Legend: Meat

Please see the Introduction To Rabbit Hole Legend A-Z post for information about sources and purpose

I'm sorry, I got out of order again, but I had been struggling to find good references for any kind of meat symbolism; which I found to be absolutely ridiculous because of the intensely obvious meanings of meat that are anciently inherent and obvious to the human psyche upon viewing or thinking of meat. Therefore, though I don't generally do this, I will be writing the obvious down without source. Other information has also been included to expound on the simplistic.

Meat: Most immediately the meat reference to the Beatles that comes to mind for many are the images of the "Butcher Cover" of the Yesterday and Today album. It is interesting to also note John Lennon's song, Beef Jerky and George Harrison's song, Thanks for the Pepperoni. In their personal lives, it's also interesting to note that John and Yoko went into the cattle-rearing business; Yoko is still a major player in the meat industry, today. Paul McCartney has almost become synonymous with vegan-ism; his wife created a vegan frozen foods line, and Paul has been promoting "Meatless Monday" for years. George and Ringo are also vegetarians.

My statement on the meaning of meat: meat denotes sacrifice: In some manner, when you are seeing or thinking about meat, you are observing sacrifice. Meat is the result of lost life. Meat comes about through the process of living, and then dying- whether it be from intentional sacrifice (like the Druidic "Year King" or a sacrificed lamb), or through homicide, accident or slaughtering for the transference of the energy from one life to provide energy for the consuming life. Meat is also associated with sexuality through the Latin root "Carne" meaning "flesh" which arises in words like carnivore and carnal. Because of the specific meaning of meat, as opposed to corpse, as being the transferring of the protein energies collected in one lifetime to feed and provide protein energies to another, living, life and therefore sustaining that life; it also indicates rebirth, reincarnation (there's carne again), or the passing on of life to the next one.

Other interesting information about meat:

Dionysis and the Maenads from the Dionysian mystery Religions: "Dionysus [...] was the god of the grape harvest, wine making and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. [...] He is a god of epiphany, "the god that comes," and his "foreignness" as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults. [...]  He is an example of a dying god .

The earliest cult images of Dionysus show a mature male, bearded and robed. He holds a fennel staff, tipped with a pine-cone and known as a thyrsus. Later images show him as a beardless, sensuous, naked or half-naked androgynous youth: the literature describes him as womanly or "man-womanish."[...] His procession (thiasus) is made up of wild female followers (maenads) and bearded satyrs with erect penises. Some are armed with the thyrsus, some dance or play music.[...] This procession is presumed to be the cult model for the human followers of his Dionysian Mysteries. In his Thracian mysteries, he wears the bassaris or fox-skin, symbolizing a new life. Dionysus is represented by city religions as the protector of those who do not belong to conventional society and thus symbolizes everything which is chaotic, dangerous and unexpected, everything which escapes human reason and which can only be attributed to the unforeseeable action of the gods.


He was also known as Bacchus[...], the name adopted by the Romans and the frenzy he induces, bakkheia. His thyrsus is sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey. It is a beneficent wand but also a weapon, and can be used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. He is also the Liberator (Eleutherios), whose wine, music and ecstatic dance frees his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subverts the oppressive restraints of the powerful. Those who partake of his mysteries are possessed and empowered by the god himself. His cult is also a "cult of the souls"; his maenads feed the dead through blood-offerings, and he acts as a divine communicant between the living and the dead.[...]

The rebirth in both versions of the story is the primary reason why Dionysus was worshipped in mystery religions, as his death and rebirth were events of mystical reverence. This narrative was apparently used in several Greek and Roman cults, and variants of it are found in Callimachus and Nonnus, who refer to this Dionysus with the title Zagreus, and also in several fragmentary poems attributed to Orpheus.

Initiates worshiped him in the Dionysian Mysteries, which were comparable to and linked with the Orphic Mysteries, and may have influenced Gnosticism. Orpheus was said to have invented the Mysteries of Dionysus. " <Source>

Maenads:  "In Greek mythology, maenads were the female followers of Dionysus (Bacchus in the Roman pantheon), the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Maenads travel alone usually through locations, seeking tribute to her god, Dionysus. If tribute is not given, she will leave the location in utter chaos by leaving all inhabitants under their influence which consists of uncontrolled sexual behavior, loss of senses and complete intoxication.[...]

Often the maenads were portrayed as inspired by him into a state of ecstatic frenzy, through a combination of dancing and drunken intoxication. In this state, they have complete control over the human species where they would make them lose all self-control, begin shouting excitedly, engage in uncontrolled sexual behavior, and ritualistically hunt down and tear to pieces animals—and, at least in myth, sometimes men and children—devouring the raw flesh or heart.[...]

 Cultic rites associated with worship of the Greek god of wine, Dionysus (or Bacchus in Roman mythology), were allegedly characterized by maniacal dancing to the sound of loud music and crashing cymbals, in which the revellers, called Bacchantes, whirled, screamed, became drunk and incited one another to greater and greater ecstasy. The goal was to achieve a state of enthusiasm in which the celebrants’ souls were temporarily freed from their earthly bodies and were able to commune with Bacchus/Dionysus and gain a glimpse of and a preparation for what they would someday experience in eternity. The rite climaxed in a performance of frenzied feats of strength and madness, such as uprooting trees, tearing a bull (the symbol of Dionysus) apart with their bare hands, an act called sparagmos, and eating its flesh raw, an act called omophagia. This latter rite was a sacrament akin to communion in which the participants assumed the strength and character of the god by symbolically eating the raw flesh and drinking the blood of his symbolic incarnation. Having symbolically eaten his body and drunk his blood, the celebrants became possessed by Dionysus." <Source>

Orpheus: "Son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope, Orpheus was a wonderful musician from Thrace who was married to the beautiful Eurydice. He played the lyre and sang so well that the wild animals were tamed and the rivers stopped to listen. [...]

The most famous story about Orpheus is about his wife's death. Eurydice was bit by a snake and descended into Hades. Orpheus then followed her to the kingdom of death, and managed to soften Hades heart with his beautiful music. Hades agreed to let Eurydice go, if Orpheus promised not to look at her until they had reached daylight. When they were almost there, Orpheus thought he could no longer hear his wife's footsteps, and looked back, only to see the screaming Eurydice being pulled back into the underworld.

Shattered by grief, Orpheus wandered the forests of Thrace, singing his wife's lament, and was attacked by the maenads (Dionysus orgiastic women) who tore him to pieces. His singing head floated down the river, and all was lost. Eventually the head floated ashore on Lesbos, and that's how the island became the centre of poetry.

Orpheus was also one of the Argonauts in Jason's expedition for the Golden Fleece. He manage to save the crew from the terrible Sirens by singing more beautifully than them.[...]

One of the great mystery-cults of Ancient Greece was the Orphic one, where its followers believed in purification and reincarnation. They worshipped Dionysus-Zagreus, and thought humans consisted of equal portions of good and evil. They saw the soul as immortal and that one would either live in bliss or torment after death depending on one's acts on earth. For this reason, they thought it very important to lead an ascetic life with many cleansing rituals as well as not eating meat or sacrificing animals. This cult was to become popular in the south of Italy as well." <Source>


"Orpheus was famous for two things - he revealed the ways of initiation, and he taught men to abstain from killing.[...]

Orpheus first appears in Greek art and literature about 540 [BC]. . . . From the first he was associated with the . . . discontinuance of human sacrifice. . . . People with a sense of sin resorted to self-employed practitioners called 'Orphic initiators'. . . . Certainly they did not preach 'pay me and do as you like'; on the contrary, the severer Orphic doctrines taught (not always consistently as there was no Orphic church) respect for all life, with its corollary, vegetarianism, and sexual abstinence. The movement . . . remained . . . far into Christian times." <source>

And in cultural relevancy, we have an exhibit A: "Carolee Schneemann [...] is an American visual artist, known for her discourses on the body, sexuality and gender. [...] Schneemann's works have been associated with a variety of art classifications including Fluxus, Neo-Dada, the Beat Generation, and happenings.[...]

[Film] The 1964 piece Meat Joy revolved around eight partially nude figures dancing and playing with various objects and substances including wet paint, sausage, raw fish, scraps of paper, and raw chickens. It was first performed in Paris and was later filmed and photographed as performed by her Kinetic Theater group at Judson Memorial Church. She described the piece as an "erotic rite" and an indulgent Dionysian "celebration of flesh as material."Meat Joy is similar to the art form happenings in that they both use improvisation and focused on conception, rather than execution." <Source> 

"Meat Joy" is super weird. Watch at your own risk, Lol.