iii: Anthroposophical Views
A bigger splash Dora Wagner Maybe today I am the breast that gives you milk. But don't forget: it is not my breast that nurtures you. It is the milk. Greek proverb
Because our galaxy appears like a milky bright ribbon in the sky, we call it the Milky Way. According to Greek mythology, however, it came into being because the mother of the gods, Hera, spilled her divine milk when suckling Heracles, a demigod, born of an affair between her husband Zeus and the mortal Alcmene. To endow this son of the supreme Olympian with godlike qualities, the new-born was brought, unrecognised, to Hera, who nursed the baby out of pity. But when it sucked so violently that it caused Hera pain, she pushed the child away and her milk splashed across the sky, forming our galaxy, named after the Greek word for milk, 'γάλα' (von RankeGraves,1984). Milk also plays an essential role in other mythological and religious genesis. Dhanvantari, for example, the physician of the gods in Hindu mythology, and the originator of Ayurveda, emerged from an ‘ocean of milk’, the primordial sea (Ions, 1988). It seems the evolution of humanity has always been confluent with milk; rock carvings in the Sahara, for example, show that the first livestock cultivation, in prehistoric times, entailed various milking techniques. (Le Quellec, 2011). In many past societies, milk,
dairying and the nurturing breast figured prominently in creation myths and in religious and cultic practices (McCormick, 2012). Still today, dairy products are highly valued in nutrition, but also in personal care and medicine. Cleopatra, reputedly the most beautiful woman of antiquity, is said to have regularly dipped her body in donkey milk. Modern scientific knowledge concedes that milk fat and lactic acid have a moisturising and soothing effect; the milk proteins promote elasticity, making the skin smooth, supple, and soft to the touch (Kocic et al., 2020). In his lectures to members of the Anthroposophical Society in 1905, Rudolf Steiner referred to the mythological, symbolic and nutritional significance of milk in human evolutionary history. He described the white opaque emulsion as ‘moon food’, associated with the feminine, and relating to a time when our earth was still united with the moon. According to his worldview, when humankind had not yet set foot on solid earth, it was fed on a milk-like nourishment, absorbed and ingested from the outside world. Steiner described this lactic substance as a lifeblood
