A dream and an upcoming project: Omphalos, Bees, Drumming and The Sacred Woman

✨The Dream.

All starts from a dream I had this past night.

I was in a big circle of women and in the middle there was a circular stone, with a smaller bossed circle shaped in the centre. All around the landscape was a bit dusty and sunny like if I was in a historical place, with few old stone temples around. We were asked to hardly tap the ground around the stone, like playing a big drum in order to free the bees from the stone. And when we did this an intense deep sound made the air vibrate creating a strong shockwave around. Together with the sound, thousands of bees were flying all around us making a harmonious and joyful buzzing melody.

✨The Stone.

The circle shaped stone in my dream reminded me of the “omphalos”. In ancient Greece an omphalos was a sacred stone close to the temples that symbolically represented the centre of Mother Earth, her navel, which connects the inside with the outside, were everything was born. In Cyprus the Aphrodite’s tomb was known as the “navel of the world”. The omphalos stone in Delphi is also another example that evokes this symbolism: it has the shape of a hive and is well known that bees in the past were considered an example of cosmic order to the point of becoming an inspiration for the organization of temples in Mediterranean culture.

In addition the priestess of the Goddess Cybele in Anatolia and also in Ancient Greece temples (Aphrodite, Artemis..) were called Melissae that means bees in Latin and Greek language. In the Homeric hymn to Hermes, Melissai were eating the honey to be inspired to say the Truth. So, the omphalos became the place of the sacred word, connected to the hum of bees and to the vibrant sound of life..

Goddess Cybele playing the drum

Goddess Artemis from Ephesus with a hive on her chest symbol of fertility

Omphalus from Delphi

✨The Drumming.

In his VI book of “Georgics”, the latin poet Virgil, who studied greek scientific and poetic literature, described a method for attracting a swarm of bees to a new hive by luring them with fragrant herbs and flowers: when a column of bees hovers nearby, one should beat the drum and the cymbal of Cybele to attract them.

We know that sound and vibration can influence the collective behavior of bees. Bees themselves use dance and the rhythmic beating of their wings to communicate the location and source of food to other bees.

In some traditional European beekeeping there is a technique called “drumming” where the side of the hive is gently tapped while light smoke is applied encouraging the bees to move upward or into another container.

✨The interpretation.

The sound, the drumming to awake something that is live underneath the Earth surface. A collective Truth urges to be revealed and I feel like one of those priestesses, a Melissa, that has to drum in circle with other women today to free all the bee priestesses from the past and re-evoke their power.

✨The project.

The time is now: Rising the Sacred Woman, a project I designed to awaken the ancient wisdom of the bee goddess in you, a forgotten intelligence that carries messages between worlds in terms of Love, nourishment, harmony and sacrality… Dance, sing and drum with me to remember and honor the Sacred Woman in you and to let my dream come true…

"Rising the Sacred Woman" my online program including 7 sessions starting soon!