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ikhet_sekhmetDistinguished religious scholar Christine R. Dowling writes passionately about the Greek goddess Gaia in her chapter for The Book of the Goddess, in similar energetic terms to Carl Olson's introduction to "the goddess" in general.
Unlike other Greek goddesses, writes Dowling, "Gaia is never wholly personal, never entirely humanized", but this does not make her a lesser being than the anthropomorphic deities; rather, she "reminds us that the divine is transhuman and prehuman - there from the beginning - not simply a human projection. Because of this, she is the primordial source as no humanlike mother can be." She is "a reminder of the time when matter was still rebellious" - in fact, "matter is still rebellious, alive and eruptive. Gaia is earthquake and volcano, molten lava and shifting rock." She is growth, but not the human-controlled growth of agriculture. "Gaia signifies all that cannot be brought under control." She contains the dead as well as producing all life.
In Homer, "Because earth is always near at hand and cannot be escaped, she is guarantor of the most serious oaths. Even the gods swear by her." (I couldn't help thinking of the inescapable Aztec deity, Tezcatlipoca, "Lord of the Close and Near".)
Beginning a list of the goddess' many offspring, Dowling remarks: "To be creative is Gaia's very essence. To be Gaia is to give birth to something other than herself, to heterogeneity." (Coincidentally, I just came across a line from Jill Raitt's alternative creation story: "Why should not the female genitrix be called Diversity, rather than Chaos?" Cf the Cambrian Explosion: boom!)
Other Greek goddesses, including Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, Artemis, Demeter, and Persephone, are "highly developed and specialized forms of the primordial mother goddess". As presented to us by their patriarchal authors, Dowling reminds us, "the Greek goddesses are not very attractive creatures. These texts all exhibit a deep suspicion of feminine power; they all seem concerned to validate the priority of the social over the natural order" (think of Athena's declaration that mothers are not their children's parents). As well as becoming "implacably hostile to one another", the goddesses have lost their connections to natural places and powers. IIRC there's evidence that the Mesopotamian goddesses underwent a similar reduction in their importance, though perhaps not so much of a reshaping.
Interestingly, Dowling's view of Demeter is a negative one: instead of the mother determined to rescue her abducted daughter, Dowling portrays her as clinging and childish. This jibes with a number of representations of Persephone's myth which I've encountered online, in which Hades is not a gross old rapist but a brooding, handsome figure in need of the love of a good woman, and sometimes Demeter is a "helicopter parent". I agree with the poster who preferred a version of the myth in which Persephone is raped, but endures.
ETA: Found on Tumblr: Homeric Hymn XXX - Earth Mother of All and Homeric Hymn XIV - The Mother of the Gods.
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Olson, Carl. The Book of the Goddess Past and Present. The Crossroads Publishing Company, New York, 1987.
Raitt, Jill. The "Vagina Dentata" and the "Immaculatus Uterus Divini Fontis". Journal of the American Academy of Religion 48(3) September 1980, pp. 415-431.
Unlike other Greek goddesses, writes Dowling, "Gaia is never wholly personal, never entirely humanized", but this does not make her a lesser being than the anthropomorphic deities; rather, she "reminds us that the divine is transhuman and prehuman - there from the beginning - not simply a human projection. Because of this, she is the primordial source as no humanlike mother can be." She is "a reminder of the time when matter was still rebellious" - in fact, "matter is still rebellious, alive and eruptive. Gaia is earthquake and volcano, molten lava and shifting rock." She is growth, but not the human-controlled growth of agriculture. "Gaia signifies all that cannot be brought under control." She contains the dead as well as producing all life.
In Homer, "Because earth is always near at hand and cannot be escaped, she is guarantor of the most serious oaths. Even the gods swear by her." (I couldn't help thinking of the inescapable Aztec deity, Tezcatlipoca, "Lord of the Close and Near".)
Beginning a list of the goddess' many offspring, Dowling remarks: "To be creative is Gaia's very essence. To be Gaia is to give birth to something other than herself, to heterogeneity." (Coincidentally, I just came across a line from Jill Raitt's alternative creation story: "Why should not the female genitrix be called Diversity, rather than Chaos?" Cf the Cambrian Explosion: boom!)
Other Greek goddesses, including Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, Artemis, Demeter, and Persephone, are "highly developed and specialized forms of the primordial mother goddess". As presented to us by their patriarchal authors, Dowling reminds us, "the Greek goddesses are not very attractive creatures. These texts all exhibit a deep suspicion of feminine power; they all seem concerned to validate the priority of the social over the natural order" (think of Athena's declaration that mothers are not their children's parents). As well as becoming "implacably hostile to one another", the goddesses have lost their connections to natural places and powers. IIRC there's evidence that the Mesopotamian goddesses underwent a similar reduction in their importance, though perhaps not so much of a reshaping.
Interestingly, Dowling's view of Demeter is a negative one: instead of the mother determined to rescue her abducted daughter, Dowling portrays her as clinging and childish. This jibes with a number of representations of Persephone's myth which I've encountered online, in which Hades is not a gross old rapist but a brooding, handsome figure in need of the love of a good woman, and sometimes Demeter is a "helicopter parent". I agree with the poster who preferred a version of the myth in which Persephone is raped, but endures.
ETA: Found on Tumblr: Homeric Hymn XXX - Earth Mother of All and Homeric Hymn XIV - The Mother of the Gods.
__
Olson, Carl. The Book of the Goddess Past and Present. The Crossroads Publishing Company, New York, 1987.
Raitt, Jill. The "Vagina Dentata" and the "Immaculatus Uterus Divini Fontis". Journal of the American Academy of Religion 48(3) September 1980, pp. 415-431.
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Date: 2015-12-30 09:30 am (UTC)