The Goddess as a bird
Taken from: Anne Baring and Jules Cashford – THE MYTH OF THE GODDESS – The origins: the Paleolithic Mother Goddess – Venexia - October 2017
The bird that emerges from a distant sky has always been a messenger of wonder, the visible embodiment of the invisible world. In many Bronze Age myths, the cosmic egg of the universe was laid by the Cosmic Birdmother, and its hatching marked the beginning of space and time. The ivory pendant from Dolni Vestonice in FIGURE 1 is the central piece of a necklace of pendants engraved in the ivory of a mammoth tusk. The figure has a long neck, no face, and two breasts, which could also be interpreted as bird wings, as the double V chevron mark, etched into them, as well as the grooves on the lower extremities resemble the striped markings of many birds.
This image anticipates similar figures from the Neolithic Age (10.000-3.500 BC), when the power and protection of the one Mother Goddess was clearly differentiated into three areas: Sky or Upper Waters, Earth or Lower Waters, and Waters below the Earth. As the art highlights, the notion of an "underworld," with its connotations of darkness, lifelessness, and danger, was not present before the traumas and anarchy of the late Bronze Age.
The Neolithic Goddess of the Upper Waters is the Bird Goddess who brings rain and gives life, just as centuries later birds were believed to bring storm or be the sign of the coming storm. The stork, which in folklore carries babies across the sky, was once the stork that brought back spring, the rebirth of the year. The Neolithic Goddess in FIGURE 2 has the head of a bird and sometimes wings; at other times her body is transformed into vessels or vessels holding the waters of life, her bird face staring outward, and torrents of rain flowing through them. 15.000 years pass between these two images. …
The Goddess as Moon
… We can imagine that, for these first populations in human history, the moon, like all of nature, was perceived as the Mother Goddess, and therefore its phases became phases of the Mother's life. The crescent moon was the girl, the virgin; the full moon was the pregnant woman, the mother; the darkening moon was the wise old woman, whose light resides within. …
The myths that have the moon as protagonist are spread all over the world. In many of them the rhythms of the lunar cycles symbolize a design that is mirrored in human life, a feeling portrayed in the sculpture of the Goddess of Laussel (FIGURE 3). In the rhythmic phases of light and dark the Paleolithic tribes must have seen an endlessly renewing pattern of growth and decay, and this must have instilled in them confidence in life. In the waxing moon they perceived the growth of life; with the full moon they marveled at the accretion of new life; with the waning moon they mourned the withdrawal of life, the departure of the goddess; finally, in the darkness of the new moon, they desired her return and the return of the light. Over time, they gained confidence in the reappearance of the waxing moon, recognizing the darkness as a waiting time before new life would rise again. They must have felt death as a return to the dark womb of the Mother and believed they would be reborn, just like the moon.
… They watched the gestation and birth, growth and death of each animal in a predictable rhythm. Their own lives followed that identical rhythmic pattern, as one season morphed into another. In the summer they followed animals and their lives were focused on hunting. In winter, when short days and arctic cold made hunting difficult, they holed up inside caves, where they became proficient in the art of toolmaking. There was a season for making tools and one for using them, one for making skins and furs into clothing and another for killing the animals that supplied them. In the summer they rejoiced at the growing heat and the development of life, while in the winter, around the fire, they perhaps told the stories that have come down to us as myths, legends and fables. Their rites were marked by the seasons and promised the fertility of the animals, the success of the hunt and the overcoming of the terrible winter cold. …
It was the measure of the cycles of time and of the connection and influence between the celestial and the earthly. It governed the fecundity of women, the waters of the sea and all phases of growth and decrease. The seasons followed each other in sequence, as did the phases of the moon. It was the enduring image of timeless innovation and timeless wholeness, for what was seemingly lost on a waning moon was renewed on a waxing moon. … Thus, similarly, life and death were not to be perceived as opposites, but could be recognized as phases succeeding each other in an endless rhythm. Not surprisingly, therefore, lunar mythology preceded solar mythology in many, if not all, parts of the world. …
As the moon died and came to life again, so the serpent shed its skin and yet remained alive. The serpent must have already become what it would always be afterwards: an image of rebirth and transformation.
The Goddess of death and rebirth
More than 100.000 years ago, during the Riss-Wurm interglacial period (186.000-75.000 BC), burials of Neanderthals suggest that human consciousness had already developed the ability to recognize death and give it the status of a mystery which required solemn rites. Bodies were found, some 60.000 years old, placed in the fetal position and facing east (the direction of full moonrise, last crescent and sunrise), covered in flowers and sprinkled with red ocher mimicking , perhaps, the renewal of blood and the acceleration of life force to a new life.
When the vulva sign is engraved on a lunar disk and found in a tomb there may be a coincidence of meanings in which the vulva that gives birth becomes the womb of rebirth. … The lunar model suggests that human beings, when they die, disappear like the moon from the world of the living, perhaps to be reborn in another world, perhaps to return to this one. Here, the womb of the Goddess takes back the life she gave, so that she can be born again. …
Spirals and frets
Spirals and Greek frets symbolize the sacred way to approach the invisible dimension, in the same way as the labyrinthine passage through the cave. They are found engraved on Goddess figurines, or on or around animal images carved into horns, stone, and bone, or on cave walls. FIGURE 4
… Figures of goddesses, images of the moon, crescent horns of bison and bulls, birds, snakes and wild animals, aquatic decorations or bird's wings, Greek frets, labyrinths and spirals also appear in the myths and images of later eras. All these elements point to a culture with a highly developed mythology, whose tales have long been lost but whose traces are still present in the fascinating intricacies of fairy tales. The miraculous survival of these Mother Goddess images through 20.000 years is testament to an astonishingly unified culture, or at least the nexus of a widespread belief that lasted far longer than later religions based on a male Father God. …
As Riane Eisler observes in her invaluable book The Goblet and the Sword, Paleolithic art "reveals psychic traditions that we must understand if we are to know not only what human beings were like, but also what they might have become."
Taken from: Anne Baring and Jules Cashford – THE MYTH OF THE GODDESS – The origins: the Paleolithic Mother Goddess – Venice - October 2017.
