Altar Symbolism (1): Death and Rebirth and the Lunar Round

4 Comments | January 4, 2009 at 2:22 pm by mahud
Filed under Cosmogonic Myth, Cosmic-Lunar Cycles, altars, Mystery Religions, Biblical Mythology, Mesopotamian Mythology, Chinese Mythology, The Cosmic Mysteries

My Pagan-Mythic Path is greatly influenced by the mystery of the lunar cycle, focusing mainly upon the waning and waxing crescents, that I term the ‘lunar double-door.’ It is within the lunar double-door that the opposites of manifest cosmic reality become one (more on that aspect of my mythos later).

My mythos is greatly influenced by the symbolism of Mystery Religions (commonly referred to as ‘cults,’ because they were not state religions). I focus mainly upon the lunar aspect of the dying and reborn divinity, rather than the later agricultural transformation of such deities, and I believe that much myth after the neolithic revolution inherited and transformed much of the lunar mythos of the dying and reborn divinity, that afterwards became (understandably) more associated with agriculture.

Upon my altar I have two knives symbolic of the waning (pointing downward toward the realm of death) and waxing (pointing upward toward the realm of life) moons. In this post I’d like to provide some mythic examples relating to this arrangement.

The Twin Peaks of Mount. Mashu

I’d like to begin with Gilgamesh and his encounter with the scorpion men who dwell at the twin peaks of Mount. Mashu, guarding the path of the sun god. The twin mountains, though not lunar in nature, do seem to be derived from earlier lunar symbolism of the waxing and waning moons of life/light and death/darkness. Therefore I feel they are worth mentioning. Their relevance will also become more apparent later on in the series.

According to Wayne Horowitz (Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography: p.331-332), the sun god passes between two mountains at the very ends of the earth. Also, a certain incantation states that seven demons are born in the Dark mountains mountains of sunset, while another seven demons “were raised” in the light mountains of sunrise. He surmises that the dark mountain might be compared with Mount. Mashu, where Gilgamesh encounters the scorpion men and passes into the region (or tunnel) of darkness towards the ocean of death that the god of the sun alone can cross.

Further, Pierre Francois remarks;

“Gilgamesh came to Mashu, the great mountains about which he had heard many things, which guard the rising and the setting of the sun. Its twin peaks are as high as the wall of heaven and its paps reach down to the underworld” (…). Mesopotamia’s twin cosmic mountains reach up to heaven and down into the underworld. They represent an antinomic universe of light and darkness that can only exist through the equilibrium of its dualities: ie, through ‘twinship.’

Francois, Pierre, 1999, ‘Inlets of the Soul: Contemporary Fiction in English and the Myth of the Fall’, p.17 (Rodopi)

Also worth mentioning is a Steatite Stamp seal (Northern Mesopotamia), depicting two (waxing and waning?) scorpions flanking an eight pointed ’star’ or rosette (said to date from the late 4th millennium B.C.) which may represent an earlier mythic version of the two scorpion men who guard the way of the Sun god between the twin peaks of Mount. Mashu.

The Double Axe

In Minoan culture the double axe was a prominent religious symbol. It’s two blades possibly represent the waning (death/darkness) and waxing (life/light) moons. Further support for this interpretation is found on 5th century B.C. coins from Knossos depicting a labyrinthine pattern (labyrinth is thought to mean ‘place of the double-axe’) with “one or two sickle moons-one waxing and one waning…” (Kerényi, Karl, 1996, ‘Dionysos: Archetypal image of indestructible Life’, p.105-6 (Princeton University Press)).

The Eleusinian Mysteries

In Sign Language of the Mysteries (p.137), J. S. Ward makes mention of a bas-relief relating to the Mysteries of Eleusis, that depicts a neophyte standing before the hierophantess (probably Demeter), holding two torches, one pointing upward (symbolic of life) and the other downward (representing death and the realm of Hades).

Chinese Threshold Gods

In The Island of the New Moon Passage, I mentioned two threshold guardians (gateway gods). During the Chinese New Year, a time of rebirth and and new beginnings (commencing at the appearance of the new moon, known as Shuo Day, meaning New Moon), it is customary to place two apotropaic gods (the ministers Chin Shu pao and Yuchi Gong), either side of a doorway. One light-skinned and the other dark-skinned (symbolising darkness and light).

These deities replaced Shen shu and Yu lei, who, in the myth recorded by Wang Chung guarded the entrance to the peach tree of immortality on the island of the new moon, allowing only the righteous dead to pass through the gate of demons to partake of the tree’s ambrosial fruit.

[according to] Antoni… …(quoting Carl Hentze), that the word for new moon in an early pictographic form, represented two figures: A larger figure to the left, representing an old man, turned upside down (corresponding to the character Ta, meaning ‘big’), and on the right a smaller upright figure, representing a child (corresponding to the character Tzu, meaning ‘son’ or ‘child’). Both figures are standing above a horizontal crescent moon, reminiscent of a boat.

It appears that the two guardian spirits of the new moon island are related to the two figures in the boat. The old man on the left that is inverted, downwards towards the realm of death, and corresponding with the dying moon, and the child on the right positioned upwards towards the realm of life, and corresponding with the moon reborn.

Cernunnos’ Path: The Island of the New Moon Passage

Antoni, again referencing Hentze’s research, explains that in ancient Chinese thought uprightness alluded to life and light whereas inversion alluded to darkness and death.

The Mithraic Mysteries

In the prime iconic representation of the Roman Mithras, known as the Taruoctony, two torch bearers (Cautes and Cautopates) flank Mithras slaying the lunar-cosmic bull.

Cautes (on the left) holds his torch upwards, symbolising life and light (note: his dress (in the Taruoctony depicted above) is similar to that of the solar Mithras), while on the right Cautopates points his torch downwards, symbolic of death and darkness, clothed in a mantle of the night sky.

Dionysus of the Lunar Double-Door

We encounter a similar iconic representation of death and life represented on an Attic vase dating from the 5th century B.C. Here four female figures flank and effigy of Dionysus hanging from a post. One of the female figures on the left points a torch downward, while another female figure on the right points her torch upward, again, symbolic of life/light and death/darkness, while the god hangs suspended between the two opposites of cosmic reality, embodying both principles as the divinity of the lunar-cosmic round of existence between the waning and waxing moons of death and rebirth.

The Crucifixion of Jesus

Finally, we encounter the same symbolic idea in Luke’s Gospel account of Jesus’ crucifixion.

Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left.

…

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!”

But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Luke 23:32-43 (NIV)

Two criminals flank Jesus, one destined to paradise, while the other who remains obstinately unrepentant is presumably destined for Hell. Clearly we have another variation on the theme of life/light and death/darkness upon the threshold of an otherworldly reality.

Altar Symbolism

1. Death and Rebirth and the Lunar Round
2. Walking the Cosmic Beast
3. Lunar-Cosmic Vessel Part One