Phoebe Krokopeplos

Phoebe is a Titaness of the light of wisdom, and the mother of Asteria & Leto, by her brother-husband Koios (see below). Phoebe's Greek name, Φοίβη, means “Bright” or "Shining", and is closely related to words for prophecy and purification. She is the daughter of Gaia (Earth) and Ouranos (Heaven), and inherits from both. Phoebe is not the Titaness of shining celestial bodies, that is her sister Eupharessa, whose children are Selene (Moon), Eos (Dawn), and Helios (Sun). Phoebe is often poetically associated with the moon, particularly in later writings, and more occasionally with other night-shining bodies, particularly the planet Venus. Greek writers sometimes used Phoebe as a title of Selene, or of Phoebe’s granddaughters, Hekate and Artemis. Similarly, Apollo is called Phoebus, the male form of the same name. Latin writers, when they use the name Phoebe, are almost always referring to Diana. The Goddess of the Krokopeplos is all of these and also none of them. She is never just one thing; she is Liminality itself, always between this and that.

There is some reason to believe that Dione is another name or title for Phoebe; the Homeric Hymn to Apollon of Delphi says (trans by Evelyn-White): “Leto was racked nine days and nine nights with pangs beyond wont. And there were with her all the chiefest of the goddesses, Dione [Phoebe] and Rhea and Ikhnaie [Theia] and and Themis and loud-moaning Amphitrite [Tethys] and the other deathless goddesses..” In this guise, Phoebe Dione was the inspiration at Dodona, another chthonic oracle. There, her priestesses were called “Peleiades” or “Doves”, highlighting her relationship to the planet Venus.

The Titaness Phoebe is, a goddess of prophecy and intuition. In some traditions, one of the inspirations of Delphi, having inherited it from her sister, Themis, and passing it to her grandson, Apollon. This myth of how Apollon came to Delphi is very different from the tale of his violent conquest of Python; like many of the stories told from the Titanic viewpoint, it paints a picture of harmony between the chthonic and celestial gods very different from the contentious generational war present in much Mycenaean myth.

Much like the English words “enlightenment” and “brilliance”, Phoebe’s name bespeaks both literal and metaphoric shining. She is a goddess of the soft light of the mind, wise enlightenment in its glowing and diffuse form. Her husband, Koios, whose Greek name (Κοῖος) means "Question" is the god of the harsh light of the mind, empirical brilliance in its sparkling and scintillating form. Koios as the inquisitive mind, the flash of brilliance, the initial spark of a good idea, and that is not wholly untrue. He is also Alpha Draconis, the ancient pole star, the axis of the northern sky from the 4th to 2nd millennium BCE. There is no surviving Greek tradition surrounding this star, but we know that, in Babylon, he was called Tir-An-na, the Life of Heaven. Semitic cultures (both Hebrew and Arabic) called the star Thuban, which some say mean “subtle” in Hebrew, but is more likely a corruption of the Arabic "raas al-tinnin", or "the serpent's head" in reference to its position as the head of Draco. Because of their intimacy with Koios, who is their brother, husband, lover, father, and uncle, many goddesses who wear the krokopeplos, including the Goddess of the Krokopeplos, are called Drakaina, or She-Dragon.

My favorite epithet for Phoebe is Chrysostephanos (Χρυσοστέφανος), which means "golden crowned". Like many epithets of goddesses of the krokopeplos, this one can be applied to many goddesses, but most often Phoebe, Hekate, and Aphrodite. I associate the name very closely with the saffron veil of the krokopeplos, and work with it most often in the context of prophecy.

Invocation of Phoebe for Prophecy

I call upon you who have all forms and many names,

Double-horned goddess, Moon, brilliant night-flame.

Phoebe, purple robed, golden crowned, aflame with scintillation,

You weave together night and day, with golden braids of filiation.

Your true form is a mystery, known only by the One Who Makes,

Who created the world entire, including your twenty-eight shapes.

Your forms complete every figure, they taught us how to count.

You breathe out full flourishing life on every creature’s account.

You grow from obscurity into light, brilliant light from tiny spark.

Then withdraw your brilliance, giving space once more to the dark.

Radiant enlightener, fountainhead of prophecy, who inspired oracles of old,

Come Chrysostephanos and crown your priestess in shining gold.

Exercise: Opening the Crown

This energetic practice is good for all sorts of trance work, but especially for celestial trance possession.

Feel the weight of your body, solid and heavy like a tree trunk from the hips down.
Take a moment to breathe deeply from the top of your head down to the bottoms of your feet. Feel your focus follow the energy up and down. Do this several times.
Breathe some “surprise” breaths to remind the body to use the entirety of the lungs. Take a fast deep gasping inhalation “Ah!” as if you have just been shocked. Make several of these breaths.
Make three more surprise breaths. Following each one, let the air out slowly, really emptying your lungs, hissing like a snake or a deflating balloon until you are out of breath. Do that three times.
Now, make a “woo” sound like a ghost or a siren. Move the sound all the way to the top of your vocal range and then down as low as you can. Go up and down a few times. Rather than listening to the sound you are making, focus on the feeling of where the sound inside your body. Feel it move up and down inside you. Do this 3 times. If you are a singer, you will have to break yourself of always breathing from the diaphragm for this exercise. That is not the goal of this exercise. Rather, the place from which you are breathing should move up and down inside your body as you make the sound. It’s not important that you put a ton of power behind the breath/sound. It’s more important that you be moving the power from the right place.
Use the breath and the voice to open, remove blockages, and intensify the movement of energy in your body. Make each sound in the table below. You may want to make it several times if it feels “stuck”. Focus on opening the energy than on the sound of your voice; the voice is only delivering and shaping the energy. You should be able to feel it “click” when you’ve gotten in right.
As you make each toning noise, imagine the energy intensifying in brightness and color, spinning, and growing. An imagining I use for this is to imagine each as a ball of fire in its own color that suddenly flares up into a full flame. The colored fires blend into and overlap each other. Others imagine flowers unfolding their petals, or simple rotating spheres. It doesn’t really matter. All of those are poor metaphors for what is actually happening. With your imagination, rise through your body in each location, until you rise up through your head and out the top.
1. Base of spine / buttocks, Red, Uhhhhhhh
2. Womb, Orange, Ooooooooo
3. Belly, Yellow, Ohhhhhhh
4. Heart, Green Ahhhhhhh
5. Neck, Sky Blue, Iiiiiiiiiii (like “eye”)
6. Forehead, Indigo, Ayyyyyyyy
7. Crown, Purple, Eeeeeeeeee
8. Moon, White, Eeeeeeeeee
9. Center of the Universe, Scintillation, Eeeeeeeeeee

You can listen to me make these breaths/sounds here.

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