Flower of life

"Limestone Stela depicting Canaanite goddess worshipping the Tree of Life. Tell Beit Mirim, 14th Century BCE, Hecht Museum, University of Haifa Israel"...

Hmmm...Tree of life...Not really...Plant of life...Certainly...Why? Here is why:

The Goddess is most likely some Levantine version of the Egyptian Goddess of Fertility, Hathor (pose, horned disk)...

The Goddess is not "worshiping the Tree of Life". She is standing surrounded by Nilotic lotuses...Well, first these are not lotuses. They are Blue Water Lilies, wrongly called Blue Lotus, even though they don't belong to the lotus family...

These beautiful blue flowers, native to the Nile marshlands, were believed to be "magic flowers", and were worshiped by the Egyptians...

For those who believe that these flowers were worshiped because they contained hallucinogenic chemicals: "Blue lotus flower (Nymphaea caerulea) is a psychoactive (not hallucinogenic!!!) plant, also known as blue Egyptian lotus, blue water lily, and sacred blue lily. It's been used in traditional medicine for thousands of years as a natural aphrodisiac (!!! the important bit), sleep aid, and anxiety reliever"

Now here is the reason why Blue lotus (Blue water lily) was such and important symbol: its flowering season is Jul-Sep. When the Nile water level reaches its peak. During the annual Nile flood...When Hathor, who was also called Mehet-Weret (The great flood) finally arrives...

Which is why on the Canaanite stela, Hathor, the Goddess of fertility, who is also called Mehet-Weret (The great flood), is depicted standing in the deep waters of the flooding river Nile, surrounded by long flower stems of the Blue lotuses. How do we know she is standing in the water? These long flower stems grow from the bottom of the river all the way to the surface...Vertically...And the goddess stands among the stems...So...

And the Goddess is pointing at at one of these flowers...As if to say: This is the flower of life, because it flowers during the flood, which is the source of life...And I am this flood...

I talked about lotus and papyrus flowers and why they were worshiped in Ancient Egypt in these posts: "Goddess on a horse", "Lotus and Papyrus", "Cow and calf ivory"...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...