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The title of this piece came after I began investigating the imagery in my "Dictionary of Symbols". The bee is a generally a spiritual symbol of the seeking of divine reality (since bees seek the best pollen in order to create the sweet nectar that is honey), and some cultures "compare the bee with the soul sucking the intoxicating pollen of knowledge." They are also a symbol of royalty in many traditions, and as symbols of eloquence, poetry, and the mind, were once thought to have touched the lips of great thinkers as they lay in the cradle. Further, it is endowed with the element of fire and symbolized the Temple and the Sybils of Delphi (hence the title of the piece). In the piece, the bee is silver (sybolizing the moon, woman, and divine wisdom all at once) and sits near the lips of the woman, indicating the granting of wisdom and eloquence to the figure. Sibyls were prophetesses and revealers of the words of the gods, and the yellow-gold of her hair gives her an aura of royalty, power, and the backing of the heavens. My intent with this piece was to infuse it with a glow of revelation, as if this oracle were in the midst of her vision and not ready yet to speak her wisdom to the world. |