Talk:Cardea

Beltane

"Her cult was important in ancient Rome, and was worshipped at the Beltane festival and during June"

I'm not an expert in these things but isn't Beltane a gaelic festival?

~~ Bojan

No Beltane was on May 1.

I pointed out in article Janus and Juno that Carna/Cardea are a minor imago of Juno. Janus and Juno are associated in myth and rite at all the kalends, especially those of February, festival of Juno Sospita and god Helernus, and of June, month of Juno and festival of Carna/Cardea, as well as of October in the Tigillum sororium. Vetch bean is the symbol of vegetation and of reproduction. Black vetch are ritually used in the Parentalia and Lemuria. Of course Cardea can also be compared with her homologous Etruscan goddess Culsu, the guardian of the door of the underworld, seen in the sarcophagus of Hasti Afunei from Chiusi.Aldrasto11 (talk) 09:03, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Interpretations of this figure, as noted by McDonough, are so wildly divergent that it's clear "Cardea/Carna" is used situationally to support whatever theory the scholar is spinning. Thus I'm emphasizing what the ancient sources actually say, with comparative or contextual material pointed out by scholars, and not wandering off into their elaborate fantasies of what she "really" meant if only we knew the truth that lies hidden Behind the Veil. I got sidetracked in reporting on Ovid by the line on the Marsian nenia, which I need to get sorted out before I can summarize the commentary on this succinctly enough for it not to be a digression. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:36, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, these are speculations but Ovid is clear enough. What I wrote are not my speculations but are supported by scholarship, namely Renard and Dumezil. If you want an even clearer way to put it: Janus is Conseuius, as such the origin of our world of manifestation. His symbols are the staff and the key, this means he opens the door of/between heaven and earth, or in other words coming into being happens through a passage, implying both a passage (metaphorically a gate, hence the key) and movement (hence the staff). The gate is not the place where the sun sets or rises as Isisdore says: this is just a simple metaphorical folk interpretation. It is instead the point where life begins and ends, the cosmic tree or mountain. Every ethnicity knows of this door and Cardea/Juno is its image. Being the origin of all life this door is also rightly called Carna as life on our world relies on a body of flesh. Also this door is made of two rocks that continuously open and close hitting each other (Symplegades in Greek myth): a dangerous passage. Here you have the explanation of why Carna/Cardea is also Cranae, the nymph of rocks, and Athens is called the rocky city, as I wrote in a note of article Janus. Greek and many other mythologies have prehistoric roots reflected in the belief that life in our world comes and ends from/with rock: see the myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha and the belief that the souls of the dead reside within rocks in the prehistoric cult of dolmens. Cranae loves to hide in rocky crags and Venilia and other nymphs are depicted as surprised in caverns.

I see you cited Guenon (I did not read him), I suppose he is sufficiently informative about what I wrote here in some of his works. But also Eliade (Shamanism everywhere, History of Religions I and II) and Coomaraswamy (the article "The Symplegades: Ianua Coeli" in his The Door in the Sky).The symbology of the key and the staff are too widespread and transparent to leave any uncertainty: if there is a key there must be a door and something that passes through it.Aldrasto11 (talk) 02:19, 17 April 2011 (UTC)