In 2019 Spheres Of Light will be conducting Dragon Circles and events throughout the year (more information here) so I am planning to find out a bit about each of the deities that have been chosen to work with during each full moon ritual for this year.

The deities chosen to work with through the year are listed below, and links to my blogs will appear on each heading as they are completed.

Part 1. Eurynome & Ophion (Greece)

22 Feb 2019, Full Moon in Virgo

A copy of the Eurynome & Ophion full moon ritual conducted by Spheres Of Light can be found here.

The Pelasgians of ancient Greece explained that it was the original being — the goddess Eurynome (a version of the Greek Gaia) who laid the world egg and ordered Ophion to encircle it until it hatched the world in all of its diversity.(1)

The “Pelasgian Creation Myth”, as reconstructed by Robert Graves in his 1955 book The Greek Myths, features a supreme creatrix, Eurynome (pronunciation), “The Goddess of All Things”, who rises naked from Chaos to part sea from sky so that she can dance upon the waves. Catching the north wind at her back and rubbing it between her hands, she warms the pneuma and spontaneously generates the serpent Ophion, who mates with her. In the form of a dove upon the waves she lays the Cosmic Egg and bids Ophion to incubate it by coiling seven times around until it splits in two and hatches “all things that exist … sun, moon, planets, stars, the earth with its mountains and rivers, its trees, herbs, and living creatures”. In the soil of Arcadia the Pelasgians spring up from Ophion’s teeth, scattered under the heel of Eurynome, who kicked the serpent from their home on Mount Olympus for his boast of having created all things. Eurynome, whose name means “wide wandering”, sets male and female Titans for each wandering planet: Theia and Hyperion for the Sun; Phoebe and Atlas for the Moon; Metis and Coeus for Mercury; Tethys and Oceanus for Venus; Dione and Crius for Mars; Themis and Eurymedon for Jupiter; and Rhea and Cronus for Saturn.(2)

The later Orphic cult in Greece preached that in the beginning there was a silver cosmic egg, created by Time, and that Phanes-Dionysus broke forth from the egg as the firstborn (Protogonos), the androgynous creator who contained the seeds of creation.(1)

Orphic-Greek Creation Myth — In the beginning there was Chronos (‘Eternity’) and Ananke (‘Necessity’). They combined to become primordial Aether (‘Spirit’), Chaos (‘Matter’) and Erebos (‘Darkness’). Chaos was a fathomless, formless void, known biblically as “the Deep” (i.e. Infinity). Erebos was the Darkness that “lay upon the face of the Deep”. Aether, the Holy Spirit, also known as Nyx (Latin: Nox, ‘Night’), was the divine Potential—the still, silent potential of all movement, sound, law and creativity.

Then, in the first great act of creation, the Spirit moved in an expression of love, the nature of the hidden, unmanifest All-Good. In this movement Nyx was also known as Eurynome (‘Wide-ruling’). Her movement, described as a dance, was to the south. As she danced faster and faster, she whirled Erebos, the Darkness, into a wind that followed her. This wind was the North Wind, Boreas, also referred to as Ophion, the primordial Snake or Serpent.

Ophion watched as Eurynome danced and was filled with a divine lust for her. He coiled his body seven times around Eurynome and made love to her as she danced. Impregnated by Ophion, Eurynome laid the Cosmic Egg, the first living form. Then, at Eurynome’s bidding, Ophion wrapped his body seven times around the Cosmic Egg, helping it to hatch. As it burst open, out sprang Eros, the Protogonus (‘First-born’), the first complete manifestation of Divinity.

Eros (‘Love’) shines as a great Light. As such he was known to the Greeks as Phanes (‘Brilliant’), the golden-winged god of light. He was also known as Ericapaeus (‘Power’), Logos (‘Wisdom’) and Metis (‘Intelligence’).

Although referred to as ‘He’, Eros is both male and female. He was symbolically described as having four eyes, faces or heads, which allow him to look in any direction, the heads sometimes being represented in the shapes of various animals. He has the voice of a bull and a lion, with which he creates all things. As he burst asunder the Cosmic Egg, the two halves formed Heaven (Uranus) and Earth (Gaea). All the elements, gods, goddesses, nature, everything, was contained within and emerged from his being.(3)

In some versions of Greek mythology, Ophion (“serpent”), also called Ophioneus ruled the world with Eurynome before the two of them were cast down by Cronus and Rhea.(4) Previous to the time of Cronos and Rhea, Eurynome and Ophion had ruled in Olympus over the Titans, but after being conquered by Cronos, she had sunk down into Tartarus or Oceanus. By Zeus she became the mother of the Charites, or of Asopus.(5)

Eurynome, the creatrix who ruled with Ophion and laid the Cosmic Egg while in the form of a dove, may or may not have been the same Eurynome who was an Oceanid (ie ‘mermaid’) who bore children with Zeus. The names and the different versions of the myths can become rather confusing!

Further reading about Eurynome, Ophion, Cosmic Egg, Serpent, Dragon, Chaos & Form can be found on pages 38–41 in this article from the European Journal of Science and Theology.

References:
(1) Creation Myths of the World: An Encyclopaedia by David Adams Leeming (found in Google Books)
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greek_Myths
(3) https://www.zoence.co.uk/info-myth/Creation_Myth.pdf
(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophion
(5) https://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanisEurynome.html
(6) Image – Orphic Egg by Jacob Bryant, 1774 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_egg
(7) Image – Phanes hatched from the world egg – https://www.theoi.com/Protogenos/Phanes.html

As part of the ritual conducted by Spheres Of Light (see link in opening paragraph) we all decorated styrofoam eggs with gold and red paint. Unfortunately the paint took a little too long to dry so my egg decoration was not very successful as the paint didn’t take to the styrofoam very well, and of course got rubbed off when the egg was handled (no matter how gently and carefully I tried). Soooo, I “fixed” my egg later at home. It is now imbued with a ‘double dose’ of intent to help me achieve my goals. 😀

We will be displaying a large print of this Dragon Eye image on our altar for each ritual, to act as a gateway.

Dragon Eye composite images created by Topaz Drachen using a “Free Download” eye from picsart.com/i/sticker-cat-eye-264343700012211 labelled “free-to-edit” and a “Cool Milky Way Galaxy Background” wallpaper found at pixelstalk.net/download-free-milky-way-galaxy-backgrounds/#/lightbox&slide=2, and the Spheres Of Light logo which I (Topaz) originally co-designed and created.