“Community depends on pollination by each member.”
Goddesses for Every Day
Gemini is a Mutable Air sign that embodies the principle of motion. The energy of the third zodiac sign is the result of the irresistible force of Aries impinging on the immovable object of Taurus. Spinning motion on an axis is the result. Gemini’s expression is to adjust and adapt in an ever-widening collection of data and a search for meaning. Learning to tame the mind is the quest of this sign. Geminis are curious and social, desiring to make connections and form relationships, and they are rarely still. In traditional astrology Gemini is represented by the Twins, showing the sign’s dual nature.
The Goddess Sign for Gemini is The Bee, which like curious Gemini, flies from flower to flower, drinking nectar, preparing to make honey. The Bee is an ancient symbol of royal power and the sacred feminine. This Goddess Sign teaches that community depends on pollination from each member. Myths of Queen Bees, and priestesses who tend her hives and shrines, exist in diverse cultures. Bees pollinate flowers, which bear fruit and yield seeds in a perpetual cycle of renewal. The industrious Bee, who is not supposed to be able to fly, is an appropriate symbol for the pollinating nature of mental Gemini. The goddesses who are included in Gemini encompass magicians, clever tricksters and shape shifters as well as those who are gifted with words, language and the power of sound. Gemini goddesses are animated, verbal, mental, versatile and magical, and there is often an air of mystery about them.
Melissa was the name of the goddess Artemis when she was worshipped as the Queen Bee and honey goddess. Melissameans “honeybee” in Greek and was also the title given to a high priestess of the goddess Artemis. The plural is Melissae, and there is evidence that there were thousands of these priestesses. Honey was seen as the sacred substance of the goddess, and the honey jar, the pithos, was a symbol of the Divine Feminine as the womb of creation.
Sara-la-Kali, of Sara the Black, is a spirit being of the Romani, or Roma, people who are more commonly known as Gypsies. Every year in May thousands of Gypsies go on pilgrimage to Sainte Sara-la-Kali’s crypt. Her shrine is located in the church of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in southern France. The same site is also the location of relics dedicated to the three Marys: Mary Magdalene, Mary Salome, and Mary Jacobe, who according to a mysterious legend, were cast adrift in a boat after the crucifixion of Jesus, along with an enigmatic figure called Black Sara.
The Cherubim were originally female angels of the highest order who supported the throne of God and were associated wit the goddess Asherah. These powerful winged beings bear little resemblance to the small chubby angels who appear on greeting guards. Dione was a goddess of ancient Crete who was the Titan goddess of Gaia and Ouranos—earth and sky. Later sources claim Dione was the first consort of Zeus and also the mother of Aphrodite, suggesting both her antiquity and her exceptional power. Laka is a goddess and ancestral spirit whose domain is vegetation, herbal lore and wild forests. She is thought to have blessed the ancient Hawaiian people with the sacred dance of hula. Her domain is also the powerful tradition of the flower lei, which connects her to bees and pollination.
The Rusalka are Russian or Slavic nature spirits, similar to elves and fairies. Wherever their feet touched the ground the grass would grow green and thick. They are talented shape-shifters and are known for their beautiful and captivating voices. Renenet is an Egyptian goddess of great power who in ancient times gave newborn babies the gift of their name, called their Ren. The name she bestowed was an aspect of the eternal soul, and it was said that a baby had Renenet on its shoulder from the first day. Zoe is a deity of the Gnostic Greeks who is said to possess a fiery breath. Her name means “life,” and she is mentioned in part of the Nag Hammadi library, codices found in Egypt in 1945. She was the daughter of the Great Goddess whom the Greeks called Sophia.
Vach is a Hindu goddess called She of the Thousand Forms. Her name means “voice,” and she was once a goddess of thunder. Vach is the goddess of the word, language, and both divine and human speech. Laima is a goddess of fate and good fortune from Latvia and Lithuania and is seen as the personification of these ideas. Her name actually means “luck,” so she is well cast as a Gemini goddess. To this day, the people of Latvia still use the expression, “Laima willing.” Canola is a particularly ancient Irish goddess who is said to have invented the harp, one of the long-cherished symbols of Ireland. In Greek myth Penelope was the wife of the hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca. She was also cousin to Helen of Troy. But in the older stories she was a powerful spring fertility goddess whose role was to choose the annual king. Penelope was famous for her cleverness, and while Odysseus was fighting the Trojan War and believed dead, she defied many suitors by saying she couldn’t marry until she finished weaving a funeral cloth for her father-in-law. Each night she unraveled what she had woven the day before, so the cloth was never complete.
This is the time of greatest light in the northern hemisphere. Our days are longer and we steadily approach the turning point in the wheel of the year and the return to the darker times. It’s a good time to ask ourselves what needs to grow and brighten in a big way. It’s also a great time for a festival bonfire and a ritual of fertility.
Based on and excerpts from Goddesses for Every Day © 2010 by Julie Loar. Printed with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA www.newworldlibrary.com
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