Ceres

• Also known as:
• Demeter (7)
• Goddess of Liberty (7)
• Goddess of Grain
• Goddess of Agriculture
• Goddess of the Growth of Food Plants (3)


• Divine Quality
• Liberty


• Office in Hierarchy
• Member of the Karmic Board as the Goddess of Liberty


• Historical and Literary References
• The memory of the Goddess known to the Romans as Ceres (Greek: Demeter) was possibly the result ancient encounters with the Celestial Hierarchy of Ascended and Cosmic Beings. Their mythology had descended from the elder days and dim memories of Earth's first three Golden Ages. After thousands of years, however, the Gods and Goddesses assumed human characteristics in the minds of the people because of the degeneration of their faculties of inner sight and their tendency toward idolatry. Therefore, what is presently ascribed to the mythological Ceres may or may not reflect the actuality of the true Ascended Being. (4)
• She was called Ceres Legifera, "Ceres the Lawgiver." Her priestesses were considered the founders of the Roman legal system. (6)
• Ceres ruled Rome through her sacred matronae, during that lost period of four centuries before 200 B.C., a period whose written records were destroyed by later patriarchal historians, leaving only a residue of myths and religious customs that were only vaguely explained. (6)
• Farmers viewed her as the source of all food and kept her rites faithfully, for fear of crop failure. This was true not only of Roman farmers but even of Christian farmers. Ceres's greatest annual festival, the Cerealia, was celebrated in the British Isles almost to the present day. An account of the Shire of Murray in the late 19th century said, "In the middle of June, farmers go round their corn with burning torches, in memory of the Cerealia." (6)
• The first temple of Ceres at Rome was dedicated in 496 B.C. for the purpose of averting a famine. The worship of Ceres soon assumed considerable political importance, and gifts of property were assigned to her temple. Senatorial decrees were deposited there, as well, for public inspection. (2)
• Worshipped in conjunction with Ceres were Liber and Libera, divinities presiding over the vine and fertility of the fields and called children of Ceres. (2)
• On the advice of the Sibylline Books, a cult of Ceres, Liber, and Libera was introduced into Rome (according to tradition, in 496 BC) to check a famine. The temple, built on the Aventine Hill in 493 BC became a centre of plebeian religious and political activities. It became known for the splendor of its works of art. It was restored by Augustus after being destroyed by fire in 31 BC. (3)
• The English word "cereal" is derived from Ceres. (From Latin cerealis, "of grain", from "Ceres". (1)


• Retreat
• Temple of the Sun