PHOENICIAN LIGHT

Her name was Cybele, some called her Lydia, however more recently she was addressed by the Carthaginians as Tanit, but it seems that successive civilizations unbeknown to each other have endowed the godess with other names.

The story goes that before the beginning she engendered the magic herbs known as Magister Omphalos from sea-salt which had gathered in Posidon's navel, thereafter the herbs grew only in the sea-shells from Poseidon's festive table.

In later times Poseidon encouraged the beautiul Scylla to disport herself for his pleasure once too often so his long-suffering wife Amphitrite cast a spell on the unwitting nymph with the Omphalic essence.

Poseidon was fast asleep dreaming when Cybele first came upon him at Delphi and sometime later Apollo deified the stone which had pillowed his uncle's weary head and he called it the Omphalos stone, which means the centre, or navel of the earth. Apollo built a beautiful temple round the altar of the stone and to this day the presence of something extraordianry having happened on that site so long ago makes itself known in an enveloping Phoenician Light that accompanies the cosmic aura.

Before she was vested with other names the Phoenician godess of Light was called Phoebe and when her ghostly silver canopy descends to earth, the philosophers and sages are drawn forth to be anointed with a harvest of nocturnal wisdom. And in the shadows unknowable mysteries are revealed by Phoebe's lunar halation.

As the cock's clarion call welcomes Helios, so does Phoebe's harbingers of ancient wisdom call to the moon and offer the sacred mysteries in symbolic silence.
- DANIEL

The elegiac Phoenix and the Oracles declare their Lunar visions to those that choose to reach for the stars, and Phoebe daughter of Heaven and Earth will assure them that her light shines brighter when both feet are off the ground.
- LJO