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