RHEA
While she is most commonly known as the mother of Zeus and the Olympian deities, Rhea is actually a much older Goddess.
Originally Cretan, Rhea was worshipped as an Earth Goddess and embodiment of the mountains. With the movement of the ancient peoples, Rhea became assimilated with Cybele, an Anatolian Mother Goddess (“Mountain Mother”), and when the Greeks arrived, she was recognized as the Queen and Mother of the Gods.
Because the Greeks were already moving towards a male dominant philosophy, Rhea was married off to her younger brother, Chronos (Saturn to the Romans), a god associated with time (“Father Time”). Together, these two Titans birthed the six Olympian deities: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus.
As the story goes, Chronos learned that he was destined to be overthrown by one of his children so he swallowed them up as they were born. All, that is, except the last. Rhea managed to hide Zeus away and instead gave Chronos a stone wrapped in a blanket to swallow. The stone caused Chronos to vomit up all his children and, with Zeus (who was protected and raised in his mother’s homeland of Crete ), they overthrew the Titans and established the reign of the Olympian Gods. As the mother of this monumental shift, Rhea was recognized as a Goddess of Generations.
Rhea’s name is etymologically associated with “flow”, “discharge”, and “ease”. The “flow” has been variously associated with menstrual blood and/or milk (Rhea as mother), but the reason for the Greek pairing of Rhea with Chronos is that the “flow” of Rhea’s name infers time. Living in time with the Goddess, following her flow, promises an ease in life.
Rhea does fulfill the idea of a mother archetype, but it is important to note that she is an Elder Mother. She is usually depicted as a matron, a mother of grown children. She is the Mother of Generations, the Mother of the King, and the Mother of Time. Her milk is the Milky Way (the Cancer/Capricorn axis in the zodiac is where the Milky Way crosses the ecliptic, marking the gates in and out of incarnation; cosmic death and rebirth. See posts Yule Blessings and Holle) and her child is the sky god, the Sun King, represented by the lions that honour her and pull her celestial chariot.
While Frau Holle is the Goddess of Midwinter, ushering in the new cycle and marking the birth of the Sun, it is Rhea that cares for this newborn Sun, ensuring he is fed (milk) and supported, to grow into the King he is destined to be.
Furthermore, it is while the sun is activating Rhea’s energies in the Girdle of the Goddess that the new Gregorian calendar year begins. Time shifts and flows… Happy New Rhea!