Cybele of Lycia

The Goddess Kubaba

- Kubaba, Kubabaaa; where are youuuu?
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- Kubaba, Kubabaaaaa
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- Kubaba, where are you? I feel you; you’re here, very close to me.
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- Kubaba? Kubaba?
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- Kubaba, is it you?
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- I feel you’re surrounding me with your shining. I feel as if I am in a big turbulence of illumination. Yes, you are here. You are glaring at me. Why, are you so angry?
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- Kubaba, you stopped turning around, but glaring at me.
- What is your name, little girl?
- Yes, yes. I knew you are here. I’m Sound.
- I listen to you, Sound.
- Yesterday, when I was in Patara, I tried to find Kybele to give her a vital message. Neither Kybele was there, nor did anybody know where she was. I got the message from a graybeard who said me the majority decided on her deicide. It’s so important that I need to find her immediately. I thought you may know where she is. Can you help me, Kubaba?
- Lovely little girl. I can not. A deicide takes place in the minds of man kinds. A god or goddess may enter the mind easily, but never when these men think a deicide.
- But, but,..you are her mother. How come, you will let her be alone when she needs you so much?
- Yes, you’re right. Unfortunately, I have no further choice. Listen to me, I will tell you what happened five thousand years ago on the lands where I was born. It was a lovely land, most civilized place on the earth. Sumerian Country, Mesopotamia. My people had come to this lovely land from unknown places, very far from Mesopotamia. From north-east, where ancestors of my people had believed in Mother Nature who gave soul to lifeless stone and wood. Air and water. Bugs and birds. And men.
- Did you see Mother Nature, Kubaba?
- My lovely daughter, you see her everywhere. Look around. This flower once in a while was only a germ. A powerful packed material, but no soul. Mother Nature let everything know how to pack a power in germs. Soul to this pack can only be given by Mother Nature, when the germ falls on the earth. She so taught every living being to create the power except the soul that she gives. I do know Mother Nature is my lovely mother. She is everywhere. I see her at all times.
- Kubaba, your mother Mother Nature is everywhere, we feel her, and we love her. I feel you too as you’re the mother of our lovely Kybele. Once you were in the hearts of your people. They shaped the stone and the wood as if they could give soul to these statues. They imagined you as they feel in their hearts to remember your power at all times. But they failed to give soul to your icons because they are not god.
- Yes, my little girl. I was telling the whole story, let me continue. As you say, they felt my mother everywhere. Sometimes giving power and souls to births, sometimes horrifying with her lightening. Sometimes as rains to their crops, sometimes floods penalizing. They tried to shape wood, stone, and ivory into goodness of Mother Nature. This was only a half of my mother; it was me, resembling the good half of my mother. They called me Kubaba. Indeed I have no name, being partial Mother Nature. Nevertheless, my people loved me. After thousands of years I was known on the lands, very far away, in the country of Hattie too. Kubaba is Mother Nature indeed. Nowadays, my people changed my name to Artemis in Apas, and Kybele here. Kybele is me. I am Mother Nature.
- Kubaba, I now understand everything, thank you very much. But I need to ask this question; what did graybeard mean then saying Kybele’s deicide is decided?
- My lovely girl, that is correct. Kubaba’s deicide had taken place years and years ago. Now Kybele, later Artemis. But Mother Nature never, because Mother Nature is eternal. Kubaba, Kybele, and Artemis all are symbols only. People for ages kept their beliefs alive with their Kubaba and Kybele in order to carry Mother Nature’s goodness with them.
- I love Mother Nature.
- I love you too, my little girl.