Pagan Blog Project – week 22 – K#2 – The Kubeleyan Mother

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Pagan Blog Project – week 22 – K#2 – The Kubeleyan Mother

Honestly, there isn’t much I can say about Kybele. Though she made an appearance in my life almost a year ago, she’s remained pretty distant and elusive. A loving presence, yes, but still an enigma.

Known to many as Cybele, the Mountain Mother has a few really fascinating stories. These mainly seem to involve sex, lust, longing, castration, blood, dancing, tambourines, and other fun things. Her origins are Phyrgian or Thracian or Minoan, where she is often related to the Mother of the Gods, Rhea. Some scholars have traced her cult back to one of the oldest of all human cities, Çatalhöyük.

I know her as the Great Mother, Queen of Heaven and of Earth, MOTHER OF US ALL, Queen of the Universe, and Momma. She is said to have cured Dionysus of his madness, or at least, helped him transform his “bad” madness into a “good” madness. Thusly, many of the rites of Dionysus have strong similarities to those of the Kubeleyan Mother.

She wears a crown, has adorable toes, loves drums and tambourines, glitter, dark chocolate, lions, and pomegranates. She enjoys dancing and Gender Queer folks. (I mean, honestly. Who doesn’t?) One of her Roman festivals, the Megalesia, just so happens to be on my birthday. And her priests make an appearance in one of my all-time favorite ancient texts, The Golden Ass.

Though she’s not as popular as other deities on Neo-Paganism, she is honored in the hearts of many, and even has her own sacred space in the United States at the Maetreumof Cybele. Unfortunately the Maetreum has been fighting an on-going battle:

For eight long years now they have fought our legally mandated property tax exemption forcing us to court to fight for legal parity with every other church in our community.  A community that routinely grants full exemption to Catholic picnic grounds but not us.   Our story has been covered in Pagan circles for years as well as our local press and even by the New York Times.  We lost our initial court case, appealed to Appellate level where we won an unanimous four judge decision.

For thousands of years, Kybele has been countless things to countless people, and I am truly blessed to have our Mountain Mother in my life. She greets me every morning and every night. She is with me when am I with clients and I pray to her so that they might find relief from their “madness”, in whatever form that has taken for them and their families. 

And it is to Magna Mater that I offer my thanks and blessings.