Tipos de Diseños Tradicionales NG

Agriculture developed first in the Middle East, approximately 1 1 ,000 years ago. The most notable early developments were around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and the Nile River Valley of Egypt. Around 3000 B.C. the inhabitants developed methods of

i rrigation and I he ox-drawn plow. Not long after this period the ( ;rccks also hq.:au to c lcvt•lop as an agricultural socict y.

Because European fanning began in the southern region of Old Europe, the development of agricultural deities and their mystery cults also began there. Logically, we look here for the origins of the Agricultural Mysteries. According to Professor Marija Gimbutas (Goddess and Gods), the most ancient non­ Indo-European god of Old Europe (also associated with the plant kingdom) is Dionysus. Therefore it seems wise to study him in our quest for the mystery origins. In the course of this chapter we will see how his cult mysteries laid the foundation for many of the Mystery Traditions within Wicca.

The Romans began farming prior to 500 B.C. _{and introduced}

advanced methods of farming into northern and western Europe: the ox-drawn plow, irrigation, crop rotation, and the practice of leaving a field fallow. They also naturally passed along the Mystery Teachings associated with agriculture, which was by then a blend of Italic Paganism mixed with teachings inherited from the Etr­ uscans, Greeks, and Syrians. We know historically that the Etr­ uscans were famous for their occult knowledge of divination, mag­ ick, and the inner Mystery Teachings. The Romans who eventual­ ly conquered them absorbed much of their culture and based many of their religious practices on Etruscan tenets.

The Celts were mostly herders and dairy farmers when the Romans encountered them, although there is some evidence of simple farming among the Celts in pre-Roman times (although largely connected with cattle feed, as evidenced in archaeological finds among Celtic settlements). Historically, the people of west­ em and northern Europe were a more pastoral nomadic culture while advanced agricultural societies were flourishing in the south. The rich fertile farm lands of Italy obviously attracted the Celts, one of several factors that drew them into contact with the Etr­ uscans and Romans.

In _{the early days of humankind, prior to the knowledge of}

farming, women would gather roots, tubers, nuts, and various types of plants and mushrooms for food. They would bury some in order to control the distribution of this precious source of food for the tribe. Naturally some of the buried items rooted or seeded and

WICCAN DEITIES 8 1

sprang up from the ground as a new plant. The awareness of this connection gave birth to the concept of farming, and was also the origin of one of the Female Mysteries (see chapter thirteen).

The association of the god with plant life appears in abundant images throughout all of Europe. In the imagery of Old Europe it is best captured in various depictions of Dionysus. He sometimes appears as a bearded man with a crown of ivy. Other times he appears as an effeminate youth, wearing a fawn skin and crowned with a wreath of laurel and ivy (he is also depicted with a panther skin or a black robe). In _{later times, Dionysus is portrayed with}

long curly hair, crowned with vine leaves and grapes. He holds a thyrsus in one hand and a chalice cup in the other.

The thyrsus is a wand comprised of a fennel stalk capped with a pine cone. This composite symbol of plant and seed represents the union of Dionysus' forest nature (pine cone) merged with his agricultural nature (fennel). The chalice he holds represents first the womb of the Great Mother from which he issued forth (for he is the Divine Child of European mythology, the Child of Promise). Second, the chalice represents the offering up of his divine nature, for it contains his liquid essence. Thus he stands before us as the ancient Lord of the Harvest, the slain god to be (chapters twelve and fourteen).

The ritual items he carries are the wand and the chalice, and in this image we find the first ancient depiction of Wiccan ritual tools together with their traditional symbolism. It is interesting to note that along with these symbols in relief art, circa 30 B.C., _the

rituals of Dionysus also depict women presiding over blindfolded initiates. A picture of this is found in the book Mystery Religions in the Ancient World by Joscelyn Godwin (Harper & Row, 1 98 1). In Wicca, the wand represents the phallus of the god and the chalice represents the womb of the goddess. Thus the thyrsus is the stalk and the seed, meaning that it is the shaft of the phallus and the semen issuing forth. The chalice is the opening to the womb and the lining of the uterus. Dionysus holds them both, displaying the male and female polarities which when united bring forth the Child of Promise (himsdt).

WICCAN DEITIES 83

"What, then, is the Child of Promise? This is a complex theme and marks the further evolution of human understanding concern­ ing the secrets of Nature. The Child is essentially two different principles, the son (and lover-to-be) of the Goddess and also the product of magick (meaning that it is what results from a work of magick). He appears in both the religion of Old Europe and also in the Mystery Teachings of Witchcraft and Celtic Wicca. The Child of Promise is further explored in the following Goddess sec­ tion. So for now, let us return to the Lord of the Harvest, also known as the Green Man.

It is interesting to note that the earliest known Celtic image of the Green Man comes from the fifth century B.C. _{It is reproduced}

in the book The Green Man-The Archetype of our Oneness with the Earth by William Anderson (HarperCollins, 1 990). As the author notes, this image (now called the St. Goar pillar) is a blend of the earlier Etruscan art style with that of the Celtic La Tene culture. This again points to the region of Old Europe as the origin of deity forms now associated with the Wiccan Mysteries. Anderson attempts to link Cernunnos to the Green Man image and seems to believe that Dionysus and Cernunnos are "cousins" derived from an earlier deity who was the son/lover of the Goddess. However, as we are seeing in the progression of this chapter, Dionysus is actually the origin of all of these aspects himself.

The Green man image as seen within the Agricultural Myster­ ies is always associated with the essence of intoxication (whether spiritual or physical). Sometimes it is in the use of hallucinogenic plants such as mushrooms, known to have been employed by early shamans and also by the European Witch Cult. More commonly it is in the use of grapes and grains for the production of beer and wine. Such types of intoxication are meant to reflect the trans­ forming nature of the essence that resides in the spirit or god­ nature of the plant. To consume the nature of the Harvest Lord is to become one with his spirit. This is the basis of the Rite of Com­ munion found in many religions.

One of the problems inherent with trying to associate Celtic

the ancient Celts drank mead and not beer. Mead is made from fer­ mented honey and not from grain. Therefore, in this respect, the grain and grape aspects of the Harvest Lord did not exist in Celtic religion prior to the arrival of the Romans from Italy. The histori­ an Tacitus tells us that the Celts (and some Germanic tribes) first brewed beer sometime around A.D. _{100. Pliny the Elder mentions}

earlier that beer was already being brewed in the Mediterranean. Prior to the Roman era, the inhabitants of northern and western Europe were pastoral nomads, and were not a true agricultural society (although they were certainly farming, but on a relatively smaller scale). Agrarian societies of this time period were found south of the Alps. We know, for example, that the Celts were trad­ ing with the Etruscans for wine around 400 B.C. _{and that the}

Romans introduced viniculture into Gaul after their conquest of this region (circa 50 B.C.). _{This does not mean that the Celts were}

without any indigenous Green Man mysteries. I am simply trying to maintain the proper chronological flow of the agricultural Mys­ tery Teachings from Old Europe to Celtic Europe.

In _{addition to the Agricultural Mystery Teaching of the}

indwelling essence is the teaching of transformation. As previous­ ly mentioned, the earliest god forms are associated with the rising and dying of vegetation. All of the tenets of belief connected with reincarnation and transmigration are to be found in the cycles of the plant kingdom. The seasons of the earth, ever returning in the wheel of the year, are but amplifiers and signalers of the mystical powers of Nature at work in the fields and forests.

To link oneself to the mythos of the dying and returning god is to assure oneself of "salvation" from the forces of death and annihilation. This was the essential premise of the Dionysian cult, the Eleusinian Mysteries, and even Christianity. Plutarch consoled his wife in a letter written in response to the death of their daugh­ ter, assuring her of the immortality to be found in the Dionysian mysteries. This linking to the cycles of Nature (physical and meta­ physical) is also reflected in the ritual observances of the \Viccan Wheel of the Year, the eight Sabbats.

We also find evidence of the transformation mysteries of agri­

WICCAN DEITIES 85

the Roman tradition which was absorbed in Gaul and Britain over centuries of Roman occupation. In _{this tale, the character Gwion}

accidentally receives enlightenment from three drops of magickal elixir (concocted by the goddess Cerridwen). He flees and is pur­ sued by the goddess. During the chase he is magickally trans­ formed into various creatures, and Cerridwen changes herself into a form that preys upon each form that Gwion takes on. Finally he becomes a grain and is swallowed by Cerridwen in the form of a bird. This grain impregnates her and she later gives birth to the bard Taliesin.

The mystical theme of transformation associated with agricul­ ture is found in many European folk tales. Gimbutas tells us that the mythos of the Harvest Lord is preserved in texts dating from Homer and Hesiod, up into modern folklore. It is perhaps best preserved in the story of the passion of the flax and the dying god.

In _{ancient Greece he was Linos, in Lithuania he was Vaizgantas}

and in Scotland he was known as Barleycorn. It is interesting to note that the common word for flax in European language unites Old Europe with Celtic Europe. In _{Greek it is linon, in Latin}

linum, and in both Old Irish and Old German it is lin.

As Gimbutas points out in The Language of the Goddess, this mythos is also reflected in Hans Christian Anderson's story of the flax and in the Danish tale of Rye's Pain (Rugen's Pine). Essential­ ly these stories address the planting of the seed and its struggle to sprout from the earth. This is followed by the plant having to endure the elements. Then, in its prime, it is pulled out of the ground and subjected to thrashing, soaking, and roasting. Eventu­ ally it is combed with hackle-combs and thorns, spun into thread and woven into linen. Finally it is cut and pierced with needles, and sown into a shirt. Here indeed we find the sacrifice of the Harvest Lord for the welfare of his people.

In _{the classical Greek myth of Dionysus, he is first slain and}

then dismembered. Next he is boiled, roasted, and then devoured. The Orphic myth of Dionysus includes the same sequence but adds the recomposition and resurrection of the bones. Heraclitus says that Dionysus and I lades arc one and the same, thus associat­

Lord of the Shadows). Further evidence of this connection comes from a tale about the labyrinth of the Minotaur and Dionysus and Ariadne, retold in Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath (Pan­

theon, 199 1), by Carlo Ginzburg:

... That the Labyrinth symbolized the realm of the dead and that Ariadne, mistress of the Labyrinth, was a funerary goddess, are more than probable conjectures. In Athens the marriage of Dionysus and Ariadne was celebrated every year on the second day of the Anthesteria: an ancient springtime festival that coin­ cided with the periodic return to the earth of the souls of the dead, ambiguous harbingers of well-being and harmful influences, who were placated with offerings of water and boiled cereals.

This passage is of particular importance because it connects Dionysus with the souls of the dead and the Underworld. This aspect of Dionysus is also confirmed by the ancient historian Herodotus in his work The Histories. In _{this one god we now see all}

of the aspects of the \Viccan God: Homed God of the forest, Lord of the Harvest, God of the Underworld, Son/Lover of the God­ dess, the Child of Promise, and the Green Man (bearded man crowned with ivy, the Old One). It is interesting to note that no other single European deity outside of the Mediterranean contains each and every aspect of the God-form found in \Vicca. This con­ firms that our Quest was not in vain, for in Dionysus we have found the origins of the \Viccan God's Mysteries.