Page 14 - Summer 18

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the very essence of healing in liquid form. Dog’s blood, bile, and urine also had their specific uses. Dioscorides and Pliny recommended dog’s milk for the removal of the dead foetus, and for the facilitation of the process of childbirth. Pliny further claimed that it could cure ulceration of the cervix.
It was also considered the antidote to deadly poisons, including snakebite. Most primitive and ancient thinking almost universally associated the dog with death, the underworld, and the invisible realms, in which it acted as both guide and guardian. Being the most faithful companion during the light of living day, the dog became the guide of souls through the transition of death into the dark of infernal night.
Apuleius states that: “the dog ... his face alternately black and golden, denotes the messenger going hence and thence between the Higher and Infernal powers.” In Zoroastrianism the death of the body and the
transit of the soul demanded the presence of a dog. Dogs have always been credited with psychic powers. As the dog could perceive spirits
it was believed that they could act as intermediaries between people in this
world and the next, ward off evil spirits, and protect from the powers of darkness. Lac-can must be added to the rubrics – ‘clairvoyant’ – ‘prophesying’ – ‘trance.’
Anubis was the very ancient, Egyptian God of the Dead, “Lord of the Necropolis,” and patron of embalmers and mummifiers. He presided over burial rites and guarded the dead on their way to the Underworld. He was represented as wolf, dog, or jackal-headed. It was he who weighed the ‘heart’ of the deceased before Osiris at the Judgement of the Dead; he read the scales; his report decided the fate of the soul, and was accepted without question by Osiris and the Assessor Gods.
In this context it is significant that of the three Greek Fates who presided over human destiny, it was Lachesis, who decided the fate or lot of a person. Snake and dog are ever interrelated – in myth, dreams, delusions, and fears. When considering death and the afterlife, the close relationship between Lac-can and Thuja becomes clear.
Although known as the Arbor vitae, Tree of Life, Thuja possesses strong connections with death, and was sacred to Hades, the ruler of the Underworld. The tree was regarded as anti-corruptive and was used for the construction of coffins. The aromatic oil was used for the embalming of corpses. Both Lac-can and Thuja are closely associated with Dionysos, the God of Wine, frenzy and ecstatic rapture, who can be considered the god of duality andsycosis.
In Greek myth, the god Hermes, accompanied by dogs,
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Thuja buds