ELEMENTAL: Gnomes

GODDESSES: Gaea (Gaia, Ge), Mah, Demeter, Bhawana (Prithvi)

GODS:Pan, Cernunnos, Tammuz

ASTROLOGICAL SIGNS: Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn

ELEMENTAL RULER: Kerub

Gnomes are the little creatures of the earth. They cannot fly and can be burned by fire. They grow old like humans, but they grow to be very, very old. They are needed to build plants, flowers and trees. It is their task to tint them, to make minerals and crystals and to maintain the Earth so that we have a place to live.

One gnome is assigned to each of us to help our physical vehicles grow. Too little connection makes us "Space out" and too much connection can make one overly practical, cynical and skeptical.

Demeter: She is the Greek goddess of beauty, love and marraige. She is also known in Roman mythology as Venus; goddess of love, beauty, and desire. Her birth has many different origins depending on the source. Hesiod describes Aphrodite as being born of the castration of Uranus (Ouronos) where she was given part of her name, aphros, which means foam. Hesiod also links this goddess closely with her worship in the city of Paphos. She is called both Cytherea and Cypris. Another version of her birth came from her parents Zeus and Dione. She was mostly responsible for the Trojan War due to the fact that she helped Paris of Troy get Helen. He had picked Aphrodite as the most beautiful of three goddesses. This famous episode was known as the Judgement of Paris.

Pan: He is much like the satyrs. He is part man and part goat- he has horns, ears, and legs of a goat. His mother isn't clear (probably a nymph) and his father is either Hermes or Apollo because he is the god of sheperds and a musician.

Pan plays a part in the story of Psyche and Cupid. Here he advises Psyche to forget her grief and win back Cupid's love. In the end she does and Pan gets to play his pipes at Cupid's and Psyche's wedding.

Pan is well known for his pan-pipes (in Greek, syrinx). In OVID's Metamorphoses I. (689-712) he tells the story of the lovely nymph and Pan. Pan falls in love with her, but she was devoted to Artemis and rejected the advances of predatory satyrs and woodland spirits. Pan chased her and in doing so she was transformed into a bed of marsh reeds. When the wind blew a sad and beautiful sound was produced. Pan was inspired and cut 2 of teh reeds, fastened them together with wax, and made a pipe on which he could play.

He also had the love for another nymph Echo. This story too ends sadly for when she flrd his advances, Pan spread such madness and "panic" among a group of sheperds (a particular feat to whic he was prone) that they tore her to pieces. All that remained was her voice.

In Rome Pan was associated with the minor god Faunus (Favorer). He had a temple on teh Tiber island where his festival was celebrated in December.

Tammuz: He is the god of crops and vegetation in Babylonian and Assyrian mythology. Also the husband of the love goddess ISHTAR. He had a great love for ISHTAR which became his death, for she offered him to the underworld in her place. Thus making him a cult figure among women who lamented him at the annual seven-day festival marked by wailing and self-laceration. Tammuz is the equivalent of Dumuzi, the dying-and-rising husband of INANNA, the Sumerian love goddess.