omphalos

omphalos: the center or hub of something ...a rounded stone (esp. that at Delphi) representing the navel of the earth in ancient Greek mythology. ORIGIN Greek, literally ‘navel.’ (OED)



Interesting that the Delphic oracles were women.

from DaVinci notebooks: the navel, the center, remains at the center



The original Delphic omphalos was placed there by Zeus in honor of his mother's wisdom, whose cunning saved his life. Rhea's bloodthirsty husband (and brother) Cronus (Saturn), in an attempt to maintain power, had castrated their father and eaten their first five children.



When Zeus was born, she hid him and fed Chronus (Saturn) a stone wrapped in swaddling cloths. Zeus returned as an adult and forced his father to vomit up the stone and the other children. Yet, when threatened by the birth of his own child prophesied to be greater than the father, he mirrored the paternal pattern and ate his wife Metis. She, another wise and cunning woman, saved Athena inside him until she would emerge full-grown from his brow.

Goya's Saturn Devouring His Children from the increasingly dark work of his final years

both mothers and fathers portrayed as dangerous, unwilling to be "overthrown"
displacement and scapegoating, projection

Zeus' erotic encounters with Mnemosyne gave birth to the Muses.
Mnemosyne (memory) also one of rivers in the unseen underworld, along with Lethe (forgetting, concealment) and Ameles (carelessness)
Nabokov Speak Memory