Chickee - Conversations with the Goddess: Divine Feminine

Begin at the Beginning.

Images of deity conveyed spiritual meaning to peoples of the ancient world just as they do for us today. But when we look at these images from the deep past we are likely to feel that their significance is lost. I maintain that contemplation of such images can yield a felt sense of their meaning that is of more than academic interest.

Accumulating archaeological evidence affirms that prehistoric peoples revered a feminine divinity for thousands of years. But since there are no known writings from the prehistoric period, we must try to sense into the meaning of these artifacts. That means we have to rely on our intuition in “reading” their symbolism.

You might be thinking, But, really, why would symbolism of ancient artifacts be of value to us moderns, since ancient people’s symbols would be very different from ours? That’s a legitimate and important question.

Symbolic meaning can be present across historical time periods, as historian of religion Mircea Eliade observed. In other words, we can discover that the essence of a symbol can be relevant to us, even though the symbol goes far back into ancient times. Eliade said that “Images, symbols and myths respond to a need and fill a function,” bringing “to light the deepest aspects of reality which defy any other means of knowledge….”



Let’s begin at the Beginning, with the most ancient female artifact which archaeologists have so far recovered. This artifact is called the Acheulian Mother. Artist Lydia Ruyle wrote about this artifact, a find which inspired her to create what she calls the Goddess Icon Spirit Banner of the Acheulian Ancient Mother (see photo at the end of this post):

"…in the summer of 1981 a grooved scoria pebble that had been deliberately shaped was excavated at the Acheulian site of Berekhat Ram. The site is located in the Golan Heights at Israel, where a nomadic hominid tribe, who predated even the Neanderthal era, had been camping in the area between an astounding 232,000 and 800,000 thousand years ago. The figurine was found between two layers of volcanic ash, the upper one 232,000 and the lower one 800,000 years old.

"A report on the find concluded that the pebble had been deliberately selected and shaped, and went on to say: “The scoria pebble is rounded and partially weathered. Several grooves are discernible on the object. The grooves are considered to be artificial and purposefully human made…and manifest a high degree of manufacture ability. The artifacts were modified with an impressive skill both in terms of technology and values of symmetry and shape. Based on this evidence we assume that the inhabitants of the Acheulian site were both physically and mentally capable of modifying pebbles to achieve a required form. It seems that the occupants of the site selected a pebble that bore some characteristics of a female body. These were enhanced by adding the incised grooves delimiting the head and arms and the vulva.”

Below is a photo of Lydia’s Ruyle’s banner. Notice the symbolism accentuated in Lydia’s image. For example, waves of energy and power emanate from the female figurine. Also notice that the fullness of this image is emphasized, as are the breasts and vulva, though the head is featureless. Arms, legs, and head seem diminished in importance compared to the other features. The cosmetic features of this female doesn’t correspond to any of our criteria for feminine beauty. Yet looking at this image as a symbol, we sense that fertility and generativity, and even prosperity are important attributes.



The red color which Lydia Ruyle has painted on her Acheulian Mother suggests qualities that are elemental and primeval, as does the stone from which the figurine is made. Then too, the color of red ochre is frequently found on artifacts; it is symbolic of blood and the life force. When I look at the figure in this banner I think of lava and the fiery immense power emanating from earth’s living core.

The emphasis on these parts of the body and its fullness occurs in much later artifacts thought by some scholars to be a representation of the Great Mother Goddess revered in Paleolithic times. In the next page of this series we will look at one of the best known artifacts which have been described as representations of the Earth Mother.


What thoughts and feelings does this ancient image of female deity evoke in you, dear BraveHeart readers? Do you wonder whether this really represents an Earth Mother? Are you attracted or repelled by it? You don’t have to be nice in your comments. Remember that variety is the spice of life.


*Images and quotation from UK Goddess Alive! magazine with the kind permission of Lydia Ruyle.

©2010 by Dorothy “Chickee” Atalla, author
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The Earth Mother of Lespugue, 25,000-18,000 B.C., France




Why on earth would this strange looking thing represent the divine feminine? you wonder, just as I did when I first laid eyes on this artifact.

Like the very well-known images of the prehistoric Acheulian Ancient Mother (232,000 - 800,000 years old) and the Earth Mother of Willendorf (30,000-25,000 B.C., Austria), the Earth Mother of Lespugue represents a full-bodied female, with the very same stalk-like arms folded over huge breasts which we see on the Earth Mother of Willendorf artifact. In addition, this Lespugue figurine is a blend of human female and bird. She has a beaked head, wing-like shoulders, and a tailpiece, scored with lines that resemble tail feathers.

This figurine features symbolism of an extremely old bird deity, who is often portrayed on many artifacts with an egg inside her body. We can see that the figure has an egg-shaped belly, haunches, and breasts. To my eyes these globes could have served double duty as a symbol of abundance; besides looking egglike they also suggest a cluster of fruits, such as grapes or berries. The Lespugue artifact is clearly more stylized in appearance than the Earth Mother of Willendorf, who looks more realistically like a human female.

When we look at the artifact from Lespugue, we wonder what kind of consciousness rendered it and we wonder how its creator thought about divinity. Animal epiphanies of deities are known to be a feature of spiritual traditions all over the world, throughout prehistory and ancient history. Consider how Christian symbolism of a dove represents the Holy Spirit even today! Ancient bird symbolism was often represented as birds of prey, water birds or other bird types associated with regeneration.

Bird epiphanies are also known from the Near East, Crete, Egypt, and the regions of Greece. For example, there are predynastic terracotta figurines from Egypt which clearly have a bird-like head, as well as wing-like arms and feathery hands, raised in an epiphany of the divine.



Egyptian bird deity, terra cotta, 4000 BC

The same kind of symbolism we find in the Earth Mother of Lespugue, Earth Mother of Willendorf, and the Acheulian Ancient Mother occurs many times over on prehistoric female figurines. Willendorf and Lespugue are representative of hundreds, if not thousands, of such artifacts found in domestic shrines, votive deposits, and burials.

Does the Earth Mother of Lespugue pique your curiosity, dear BraveHearts?


Note: For additional information about bird artifacts as epiphanies of female deity see online article by Alicia Sherwood, titled “The Bird Goddess – tracing Her story through history, Part 1,” published in Spellcraft issue, #8. (And no, I’m not of neo-pagan persuasion, even though the word “Spellcraft” might suggest so!)

©2010 by Chickee Dorothy Atalla, author
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[b]The Great Goddess of Minoan Crete ~~ Lady of the Wild Things

(This post is half of a page in my blog series because I can put up only two photos in one post. You'll see that the next half is posted after this post. Also you'll notice that the images are in reverse order due to some computer glitch!)i]


Let’s look at representation of deity from Crete when the culture of a people called the Minoans was at its peak. A female deity was central in the spiritual life of these people from circa 3000-1500 BC. Their goddess is frequently portrayed with animal companions, which indicate that she is Lady of the Wild Things. It is a conception of deity which has largely been dismissed in modern times as archaic -- but is it?


Minoan goddess holding snakes, circa 1600 BC from Knossos, Crete

This Minoan female figurine holds snakes and bears a small animal on her head. Today we aren’t used to snake symbolism being associated with deity. The snake got a bad rap in the biblical story of the fall of Adam and Eve, where the serpent is reported to have seduced Eve into eating the apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but in the ancient world the snake was representative of earth’s wisdom, its regenerative power, a power which was revered because all life depended on it. This figurine is probably one of the many representations of the Lady of the Wild Things which were common and plentiful across the whole ancient world.

img src="Minpotnth[1].jpg"
Minoan seal with Lady of the Wild Things, c.1500 BC

In the photo of a ring seal above, the Minoan goddess as Lady of the Wild Things has two animals flanking her. Association of animals with the Goddess was common all over the ancient world, as you will see in the next half of this blog page.

©Chickee Dorothy Atalla, author
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Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing of Universal Man is famous. Leonardo envisaged his great picture chart of the human body as a cosmography of the microcosm within the macrocosm. In other words, he believed the workings of the human body to be an analogy for the workings of the universe.

The macrocosm/microcosm schema is an ancient Greek Neo-Platonic way of seeing the same patterns reproduced in all levels of the cosmos, from the largest scale (macrocosm or universe-level) all the way down to the smallest scale (microcosm or small organism/atomic-level). In this schema the midpoint is Man. Only the male body, not the female body, was considered the proper template.

We women aren’t used to envisioning ourselves as a midpoint in the cosmic scheme of things like the Universal Woman pictured above. If the thought of woman as a midpoint in the cosmic scheme of things seems grandiose, then try this one on: women are containers of yin.

Our bodies and psyches hold the space for the primal feminine energy of yin and its generative power. So in this new schema it would follow that our feminine embodiment (microcosm) is a touchstone, a key to redesigning space and ways of being that enhance the flourishing of life on our Earth (macrocosm). Think about it!

And consider this passage from my book, Conversations with the Goddess, in which the prediction is made that:


"Women will be given visions for building the new world. Certain women who become leaders will attain stature as visionaries equal to that of a Leonardo da Vinci. These women will be enabled to see the outlines, and even the details, of what the new collective will be. Yes, the picture of the new society will be perceived through visionary powers, just as the outlines of new societies arising throughout the history of the planet have always been perceived, though usually not described as such."

©2011 by Chickee Atalla, author
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What would a thirteenth century Persian mystic have to say to Brave Heart women? Well, a lot actually. As a woman I felt the impact of Rumi's words when I first read his poem below:


You suppose you are the trouble
But you are the cure
You suppose that you are the lock on the door
But you are the key that opens it
It's too bad that you want to be someone else
You don't see your own face, your own beauty
Yet, no face is more beautiful than yours.


I offer below my comments on this poem.


You suppose you are the trouble

Starting with the curse pronounced by God on Eve and all womankind after Eve ate the forbiddenapple, we’ve been invited to suppose we are the trouble. Just by being born in a female body, we inherited this primal blame. And we have taken on the mantle of self-blame for so many things that go wrong.

But you are the cure

Now we’re becoming conscious of such mind traps, we’re breaking free from the caged bird phenomenon as we recognize negative limiting beliefs about ourselves.

You suppose that you are the lock on the door

We not only learned self-blame, thus becoming problematic to ourselves, but we also learned to argue for our limitations, rather than for our particular strengths as women.


But you are the key that opens it

We see that we are the key to our own locks. We're undoing old beliefs about ourselves, opening the door to our own potential and power. And we see ourselves as the ones who are the key to opening the cage for others, not just for ourselves.

It's too bad that you want to be someone else

Not so long ago we adopted masculine values because we saw that as the way to move within the larger world, the workplace, and raise our self-worth. Our own powers as women didn’t seem sufficient for moving effectively within that sphere. We didn’t realize there’s an oxytocin highway to wellbeing and prosperity that better suits our feminine nature!

You don't see your own face, your own beauty

Rumi is talking about our original face, the true nature of our being that we brought with us into the world when we were born. For Rumi “your own beauty” means your own uniqueness.

Yet, no face is more beautiful than yours.

We’re now seeing ourselves as beautiful faces, those who bring vision into the world through our authenticity, passion, purpose, and inspired action.

Come to think of it, this whole poem expresses the elevated perception of ourselves that our BraveHeart RISE conference fosters!


Note: The unusual image I chose to accompany this post suggests to me our original face being born from the ocean of Being. What does it suggest to you?

©2011 by Chickee Atalla, author
Conversations with the Goddess
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Woman is a beam of the divine Light
She is not the being whom sensual desire takes as its object.
She is Creator, it should be said.
She is not a Creature. ~~Rumi


Chickee Atalla, author
Conversations with the Goddess
Facebook Conversations
GoddessSpeaks on Twitter

It's not what you call me, but what I answer to [that matters]. ~ African proverb

(Italics inserted by me).

What do you answer to?

Chickee Atalla, author
Conversations with the Goddess
Facebook Conversations
GoddessSpeaks on Twitter

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More and more of us are experiencing the Lady in our midst, as Clarissa Pinkola Estes attests in her new book, Untie the Strong Woman: Blessed Mother's Immaculate Love for the Wild Soul. Many of you BH women will remember Estes as the author of Women Who Run with the Wolves, a long-standing NY Times bestseller.

In this excerpt from her book, Estes speaks to those who seek her advice about their personal experiences of the Lady:

"The old-fashioned words [for experiences of the Lady] are appearances and apparitions. But I offer to you and advise you to call them by simpler words. They are visits, as from a great and beloved sister-mother, who comes because of long-standing love and familiarity with you. She comes through the door without knocking in order to deliver some sweet or strong dulces or carnes, sweet bread or meaty nourishments, to you….

"Our Lady grows her strongest roses in the earthy ground where she is most needed -- amongst horns honking, ambulances careening, children crying out alternatively in joy and in pain, all the people groaning and dancing and making love, the complete trochimochi, every which way, of humanity whose singings, sounds, works and actions are part of the exact basis for the harmonious cacophony -- the music of the cosmos.

"You ask, since your visits from her were not calm or decorous like those at Fatima or Lourdes…are your experiences somehow wrong?

"No. No, my hearts, they are not wrong. They are completely righteous. I assure you most definitively that the Beloved One comes in complete calmness to some. … in my experience, more often, she appears in times that are not calm and in clouds of dust that are not particularly picturesque. She comes skidding to a sudden stop in dark cars on even darker gravel roads. She stands in the midst of broken glass at curbs. She walks in every street, stands at every street corner, even those where it seems that, as my grandmother Querida used to say, 'Maybe even God Herself ought be cautious'

"To be a contemplative and follower of Holy Mother, I believe, for you she will appear in myriad ways. She will appear to you as much in the midst of noise, upheaval and times when we feel the sky is falling as when there is peace all around, at least in one's own little universe -- for she is often most present whenever there is most need for order, strength, endurance, a new idea, fierceness, hope and vitality.

"Now, you write that all around you seems often in complete mayhem, and this causes you great sadness. I would agree completely. Our own sorrows seem heavy enough, even when lifted by certain long-term joys. But watching others hurt is the breaker of most any heart. Yet, She is clearly with you, for the kinds of lives we have led would lead many to become thick with cynicism and biting -- and yet, we are still here with our hearts still unruined.

"This is a very good sign.

"Too, I would like to say to you that there is great power in the broken heart. Unlike many aspects of psyche that might close or hide when hurt, the heart broken open stays open.

"Though painful for certain, the heart broken open can be a blessing beyond compare. It not only allows you to see others, it allows you to constantly see her."


Chickee Atalla, author of Conversations with the Goddess: Encounter at Petra, Place of Power
www.conversationswiththegoddess.net
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