THE |
|
a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining
to occult, mystical, and spiritual subjects. |
To: alt.religion.wicca,rec.photo.digital,alt.religion.angels From: paghat@netscape.net (paghat) Subject: Supernal Midwife: Dark Face of the Mother Goddess Date: 29 Oct 2003 13:49:51 -0800 I. Midwife Goddess The arch midwife goddess is Artemis herself, whose arrows decide which mother lives through childbirth, which infant is born alive. There are no "nice" midwife goddesses; most are appeased so they won't kill, rather than called forth out of some inherent protectiveness. The midwife goddess most strongly underscores the usual duality that is One -- Life requires Death. In our modern New Age Noodle world of escapism rather than embracing awesome mystery, one can make up one's own divinities at random, & they can be quite sweet if you want them to be, but their insipidity reflects the insipidity of modern entertainment, not the awe of faith. These modern divinities can have names like Happy-Face or Mrs. Santa, though even Mrs Santa lives in a cold cold place & must be an awful lot like Demeter in murderous winter. The reason the midwife goddess Juno Sospita received such fervid prayers is because she was the goddess who CAUSED great pains of childbirth; by propitiating her it was hoped birth pangs would be lessoned. It is the same for all healing divinities -- they are simultaneously the cause of what they can cure, often deeply cthonic in nature with demonic components, hence their capacity to punish or reward, protect or harm. The great Roman center of Sospita's cult was Lanuvium, where maidens made offerings to Sospita as a Serpent-goddess resembling Syrian Atargatis who could be very warlike. Maidens who were suspected of promiscuity, which Sospita despised, would be afflicted with sterility. Maidens who made offerings to serpents in the temple at Lanuvium risked being discarded as unmarriageable if their offerings were rejected (one would hope the offerings would've been mice so there'd be some small chance of success, but Gibbons supposes the offerings were cakes -- must've been a lot of girls declared as unmarriagable!) Sospita was overall a protectress of women in confinement. As goddess of women's imprisonment or oriental seclusion after marriage, she was also the source of whatever small joys could be found in unfortunate seclusion. Sospita is portrayed with spear & shield, because of her dual nature to slay (with spear) or to protect (with shield). So not a good stand-in for the Happy-Face Goddess. Sospita was not really a midwife goddess like Artemis or even Lilith however. That would be Juno Lucina, usually portrayed with a child in her arms & one or two more at her feet. It was She who most famously restored the fertility of the kidnapped & raped Sabine women, & whose nature in some ways resembled that of Magna Mater, the Roman Cybele, Goddess of the Coloseum's brutal sports. As such, this midwife goddess was the mother of Mars -- that is, of War. Though she restored the Sabine women, she was also the source of all their misery! As protectress of women caught on the battlefield she could be quite callous in selecting who was raped, who was rendered sterile from repeated rapes, & who would bare the children of her enemy. If any women did survive more or less unharmed, not impregnated, & not sterile, they thanked Lucina, sure, but the ones not fully recovering were presumed to have angered Lucina in some way. Additionally Lucina was classist; she protected exclusively Roman matrons, whom she closely resembled, & could care less what happened to slaves or even to Roman maidens; she could be extremely vicious toward women who became pregnant out of wedlock. Roman matrons so feared this statuks-quo midwife-goddess's wrath that during pregnancy they would direct their servants to make sure there were no knots tied anywhere in the house, for if offerings were made to Lucina in the presence of knots, She would tie the matron's umbilical cord in a knot & kill at least the child. Juno Lucina also hated girdles which were symbolic of the maiden; anyone making offerings to Her while wearing a girdle was regarded as little more than a whore who'd like to have children, & she risked the wrath of Lucina. If a matron made an offering to Lucina without first hiding all the girdles in the house, Lucina would kill her during childbirth. Perhaps in part because the girdle belonged sybolically rival cults of Diana. Lucina's festival was the Matronelia held on Mars First, the day She gave birth to war, but also the day she ended the Sabine war (again, Goddess of Light/Dark, Life/Death, Terror/Peace ). Matrons held chariot races in her honor on the Matronelia, racing through the streets of Rome & ending up at the Coloseum (as also during the Floralia where matrons & prostitutes raced against one another). And during the Matronelia, matrons' families gathered in a sacred grove for a big picnic. Matrons were expected to make some kind of personal sacrifice as did the selfless Sabine women. This typically being to spend the afternoon as a servant to her slaves & preparing their meals during the family grove-outing. The only goddess I can think of quickly who'd be totally happy-happy-joy-joy would be the Greek Baubau, patroness of clowns, who is portrayed as a fat buttocks with a face on it. But even she was a dwindled form of Gula or Bau, a near eastern goddess of disease & healing, & of childbirth, whose totemic beast was the dog (because a bitch gives birth easily), which perhaps explains why the Greek Baubau showed her ass dog-like to Demeter. II. Supernal Midwife "Thou art he that cut me loose from my mother's womb" [Ps 71:6] defines God's midwife aspect, cutting the umbilical cord of newborns. This female emanation is called Nukvah the supernal wetnurse; and like Gula, Artemis, and other midwife goddesses, it is Her decision whether or not the mother and/or child survive, so has both a bright face and dark face. In Kabbalah, the supernal midwife can be either Eve or Lilith. Lilith works in the Chamber of Exchanges, swapping good souls for evil, evil souls for good. The power of the supernal midwife to do harm is not in itself evil, for good invariably comes of Lilith's mischief. The supernal midwife is viewed as the cause of wars for thrones, usurpations, and battles within a royal family to decide heirs. Hagar's son born before Sarah's; and Leah's children before Rachel's were exchanges made by the supernal midwife. The order of Jacob and Esau were switched in Rebekah's womb, so that the violent Esau would emerge first, and gentle Jacob's descendants would have been subject forever to the descendants of Esau, except that Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of red pottage (symbolic of blood). The supernal midwife oversees all acts of exchange, as when Laban exchanged Leah for Rachel as Isaac's bride, or when Moses turned his staff into a serpent. She can also remove wealth from one house to another, one kingdom to another. When Israel became subject to Assyria, it was due to Israel's own sin, and God's anger which came as a midwife. It was She that directed infant Moses into the house of Pharaoh's daughter, removing him from slavery. It was she that induced Joseph's brothers to sell him into slavery. Solomon lists four things the earth cannot bear: a slave when he becomes king, a fool when he is filled with food, an unloved woman when she gets a husband, and a handmaid when she succeeds her mistress [Pr 30:21-23]. These appear rather trivial, or at least devoid of moral meaning, unless one understands them in the context of the supernal midwife's tinkering with the fate of humanity. The midwife also represents periods of exile, the "exchange" being such as when Israelite tribes lived among the Egyptians or Persians or Babylonians, or when Hebrew men preferred Canaanite and Babylonian wives, themselves being aspects of the midwife seeking to exchange Yahweh's worship in favor of the Mother Goddess. The midwife's Lilith's activities explains how good comes from evil, evil from good, so that David is descended from Lot's incest with his daughters, and Jesus is descended from Jezebel and Ahab. All exchanges, no matter how damaging, are in the end beneficial. © paghat the ratgirl
The Arcane Archive is copyright by the authors cited.
Send comments to the Arcane Archivist: tyaginator@arcane-archive.org. |
Did you like what you read here? Find it useful?
Then please click on the Paypal Secure Server logo and make a small donation to the site maintainer for the creation and upkeep of this site. |
The ARCANE ARCHIVE is a large domain,
organized into a number of sub-directories, each dealing with a different branch of religion, mysticism, occultism, or esoteric knowledge. Here are the major ARCANE ARCHIVE directories you can visit: |
|
interdisciplinary:
geometry, natural proportion, ratio, archaeoastronomy
mysticism: enlightenment, self-realization, trance, meditation, consciousness occultism: divination, hermeticism, amulets, sigils, magick, witchcraft, spells religion: buddhism, christianity, hinduism, islam, judaism, taoism, wicca, voodoo societies and fraternal orders: freemasonry, golden dawn, rosicrucians, etc. |
SEARCH THE ARCANE ARCHIVE
There are thousands of web pages at the ARCANE ARCHIVE. You can use ATOMZ.COM
to search for a single word (like witchcraft, hoodoo, pagan, or magic) or an
exact phrase (like Kwan Yin, golden ratio, or book of shadows):
OTHER ESOTERIC AND OCCULT SITES OF INTEREST
Southern
Spirits: 19th and 20th century accounts of hoodoo,
including slave narratives & interviews
|