Cybele

n. mythical goddess of Phrygia, goddess of nature and fertility

For the asteroid, see 65 Cybele; for the Marvel Comics character see Cybele (comics). Originally a Phrygian goddess, Cybele (Greek: Κυβέλη) was a deification of the Earth Mother who was worshipped in Anatolia from Neolithic times. Like Gaia (the "Earth") or her Minoan equivalent Rhea, Cybele embodies the fertile earth, a goddess of caverns and mountains, walls and fortresses, nature, wild animals (especially lions and bees). Her title potnia theron, which is also associated with the Minoan Great Mother, alludes to her ancient Neolithic roots as "Mistress of the Animals". She becomes a life-death-rebirth deity in connection with her consort, her son Attis. Her Roman equivalent was Magna Mater or "Great Mother". Walter Burkert, who treats Meter among "foreign gods" in Greek Religion (1985, section III.3,4) puts it succinctly: "The cult of the Great Mother, Meter, presents a complex picture insofar as indigenous, Minoan-Mycenean tradition is here intertwined with a cult taken over directly from the Phrygian kingdom of Asia Minor" (p 177).
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Noun
1. great nature goddess of ancient Phrygia in Asia Minor; counterpart of Greek Rhea and Roman Ops
(synonym) Dindymene, Great Mother, Magna Mater, Mater Turrita
(hypernym) Phrygian deity

[Other] Also known as Kybele and Magna Mater and the Mother of the Gods, the worship of this goddess spread throughout the Roman Empire. Originally Phrygian, she was a goddess of caverns, of the Earth in its primitive state; worshipped on mountain tops. She ruled over wild beasts, and was also a bee goddess. Her festival came first on the Roman calender. Along with her consort, the vegitation god Attis, Cybele was worshipped in wild, emotional, bloody, orgiastic, cathartic ceremonies. Cybele was the goddess of nature and fertility. Because Cybele presided over mountains and fortresses, her crown was in the form of a city wall. The cult of Cybele was directed by eunuch priests called Corybantes, who led the faithful in orgiastic rites accompanied by wild cries and the frenzied music of flutes, drums, and cymbals. Her annual spring festival celebrated the death and resurrection of her beloved Attis. Her Greek mythology counterpart was Rhea.

Cybele Kybele (Greek) A Phrygian goddess of caves and mountains, vines and agriculture, and town life, first worshiped at Pessinus; later throughout Asia Minor and in Greece. The equivalent in Phrygia and Crete of Rhea, the Magna Mater (great mother), wife of Kronos and mother of Zeus. Her worship was celebrated exoterically, especially in later degenerate times, by wild dances by her votaries. In one of her phases Cybele was closely connected with the moon and its extremely recondite functions. The moon is at once a sexless potency, to be well studied because to be dreaded, and a female deity for exoteric purposes. Cybele is "the personification and type of the vital essence, whose source was located by the ancients between the Earth and the starry sky, and who was regarded as the very fons vitae of all that lives and breathes" (BCW 12:214). The breath of Cybele, equivalent in its highest substance to akasa-tattva -- "is the one chief agent, and it underlays the so-called 'miracles' and 'supernatural' phenomena in all ages, as in every clime" (BCW 12:215). See also CORYBANTES ; CURETES