"A bundle of myrrh is my well beloved unto me;
he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts."
(The Song of Solomon i.13)

9 November 2001:

I generally plan my seasonal pages months in advance, as inspiration moves me.  This year I intended to use my friend Sandra Stanton's painting of Juno-Lucina as the theme (see below...), for she is a strong goddess, crowned with the radiance of her own Winter light.

  Juno-Lucina offers the patriarchal powers no man-child doomed to suffer; she bears only Light, a crown of light, shining like stars in the night.  In one hand, she protects a bird, as she would protect a child, from whatever might threaten it.

Then September 11th happened and everything changed.......

After that tragedy, the mythic person who stepped into the foreground of my mind was Myrrha, a princess of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, south of Turkey.  In ancient times, while Myrrha was yet herself a child, her drunken father raped her, impregnating her with a son, the tragic Adonis.  Myrrha fled south to Arabia where the gods transformed her into a myrrh tree to conceal her from her father -- the gum-resins exuded by this tree were said to be the bitter tears she shed over her father's betrayal and her own exile.

Her brother grew within her for ten months. Then the bark swelled, burst, and the child emerged.  Aphrodite immediately appeared and took him away to became her beloved; despite her protection, the youth died in a hunting accident; Aphrodite grieved and annually resurrected her lover.  In other versions of the myth, this exotic tree, "menstruating" precious balm along the southern shores of the Red Sea, came to represent Aphrodite herself, a sea-goddess, whose fragrant myrrh is an aphrodisiac.

The myrrh tree is native to lands bordering the Red Sea (Arabia, Ethiopia and Somaliland). It is a low, spreading tree with pale gray bark which exudes drops of a reddish-brown juice. This liquid slowly hardens into gum-resin lumps, or "tear-drops," some as large as eggs. They are easily powdered, fragrant to the nose, somewhat astringent and bitter to the tongue.  The lumps were prized by the ancients and made into medicinals, perfume, oils, and aphrodisiacal incense burned in the temples.  Among the Hebrews, the tabernacle, sacred ark, and altar vessels were annointed with oil of myrrh.  For the first six months of the purification-year undergone by a Hebrew woman after childbearing, she too, like the sacred altar and vessels, was washed and annointed with oil of myrrh.

Six thousand years ago, the Egyptians discovered myrrh’s use in rites of death, where it was essential to the art of embalming.  Mummifying the corpse was believed to preserve the body for an afterlife spent in joyful, well-watered gardens.  The word, "myrrh," comes from the Arabic mur, "bitter," for, influenced by ancient Egypt,  myrrh eventually became associated with bitterness and death (the myth of Myrrha, Adonis, and Aphrodite clearly reflects this paradox).

Along with frankincense and gold, myrrh was one of the precious gifts brought by the three Magi to the Christ-child, but myrrh spoke to his death, not his birth: his corpse would later be annointed with fragrant myrrh-ointment by another triad, the three Marys (Christ's mother, Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Bethany).  From the three Magi to the three Marys, myrrh is a mysterious presence.  The word "myrrh" is also cognate with Mary, or Maryam, the mother of the Christ-child.  Early Christians actually called the Virgin Mary "Myrrh of the Sea."  Like Myrrha/Aphrodite, she is both birth-mother and death-mother, birthing in desolation, deathing in equal desolation, myrrh at his birth, myrrh at his death. She, with the other two Marys (whose names, of course, are also cognate with "myrrh") who were present at the Crucifixion, were known as the myrrhophores, "myrrh-bearers," a title also given to ancient death-priestesses.

When Sandra Stanton began painting this myth of Myrrha, she refused to depict the frightened, pregnant princess who was turned into a myrrh tree.  Instead, she turned to Mother Mary, "Myrrh of the Sea," and created a painting she calls "Madonna of the Earth."  Like Myrrha, Aphrodite, and the myrrhophores, this Madonna becomes an expression of those who birth sons, mourn their loss, and go on alone, growing in peace and compassion.  This is a gentle crone-madonna, her bones and hair thinning, like the leafless winter tree, yet she's stronger than ever, serene, agelessly youthful.  Her tree holds many goddess images -- and she herself holds the Earth.

Today, the Madonna's Earth and her ancient images of pre-Christian madonnas are all in great need of the myrrh-deva's soothing oils, for they have been rent and ravaged by men of power -- kings (like Myrrha's father), CEOs, politicians, generals, terrorists, war lords, arms merchants, and too many religious leaders, east and west.

We too, the humans on the earth the myrrh-Madonna holds, need her tender attentions -- and by "we" I have to include all those men of power with their small hearts and stone eyes, who might, perhaps, be awakened by her fragrant, inner-dimensional incense, or stirred by her pungent oils, an oil they can neither hoard nor trade, for its use is the Madonna's own sacred secret.  My prayer for those in power, especially those behind the scenes who work in the shadows, is that they might finally be inspired to ask what they can do for the impoverished, the grieving, the angry, the despairing, and for earth herself.

In this winter solstice season, may the myrrh-deva whisper over our earth, as well as our bodies, running across our skin like the finest perfumed balm, soothing every joint and aching muscle. May the three Marys annoint our worried hearts with tenderness and awaken a profound sense of trust within sinew and synapse.  May myrrh, an essence of wholeness at a deep-down cellular level, be for us a bundle of life force, a creativity to hold between our breasts as we begin life anew.

May it be so.

*** Please note: data on myrrh comes from my unpublished book, The Green World Oracle: Listening to the Sacred Voices of Trees and Plants.  The material is protected by copyright laws and all rights are reserved.  It may not be reproduced without my written permission.  Sandra Stanton's art is equally and fully protected.

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