MANIFESTING A GODDESS-CENTRED MILLENIUM
1. Recognizing Our Mother
Searching for the Goddess in Ancient Europe.
In the beginning Eurynome, Goddess of All Things, rose naked from Chaos and found nothing for Her feet to rest upon. She divided the sea from the sky and danced alone upon its waves.
She danced towards the south and set the wind behind Her in whirling, spiralling motion. Wheeling about, She caught hold of the north wind and created the great serpent Ophion. As Eurynome danced, Ophion coiled about Her divine limbs and coupled with Her.
Eurynome assumed the form of a dove brooding on the waves and laid the Universal Egg. At Her bidding Ophion coiled seven times about this egg until it hatched and split in two. Out tumbled all things that exist, Her children: sun, moon, planets, stars, the earth with its mountains and rivers, its trees, herbs and living creatures.
Eurynome and Ophion made their home upon Mount Olympus where he vexed Her by claiming to be the author of the Universe. She bruised his head with Her heel, kicked out his teeth and banished him to the dark caves below the earth.
The Pelasgian Creation Myth
One of the most ancient connections of a serpent with a Goddess is encountered among the Pelasgians, the original 'painted -ware', pre-Hellenic immigrants from Asia Minor who settled on the mainland of Greece. Euripides (as quoted by Strabo) records that the Pelasgians adopted the name 'Danaans' in remembrance of the arrival at Argos of Danaus and his fifty daughters. Eurynome, meaning 'wide-wandering' was the Goddess's title as the visible moon, though it may also certainly have pointed to the wide-spread belief in Her existence and in the worship given to Her throughout the known world. Her Sumerian name was Iahu, meaning 'exalted dove'.
Many unearthed megalithic and neolithic statues reveal the Goddess as Great Mother in snake form or bearing distinctive snake-like chevron stripes. One pre-Hellenic Mycenaean idol of a seated Serpent Mother holds a serpentine infant in Her lap. Child, deity and chair are all striped with characteristic chevrons. The union of serpent and Goddess is often literal in ancient art and many serpent Goddesses appear partly or wholly in serpent form or with twining snakes around them. Ancient civilizations perhaps reflected their fear of snakes, metaphors of the chaotic and untamed elements of creation, through reverance, rather than irrational denial.
"The Minoans like the Egyptians had not been conditioned to see in the snake a symbol of evil...the Minoan sun-serpent was a benevolent one, as a guardian of the household and a healer of the sick." Charles Herberger
Neolithic Europe possessed a homogenous system of religious ideas based on the worship of the many-titled Mother Goddess, as Keeper or Custodian of the hearth, the central and most important place in cave, mound or hut, as the earliest social centre.
In Egypt, as in ancient Greece and elsewhere, the serpent was regarded as a symbol of fertility. In Egyptian hieroglyphics the word 'Goddess' is expressed by the image of a cobra and is best exemplified through the Goddess Neith, who appears as a golden cobra. Neith is often depicted wearing a crown, her face and hands green, signifying Her as a Goddess of earthly fertility. As the Goddess of magic and weaving, She is known as the unborn Goddess, the Oldest One, who 'originates in Herself'. Neith's symbol, the shuttle, marks Her as a Goddess ruling fate and destiny, for it is with the shuttle that the cloth of mortal existence is woven by the Fates in Greek myth.
Plato identified Athene with the originally Libyan Goddess Neith. Pottery finds suggest a Libyan immigration into Crete as early as 4000 B.C.E. and a large number of Goddess-worshipping Libyan refugees from the western Delta arrived in Crete around 3000 B.C.E. The first Minoan age began soon afterwards and Cretan culture spread to Thrace and early Helladic Greece.
Scholars speculate that the forebears of the Minoans arrived in Crete sometime between 4000 and 3000 B.C.E., having come from the Black Sea region.
The Minoans brought with them cult totems such as the serpent, the dove, bull's horns and the double-axe. These same symbols, dating from 6000 B.C.E. were found in Turkey and the Balkans. "The Balkans, Greece and Crete, rather than Mesopotamia, were the nucleus from which European civilization sprang."(Robert Graves) In Old Europe during the neolithic period and in the East during the Bronze Age the Snake Goddess is found in a number of forms and in great abundance.
Primal serpent sister deities from the Palace of Knossos, Crete, ca. sixteenth century B.C.E.
One Minoan oracular centre belonged to the Snake Goddess Eileithyia, a Cretan Goddess of childbirth. Homer and Hesiod speak of Eileithyia who, as a daughter or younger aspect of Hera, took over Her role as divine Midwife (9). Both Goddesses originate from Crete. Robert Graves identifies Hera with Herwa - 'Protectress', a pre-Hellenic Goddess, and says of Her,
"Hera's forced marriage to Zeus commemorates conquests of Crete and Mycenaean Greece, and the overthrow of Her supremacy in both countries."
The Hellenic invasions of the Aeolian and Ionian cultures early in the second millenium B.C.E. were less destructive than the Achaean and Dorian invasions which they preceeded. Achaean invasions of the thirteenth century B.C.E. seriously weakened matrilineal tradition.
Apollo's destruction of the Python at Delphi records the Achaeans' capture of the Cretan Earth-Goddess's shrine. Athene's mythological birth from the head of Zeus was according to J.E.Harrison 'a desperate theological expedient to rid her of her matriarchal conditions.' It is also according to Graves a dogmatic insistence on wisdom as a male prerogative. The marital relations between Zeus and Hera reflect those of the barbarous Dorian age when women were deprived of their magical power except that of prophecy. Zeus called himself leader of the Fates, thus replacing Lachesis, 'the measurer' at Delphi. His claim of fathering the Fates was not taken seriously by Herodotus or Plato.
Thetis, Amphitrite and Nereis were different local titles of the Triple Moon-goddess as ruler of the sea, and Poseidon, as Father-God of the Aeolians, claimed to be her husband wherever she found worshipers. Amphitrite's reluctance to marry Poseidon matches Hera's reluctance to marry Zeus and Persephone's to marry Hades.
As humanity approaches the year 2000 a growing number of people world-wide are beginning to reclaim, each in their own way, the belief in the presence of the Mother Goddess. In every planted seed, from the magical revival of the late eighteen hundreds to the securing of equal rights for women, She has guided Her own return to a world disenchanted with war, dominance through the use of brute force and prejudice.
Bibliography:
Robert Graves. The Greek Myths I. Penguin Books.
Buffie Johnson. Lady of the Beasts. Inner Traditions International.
Alexiou Stylianos. Minoan Civilization. Spyros Alexiou Sons.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/4699/project1.htm1. Recognizing Our Mother
Searching for the Goddess in Ancient Europe.
In the beginning Eurynome, Goddess of All Things, rose naked from Chaos and found nothing for Her feet to rest upon. She divided the sea from the sky and danced alone upon its waves.
She danced towards the south and set the wind behind Her in whirling, spiralling motion. Wheeling about, She caught hold of the north wind and created the great serpent Ophion. As Eurynome danced, Ophion coiled about Her divine limbs and coupled with Her.
Eurynome assumed the form of a dove brooding on the waves and laid the Universal Egg. At Her bidding Ophion coiled seven times about this egg until it hatched and split in two. Out tumbled all things that exist, Her children: sun, moon, planets, stars, the earth with its mountains and rivers, its trees, herbs and living creatures.
Eurynome and Ophion made their home upon Mount Olympus where he vexed Her by claiming to be the author of the Universe. She bruised his head with Her heel, kicked out his teeth and banished him to the dark caves below the earth.
The Pelasgian Creation Myth
One of the most ancient connections of a serpent with a Goddess is encountered among the Pelasgians, the original 'painted -ware', pre-Hellenic immigrants from Asia Minor who settled on the mainland of Greece. Euripides (as quoted by Strabo) records that the Pelasgians adopted the name 'Danaans' in remembrance of the arrival at Argos of Danaus and his fifty daughters. Eurynome, meaning 'wide-wandering' was the Goddess's title as the visible moon, though it may also certainly have pointed to the wide-spread belief in Her existence and in the worship given to Her throughout the known world. Her Sumerian name was Iahu, meaning 'exalted dove'.
Many unearthed megalithic and neolithic statues reveal the Goddess as Great Mother in snake form or bearing distinctive snake-like chevron stripes. One pre-Hellenic Mycenaean idol of a seated Serpent Mother holds a serpentine infant in Her lap. Child, deity and chair are all striped with characteristic chevrons. The union of serpent and Goddess is often literal in ancient art and many serpent Goddesses appear partly or wholly in serpent form or with twining snakes around them. Ancient civilizations perhaps reflected their fear of snakes, metaphors of the chaotic and untamed elements of creation, through reverance, rather than irrational denial.
"The Minoans like the Egyptians had not been conditioned to see in the snake a symbol of evil...the Minoan sun-serpent was a benevolent one, as a guardian of the household and a healer of the sick." Charles Herberger
Neolithic Europe possessed a homogenous system of religious ideas based on the worship of the many-titled Mother Goddess, as Keeper or Custodian of the hearth, the central and most important place in cave, mound or hut, as the earliest social centre.
In Egypt, as in ancient Greece and elsewhere, the serpent was regarded as a symbol of fertility. In Egyptian hieroglyphics the word 'Goddess' is expressed by the image of a cobra and is best exemplified through the Goddess Neith, who appears as a golden cobra. Neith is often depicted wearing a crown, her face and hands green, signifying Her as a Goddess of earthly fertility. As the Goddess of magic and weaving, She is known as the unborn Goddess, the Oldest One, who 'originates in Herself'. Neith's symbol, the shuttle, marks Her as a Goddess ruling fate and destiny, for it is with the shuttle that the cloth of mortal existence is woven by the Fates in Greek myth.
Plato identified Athene with the originally Libyan Goddess Neith. Pottery finds suggest a Libyan immigration into Crete as early as 4000 B.C.E. and a large number of Goddess-worshipping Libyan refugees from the western Delta arrived in Crete around 3000 B.C.E. The first Minoan age began soon afterwards and Cretan culture spread to Thrace and early Helladic Greece.
Scholars speculate that the forebears of the Minoans arrived in Crete sometime between 4000 and 3000 B.C.E., having come from the Black Sea region.
The Minoans brought with them cult totems such as the serpent, the dove, bull's horns and the double-axe. These same symbols, dating from 6000 B.C.E. were found in Turkey and the Balkans. "The Balkans, Greece and Crete, rather than Mesopotamia, were the nucleus from which European civilization sprang."(Robert Graves) In Old Europe during the neolithic period and in the East during the Bronze Age the Snake Goddess is found in a number of forms and in great abundance.
Primal serpent sister deities from the Palace of Knossos, Crete, ca. sixteenth century B.C.E.
One Minoan oracular centre belonged to the Snake Goddess Eileithyia, a Cretan Goddess of childbirth. Homer and Hesiod speak of Eileithyia who, as a daughter or younger aspect of Hera, took over Her role as divine Midwife (9). Both Goddesses originate from Crete. Robert Graves identifies Hera with Herwa - 'Protectress', a pre-Hellenic Goddess, and says of Her,
"Hera's forced marriage to Zeus commemorates conquests of Crete and Mycenaean Greece, and the overthrow of Her supremacy in both countries."
The Hellenic invasions of the Aeolian and Ionian cultures early in the second millenium B.C.E. were less destructive than the Achaean and Dorian invasions which they preceeded. Achaean invasions of the thirteenth century B.C.E. seriously weakened matrilineal tradition.
Apollo's destruction of the Python at Delphi records the Achaeans' capture of the Cretan Earth-Goddess's shrine. Athene's mythological birth from the head of Zeus was according to J.E.Harrison 'a desperate theological expedient to rid her of her matriarchal conditions.' It is also according to Graves a dogmatic insistence on wisdom as a male prerogative. The marital relations between Zeus and Hera reflect those of the barbarous Dorian age when women were deprived of their magical power except that of prophecy. Zeus called himself leader of the Fates, thus replacing Lachesis, 'the measurer' at Delphi. His claim of fathering the Fates was not taken seriously by Herodotus or Plato.
Thetis, Amphitrite and Nereis were different local titles of the Triple Moon-goddess as ruler of the sea, and Poseidon, as Father-God of the Aeolians, claimed to be her husband wherever she found worshipers. Amphitrite's reluctance to marry Poseidon matches Hera's reluctance to marry Zeus and Persephone's to marry Hades.
As humanity approaches the year 2000 a growing number of people world-wide are beginning to reclaim, each in their own way, the belief in the presence of the Mother Goddess. In every planted seed, from the magical revival of the late eighteen hundreds to the securing of equal rights for women, She has guided Her own return to a world disenchanted with war, dominance through the use of brute force and prejudice.
Bibliography:
Robert Graves. The Greek Myths I. Penguin Books.
Buffie Johnson. Lady of the Beasts. Inner Traditions International.
Alexiou Stylianos. Minoan Civilization. Spyros Alexiou Sons.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/4699/project1.htm