Saffron

This is saffron. The most expensive spice in the world. I found this add for it today: Sale!!! 100 grams of saffron. Was €442.99 EUR now only €265.99 EUR!!!

The vivid crimson stigmas, are collected and dried for use mainly as a seasoning and colouring agent in food. The reason the spice is so expensive is that huge number of flowers are needed to produce a small quantity of spice... And they have to be picked and processed by hand...

This is what the crocus plants look when found in nature.

And this is what crocuses look when like when depicted on Minoan frescoes. This scene called "The Saffron Harvesters", was found in the Minoan settlement on island of Santorini to the north of Crete. You can clearly see the bunches of crocus flowers growing out of rocky ground...

As I said in my post about Minoan goat mythology, Cretan crocus, the ancestor of all the saffron crocuses, starts flowering in October-November and flowers throughout winter. 

At the beginning of rain season, when Ibex goats mate and olives are ripe for picking...Which is all depicted on this Minoan fresco... 

So the saffron picking scenes depicted on Minoan frescoes all take place during the winter starting in October-November. During the season dominated by The Goddess...Why do we only see women picking crocus flowers? Maybe this was one of those sacred, female only jobs, protected by taboos...

Well stigmas are female sexual organs of the crocus flower. No wonder picking saffron was female only activity. I would bet that both crocus and saffron were seen as holy and were dedicated to The Goddess...

This is a reconstruction drawing of a room in the complex of Akrotiri. This figure is interpreted as The Goddess overseeing the harvesting of the Saffron.

I would like to show you this detail in which you can see how she holds the saffron. She picks crimson crocus stigmas, and arranges them in in a bunch...

Now here is something interesting. Wall painting from the Cult Center at Mycenae...What is this woman (I think she is The Goddess) holding in her hands? What are these crimson bunches? 

Well I would suggest they are saffron bunches. Bunches of female reproductive organs...Like this one:

Here is why I waisted your time talking about saffron...This is "Lid of a pyxis originally containing face powder. Made in Ugarit, Syria, under Mycenaean influence, end of 2nd millennium BC". Apparently depicting "Mistress of the animals feeding goats"... 

"Mistress of the animals feeding goats"??? Or The Goddess, holding bunches of saffron, in October-November, when crocus blooms, saffron is collected, when dancing Ibex Goats announce the arrival of rains, the arrival of the Dark, Wet, Yin, Goddess half of the year...

I think that "Mistress of the animals" is a figment of the imagination of the archaeologists who didn't know what to make of all these images of a woman standing between animals...

But now that we know that goats, rams, lions, bulls, birds are all symbols marking a particular moment on the solar circle, I would propose that these images of women standing between animals depict The Goddess, Mother Earth, at particular moment in in the solar year...

Like this depiction of the "Female Divinity between Lions" on Amygdaloid Gem, Mycenae. 

This is one of endless depictions of The Goddess depicting her either between the lions, standing on a lion or being driven in a chariot pulled by lions... Basically Mother Earth (but also Sirius!) during the time when Eurasian lions start mating which is Jul/Aug or in Zodiac, Leo... I talked about this in my post "Assumption of Mary". The above gem actually shows a male and female lion, just in case there is any doubt what the image represents...🙂

So which animals do we find in the "Mistress of the animals" depictions? I know of Lions, Deer, Goat, Bird, Snake...Any other ones that you know of? 

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...

Minoan sacred marriage seal

This is a Minoan seal which is by archaeologist interpreted as a depiction of "hieros gamos" or the "sacred marriage".  

Hieros gamos ("holy marriage") is a sexual ritual that plays out a marriage between a god and a goddess, especially when enacted in a symbolic ritual where human participants represent the deities.

So who are the god and goddess depicted on this seal? And why are they depicted standing on top of a dog?

In my post "Ognjena Marija" I wrote about the holly marriage between Ognjena Marija (Fiery Mary) and St. Ilija Gromovnik (Elijah the thunderer). 

Ilija Gromovnik (Elijah the thunderer) is the Christianized Perun. But also he is the Christianized Helios, the old titan Sun God. 

In Slavic mythology, Ognjena Marija or the "Fiery Mary" is considered to be the sister of St Ilija Gromovnik and (or) wife of Perun. She is also known as Perunika.

Serbian folk tradition says that if it wasn't for Ognjena Marija, St Ilija Gromovnik, Perun, Thundering fiery sun would burn the whole world. 

The day on which St Eliah the thunderer is celebrated, the 2nd of August, used to be the known as Perun day. 

The period three days before and the three days after the 2nd of August, is in South Slavic tradition called Kresovi meaning Fires. This is the hottest part of the year in the northern hemisphere, the period of the burning heat. These are the dog days when the dog star Sirius is in the sky with the sun. 

In Serbian folk mythology, Ognjena Marija has been transformed into two female Christian characters: St Marina, known also as St Margaret and St Mary Magdalene.

If we look at the days on which people celebrate these two female saints, we can see that they mark the beginning and the end of Kresovi (the fire days):

30th of July. St Marina, St Margaret, Ognjena Marija
2nd of August. St Ilija the thunderer
4th of August. St Marija Magdalena, Blaga (kind, benign, mild, gentle) Marija

You can see that Serbian tradition Kresovi, the week of fire, starts with the fiery Marija and Ends with kind, benign, mild, gentle Marija. The 2nd of August, Perun day, the day of Ilios the thundering sun, is actually the hottest day of the year in the Balkans. All summer the sun has been burning in the sky. This is the time of wild fires and drought. Everyone is praying for the first big thunderstorms to arrive and save the land from being burnt to cinder. And this is what Ognjena Marija delivers. In Serbia there is a saying: "Od svetog Ilije sunce sve milije" which means "From St Ilija the sun starts getting kinder, milder, gentler". The first part of the 2nd of August is considered to be Summer and the second is considered to be Autumn. And this is what the transformation of Marija from Ognjena (Fiery) to Blaga (kind, benign, mild, gentle) represents, The end of summer and beginning of autumn.

The reign of the sun (Yang, Light, Heat, Dryness, Male principle) is ending and the right of the earth (Yin, Darkness, Cold, Wetness, Female principle) is beginning. 

Basically the god and goddess are Father Sky and Mother Earth...

Is this what the above Minoan seal represents?