Goddess Worship and the Healing of Modern Life

By Lady Galadriel and Lord Athanor

Part I - The Goddess Yesterday and Today

In the older pagan texts and legends there is a vast array and staggering variety of Goddess images and symbols. Perhaps the salient reason for this lies in the fact that Goddess symbolism is lunar and therefore cyclical, woven from the understanding that life on earth is a process of endless transformation - a constant, yet rhythmic, fluctuation between birth and death, creation and destruction. Indeed, the Great Goddess herself is often depicted in a triune way, a fact which shows her identification with the functions of lifegiving, transformation, and deathbringing. These functions or powers are represented by, and reflected within, the three phases of the moon - waxing, full, and waning.

And the rhythmic fluctuation of which we speak is always conceived of as an endless circuit. For the Goddess, as deathbringer, is also naturally seen as the lifegiver as well, immortality being secured through the innate forces within Nature. This theme of death followed by regeneration and renewal is perhaps the most outstanding and dramatic that we perceive within Goddess mythology.

Given this thematic universality, it seems wholly appropriate to view all of her intercultural images as multiversant aspects of the one Great Goddess, elaborating and perpetually redefining her core functions of creation, transformation, and regeneration. The most obvious analogy is of course, that to Nature herself; and in this context the Goddess has historically been seen by her worshipers as immanent, rather than transcendent, and therefore physically present all around and within life. This is a variant, and perhaps the oldest variant, of panentheism as opposed to pantheism.

We should note that fertility is only one of the many functions ascribed to goddesses. Originally, goddesses were perceived as powerful creatrices of life, not as enchantresses or beauties, and defiantly not as the wives or concubines of this or that male deity. These however, are common misconceptions - and so, too, is that of the Goddess as being only the Great Mother. Certainly there are numerous mother and protectress images amongst goddess, just as there is also a Mother Earth and a Mother of the Dead. Yet there is also an equally large number of other female images which simply cannot be organized or explained away under the term of Mother Goddess. Bird and snake goddesses are usually not mothers; and neither are the frog and the fish goddesses. Most of these figures personify, instead, the transformative (as opposed to the maternal) powers of Nature.

Erich Neumann suggests in The Great Mother that the maternal images of the Goddess developed from the Archetypal or Primordial Feminine, perceived as the great round or void, the symbol of the beginning. This totality then divided into the figures of the Great Mother and the Great Father; and later, as mythos continued to evolve, the nurturing Goddess further separated into a Good and a Terrible Mother, to indicate the positive and negative elements of her character. Thus in the Hindu legends the gentle Durga and the terrible Kali are explicitly regarded as one and the same principle of reality; and perhaps no myth less dramatic could so forcefully communicate the doctrine that one and the same power both creates your life and drinks your blood. Still later, we notice a further individuation of the Goddess as a transformer; for at this stage she manifests on the one hand as Lady of the Plants, and on the other as Lady of the Beasts.

For all these reasons we feel that the term "Great Mother" is too narrow, too imprecise, too incompatible with anything resembling a full appreciation of this deity's essence and nature. We prefer instead the term "Great Goddess." So characterized, her manifestations are many; she may be anthropomorphic or theriomorphic, she may appear in triple aspect, or as only one of the three, she may be waterfowl or bird of prey, a harmless or poisonous snake, but always, always, she is ultimately one indivisible Goddess.

Viewed as the Terrible Mother, the Goddess in her death aspect can be frightening indeed; but if we look closely at the symbols and myths associated with death, it then becomes clear that this apparently negative aspect never manifests alone. Always, the death aspect of the Goddess is interwoven with powers and themes of regeneration and renewal. Thus the Owl/Vulture/Crow aspects of the Goddess are both the foreboders of death and the bringers of renewal. Indeed, death itself is not necessarily to be taken as a punishment, but rather as a manifestation - and a necessary one at that - of the cyclic nature of life. The Goddess fulfills her nature and does her duty: in doing so she brings death: and yet in the same moment she provides the energies of transformation and renewal.

Bachofen's great Masterpiece Mutterricht, of which a complete English translation is unfortunately lacking, propounds three major epochs in the feminine history of the West. The first, whose origin was lost in the mists of antiquity, was a period of unfettered hetairism, when woman was perceived as the terrestrial Aphrodite, sexual companion and plaything. Second, there was an ensuing period of demetrianism when - through the influence of Sappho, Euripides, and the other great demetrians - respect for the feminine reached its historical apex. Finally there came an extended period of patriarchy, precipitated by the wholesale invasion of Old Europe by a vigorous and varied body of Middle Eastern and Indo-European religious and philosophical thought. This transformation, however, was not a replacement of one culture by another, but a grafting and hybridization of two symbolic systems. The old Goddess images and sacred symbols were never totally uprooted; obviously so, since these very persistent features of human history are too deeply planted in our psyches: they could have completely disappeared only with the total extermination of woman. Instead, the Goddess's religion went underground. Some of these old traditions, particularly those concerned with birth and death and fertility, have continued to this day without much change in some places.

Parthenogenic Goddesses, creating of and through themselves without the help of males, were gradually changed into brides, wives and daughters. They were first eroticized, then linked with the principles of sexual love. this change came about through the introduction of the patrilineal system, which, it must be remembered, is a quite late historical development. In this way Hera became the wife of Zeus, who - in order to establish his primacy - also had to seduce, (or more accurately, rape!) a number of other goddesses. Simultaneously, the Earth Mother lost her ability to give birth without the intervention of a Sky or Solar God. And so on, and so forth.

But it was left to the Christian Era to achieve the final dethronement of the Great Goddess - an accomplishment which, from the feminist and demetrian perspectives, is at once the bloodiest achievement and greatest shame of the Church: all the more so, since the witch hunts that began in the Fifteenth century and lasting in the Eighteenth constituted, perhaps, the most demonic mass movement ever to occur in European History, all in the name of the God of Brotherly Love. The murder of women, and men, accused of being witches escalated to eight or nine million before it was over; the statistics on torture and interrogation are beyond counting. The victims were mostly simple country women who had learned of the secrets of the Goddess from their mothers and grandmothers. But sometimes entire towns and cities were destroyed, bloodily.

Throughout this open war against women and their wisdom, the portrayal of the Goddess as a demon, and the denigration of her Craft, the memories of her love and power were preserved by her worshipers in fairy tales, rituals, customs, and the great chain of mythos. Perhaps this was inevitable: for the Goddess in all her manifestations is a symbol of the unity of Nature. Her power is ubiquitous - she lives in water and stone, in tombs and caves, in birds, snakes, animals, and fish, in hills, tress, and flowers. Hence there was, and yet remains, a holistic tradition of the sacredness and mystery of all there is on earth.

Thus the Goddess gradually retreated into the depths of the forests or onto the mountaintops, where she remains to this day in Wiccan beliefs, rites, and practices. But the cycles never stop turning; and now we find that the Goddess is re-emerging from the forests and the mountains, bringing hope for our future, and linkage with our ancient roots. The business of this paper is to look at some of the mythos and symbolism of the Goddess, and to see how these are pertinent to women, and to men also, in today's society. Let us start by examining the functions of myth.

Myths reflect inner states of attitudes of mind at the deepest levels of thought and feeling, Myths also enclose belief systems in metaphorical terms. In today's society we can understand that while myths are not meant to be taken literally, they do contain a stratum of historical fact along with their storehouses of insight into social customs and psychological states. There is more to any experience than simply the objective, material fact - there is also the subjective experience, and this can often be more powerful within an individual than any kind of scientific knowledge. And yet it is necessary to insist that the objective level is present also. As Bachofen writes: "It has been said that myth, like quicksand, can never provide a firm foothold. This reproach applies not to myth itself, but only to the way in which it has been handled. Multiform and shifting in its outward manifestation, myth nevertheless follows fixed laws, and can provide as definite and serious results as any other source of historical knowledge."

A myth is also a support for meditation upon one's own relationship with oneself, with others, with nature, and with the sacred. In passive religions, such as Buddhism, one seeks to find a void. Pagan and Wiccan meditations allow all images, all possibilities to arise, until, little by little, we perceive in myths the web of their relationship. As the myth becomes a coherent scenario, it catalyzes the part we play in the collective drama, which in turn becomes clearer. A myth or archetype absorbs us until its emotional content is spent, or until our own grasp of heroic consciousness imprints a new direction on the action. There is then a progressive shift of consciousness, either towards another episode of the same myth, or towards another myth.

In this sense myth, according to Joseph Campbell, may be compared to a "collective dream"; and reciprocally, dreams may be an "individual" analogue for the myth. A myth expresses the elements proper to a culture and an era in the same way that a dream comprises the elements relevant to a particular dreamer.

Both myths and dreams express, above all, experiences which may be universal, and as such have many forms. It is not necessary to be pagan to be touched by the erotic world of Aphrodite, or the nurturing of Demeter. For each myth there is more than one possible and valuable interpretation, the value that it brings being determined by its effect. A good or useful interpretation generally produces a liberating and deepening effect, while a false one produces mostly confusion.

There are also some dreams and some myths whose functions are to reveal to us the absence and the need for values embodied by an archetype. In these cases it is the absence of the power inherent in the symbol that is significant.

Myths are complex. They do not lend themselves to simplistic or dogmatic teaching. The adventures of the mythic personage, the God or Goddess, are movements of consciousness; and therefore they illustrate our interpersonal conflicts, our relationships, and our participation in the sacred. One must follow the movements of a myth in the same way one listens to a piece of music, or watches a dancer. If this is the case then insight, and not doctrine, is the result.

The farther back we go in out search for the origins of the Goddess, the nearer we come to the animal concept. For example: Hecate was once the three headed hound of the moon, Artemis was seen as a bear, Isis was cow-headed, and Astarte was lion-headed. As we progress forward through the ages the Goddess is seen less and less in theriomorphic form, being more often conceived as the "idealized woman."

So it can be said there is a natural evolution of progression of thought here: first the Mother is an animal; then the spirit of the Goddess is in the animal; later the Goddess herself is attended by animals, and later still these animal attendants are supplanted by human priests and priestesses who wear animal masks, perform animal dances, and are called by animal names.

The psychology behind this progressive change is clear. At the dawn of time the feminine instinct itself was perceived as primarily animal. The mother cared for her young; and that fact, together with the voracity of her lust for the male during mating, appeared to be the obvious characteristics of both beast and woman alike. As culture progressed, woman began to refine other emotions, such as love and compassion; and from this refinement emerged the concomitant religious development in which the Goddess of Nature began to rise above her original animal form. She was then represented as woman, but always as a woman still open to the full fierceness of feminine instinct, which itself was depicted in the form of animal symbolism.

As a Wiccan high priest and priestess, joined in sacred marriage, we think it appropriate to share with our readers how the Goddess is viewed in the Pagan and Wiccan mythos. To encapsulate it in a few words, the Goddess is the bridge on which we cross chasms within ourselves, and she is the ship on which we sail the waters of the deep self, exploring the uncharted seas within. She is the door through which we pass into the future. She is the cauldron in which we are bathed until we are whole again. She is the tunnel through which we are reborn.

The Goddess is the Earth, the dark nurturing mother who brings forth all life. She is the power of fertility and generation, both the womb from which we are born, and the tomb to which we return. All proceeds from Her, and all returns to Her. As the Earth, She is also plant life - the whole vegetable realm of trees, herbs, grains, and fruits which collectively sustain every other form of organic life. She is also the body itself and the giver of form, and all forms come from Her. Birth and death are Her sacred times of passage.

The Goddess is also Air and Sky, the celestial Queen of the Heavens, the Star Goddess. She is the ruler of things felt but unseen; of knowledge, of mind, of intuition. She is the Muse who awakens all creations of the spirit. She is the Cosmic Lover, the morning and evening star Venus, who appears at the times of lovemaking. Beautiful and glittering, She can never be penetrated or grasped. The mind is drawn ever farther in the desire to know the unknowable, to speak the ineffable. She is inspiration, and in this context all women are the initiators of their lovers.

The Goddess is also seen as the Moon, who is linked to women's monthly cycles of fertility. If woman is the earthly moon, then the celestial Moon is a great cosmic egg, drifting in the womb of the sky, who causes the fertilization of the earth by rain and by dew. She is also the ruler of the tides, and all the oceans of life; because the Moon is the Mistress Absolute of the waters - of wave and stream, of river and lake and well, as well as the hidden pools of our feelings and emotions, which often immerse us in their waves.

Thus the Goddess is never single. Whenever She appears She embodies both poles of duality. She has a thousand and a thousand names. She is the light and the darkness, the patroness of love, who brings into manifestation all possibilities.

To us of the Wicca, any act based on love or pleasure is a ritual of the Goddess. Her worship can take many forms, and can occur almost anywhere. It requires no liturgy and no temple, for its essence is recognition, within oneself and one's culture, of the Great Mother. The Goddess exists within all women, and each woman is one face of the Goddess.

Part II - The Search for a Center of Wholeness

By learning about the different mythologies of the various Goddesses, you can read in them parables of your own life and experiences. Studies of this sort have a much more practical orientation than the beginner may suppose. For by learning to work with these myths, we learn to understand and evolve our own psyche. By identifying ourselves with these various aspects of the feminine archetype, we bring these qualities into fuller and ampler being within ourselves, thus creating a more spiritual and harmonious lifestyle.

In such an undertaking one must, however, avoid confusing a Goddess, who is an archetype, with actual everyday women. One must also notice that each feminine archetype will contain the images of men as well as woman, and therefore personify the feminine qualities of a man; just as a God mythos may pertain to the masculine qualities of a woman. sometimes it happens that a particular contacted archetype presents to us qualities and values whose expressions are no longer permitted - a particularly striking example of this being the Virgin Mary. In centuries which were on the surface wholly patriarchal, she was invested with powerful qualities reminiscent of, and in fact drawn from the fiercer and more primitive aspects, of pagan goddesses. In this way the Cultus of Mary gave its adherents - both male and female - an access to states of being which exceeded that of actual contemporary women. Thus it provided an outlet, and a channel for the energies wholly excluded from everyday life, this channeling of psychic energies, this concern with what may be termed the night side of existence, appears to have been central to Goddess worship since the dawn of time.

But there is another powerful side effect that occurs when certain archetypes are no longer allowed to express their energies through our daily social and personal life. Let us examine this effect by looking at the mythos of Hestia, an almost singularly neglected Goddess in the Western world today.

Hestia is the center of being - the center of the Earth, the center of the home, and our own personal center. Hestia is that Goddess who never leaves her own place. If we would know her, if we would contact her, then we must go to her.

Just as the act of orgasm, and the whole sexual side of love, are suggested and referred to by the word Aphrodite, so the hearth fire, together with the whole psychological constellation of home and family and nurturing, is designated by the word Hestia (called Vesta by the Romans). The hearth is both the physical center and the emotional heart of every home fortunate enough to have one - the place of intimacy for a family and its friends. When a stranger was invited to the area of the hearth, he was protected, for this place was sacred. By extension the temples of Hestia were a political and community sanctuary; and no quarrels or fights were allowed to develop in their sacred precincts. As Plato once remarked, "When the Gods quarreled, only Hestia did not take part."

Today the importance of the Hestia archetype to any group of organization, from the family, upward and outward, is often overlooked. Every group needs Hestia, or some person or energy that fulfills her role; that weaves the webs, that stays at the center, that retains and stores information till it ripens into wisdom. This is necessary for any group which wishes to retain and protect its members, and allow them to identify with the organization. It is true both on the level of the individual family, and on the larger scale of the "family of humanity." Hestia relates to both. And to the extent that each is a family, it is Hestia that makes them so.

Now let us compare some of the forms of the Greek Earth Goddess. First we must note that the word "earth" is commonly used to designate both our planet and the soil in which plants germinate. The Greek word "Gaia" contains both these meanings, for she is the origin of life. But although Gaia is seen and worshiped as the primordial mother, she is too huge, too distant and immense, too abstract, to have the warm complex of personal mother. Her daughter, Rhea, proginatrix of the Olympians, comes much nearer to our idea of an ancestral mother. She personifies a very plausible grandmother image.

Demeter, the daughter of Rhea and granddaughter of Gaia, was associated less with the soil itself, then with its fertility and produce. She is not really associated with the planet itself, but rather with the earth's cycle of agriculture, with the feeding function, with the ability to produce the food which sustains life. Demeter therefore also differs from Hestia, who had nothing to do with the earth's cultivation, but who is associated with the planet insofar as it is our home, in whose center burns a fire.

The worship of Hestia, and also the role of a priestess, is therefore linked to a geocentric world view. In losing our geocentrism we have lost the feeling that this planet is our home. We have lost our bond with her, and therewith our sense of intimacy with life itself. As the old geocentric and pagan world view lost its hold, the new Christians wished to leave the old pagan universe behind completely. More than any other religion, Christianity became a religion of ascension and assumption - of the sky and beyond. Terrestrial heroes were replaced by saints who rise up to the heavens, who are less than concerned with life here, and who in fact preach an attitude of domination and also of transcendence. Even the mother of Christ, in order to merit divine honors, had to leave the realm of the earth and ascend. And what Christianity had begun was powerfully accelerated in the sixteenth century by the rise of Copernican astronomy, whose principle doctrine is not (as some careless readers have supposed) that the sun is the center of everything, but that the universe itself has no center anywhere.

Thus spirituality no longer remained on earth - because nothing spiritual is supposed to remain here for very long. In this view, the world then becomes the valley of tears, a place of sin; and our own bodies become the chief enemy of our spiritual aspiration, to our spirituality.

What effect results from this progressive loss of focus? the psychological experience of those who leave the center of attraction of Hestia, and who cut the bond that attaches them to Gaia, is an initial shock, followed by numbness and disassociation. This is neurosis; psychotherapists who speak in gestalt terms commonly say that these people are not centered, not grounded. If the loss of focus proceeds further, it produces psychosis. In a milieu overloaded with cocktail party chatter about "alienation," there may be some merit in recalling that alienation was the original English word denoting full insanity.

And yet alienation itself, a progressive leaving of the Earth, the Mother, in order to approach the Sun - that is the Apollonian ideal. Whoever is motivated by Apollo's spirit always wants to go forward and higher. Taking into account the preponderant influence of Apollo and Zeus over the last two millennia, we find that Hestia has become a Goddess who is more and more ignored and neglected.

A number of scientifically-trained investigators have given the name "Gaia Hypothesis" to an ecological theory which shows how the process of natural equilibrium on our planet may be understood by conceiving of the earth "as if" she were a living organism or person. And we might add, it looks "as if" mythos thought has yet again intuited what the scientific community has "discovered" by its own means, though perhaps a bit late in the day.

Therefore let us act "as if" Hestia truly existed, and look at some of the consequences of neglecting and ignoring her. One of the first, on a collective level, seems to be that for the last 2,000 years we have been ceaselessly longing to go "upward", both metaphorically and scientifically, as well as psychologically. We, as a society, have become obsessed by the idea of the Christian ascension!

A second consequence is that we have allowed our planet, our collective household, to deteriorate, and the ashes of our hearths to scatter, our home to fall into disrepair. Why (so we ask ourselves) should we do maintenance and repairs when we are only temporary tenants of a passing caravanserai, not residents of a permanent home?

One may - and certainly should - continue to make use of heliocentric astronomy, if only for its greater ease and accuracy of calculation, surely, in an honest polytheism Apollo also has his place and his honors. but we are forced, at least on a psychological level, to turn our attention to becoming geocentrists once again.

A secure personality, and a safe and harmonious planet, springs alike from a well-grounded sense of identity, and the capacity to find one's center. The security that Hestia brings is related to stability, tradition, and the preservation of the goods that sustain us. Hestia and Hermes were often invoked together, forming an association of opposites. Hestia refuses to leave the center, Hermes is the God of travel and communication. His domain stops at the doorway, where hers begins. Nevertheless, the two divinities together represent the space which all humans inhabit.