What Goddess am I?

What Goddess am I?1

My name means “sovereign female wisdom.” I was first worshiped by the Libyan Amazons as a Serpent-Goddess, and I am known as the destroyer aspect of the Great Triple Goddess, Neith. In Libya, my image was establishes by 1400 B.C., and perceived with dread locks that hung upon my head as my face was kept hidden and veiled, due to the dangers of one looking into my eyes. It was inscribed ‘That no one could possibly lift her veil, and that to look upon her face was to glimpse ones own death as she saw your future.’2

Portrayed as the nasty mother, I am, however, far more complex than that. My image symbolizes: Sovereign female wisdom and mysteries. As a  primordial Great Goddess, I hold the forces of time as past, present and future, and the cycles of nature as life, death and rebirth as guardian between the realms of heaven, earth and the underworld. I destroy in order to create balance and to purify. I am the ultimate truth of reality, the wholeness beyond duality, and I rip away mortal illusions liberating forbidden wisdom. As a young and beautiful woman reflecting harmony with culture and nature, as crone, I consume all on the earth plane. Through death we must return to the source of the abyss of transformation, ‘The timeless realm of eternity.’3

In Minoan, Crete, 1600 B.C., I was represented as a  refined serpent goddess, priestess and mistress of the beasts as birds appeared upon my head and shoulders to signify the heavens and the sky. Producing new life and offspring and death to make room for the new. Snakes coil my arms and legs, entwine in my hair, and whisper in my ears, symbolizing immortality shedding its skin indefinitely. 4

I was later imported into Greece, during the 6th century,  as one of the gorgon aspect of the Goddess Athena. In Greece, my image was defiled and I was perceived as a wise witch woman by 750 B.C., with large bird wings on my back and claws as feet, symbolizing my dynamic freedom to move between the worlds.  When Patriarchy began in the bronze and iron age of Greece’s first millennia, the world was no longer being perceived as born of a sacred mother deity but from a supreme father as heaven and earth were perpetually split eternally. Gods were created to dominate and subjugate female and natural forces. The God Apollo, representing the rising patriarchy and contemporary male interests through the domination of female forces to conform females to male-serving roles. Women of this era and the woman of generations that followed were forced to conform to mans singular dimensional perspective of life which diminished the female moral forces and the dynamic values of ancient cultures that pre-dated the Olympian gods. 5

In 458 B.C., I rejected my mother Metis for justifying the priority of men over women by saying, “It is my task to render final judgment here...There is no mother anywhere who gave me birth... I am always for the male with all my heart, and strongly on my father's side. So, in a case where the wife has killed her husband, lord of the house, her death shall not mean most to me." I was then raped of my virginity by Poseidon in Athena’s temple, then blamed for the sacrilegious act and punished by Athena, who changed my beautiful locks into snakes ‘at this time snakes were considered revolting.’ My body broken and enraged by Poseidon’s abuse and disappointed by Athena’s stance that enslaved my mind and spirit, I shall forever use my gaze to turn male enemies into stone. 6

To keep the potential of woman silent, King Polydictes of the Seriphos sent Perseus and Athena on a quest to retrieve my head. My fleshly head had been cut from my neck as I slept by Perseus, while Athena, held out a mirrored shield to protect him. Flesh is flesh, and in flesh I am dead, but my spirit it like any other spirit and lives on in the spirit realm,  providing accepting women with the strength to overcome the dominance of men.7

The mythical life of this Goddess depicts how women where once regarded as equal with nature and men, the struggles that women endured as men took dominance over them, and the female lingering flame of being degraded is toted from generation to generation in their hearts. She died with a dream and a silent quest and will not rest, even in death, until every woman is free from being dominated by men. In these modern times, her dream is finally unfolding and one day she will rest peacefully when humanity once again equals its self and the nature of our Mother Earth who is the un-bias source of all residing life.8

Now who am I?9