Mysteries of The Mother and The Child: Death, Madness and Healing in Yellowjackets
Prelude
αν πεθανεις πριν πεθανεις, δεν θα πεθανεις οταν πεθανεις.
If you die before you die, you will not die when you die.
- Mt. Athos monastery inscription
 |
| Victor Blavette, Sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis (1884) © Suresh Kumar |
Spring has arrived and life has started anew everywhere, yet ever since its arrival, I have been thinking about death; thought of being born just to die, thought of seeing a beloved who will eventually deal with death, with all the things going through their heads beforehand. The body will fail, and we cannot do anything but to watch it unfold before our eyes. It is just devastating. What's the point of life anyway? To recall Millicent Weems' words in Synecdoche, New York:
What was once before you—an exciting, mysterious future—is now behind you. Lived; understood; disappointing. You realize you are not special. You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone's experience. Every single one. The specifics hardly matter. Everyone's everyone. So you are Adele, Hazel, Claire, Olive. You are Ellen. All her meager sadnesses are yours; all her loneliness; the gray, straw-like hair; her red raw hands. It's yours. It is time for you to understand this.
As the people who adore you stop adoring you; as they die; as they move on; as you shed them; as you shed your beauty; your youth; as the world forgets you; as you recognize your transience; as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one; as you learn there is no-one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving - not coming from any place; not arriving any place. Just driving, counting off time. Now you are here, at 7:43. Now you are here, at 7:44. Now you are... Gone.
Days went by, and I was kinda forgetting all this, until I began watching Edible Complex (2nd episode of Yellowjackets 2nd season). Less than halfway through the episode, I was suddenly hit hard by the scene when adult Shauna fails to connect with her daughter Callie again, saying "Just want to spend time together. You're growing up and... ." It hit me hard because I remembered all of those occasions when my mother used to ask me the same thing Shauna was asking. Although I was not a Callie-type, I guess I was the Callie of our home in that context: a withdrawn "not-normal" kid, failed at fulfilling the most basic level of parent-offspring relationship. I was clueless of all the emotional responsibilities and societal norms. I was clueless of my own mortality, and theirs.
 |
| All is Vanity, by C. Allan Gilbert (1892) ©Wikimedia |
I felt Shauna, as I had felt my mother in those occasions. I felt their mortality; "Only death does not lie," to quote Hedayat. And at the same time, I understood that a child is a representation of parents' immortality—a continuation of the genome and the soul; a hope. We are our parents, as they are theirs, adapted to a new environment.
Anyway, where am I going with this? Well, in this post, I will try to unfold a mythotheological function of the Symbol of the cultus in Yellowjackets. TL;DR: It's about healing.
Healing by Dying
Death is the road to awe.
- Lord of Xibalba
Humans have been contemplating death as long as they have been living on this planet. Of all the answers given to the questions regarding life and death, one does stand out from the rest: We do not know! To quote wise Socrates [Plat. Apol. 29a]:
For to fear death is nothing else than to think one is wise when one is not; for it is thinking one knows what one does not know. For no one knows whether death be not even the greatest of all blessings to man, but they fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils.
Nevertheless, there is one common recurring theme among the various cultures and in their mythotheologies: death is not the end. Rather, it is the source of creation and transformation. This is the idea behind the famous motif of the dying-and-rising deity, which was common in most ancient Mystery cults, aka Mysteria (Μυστήρια) or Orgia (ὄργια). That's right, Orgia or the Orgy! The most "well-known" of those cults were the Mysteries of Mother (Kybele), Mysteries of Isis, Eleusinian Mysteries and Dionysian Mysteries (including the Orphic Mysteries).
 |
| A ceremony worshiping the sarcophagus of Osiris, Temple of Isis at Pompeii ©Wikimedia |
Unfortunately, most of what we know today about those Mysteries is either lost or never revealed, since as the name suggests, the initiates were strictly prohibited of talking about them. In some cases, revealing the secrets was punishable, ironically, by death. But note that most of these cults (or at least the Eleusinian Mysteries) were open to all, regardless of gender or the social status (except for the murderers). Now as I was saying, despite the little evidences on the inner rites of the Mysteries, there are some hints and clues in the literature, all of which pointing towards a main functionality of these Mysteries: Healing (aka rebirth and salvation) through death. For we read in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, which is the primary source on the Eleusinian Mysteries [HH 2.480 ff]:
Happy is the one among humans upon earth who has seen these mysteries; but the one who is uninitiate and who has no part in them, never has lot of like good things once he is dead, down in the darkness and gloom.
Plato, who was one of its initiates, writes in Phaedo [Plat. Phaedo 69c]:
Those who established the mysteries were not unenlightened, but in reality had a hidden meaning when they said long ago that whoever goes uninitiated and unsanctified to the Hades will lie in the mire, but he who arrives there initiated and purified will dwell with the gods. For as they say in the mysteries, 'the thyrsus-bearers are many, but the mystics (Bacchic ones) few.'
The comparison of healing with death in the Mysteries is best described by Plutarch, telling us that at the moment of death [1]:
The soul suffers an experience similar to those who celebrate great initiations … wandering astray in the beginning, tiresome walks in circles, some frightening paths in darkness that lead nowhere; then immediately before the end all the terrible things, panic and shivering and sweat, and bewilderment. And then some wonderful light comes to meet you, pure regions and meadows are there to greet you, with sounds and dances and solemn, sacred words and holy view; and there the initiate, perfect by now, set free and loose from all bondage, walks about crowned with a wreath, celebrating the festival together with the other sacred and pure people, and he looks down on the uninitiated, unpurified crowd in this world in mud and fog beneath his feet.
Apuleius, who was the initiate of the Isis Mysteries, recalls how the ritual death in his initiation led him to the rebirth in divine awe [Apu.]:
I approached the very gates of death and set one foot on Persephone's threshold, yet was permitted to return, rapt through all the elements of the universe. At midnight, I saw the sun shining as if it were noon; I entered the presence of the gods of the under-world and the gods of the upper-world, stood near and worshiped them.
He then reminds us that:
The keys of the underworld and the guarantee of salvation were in the
hands of the Goddess, and the initiation ceremony itself took the form
of a kind of voluntary death and resurrection through divine grace. Such
as might be safely entrusted with the great secrets of our mystery
cult, when they had passed through life and stood on the threshold of
darkness, this powerful Goddess can still pluck them forth, her
providence brings them to a fresh birth, and return them to a new
lifespan.
The healing and transformative nature of the Mysteries was such a powerful experience that Dio Chrysostom wrote [1]:
If one would bring a man, Greek or barbarian, for initiation into a mystic rite, overwhelming by its beauty and size, so that he would behold many mystic views and hear many sounds of the kind, with darkness and light appearing in sudden changes and other innumerable things happening, and even, as they do in the so-called enthronement ceremony [thronismos]—they have the initiands sit down, and they dance around them—if all this were happening, would it be possible that such a man should experience just nothing in his soul, that he should not come to surmise that there is some wiser insight and plan in all that is going on, even if he came from the utmost barbary?
Healing by Madness
I ask this one thing: let me go mad in my own way.
- Elektra
 |
| Catharsis, by José Clemente Orozco (1935) © meisterdrucke.uk |
Regarding the therapeutic procedure in the Mysteries of the Great Mother and Dionysos, Burkert writes that it was related to the telestic (mystic) madness and the catharsis that the initiates experienced. In the Dionysian cults, the ritual dances and performing rites were often done while wearing masks of Nymphs, Pans, Sileni, and Satyrs. Wearing fawn-skin was also common in those rites, for it is what Dionysos wears. In a wholesome dialogue in Bacchae, the old blind seer Teiresias reminds his old friend Kadmos of their agreement with regards to honoring Dionysos: "to twine the thyrsoi, to wear fawn-skins, and to crown our heads with ivy branches." Kadmos replies, "I shall never tire night or day striking the ground with the thyrsos," to which Teiresias replies, "Then you and I have the same feelings, for I too feel young and will try to dance."
Now let's get back to madness, or mania as ancient Greeks called it. According to Plato, there are 4 types of divine madness, each ascribed to a deity, and the cure for trauma was the mystic madness [Plat. Phaedrus 244]:
Prophecy was inspired by Apollo, the mystic madness by Dionysus, the poetic by the Muses, and the madness of love, inspired by Aphrodite and Eros.
...
When diseases and the greatest troubles have been visited upon certain families through some ancient guilt, madness has entered in and by oracular power has found a way of release for those in need, taking refuge in prayers and the service of the gods, and so, by purifications and sacred rites, he who has this madness is made safe for the present and the after time, and for him who is rightly possessed of madness a release from present ills is found.
In the Mysteries of Mother, Eleusis and Dionysos, initiates had to undergo through suffering before reaching the catharsis (through which they were healed), for the patron deities of these cults were all themselves had suffered a great deal, and rejoiced afterwards. Kybele mourned the death of Attis, Demeter grieved the abduction (death) of Persephone, and Dionysos suffered his own death, as well as his mother's. Mystery rites began with mourning and suffering, and they ended with a cathartic celebration.
Now, what does all of this have to do with the show? Well, it is all connected to the meaning of the Symbol, or more precisely, my own hypothesis regarding its meaning.
The Mother and the Child
Wake up, son of mine
Momma got something to tell you
Changes come
Life will have its way
Keep your dignity
Take the high road
- Puscifer
 |
| Initiation to the Dionysian Mystery Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii © ermakvagus.com |
About a year ago, after watching the 1st season, I wrote three essays on my hypothesis regarding the meaning of the Symbol, and how it could be the connecting thread for an important series of themes in the show, including cannibalism, magick and sacrifice. My hypothesis was based on the idea that the symbol of the cultus is connected to an ancient divine concept, called the Three-formed Goddess (trimorphe thea in Greek, and diva triformis in Latin), whom she is the Great Mother. I argued that her Greco-Roman representation in the show would be Hekate Trimorphis, and in the complete picture, this trinity is paired with the Great Father (her consort), who himself is the Divine Child (her offspring) [2] [3] [4].
Assuming the validity of my hypothesis, we can now understand that it represents healing and transformation through ritual death and suffering for the Yellowjackets, both in the wilderness and in the present day. It is the symbol of the Mysteries of The Mother (whether you call her Kybele, Rhea, Isis, Demeter or Persephone), and her Divine Child—Attis, Horos or Dionysos. You can take it literally, i.e. such a Mystery cult actually exists in the show, or you can take it as a psychosymbolic representation of the ancient Mysteries. Either way, its function remains the same: to die by the Mother and to heal by the Child. Let's not forget that both Dionysos and Hekate are Shamans and the God-Goddess of Drugs; they are both Saviors (Σωτήρ and Σώτειρα), and Spreaders of Madness—they both heal.
As I have noticed recently, some people are promoting the idea that there exists a direct Dionysian link to the show. That's a good thing, right? Well, unfortunately, their link stops at Maenadism; the superficial reading of the Bacchic rites, focusing only on the mundane madness, whenever they see a group of toga wearing girls, raving and hallucinating in the wilderness. Yes, anyone who drinks wine can claim Dionysos to be their patron god. Sure thing, it is not wrong at all. But there is much more to Dionysos than just being the God of Wine, as I mentioned earlier.
In fact, even being the God of Wine has a deeper meaning in the context of Mysteries. Both Demeter and Dionysos are the agrarian deities, giving mortals the gifts of nourishing food and trouble-soothing drink. It is also important to note that the Dionysian cults were not restricted to the "wilderness" at all, as one might think after finding out about Maenads. Their rites were done in polis (city) governed by the state, as well as in the rural and secluded areas. One of the largest Athenian festivals was held in honor of Dionysos. The Maenadism in Euripides' Bacchae was in fact a punishment of those who had rejected Dionysos. To recall Plato again, "the thyrsus-bearers are many, but the mystics (Bacchoi) are few."
I would also like to mention a few key points regarding the Maenadism, which I wrote about in my first essay. First, if you really want to disregard what I have told so far and go with the Maenad analogy, you should know that the Maenads and their commander, Dionysos, were raw-eaters. Sacrificing the heart was also strictly prohibited in his cults, probably due to his origin story. Last but not least, I should add that it is normal to link an orgiastic frenzy in a movie or a TV show, immediately to some Dionysian cult. In doing so however, we miss this important fact that the original orgiastic festivals belonged to the Great Mother: Kybele (Cybele), Rhea and Demeter. That is why another important epithet that these three goddesses share is Orgia (Οργια).
Regarding the frenzy, I had noted in my essay that in ancient Greek, the word oistros (οἶστρος) referred to a flying insect (a member of fly family, or even wasps?) with a loud buzzing, which was capable of stinging such that it could drive cattles into agitation and frenzy. Interestingly, oistros had the following meanings as well: a sting, anything that drives mad, frenzy (madness) and mad desire. This oistros as the madness was also used by Euripides in Bacchae, when Dionysos talks about his punishment on his aunts (Semele's sisters) because of their foul deeds [Eur. Ba. 32]:
Therefore I have goaded them from the house in frenzy (ᾤστρησ), and they dwell in the mountains, out of their wits (μανίαις); and I have compelled them to wear the outfit of my mysteries (orgies: ὀργίων).
Madness is entailed in Yellowjackets after all. Buzz Buzz! :)
In all of the Mother Mysteries, the Divine Child is always present. Either as Dionysos in Eleusis, or as Horos in the Mysteries of Isis, or as Attis in the Mysteries of Kybele. It is interesting, as well as important, to note that before Dionysos embarked on his journey of introducing the Orgia to the world, he was first had to be initiated to the Mother Mysteries by Rhea-Kybele, because he was inflicted by madness. Not surprisingly, he was healed soon after the initiation, and gave himself the mission of healing the others by initiating them into the Orgia of the Mother.
This presence of the Child was usually associated with the birth of a sacred child. Dionysos, as we know from one of his two origin myths, is the child of Persephone. It is he who was believed to be the child that the hierophant of the Eleusis mentioned by shouting in ecstasy, at the climax of the rites: "Our Lady has born a holy Son. Brimo (epithet of Persephone) has born Brimos (epithet of Dionysos)." Note that we also had the famous Aventine Triad, which was the cult dedicated to the Roman trinity of Ceres (Demeter), Liber (Dionysos) and Libera (Persephone). So in summary, it is through the child that we are reborn, and this rebirth symbolized healing in the Mysteries.
Dots from the Show
- Bilquis
In my aforementioned trio of essays, I covered the motherly aspects—bright and dark—of the Great Mother represented by the Symbol in the show, and I provided a variety of its references in the first season of the show. Here, I will point out some clues which are referring to the healing aspect of her, from the first two episodes of the second season that were available to me so far.
• In episode 2 (Edible Complex), Natalie accuses Lottie of running a cult, to which Lottie replies, "We're not a cult. We are an intentional community turning suffering into strength, so we can live as our best selves." Just as a FYI, 'cult,' or to be precise, 'cultus,' was used by Romans and it had actually a positive meaning for them. As a Latin word, it means care, cultivation and worship. So, cult does not imply a negative meaning per se.
• Remember the guy at the end of episode 1 (Friends, Romans, Countrymen), who was going to be voluntarily buried alive in a ritual, consisting of people wearing animal masks? Well, in the 2nd episode when Natalie asks Lottie about why they were doing it, Lottie replies that it's "A therapeutic treatment."
• Lottie speaks of extracting Heliotrope dye "from the flowers used to treat wounds." As it has been pointed out in the literature, entheogenic flowers and plants, including magic mushrooms ('food of the gods' for the ancient Greeks), were always used in the ancient Mysteries [5]. And beside the personal experiences, there are enough scientific evidences verifying their "magical" therapeutic effects. Knowledge of the herbs and pharmakon (φάρμακον) was the expertise of Hekate's priestesses, as they were Shamans and medicine women. This is the magickal aspect of the goddess. Purple and violet were attributed to the ruler gods and goddesses, among them is Persephone.
• Taissa was guided by the Blind Man to the edge of a cliff, probably
to experience a ritual death, in order to transition to the complete
embodiment of Hekate. When Travis contacts Lottie in a paranoid state, feeling that the wilderness has come for him, he says to her, "The only way to confront the darkness is to get as close to death as possible. When Van almost died, when you did, you both said you saw something." Later, he too goes for a ritual death, lighting candles in the shape of the Symbol, so that he could talk to the wilderness, find out what it wants so that he "can make it go away." It seems that Travis never escaped the wilderness psychologically; he was never healed. That is why the wilderness is "haunting him." Maybe his healing process was stopped when teen Natalie faked Javi's death, which in turn disturbed his relation with the Mother. In fact, I would say that none of the Yellowjackets were healed, not even Lottie, and we may witness their healing process in the rest of the show.
• Lottie hears a vision of the uninitiated Laura Lee, saying "Put your faith in him, your guiding light." Is this another reference to the Divine Child? Note that as it has been argued extensively in the literature, there are lots of strong parallels and similarities between Christ and Dionysos [6]. They were both the Divine Child, healing people by initiating them into their Mysteries.
• Finally, seeing the following two scenes (specially their transition) brought a satisfied smile on my face:
 |
| Isis and Osiris |
 |
| Isis and Horos |
because I was immediately reminded of the following statue of Isis and Horos, The Mother and The Child, which I had included in my first essay for the motif behind the Symbol:
 |
| Isis and Horos © The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
And also this statue of the Madonna and the Child:
 |
| Virgen de la Cabeza ©8inspain.com |
But maybe you would be more familiar with this one:
 |
| The Madonna and Child © National Gallery Picture Library |
It is worth noting that when the Mother Goddess Isis revealed herself to Apuleius, she said that she is Kybele, Rhea, Athena, Aphrodite, Artemis, Persephone, Demeter, Hera, Bellona, Hekate and Rhamnusia. All the names were in fact, mere regional linguistic differences. Similar theme was also recorded in a poem in The Derveni Papyrus (dating back to 5th century BCE), in which Ge (Gaia), Rhea, Demeter and Hera are said to be one and the same.
Now if we recall, the Natalie-Lottie-Travis scene immediately followed by a nourishment from the Mother; a Eucharist if you will.
• I also noticed a baby goat in the opening credits and I could not help myself wondering about its relationship to the entheogenic potions of the Mother-Child Mysteries, because as it is noted by the Shamans of the Hindu Kush, drinking goat's warm blood was a precursor to the divine connection [6]:
They manifest their abilities only after inhaling the smoke of burning juniper branches and drinking warm goat's blood. After this, they danced to rhythmic drum beats until they had attained the trance state. When asked about the future, they passed on the messages of the fairies in the form of songs.
And the high priest of the Dionysian Mysteries also enjoyed drinking the sacrificial goat's blood [Eur. Ba. 135]:
Whenever after the running dance he falls on the ground, wearing the sacred garment of fawn skin, hunting the blood of the slain goat, a raw-eaten delight, rushing to the Phrygian, the Lydian mountains, and the leader of the dance is Bromios, euoi! The plain flows with milk, it flows with wine, it flows with the nectar of bees.
By the way, the climax of the Eleusinian Mysteries was "an ear of grain cut in silence."
Epilogue
I have clearly no idea what would happen in this season, let alone the entire remaining seasons. But I kind of have this intuitive feeling that healing would be a major underlying theme for the show, incorporated by the creators either consciously or unconsciously, because given the time that we are living in, we all absolutely need to heal.
With that being said, I chose the following short film as an ending for this essay, and hopefully, as a new beginning for all of us.
for Δέσποινα
References
1. Walter Burkert, "Ancient Mystery Cults." Harvard University Press (1989).
4. On Virgin Sacrifice, Cannibalism, Sacred Trees and Sacrificial Dogs in Yellowjackets: A Mythreading
5. R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann and Carl A. P. Ruck, "The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries." Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich (1978).
6. Brian C. Muraresku, "The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name." St. Martin's Press (2020).
Comments
Post a Comment