click image above to see candle set

~ MELISSA ~

"Bee" was the title given to Aphrodite's high priestess at the honeycomb-shrine of Mount Eryx, where the Goddess's fetish was a golden honeycomb. Pythagoreans perceived the hexagon as an expression of the spirit of Aphrodite whose sacred number was six. She worshipped bees as her sacred creatures because they understood how to create perfect hexagons in their honeycomb. In Her temple at Eryx, the priestesses were melissae, "bees" and the Goddess herself was entitled Melissa, the Queen Bee.

Seeking to understand nature's secrets through geometry, the Pythagoreans meditated on the endless triangular lattice, all sixty-degree angles, that results from extending the sides of all hexagons in the honey comb diagram until their lines meet in the centers of adjacent hexagons. It seemed to them a revelation of the underlying symmetry of the cosmos.

The bee was usually looked upon as a symbol of the feminine potency of nature, because while creating a magickal elixir, known for its preservation properties, they were also pollinating flowers, increasing plant fertility, and abundance.