DIVINING POLLINATORS
The new myth of the Divination Pollinators
Evironmental Architecture
Research Studio 4, Anemoi 2024
Yuxuan
Yujia Zhou
Jiayu Dai (Ashley)
Zhu (Kiki)
Story overview
In the mythical world of the Age of the Titans, the children of Helios (god of the sun), and Perseus (god of the sea), became not only rulers and magicians of the Hellenic regions, including the queen of Crete. However, they also gave birth to five gods who belonged to the sky and gradually fell into oblivion because they did not govern the earthly lands as the other gods did.
These five sky gods possessed the ability to harness the wind and inherited the genes of Poseidon to manipulate the moisture in the air. In the process of observing all things in the world, they gradually possessed their own favourite regions and journeys.
Eventually, under the arrangement of the gods parents: the eldest son was in charge of the north in winter, the second daughter dominated the south and south-east in summer, the third daughter the east in autumn, the fourth son the north-east in quiet late autumn, and the youngest daughter the north-west in early spring. From then on, these directions and seasons became the code names of these wind gods.
At first, these wind gods did their duty and brought gifts to their sister (Queen Cretan) from their respective places of residence. Soon, however, Persephone, the daughter of Zeus (god of the sky), and Demeter, (goddess of the harvest), married Hades (god of the underworld),
and she returned to earth only once every six months. Demeter (the goddess of the harvest) was so enraged by this that from then on, only when her daughter returned to earth did she summon plant spirits to revive the earth.
This caused displeasure among the wind gods, who ruled the autumn and winter seasons, and whenever they descended, all that awaited them was the barren, bare earth. The eldest son, South wind , was the first to break the rules, but in order not to be discovered by his younger siblings, he changed his image and personality when he appeared in the spring and summer seasons.
As North Wind's personality gradually splits, two different selves, West Wind and Southwest Wind, emerge in winter and summer. They fill the gap between spring and late spring. West Wind hates North Wind's strict control, so whenever he meets with his father in the winter, he raises huge waves to express his displeasure.
Knowing of their children's conflict, the God of the Sun sent Melisa (god of insects), to the earth to oversee the wind gods. However, some of the wind gods were not satisfied with Melisa's supervision, so they sometimes made things difficult for Melisa by raising the moisture in the air and blocking out the sun.
Design Methodology
Relationship with a character
Northwest wind
South wind
Southeast wind
Northeast wind
Pasiphae Queen of Crete
Helios The Sun
Perseis Eldest Oceanid
Theia Goddess of Sight and the Aether
Hyperion God of Light
Gaia Mother Earth
Southwest wind
North wind
West wind
East wind
Melissa goddess of bee
Minos
King of Crete
Persephone
Queen of the Underworld
Demeter
Goddess of the Harvest
Zeus
God of Sky and Thunder
Rhea
Goddess of Fertility
Kronos
God of the Harvest
Selected photo credits：
https://somlieng.github.io/Greek_gods_family_tree/
Storyline
Unable to remember the day it began, Melisa discovers a strange race of bees in the flowers, a race she has never seen before in Crete.Before she realises the extent of the problem too late, more and more unfamiliar bees are appearing in the area, and fewer and fewer of the onceoriginal inhabitants. I don't think this is the original species of Crete ..... She muttered silently in her mind, there was no way she could have misread or misremembered, she could recite the species and number of insects in Crete backwards.
Melisa, as an insect messenger that had existed since the time of the Titans, had secretly raised Zeus in the cave of Diktor in Crete with honey. Bees, as she remembered them, were a collective being, if there were appropriate words to describe them, undoubtedly efficient, united, and orderly, but power, cruelty, exploitation, and indifference also existed among them. They are one of the few swarming insects, apart from ants and wasps, that have a highly organised social structure, a well-developed information transfer and social network, and a seemingly unbreakable hierarchical system like a pyramid. The queen bee is responsible for the reproduction of the hive's offspring; the worker bees, the most numerous members of the hive, are mostly trained females who are responsible for the construction of the hive as well as the foraging for honey; the males are the few males here, and they are responsible for the costly process of exchanging DNA with the queens of the other hives to ensure the genetic diversity of the whole colony, and mating with the queen bee seems to be the whole of their life. meaning.
Melisa gave the bees an eternal curse in order to be able to collect quantities of honey and manage the bees collectively: to make their colony inextricably linked, with checks and balances on each other: the queen bee, who seems to be in control of the power and the renewal and continuity of the whole hive, is more like a puppet; and the worker bees, who are submissive and obedient to the command, are in fact an important part of that power, empowering the selected larvae with royal jelly, and collectively choosing a queen bee that is satisfactory to them to ensure that they are not harmed. satisfactory queen to ensure the reproduction of their offspring, and to ensure the quality of the new queen, a new batch of queen candidates are raised at the same time when they realise that the old queen has become old or sick. Killing and violence seem to surround the birth of each new queen, and when the first queen matures, she will poke all the queen larvae that have grown up together next to her with her stinger ......
When Zeus grew up and rescued his siblings from their father, his brother Hades, god of the underworld, fell in love with his child Persephone with Demeter, goddess of the harvest, and joined forces with Zeus to kidnap her, and from then on Persephone she only returned to earth once every six months. Demeter (the goddess of the harvest) was so angry about this that from then on, she would only summon plants to revive the earth when her daughter returned to earth.
The Goddess of the Harvest had almost absolute control over the herbs and shrubs of Crete, picking and choosing the climates that were more suitable for the different plants, depending on when the winds came. This is what her husband Zeus told her, who once asked her to
make an ancient pact with Melisa in return for her nurturing: the plants would bloom at different times of the year and provide nectar for the bee colony to feed on, and in return the bee colony would help to pass on the pollen during the time of bloom to breed the next generation. In return, the bee colony helps them to pass pollen during the flowering time to produce the next generation.
But her recent discovery of a yellow plant, with small yellow flowers that bloom in winter, seems to defy her authority in the plant world, which she doesn't care about in the case of pines and firs, which are followers of the wind. But the Goddess of the Harvest will not allow the appearance of this new plant to break the rules, only then will she ensure that people will worship her and be grateful to her ....
In Crete, the North Wind, which is frequent in winter, the South Wind, which dominates the summer, the East Wind in autumn, and the West Wind, which appears as early as the beginning of spring, have different characters but pride and selfishness in common, and think that all things in the world are given to them, and are always wandering about the world, pretending to show mercy in giving to mankind what they need in the way of moisture, heat, and so on.
The North Wind is the most photographed of these winds, and is said to dwell on the highest mountains of the North, and every winter he comes in great numbers from Thrace to the Mediterranean Sea, but usually brings with him mild breezes and good weather conditions. He also appears in the summer, travelling from India in May and arriving in the Mediterranean
in July. Every year, his fickle nature causes him to change his travelling route temporarily according to the mountainous terrain of the different regions, and mischievously carries away the moisture from the earth along the way.
The southerly wind, with her warm character, causes her to be very fond of the summer months, coming around the June-August period, when she brings with her both heat and sand. Her straightforward nature also causes her to be unstable, and when she comes from the south-east she also brings humidity and rain from the passing seas.
Every autumn, around September-November, the easterly winds arrive bearing the fruits of the harvest, and he usually comes and goes gently, bringing a great deal of heat and humidity into the air as if the southerly winds had survived the summer. But he has the greatest endurance of his brothers and sisters, and is here almost every day during this period, blowing from dawn until the earth becomes warm and the air sultry.
The westerly winds, too, came from the north-west and south-west, and, like the others, did not cut the directional path to the millimetre each day with precision. He usually arrives early, in late winter he can't wait to come around November will leave from the west coast of France in the Bay of Biscay or from the Italian coast, the eagerness will make him very fast and the wind will be so strong that the trees and plants in the mountains are afraid of him, the cold and dry winds are not a good thing for the plants that mostly hibernate. But the good news is that in the summer he also brings refreshing weather conditions, which is a compensation for the plants.
It was Wind, and possibly South Wind? The Goddess of Harvest had recently been investigating the ins and outs of the Little Yellow Flower; the South Wind had been getting more and more grumpy lately, and she was already hot-tempered enough, at least in the opinion of the Goddess of Harvest. Every time the dust she brought with her "good intentions" landed on the earth, the Goddess of Harvest would be extremely nervous, fearing that it might contain other seeds and insect eggs. It seemed that the south wind had also seen this, and would come along with the rain and dust, which undoubtedly increased her workload of inspection.
It must have been one of the times when the south wind came and brought this disruptive yellow plant from South Africa! The Harvest Goddess thought. The power of all of them would be linked to their emotions, the more extreme the emotion the more it would enhance their power, not to mention the fact that the south wind had been coming to Crete more and more often lately, and for some reason, the more heat it brought, the less moisture it poured in, and with such dry and hot weather, it would sometimes even reach 40 degrees Celsius.
The more the Harvest Goddess thinks about it, the more angry she gets, since the winds think that they are bringing in all the things of the world, this definitely offends her authority to control the earth of Crete, mentioning this she thought of the time in the Titan period, that negative man Zeus even hid his daughter from me and sent her to that God of the Underworld, and the anger of that time when the earth was plunged into desolation for a number of years was enough to make her authority gain a foothold in the divine realm, it seems like it's time to give them some lessons once again.
Given that the anger wasn't as strong this time, the goddess of the harvest intended to take her revenge slowly. She told the herbaceous and shrubby plants that roamed the mountains to move a certain distance to the top each year, and that when they reached the top it would be the plants' moment of freedom.
In order to control the bees to collect more honey from Thyme, Melissa changed the colour purple to the bees' favourite colour, but in recent years there have been instances where Thyme has refused to provide all the nectar, Melissa found the Goddess of the Harvest after learning about the bees' current situation, and Thyme was very aggrieved, but couldn't cry, she said that it was because in recent years the Goddess of the South Wind has always been coming to either suck up moisture or bring a lot of rain. , or bring a great deal of rain, it has had to plan for the future, and cannot offer all the honey"
The bees, as acquaintances of the plant, naturally noticed this strange phenomenon, which was undoubtedly a double blow to the bees from the wind and the plant.
If the location of the thyme slowly moved to the top of the mountain, the gusty winds at high altitude would be predictably harmful to the bees, and not only would the process of harvesting nectar be very difficult, but the thyme sprites would gradually disappear from Crete due to a lack of pollination.
An even greater potential danger is that if the bees are unable to go out in the hive for any length of time due to the extreme weather conditions, this will greatly increase the risk of mites growing in the hive, which can be very harmful to the hive, slowly eating away at the space like an infectious disease.
Crete is surrounded by the sea, the fishermen in order to have a better harvest in every sea before they will observe the wind direction, speculate on the time and direction of their wind, and will even build temples and set up offerings to the wind gods, in order to better understand them will try to summarise the character and appearance of the wind gods in each direction.
Once upon a time, this kind of worship by human beings made the winds live a very elegant life, and would not make too much trouble for human beings. But since when, it seems to be around 1800, the wind gods found these wind towers began to be abandoned, the food on the altar has been rotting for a long time, the strange thing is that the smell in the air has also changed, the dark cloud like clouds will come out from the earth inside the tube, is this manmade clouds? What kind of mystical power has mankind turned to start worshipping again?
Human beings in this age sometimes seem to be dominated by some mysterious power, and every aspect of their lives is governed by rules and regulations. The paths we take, the spaces we live in, and even our social interactions feel pre-determined, as if we are travelling on a monotonous linear path that lacks spontaneity.
The diversity and richness of natural ecosystems is lost as this mysterious force reigns supreme today, replacing the once natural power of wind, plants and bees. The food they consume comes from sterile, one-size-fits-all seeded plastic sheds.
The wind gods didn't dare to do anything rash given that they didn't know what the new power was yet, and since then the winds never received any more concern from the humans, who seemed to start worshipping other powers, as these humans seem to do, a bit like the bees, worshipping things with power for no reason. And they began to constantly violate the boundaries of the wind gods, the strange smells in the air grew and grew, and now the wind gods weren't going to put up with it anymore, no longer digesting these strange substances in the air on their own.
The south wind was the first that could not stand it, she brought more heat and took away more moisture. Reckless as she still was, she knew that economics seemed to be humanity's greatest weakness right now, like Crete, civilised with thyme honey and a massive export trade in honey. The need to break the ancient pact of plant-bees co-operation still needed to be attacked one by one. While there have been times when there have been extreme climates, brief periods of time were long enough for the bees and plants to self-regulate..
The frequent arrival of drier and hotter southerly winds has made the environment for thyme increasingly hostile ....
In hot and dry conditions, humans will do what they can to ensure that the bees they depend on to produce honey survive by changing the water and feeding them sugar water, etc., but for the majority of wild bees, these two climatic conditions are literally threatening the life of their colony. Worker bees need to collect large quantities of pure water for indoor cooling, and more and more bees will stay in the hive to do so, but it is difficult to find naturally pure
water in dry conditions.
In response to mankind's strategy of climate disruption, they have moved plants indoors, creating regular environments to barely maintain the food supply these plants bring; even the Japanese scientific community has gone so far as to start researching mechanical bees to replace natural pollination, a mysterious force they seem to rely on to solve any problem mankind may have.
Melisa and the Goddess of Harvest seem to intend to leave these divine disputes to the humans to resolve, after all, it threatens their economy and livelihood; Melisa knows that if the honeybee population dies out, it will reduce the 80% of naturally-grown food that the humans eat, after all, many butterflies and beetles have been lost in the different eras, and these insects are just as important to Melisa as the honeybees are. These insects are as important to Melisa as the bees, and are the children she has been caring for all these years.
Exhausted by the destruction of the earth by man, the Goddess of the Harvest is the Mother of the Earth, who protects and sustains the plants from generation to generation, and who knows by heart the more than 1,000 species of plants that still exist in Crete, and who have been sacrificed to man's activities, and who has been murmured a thousand times in the night.
Melisa sometimes wondered if, as they gazed at the repetitive concrete boxes, experiencing the consequences of their human actions, in the depths of their spirits they were also imagining all the natural things that this land had once held.
Just when it seemed that all this had been done, Melisa could not remember the day when she discovered a strange bee in the flowers, and in the glare of the sun, she could not tell whether the bright shimmering of the bee's body was a droplet of water on its wings or the reflection of metal, a race she had never seen in Crete....