to mutilate Hektor's corpse. Aphrodite keeps the dogs away and anoints the body with oil to preserve it. Boedekker points out that in the scenes with both Hektor and Aeneas, Aphrodite needs Apollo's help -- the Dawn Goddess and the Sun God working in unison (42).

In his book, The Meaning of Aphrodite, Paul Friedrich also spends some time discussing Aphrodite's nature as a Dawn Goddess. In it, he uses three sets of triads to illustrate Aphrodite's membership within this group. 

Attic Vase: Eos pursues Tithonius

Dawn Goddess -- Mortal Husband/Lover -- Heroic Son

Eos                 --      Tithonius                 --     Memnon
Aphrodite       --       Ankhises                --     Aeneas
Thetis             --       Peleus                     --    Akhilles


Obviously, her connection to the dawn is only one small part of understanding Aphrodite's nature, meaning, and message. I completely agree with Friedrich when he writes that Zeus and Athena's mockery of Aphrodite in the Iliad (5, 297-448) is "... documentation that Aphrodite is the most potent goddess. The author of the hymns asserts that she is the most potent and that that is why Zeus wants to humiliate her" (62).

PBP - Dawn and Discordia

Brace yourselves for some back-door gnosis!

Cult of the Living Bull and AZO

I belong to a distinctly Discordian  (*hem*) "tradition" called the Cult of the Living Bull. As a group, we began at the Starwood festival with the folks who tended the great big fires -- and the folks who passed water, danced, drummed, and generally kept the energy going around the fires.  We have Bull God, AZO -- whose name is a magical device referring to everything to do with the fire from A to Z, and the "O's" (or circles) we make around the fire. We have some history and symbolism in our Discordian fire traditions, but the basic concepts are: fire, O's, red straps (suspenders -- as markers of membership), dancing, drumming, passing water, shouting Liber Resh vel Helios at dawn.

Morning Resh (facing the East):

"Hail unto Thee who art Ra in Thy rising, even unto Thee who art Ra in Thy strength, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Uprising of the Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Night!"

(We add:) "BUUUULLLLLLL!!!!!"

Essentially, when you have managed to stay up ALL NIGHT LONG by the fire, and you're there to great the sun with the folks who have been keeping that fire going all night, you've put a lot of energy into the thing -- and gotten a lot out. The thing you MUST remember, though, is that it's all BULL!!!! Or, more importantly, let go of the BULL.

Sisterhood of Wholly Chao and OZA

Okay, the women of the Cult of the Living Bull at Our Haven (in French Lick, Indiana) witnessed the beginning of a new deity within the pantheon of the Cult. Well, we thought she was new, but I'll get to her potentially ancient roots in a moment. Let me begin by introducing her as we were introduced.

At the Women's Goddess Retreat in 2009, one of our circles was an evening fire circle, and the women of Fyre Trybe were asked to step forward. There were something like 14 of us, and we named another 6-8 that hadn't been able to make it. We realized in that moment how many women were in the Cult of the Living Bull just at Our Haven.

Prior to that night, some of us had teased about being "Concubines of the Living Bull" because we lost our men to the fire, she was their first wife and we were on the sidelines. But standing there together, tending the fire with the just the women, we realized that we had a helluva lot of firetenders among us -- women who LOVED the fire as much as the men. Someone said, "We are the Sisterhood of the Holy Cow" (later re-spelled Wholly Chao), and we gave that female cow the name OZA, the same letters and meaning as her male consort (just backwards) -- the O's we do around the fire and everything from Z to A. Her chant is a serene one, "Ooooom" (Moo, backwards).


Now, I've seen Deities created before. Manbat, Lobo, Mabel the Parking Goddess. But I'm starting to think OZA was already around and we merely recognized her. Let me share with you a passage that I found in Paul Friedrich's The Meaning of Aphrodite. He is writing about a Vedic Goddess of the Dawn.


"Ushas (usas) is herself radiantly beautiful and white or golden in color; 'she rises, light and clothes in white, from out of the darkness.' Her rays are repeatedly described as (depending on the passage and translator) red, purple, ruddy or red-tinted and are said to resemble cows, oxen, or steeds of these colors dispersing from their stalls; she is sometimes called 'the mother of cows.' She mounts the heavens in a large shining chariot drawn by ruddy beasts."

He goes on to describe how she is associated with dancing, fire, water and walking or making paths.


The last thing he says of her is that "the full signification of Ushas combines cosmic order with cosmic ambiguity."


So, from the similarities in the name of the Goddess, to the attributes, to the cow itself, it seems to me that the Sisterhood of the Wholly Chao, and our beloved OZA, taps into something old and deep and awesome. For what it's worth, I wanted to share it with you all. Oom!