Holy Desire

On this Valentine’s Day, ask yourself, what is your Holy Desire? On a day that can be confusing to some, due to placing love outside of themselves, turn that love within and find out what is the spark that makes YOU feel alive.  What is it that wakes you from your slumber and motivates you, gets your heart pumping faster and calls to you from a depth that only love can?

Some inspiration to help you:

First, we turn to Hindu.  Kamadeva, is a hindu god of love.  Deva, meaning heavenly or divine and kama meaning desire or longing.

Kāmadeva is often represented with green skin and wings.  He has a bow of sugarcane, with a string made of honey bees.  His arrows are either decorated with or made from five kinds of flowers: white lotus, blue lotus, ashoka tree flowers, jasmine and mango tree flowers.

Kamadeva was turned to ash for his part in a plan to save the gods from a demon by waking Shiva.  Parvati convinces Shiva to take pity and works with him to bring back Kamadeva.  Shiva only lets him back in a “disembodied form” though, which is why Kamadeva is also known by the name Ananga”without body.”  In this sense, Kamadeva is the “Spirit of Love.”  I think of him riding around on brightly colored parrots, as the pictures show, sending his flower love darts out into the world to pierce through the hearts of humans, with the help of the honey bees.

Who does this description also bring to mind, but Cupid or Eros, a winged boy with a bow and arrow known as the God of Love.

To the Greeks, Cupid is thought to be born of Venus and Mars.   A story told in the Idylls of Theocritus (3rd century BC), speaks of Cupid being stung by bees as he takes some honeycomb and he runs to Venus to complain of the pain.  She laughs and speaks of the pains he inflicts on others with his sting of love.  See below for a later version of the story, translated to keep the light-hearted feel of the original.

Love once, roving through a bower,

Plucked a rose, his favourite flower –

Plucked a rose, but did not see

Lurking in’t a sleeping bee”

Nor did spy the wanton thing,

Ere he felt its poisoned sting.

Stranger to such aching pains,

Bitterly the god complains,

Blows his fingers, sobs and sighs,

Swiftly to his mother flies:

Mother, I’m undone! he cries,

Save, O Save! thy Cupid dies!

A little serpent, winged like me,

Which the rustics call a bee,

Stung me sore, and caused a smart

Paining even to the heart!

The Idalian queen replied,

As his flowing tears she dried:

Shame, my son! dry up thy tears,

What has caused such cruel fears?

If a little bee can make

Thee, the god of Love, to quake,

Only think how much thy dart

Must distress thy victim’s heart!

Romans regarded Eros as a primordial God, asexually born before the Gods and Goddesses coupled Chaos and Gaia are older.  This asexual birthing, brings Neith into the picture, the original goddess or neter in Egypt, who was known as the personification of the primeval waters and was able to give birth without the opposite sex.  Neith’s place of worship, Sais, was known as the “House of the Bee.”  According to St. Clair in the Creation Records, “Neith is said to have been ‘born the first, in the time when as yet there had been no birth.'”Her symbol was often a bow and arrow or two crossed arrows.

All of this talk of arrows and love, brings to mind the bee.  I have been “stung” by the love of the bee and the question that remains is, what is my holy desire?  That is the question the bees want each of us to answer.  What lights up your being so much that you can’t help but share your light with others?  It is not something you find in others, it is something you find within your own heart.  Will you answer the call of the bee and look within to find the inspiration in your life?  What is your holy desire?  What pierces through your heart lights you up and wakes you from your slumber?