Lunar-Cosmic Dragon (and Dolphins) of Re-creation

0 Comments | December 3, 2008 at 6:13 pm by mahud
Filed under Cosmogonic Myth, Japanese Mythology, Paganism, Norse Mythology, Greek (Classical) Mythology, The Cosmic Mysteries

Three months ago, during a visit to the town of Banff, I picked up a necklace with a dragon tooth pendant to wear as a replacement for the ‘lunar’ dolphin necklace I discovered at a Medieval Fair earlier in the summer:

I was really happy when I discovered this crescent-shaped dolphin necklace. As the cycle of the moon plays a part in my Paganism….

Currently I’m wearing the moon dolphin in imitation of the waning moon. During the dark moon, I intend to remove the necklace, and when it reappears I’ll wear it as if it’s waxing.

Between Old and New Moons: Evolution of my Altar

I interpret the dolphin as a lunar-cosmic symbol on the basis of the myth of Dionysus and the Pirates, that I understand to have a cosmological structure modelled on the cycle of the moon. My understanding of the myth is related to that of Robert Graves in his (admittedly “idiosyncratic” (K.S. Kirk, Nature of Greek Myths)) commentary on Greek Myth, where he states; “Dionysus voyaged in a new-moon boat, and the story of his conflict with the pirates seems to have been based on the same icon” (Greek Myths: Complete Edition). The interpretation of the pirate ship as Dionysus’ “new moon boat” (See also Old and New Moon Boat and The Island of the New Moon Passage) is supported by the much later corresponding myth of Noah who was lamed by a lion within the ark. The ark is another vessel of death and rebirth that transports its passengers between one lunar-cosmic cycle of existence to another. According to the myth relating to Dionysus…

Pirates offer to take the god, who is sleepy with wine, home to the island of Naxos, but intend to kidnap and sell him as a slave in Asia….

The wind drops and the ship stood immovable (Axis-Mundi) upon the ocean. The oars transformed into snakes (compare the sleeping Vishnu upon the many-headed cobra emblematic of endless time, and perhaps Quetzalcoatl’s return upon a raft of serpents). Ivy and grapevines miraculously sprout and engulf the ship (the divine and stabilizing force born from within the cosmic realm). Beasts surround the god (the lord of animals), while the music of flutes fill the air (eternal order/harmony). Dionysus then becomes a (solar) lion and launches himself (wrath-bliss) upon the pirate captain (lunar) [like the wounding of Noah] who, along with his entire crew, excluding Acoetes the helmsman, jump overboard into the sea (of time) in the form of dolphins (crescent moon symbol).

Between Old and New Moons: Dionysus and Jesus and the Simultaneous Cosmic Destruction-Creation

The solar lion is another mythical counterpart to the Solar Giant, (See also Solar Beasts) symbolizing the divinity (that Mircea Eliade coins the sacred) inherent in all things: an all-consuming force which is counteracted through the wounding of divinity and cosmically transformed in the ambrosial (lunar related) waters of rebirth. Thereby chaos becomes cosmos, embodied by the universal/world soul (anima mundi) (symbolized by the ‘dying god’), of which we (the myriad of creation or as Daoist philosophy puts it, the ‘ten thousand things.’) are all fragments.

As I see it, the transformation of a wounded or dying god is bound up in the cyclic pattern of death and transformation of us all, which is reflected in the above myth in the wounding of the pirates (fragments of the divine) and their captain, who also ’submerge’ into the cosmos symbolically in dolphin form. The pirates have numerous counterparts, also in the role of cosmic conspirators, in corresponding myths, who desire to slay or wound the sacred, and consequently slay themselves. This theme of cosmic self-destruction may also be the basis of Odin’s encounter with a group of nine “thralls” (nine being symbolic of the Norse cosmos):

Odin once ventured from home and came across nine Thralls cutting hay. He offered to sharpen their scythes, and with their approval, produced a whetstone from his belt. The Thralls, impressed with the sharpness of their blades, and implored with the All-Father to sell the whetstone to them. Odin replied that the Whetstone could only be paid for at great cost, but still they persisted. And so, he gave them what they desired, tossing the whetstone among them, and as they fought over the precious stone, they sliced open each other’s necks with their own scythes.

Between Old and New Moons: Kavasir and the Mead of Inspiration

Odin’s Whetstone, according to this view, corresponds with the lion’s indestructible and all-destroying claws and the unyielding Cyclopean gaze of the solar giant—like the third eye of Shiva, which according to Hindu myth, reduced karma (the god/force of desire that manifests the cosmos. An idea which, I believe, is also reflected in Greek creation myth) to ashes—symbolic of the sacred/divine power. The thrall’s desire for this power (although paradoxically it must have resided within them) led to their own self-destruction, fulfilling Odin’s words, that the precious stone could only be obtained “at great cost.” To me, this recalls Odin’s own sacrifice upon the cosmic tree to obtain the boon of runic knowledge, as well as, his transformation into a snake to obtain the mead of inspiration. In serpent form Odin enters a small hole in the side of the mountain where the mead is kept, narrowly escaping death when Baugi tries to strike him with Odin’s own auger. The serpent transformation (as a lunar-cosmic symbol of death and re-birth) is parallel to the pirate’s transformation into dolphins.

It is well known, especially from the works of such scholars as Mircea Eliade, that legendry surrounding urban beginnings tends to replicate myths of world creation.

Puhvel, Jaan, 1987, ‘Comparative Mythology’, p.286-287 (The John Hopkins University Press)

Lunar Dragon Tooth

As the dolphin recalls the myth of Dionysos and the Pirates, the symbol of the dragon’s tooth recalls to me the Greek myth of the founding of Thebes, which is preceded by an encounter with a huge serpent:

It was Cadmus who founded the Greek city of Thebes. Directed by a Delphic prophecy, Cadmus followed a cow, recognizable by it’s unusual moon-shaped markings, and built the city on the site where it collapsed from exhaustion. Wanting to sacrifice the cow to Athene, Cadmus ordered his men to fetch water—for the ritual—from a nearby spring. however the spring belonged to the god Ares, and was guarded by his offspring, a terrible serpent, who devoured most of them. Cadmus killed the serpent, crushing it’s head with a rock, and was afterwards instructed by Athene to sow the serpent’s teeth, like seeds, in the earth. From these ‘seeds’ sprung the Spartoi ‘sown men’, bearing arms and ready to attack. Cadmus tossed stones among them, and in the resulting confusion, they slaughtered one another, until only five remained standing. These five Spartoi became the ancestors of the Theban aristocracy.

Between Old and New Moons: The Theme of the Eighty Brothers

Underlying this myth is the same cosmological myth of creation through destruction. The death of Cadmus’ men corresponds with both the death of the pirates as well as the thralls in the Norse myth. And again, when Cadmus throws stones amongst the Spartoi, they slay one another, as the thralls cut themselves to pieces with their own scythes when Odin casts the whetstone in their midst. The Dragon that devours cadmos’ men is the cosmic-chaotic power that also devours itself (like the Ouroboros) and, paradoxically, gives birth to Cadmus’ men (transformed into the earth-born warriors), through the teeth that devoured them.

We find this theme elsewhere, symbolized by the self-devouring of the cosmic-lunar principle:

Klaus Antoni mentions… [a] …Chinese bronze vessel (Shang Dynasty), depicting a hare issuing from the mouth of a dragon, in connection with the Japanse myth (Izumo Cycle) of Okuninushi’s encounter with the hare ¹. The lunar hare is known to many cultures from around the world, owing to the markings on the moon resembling an image of a rabbit or hare. In China, the lunar hare lived on the moon pounding medicinal plants with his pestle and mortar into the elixir of immortality/longevity, while in Japan the hare pounded rice to make mochi (rice cake) ².
In the Japanese tale, the hare needed to cross an ocean and managed to convince some sea monsters (or crocodiles) to arrange themselves in a row, under the pretence that he wanted to count them. The hare had almost reached the opposite shore of the ocean when he admitted to the final sea monster that it was just a ruse to cross over to the other side, and the sea monster tore the hare’s skin from his body. The hare encounters Okuninushi’s eighty brothers, who advise the hare to heal itself in the sea, but the salt water only made the hare’s skin worse. Okuninushi advices him to roll in the pollen of some healing flowers, and the hare is healed. In reward for Okuninushi kindness, the hare predicts that he, rather than his cruel brothers, will marry the princess Yagami, who they were travelling to meet, which according to Antoni, leads eventually to Okuninushi becoming ‘Okuninushi’ (Great Land Master), the originator of the human world. Antoni compares the skinning of the hare, which is symbolic of the moon, and his restoration, with the lunar cycle, and its connection with the cyclic nature of death and new life, a “Cosmic puzzle,” that Okuninushi alone could solve ³.

The Cosmic Double-Death
(And Cyclic re-creation through the Dying God)

1: Antoni, Klaus, 1982, ‘Death and Transformation: The Presentation of Death in East and Southeast Asia (Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 41, No. 2), p.157 (Nanzan University)
2: Lang, Andrew, ‘Custom and Myth‘, p.132 (Adamant Media Corporation); Varner, Gary R, 2007, ‘Creatures in the Mist‘, p.173 (Algora Publishing); Hall, James, 1994, ‘Illustrated Dictionary of Symbols in Eastern and Western Art‘, p.28 (Westview Press); Volker, T, 1975, ‘The Animal in Far Eastern Art‘, p.93 (BRILL); Gunde, Richard, 2002, ‘Culture and Customs of China‘, p.207 (Greenwood Press); & Williams, Charles Alfred Speed, 1976, ‘Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives‘, p.221 (Courier Dover Publications)
3: Antoni, Klaus, 1982, ‘Death and Transformation: The Presentation of Death in East and Southeast Asia (Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 41, No. 2)’, p.155-157 (Nanzan University).

The lunar hare, almost devoured by the sea monster (related to the Ouroboros, as is the Chinese depiction of the dragon with a hare emerging from its mouth), is another mythic retelling of cosmic regeneration modelled on the cycle of the moon. The same idea lies behind the Norse myth of the world serpent (another Ouroboros) that devours the ox head that Thor uses as bait to trap him, as well as the Egyptian myth of the death of Osiris (as told by Plutarch), who was cut up into fourteen pieces—much like a cosmic giant whose body becomes creation— and is then reconstructed (2X14=28: symbolic of a lunar month), all apart from the god’s phallus, which was swallowed by a fish, a counterpart of the ocean serpent. Plutarch further mentions that the sarcophagus, which Set and the seventy-two conspirators use to trap Osiris, is symbolic of a lunar boat. Also in the Hindu myth of cyclic re-creation involving Vishnu’s transformation into a boar to rescue goddess Earth from the cosmic ocean (who has been abducted by a serpent demon who dwells at the bottom of the sea), there is the same underlying theme of lunar-cosmic death and rebirth, self-sacrifice and the Universal Soul (Atman and the light of the moon) hidden within the ocean of manifest reality.