with Maja D’Aoust
Saturday, Apr 2, 7-9pm
$25 Regular / $20 WCCW Members
Maja D’Aoust will be talking about Cybele and performing a Cybele ritual. Cybele was originally an Anatolian mother goddess; she has a possible precursor in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük, where the statue of a pregnant, seated goddess was found in a granary. She is Phrygia’s only known goddess, and was probably its state deity. Her Phrygian cult was adopted and adapted by Greek colonists of Asia Minor and spread from there to mainland Greece and its more distant western colonies from around the 6th century BCE. In Greece, some city-states, notably Athens, evoked her as a protector, but her most celebrated Greek rites and processions show her as an essentially foreign, exotic mystery-goddess who arrives in a lion-drawn chariot to the accompaniment of wild music, wine, and a disorderly, ecstatic following. In Rome, Cybele was known as Magna Mater (“Great Mother”). Maja will introduce a long forgotten ancient Cybele goddess ritual which has the roots of April Fools day contained within it, as well as perform the Cybele ritual.
While most WCCW programming is free or donation-based, with no one turned away for lack of funds, we do offer some workshops that have fees associated. This covers materials and allows us to pay the leaders of these workshops for their time and expertise, and to put a small percentage back into WCCW. This income, in addition to memberships, is what lets us keep the doors open and the lights on. We want to make programming as accessible as possible to anyone who is interested though, so we also offer volunteer opportunities and free community tickets to each event or workshop (number varies depending on capacity of the class). Email [email protected] for more info or to find out more about this opportunity for a specific event.