The Oak Tree in June, Part Two
Creative Engagement
Before the oak at the ancient Dodona oracle became associated with Zeus, it was dedicated to Dione, the archaic goddess that Zeus would marry in that place. Her priestesses were the Peléiades, three women that would divine by listening to the wind blowing among the oak branches. The oak was sacred to the goddess throughout the Mediterranean, before the Indo-European invaders subsumed this ancient cult into their own worship of a male god of thunder and rain. Even so, the oak ended up symbolising the marriage of earth and sky.
