Symbols - What does heaven look like
Thyrsus
A thyrsus or thyrsos was a staff occasionaly intertwined with vines or ivy leaves and topped with a pine cone. These staffs were carried by Dionysus and his followers. Euripides wrote that honey dripped from the thyrsos staves that the Bacchic maenads carried. The thyrsus was a sacred instrument at religious rituals and fêtes. It is hugely symbolic:
- The pine cone is representative of the pineal gland
- Honey is symbolic of sexual/spiritual energy
- The staff is the spine
- The vine or ivy twirling up the staff is the kundalini energy
I think it would be impossible to get a more graphic example of what sexual stimulation and the kundalini experience can achieve.
Through the ecstatic experience of kundalini, one can fly and the flight is for the two of you. He is holding a thyrsi, is naked, is a lovely amber honey colour and has a halo a sign of enlightenment – so he is helping her - shaktiput. The fresco is at Pompei and I took it whilst on holiday. |
The thyrsus and the ivy
Dionysos is considered to be a god of fertility, especially the lush growth of grapevines, ivy and other green plants.
The thyrsus which the god carries is sometimes a fennelstalk topped by a pine cone and wrapped in ivy
The maenads, followers of Dionysos, pound the ground with the thyrsus, which drips honey and causes milk and wine to gush up from the earth; a phenomenon into which it is not difficult to read sexual symbolism.
(Euripedes, lines 700-715)
Observations
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- Black Elk - Native American Indians - Butterflies
- Braveheart - A long shamanic journey
- Clark, Fay Marvin – Into the Light – The early Mayan concepts of creation, the creator, and the origin and destiny of the Nagual
- Codex Azcatitlan - Aztecs and Mexica - Adepts
- Codex Azcatitlan - Aztecs and Mexica - Dismemberment
- Crowley - 05 The Hierophant
- Crowley - 06 The Lovers
- Delos - 07 The Terrace of the Lions
- Dionysos - Rides a leopard
- Dionysos - Villa of Mysteries Pompei - Ecstasy
- Dionysos - Villa of Mysteries Pompei - Flailing
- Dionysos - Villa of Mysteries Pompei - The Liknon
- Dürer, Albrecht - Symbolism - Knight, Death, and the Devil
- Ektasis and enthousiasmos
- Eleusinian Mysteries - Thesmophoria - 03
- Euripides - The Bacchae - First they let their hair fall loose
- Euripides - The thyrsus and the ivy [interpretation]
- Father Bernabe Cobo - Inca Religion and Customs - Temple of Coricancha, Cuzco
- Giuoco delle Minchiate Fiorentine and Visconti-Sforza - 7 - The Chariot
- Hypnerotomachia Poliphili - Bull and Twin horns
- Indus valley - Harappa - 04 Seals and script
- Jean Noblet - 00 [and Jean Dodal, Nicolas Conver] The Fool
- Knight, Dame Laura – Circus – 03
- Krishna receives reflexology stimulation
- Lal Shahbaz Qalandar - The juice of the grape
- Lowry, L S - Wick and Crowther street
- Moreau - The Sphinx 1864
- Moreau - The young man and death 1865
- Mutus Liber 03
- Pillar of the Boatmen
- Poussin - Et in Arcadia Ego
- Poussin - Midas and Bacchus
- Rider-Waite - 07 The Chariot
- Rosary of the Philosophers - 02 The Bird and Branch
- Rosary of the Philosophers - 03 King and Queen
- Rosary of the Philosophers - 04 The Bath
- Shaivism - Concepts and symbols - Fig [and other plants]
- Soustelle - Aztecs and Mexica - The Making of a High Priestess
- The Homeric Hymn to Demeter - 03
- Through the Looking Glass - Ch 06 - 5 Jabberwocky explained
- W.Y. Evans-Wentz - The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries - The Magic Wand