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The Melissae are a bit of a mystery, of both the lowercase-m and capital-M variety. Today I'm sharing a roundup of what we know about these Minoan honey/bee goddesses/spirits, both from historical sources and via our shared numinous experiences in Ariadne's Tribe.
Linguistics and Myth
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What is harder and more enduring than oak?
What is more delicate and ephemeral than a flower?
Oak flowers: a seeming paradox, but all those acorns must come from somewhere. The contradictory softness of the hard. The oak being Thunder's tree and all, one thinks of all those stories in mythology in which the Thunderer, most manly of gods, dresses in women's clothing. Clearly, he's not all bluster and bravado. Clearly, he too has his hidden depths.
Welcome to the season of paradox: the blooming of the oaks. You may need to expand your mental picture of what a flower looks like. But flowers they are, male and female, and they bear within themselves the oaks of millennia yet to be.
While visiting my cousin in Germany, I picked up some jars of oak honey at the village shop. It was amazing, the least sweet honey I've ever tasted, dark upon the tongue.
In a time when bees are threatened by the use of nicotine based pesticides and fungicides we need to learn all we can to protect them. For thousands of years humanity has relied on bees and their honey for food, medicine, and to pollinate crops. Before you buy any plant be sure to ask if it has been pre-treated with bee killing pesticides, and never spray poisons on your own garden!
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For those of you unfamiliar, July has become a festival month of sorts for Loki. Sirius, the dog star, is known as Lokabrenna - Loki's torch or brand. Late July/August is when Sirius rises, and so many of us celebrate Himself in the dog days of summer.
Today I'm making Him this:
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