|
The
great Trojan war of Greek mythology started with a squabble for an apple.
There was a great wedding feast to which everyone had been invited, except Eris,
Goddess of Discord and Strife. (In the name of this Goddess we recognise the
same root as in our words ‘error’ and ‘to err’, which originally meant:
an action that fails to achieve its purpose.) In spite of being snubbed, Eris
turned up and threw a golden apple in the middle of the party, inscribed with
the words “For the Fairest”.
The three great Goddesses Hera, Athene and Aphrodite, who were amongst the
guests in this divine celebrity event, are claimed to be the fairest.
In the discord, which arose Zeus decided to leave the choice to a mortal: a
handsome young shepherd from Mount Ida, called Paris. Hera offered Paris power,
Athena offered him glory by winning all his battles and Aphrodite offered him
the love of a woman as beautiful as herself: Helen of Sparta.
Paris choose to give the apple to Aphrodite in order to win Helen. The snag was
however, that Helen, queen of Agamemmon of Greece was marries. Thus, when Paris
took Helen with him to Troy a war started to get Helen back for Greece.
This is a complicated myth with far more substance
in its threads than we can give justice to in a few short paragraphs, so just a
few suggestions to wet our appetite:
Often
the life force, symbolised by the double-tongued serpent, offers us the fruit of
life. Its double tongue and dual nature reminds us that life is the dance of two
energies, formation and dissolving. Life would cease to be ‘alive’ if it was
static for any length of time. Its melodies and harmonies can only be maintained
in rhythmic cycles and movement. A song of only one everlasting note is deathly.
A rhythm without a pause between the beats is non-existent. However, the
connections that need to be made to bind the notes and the beats together leave
a lot of room for error. This is where Eris, Goddess of Discord and Strife comes
in. We do not intentionally invite her, but she appears.
The
long war of Troy gives us a description of the battles we experience also in our
own lives, when loves competes with power and glory.
-
We
know from our own experience at all stages of our development how vulnerable
love makes us. It opens us to many injuries and the wounds it inflicts are
amongst the cruellest we can receive. One of Aphrodite’ important lovers
in mythology is Ares (Mars), the God of pure raw impulse, pure assertive
action and therefore God of War. Three children are born of the union
between Aphrodite and Ares: ‘Sweet Harmony’ and the twin-brothers
‘Fear’ and ‘Terror’. We have all born these children in our inner
lives…
As an infant we can be terrified without the loving presence of our parents.
Later in life we know moments of sweet anticipation meeting our beloved, but
also fear and anxiety that we might not be accepted by him/her as we are. So
we but deodorisers, dandruff shampoo, acne cream and make-up and groom
ourselves. We practice sparkling conversation in our daydreams, but still
often find ourselves dumbstruck in the glorious presence of our love.
Even in long standing relationships, there are few things more upsetting
than a hint of rejection, or lack or attention from our partner. We all have
scars and handicaps from the ‘war-wounds’ suffered on the battlefield of
love with our parent’s friends, lovers and children.
-
The name of the woman whose love was offered by Aphrodite to
Paris gives us one further clue: Helen. She is Hel, Wholeness, again: the (quint)essence
of the Apple orchard. The one who changes everything she touches. The one
whose energy fuels the cycles. The one who burns in our deepest centre, as
well as in the Otherworld. It is significant, that in order to reach her,
the Greeks had to sail the sea and break down many barriers. Wholeness and
transforming power are very real, but rather intangible, not easy to put
your finger on.
-
Note
also that the city of Troy, in which Helen was held captive, was impossible
to take by force. The Greeks finally entered it hiding in a giant horse they
build. The symbolism of the horse combines instinctive animal nature,
dynamic power, swiftness, beauty, intelligence and nobility all in one.
Back
to Contents
The
Apple features prominently in many fairy tale stories. The well-known tale of
Snow-white is an example.
The beauty of a good fairy tale is that it is interpretable on many different
levels and in many ways, like the mystery of life itself.
We will give a couple of possible explanation of the Snow-white legend here, but
please remember not to take these interpretations as dogma. The joy of listening
to the same good story again and again lay, for our ancestors, in their ability
to discover layer upon layer of meaning.
When
we interpret the story against the background of the traumatic change from the
old Nature religion to Christianity, we obtain the following meaning:
Snow-white’s Mother has died and now she has a Stepmother (The old Nature
religion has gone and instead the people are now controlled by the Church).
The Stepmother is jealous, because the magic mirror tells her that
Snow-white’s beauty surpasses her own (In the eyes of the common people the
old ways, which connected them to Nature, were more beautiful than this new
Church, which for all its impressive grandeur still feels alien to them).
The Stepmother decides to get rid off her competitor and orders the hunter
to kill Snow-white. The hunter takes piety on Snow-white (The hunter was one
of the important facets of the old Pagan male God ,so maybe this indicates that
the hunter had Pagan leanings and therefore a lot of sympathy with Snow-white).
Snow-white goes to live with the Seven Dwarves (One possible
interpretation of the Dwarves is to see them as aspects of our own unfilled
potential, our ‘undeveloped’ or dwarfed chakra’s. Like the dwarves in
other fairy tale, who are fond of hoarding pots of gold, human beings treasure
their potential, but can’t necessarily do much with it in circumstances where
they are not allowed to ‘blossom’ fully.
Snow-white receives a poisoned apple from her jealous Stepmother, which
causes her to fall asleep (the offerings of the Church do not allow the
people to be fully ‘alive’ to the world around them).
Snow-white lies in a glass case until Prince Charming comes and kisses her awake
(Her ability for awareness is unconscious until it is sooner or later
inevitably woken up by another aspect of her being: in this case: her’ other
half’!).
Back
to Contents
Snow-white
as metaphor for the Apple blossom
Here
is another interpretation of the tale with Snow-white as the metaphor for the
apple blossom. In this explanation of the story the Stepmother fulfils the role
of the aspect of the life-force-serpent, which eats its own tail.
Snow
white’s Mum has died but the girl herself survives (The Apple tree looses
all its life and leaves in the dead winter, but the bud containing Snow-white is
still intact and is unfolding in the spring).
Snow-white is the pure white beautiful apple blossom with a most delicate
white skin, beautiful red lips (apple flowers are often tinted with delicate
red shades on the edges) and rosy cheeks.
Her wicked Stepmother is our old friend the Life-force-Serpent in one of its
many guises, always speaking with a double tongue: It wants to be alive to the
utmost of its capacity (it wants to be the most beautiful of all) and yet
it needs to eat its own tail (it is wicked) in order to stay alive.
Snow-white grows up and is send away into the woods with the hunter. This is a
time of great danger. A fragile blossom is dependant on many factors in its
ecological community (the wood).There are many adventurous spirits (small
hunting creatures) which could eat her in their search for food. Luckily the
hunter is a really good chap. He does not kill her, but refers her to the seven
dwarfs (The hunter is like the pollinating insect hunting for honey).
Snow-white ends up living with the seven dwarfs, who take care of her and
feed her. Being male, they may symbolise the actual pollen, since the hunter has
introduced Snow-white to them and they could also represent elemental Earth
Spirits. Traditionally the dwarfs work deep in the earth. They mine and find ore
and transform this into beautiful jewels with magic qualities. They are the
forces, which change the mineral nutrients in the earth into the jewels of
vegetation.
Snow-white thrives and grows into a mature apple. She really settles into the
home of the dwarves (settles into the soil and becomes buried into it).
But the ‘wicked’ life-force won’t leave her alone. The stepmother presents
her with a poisoned apple, which she eats (she becomes symbolically united,
‘at one’, with it). Snow-white becomes life-less (the flesh of the
apple she already is, rots away through the ‘poison’: the serpent eating its
own tail).
The dwarfs (the forces at work in the soil) now enclose her more than
ever and put her in a glass case (possibly the frozen water in the soil
during the long unconscious winter). The dwarfs never stop attending to her
lovingly.
Inevitably spring comes along in the form of Prince Charming on his white horse (the
Green Man, the Spirit of Vegetation riding on the back of the energy of the
Great Goddess). He kisses her awake (the warmth of the spring sun
germinates Snow-white). Snow-white marries (unites) with the spirit
of vegetation and lives happily ever after (becomes a wonderful Apple tree
herself).
If
you think that these interpretations are somewhat contrived, please try to
imagine what life must have been like for our Forefathers and Foremothers. They
did not have books, magazines, radio or television., but their minds were as
intelligent and inquisitive as our modern minds. They lived close to the Earth
and were, of necessity, sharp observers. They expressed their wisdom by spinning
tales of the energies they perceived in the living world all around them. They
developed a genius for creating stories, which can entertain an audience of any
age around the fire in the long dark winters. These seemingly simple stories had
an enduring quality, because they seem to speak to many levels of our being.
They contain many layers of practical and spiritual insights for the listeners
to develop their own understanding and wisdom about the world.
Back
to Contents
The
sacred fruit of the Goddess
The
apple is the sacred fruit of many Goddesses. It is sacred to the Greek
Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, and her Roman equivalent Venus. Graves says that
Olwen, the laughing Aphrodite of Welsh legend, was always connected with the
Apple.
A much-used image of the Great Goddess (and sometimes also of her son/consort,
e.g. Dionysus, Pan the Green Man, Hert (the horned God), etc.) is the white
hind, which in later folklore also appears as the magic white horse or the
mythical unicorn. Graves calls our attention the fact that the shelter of the
mythical white hind is the Apple tree.
Gaia (Mother Earth) had given the famous apples of immortality as a wedding gift
to Hera when she married Zeus. This is yet another clue to the association of
apples with sexuality and Goddesses. She put this Tree of Life in a magic garden
in the West, the Hesperides, where her sacred serpent, called Ladon, guarded the
tree.
“Romans gave the apple-mother the name Pomona, which was probably inherited
from the Etruscans. She symbolises all fruition.” (Walker)
The
Apple was also often seen as the carrier of the soul from one life to the next.
“Scandinavians thought apples essential to the resurrection, and places
vessels of them in graves.”
“Sigurd’s or Siegfried’s great grandmother conceived by eating an apple.
The Yule pig (an animal representing, in North Europe, the self-sacrificing
earth-energy we all need for our survival and which at this time of the year was
eaten in holy communion like the body of Christ) was roasted with an apple in
its mouth, to serve as a heart in the next life.” (Walker)
“A Roman banquet always progressed “ab ovo usque mala”, from eggs to
apples – beginning with the symbol of creation and ending with the symbol of
completion.” (Walker)
Back
to Contents
Halloween,
the Apple festival.
Halloween
is the festival of the Celtic New Year. This was considered to be a time of
“wholeness”, because the world of life and the world of death are touching
one another.
Vegetation
is dying and yet at the same time the seeds, which have fallen are burying
themselves into the soil or at least being covered by the leaf-fall and so the
new cycle has been conceived. Usually there is a veil between the two worlds,
but at this magical time of the year the veil is said to grow so thin that is
virtually disappears.
Food was shared between all members of the community in recognition of the fact
that we are all part of the whole. Apple cakes (sometimes called “soul-cakes,
foe example in Lancashire), apple drinks such as cider and other seedcakes,
containing fruits and nuts, were favourites and appropriate to celebrate the
spirit of the season.
In
Shakespeare’s “Midsummer’s Night Dream” one of Pucks lines is:
“And
sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl
In very likeness of a roasted Crab” (apple)
“The
mixture of hot spiced ale, wine or cider, with apples and bits of toast floating
in it was often called ‘Lamb’s wool’, some say from its softness, but the
word is really derived from the Irish ‘la mas nbhal’, ‘the feast of the
apple-gathering’ (All Hallow Eve), which being pronounced somewhat like ‘Lammas-ool’,
was corrupted into ‘lambs wool’.
It was usual for each person who partook of the spicy beverage to take out an
apple and eat it, wishing good luck to the company.” (Grieves)
Apple
games were popular and originally all had a deep symbolic significance. Apples
were hung on strings and much fun was had by all present, to see if people could
‘devour’ the fruit of life, without the use of hands, but with their teeth
only. This was in imitation of Hella, Nordic Goddess of the Otherworld, who had
huge teeth symbolic of her power to devour life.
Apples
were put in a bowl of water (a symbolic womb) and the participants again tried
to get hold of the fruit with their teeth. Symbolically this game of
‘apple-bobbing’ represents rebirth. You have to immerse yourself into the
womb (at least with your head, which symbolises your consciousness) to bring
back the gift of life. Next to the bowl of water, there was often a bowl of
flour (ground-up seeds!) with nuts, and in more modern times sweets, on top of
the flour. Everyone was invited after retrieving the apple from the womb, and
with their faces still wet, to now taste ‘the sweetness of life’ by picking
up a sweet or a nut with their lips, from the pile of flour representing life.
Of course their faces would be covered with flour, and so they would look like
ghosts once more to complete the cycle.
When
‘the veil is thin’ at Halloween, the ordinary time-space continuum makes way
for a glimpse into eternity, and so it is also a good time for contacting the
spirits, for example our beloved dead. With the door between the two worlds
being temporary open, it was also thought to be a most excellent time for
scrying games and rituals to tell the future. For example, the skin of an apple
may be peeled carefully in one long spiral ribbon and thrown over the left
shoulder. The pattern it displays, sometimes by breaking, may give the initial(s)
of a future lover. Cutting apples in half provided an other opportunity for a
fortune telling game: If you can see an even number of pips, the player would
marry soon. An uneven number tells you you’ll have to wait a little longer. If
one of the pips is cut, the relationship will suffer some defect! If two are
cut, there may not be much future in the partnership.
Back
to Contents
HOME
| CONTACT
US | JOIN US
| LINK TO US
| SITEMAP |
NO-FRAMES SITEMAP
|
