Zeus’ had a mortal son; Heracles. In an attempt to make his child immortal he placed him at Hera’s breast while she was asleep. When Heracles would drink her divine milk, he would become immortal. But before Heracles could drink this milk, Hera wakes up and realizes an unknown child is drinking from her breast. She pulls away but some of her milk spills and creates a band of light that we now know as the Milky Way.
This divine notion of breastmilk not only exists in Greek Mythology, but also in Christianity. The Virgin Mary is often portrayed as breastfeeding Jesus, as if she is feeding him some sort of knowledge or particles of the divine. There is even a story about the Saint Bernard where the Virgin Mary sprinkled her milk on his lips. In some versions of this miracle, he kneels and prays for her milk and in others he’s asleep. As if a dream spoke to him. Again, the mother’s milk becomes this bearer of knowledge and divinity; a communication between bodies. *
*this is part of an essay I wrote for the zine Feeble
'The horse who is galloping through our thoughts now is a female being […] Through each generation of her family, a human voice has echoed the same words in a series of tongues: Good girl. Good girl.’
Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat, (Dublin: Tramp press, 2020),146-147.
‘There is always within her at least a little of that good mother’s milk. She writes in white ink.’
(Hélène Cixous, Hélène Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa,” Signs, vol. 1, no. 4 (1976): 881)
