The Heart of the Goddess

Amaterasu

There are Sun and Fire Goddesses throughout the world. In fact, in most primal cultures the sun is female. For the Cherokee the Sun Goddess is Igaehindvo, and the Celtic Fire Goddess Brigit became the Irish Christian St. Bridget. Merlin Stone tells us of Sun Woman of the Australian Arunta, Akewa of the Toba of Argentina, Sun Sister of the Arctic Inuit, and Allat of the Arabs. The Sun Goddess of ancient Anatolia controlled the right of rulership, just as the Japanese imperial family traces its lineage directly to the Goddess Amaterasu.

Amaterasu Omikami, the Great-Goddess-Spirit-Shining-in-Heaven, Creatrix Goddess of the sun, weaving, and agriculture, is the most ancient Japanese deity. To this day, she is honored at public and private Shinto shrines throughout the country. Many elderly Japanese retain the custom of bowing and making offerings to her each morning as she rises.

In this detail from a colored woodcut by Utagawa Kunisada, Amaterasu appears in all her glory to the other deities. In the myth which leads up to this moment, her brother Susanoo has disrupted the natural and social orders of heaven through physical violence, particularly violence against women. Eventually one of the Goddess’s weaving women dies of a wound to her vulva. Amaterasu is so enraged that she closes herself into a cave and refuses to come out. As in the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, without the Goddess, all life begins to wither and die.

The other Goddesses and Gods try to lure Amaterasu out. Since celebration is an integral part of worship, they decide to have a party. Eight hundred of the deities gather in front of the cave, and their music and song can be heard throughout the world. Knowing that Amaterasu has never seen herself, they set up a mirror opposite the cave’s entrance. At the high point of their revelries, the Goddess Ame no Uzume, sometimes represented as elderly, performs a particularly erotic dance. The spectators become so vocal in their appreciation that Amaterasu is overcome by curiosity. She emerges from her cave and for the first time sees her own radiance and glory. Enticed by the erotic sacred play of the Crone, the Sun Goddess returns, and life is renewed.

Just as it was in the myth, the world is now in danger of dying. To restore the natural and social order necessary to survival, it is essential that patriarchal violence cease. We must also reveal the brilliance of our inner light, which we have hidden for too long. Let us reclaim the mirror in its original sense, “to marvel at,” so that we may each recognize our own radiance, come out of our caves and shine our light onto the world.

Amaterasu, give me your mirror, that I may daily see my own reflection in your face.

Pele

Pele, depicted in this beautiful painting by Herb Kawainui Kane, is the Goddess of Volcanoes in the Hawaiian Islands, and there are many chants and dances dedicated to her. Pele is one of the Ancestral Spirits who personifies the life force in all its forms. Hawaiian culture does not have a separate word for religion, and the Goddess is known to the people on a personal level. To this day, many see her and refer to her familiarly as Madam Pele. The volcano Mauna Loa is considered a manifestation of this Goddess. A Native Hawaiian group called the Pele Defense Fund works to prevent the destruction of the environment—and desecration of the Goddess—from planned geothermal drilling on the active volcano.

Without Pele, the islands themselves would not exist. Bringing up her great flow of red-hot magma from the deep core of Mother Earth, she created the land out of the ocean. Pele’s creation and transformation of land continue. Traditional Hawaiians, like all primal cultures, recognize that this is Pele’s land in the first place and that she can take it back whenever she wants. And take it back she does, her iridescent lava—“rainbow black”—rolling down over the brilliant green of the forest, garden, and home for a while after the lava fields cool, large rick-rack spiders are their only inhabitants. They are the guardians of this sacred place, weaving the design of new life, laying the groundwork for what is to come. And then gradually tiny shoots sprout up on Pele’s skin, growing to become ferns, grass, bushes and the trees until a whole new land is created.

As befits such a powerful creatix, Pele is also known for her passion and sensuality; the brilliant red of her lava is the color of birth, emotion, and love throughout the world. Pele assumes many forms so that she may take new lovers. She can be seen as the epitome of vibrant woman: passionate, creative, expressive. Pele allows the life force to flow through her; out of a period of chaos emerges new life. It is through such passion, and such cycles, that we evolve, change and grow.

Sit in a comfortable position and close your eyes. With each exhalation, relax your muscles. Now feel a cord extending from the base of your spine, reaching far into the center of the Earth, touching her molten core. You can draw on this great source of energy. Imagine that it travels up through the cord and into your body through your spine. Let the top of your head open up and life energy fall around you in a great fountain. Feel it bathing you, coursing throughout your body, revitalizing and purifying you. When you are finished, let the fountain die down. Slowly bring your attention back up from the Earth’s center, back up through the layers and back into your own body. Gently open your eyes.

Kali Ma

The Hindu Goddess Kali, whose name translates as “Dark” and “Time” is honored in India as an aspect of the Mother from whom all are born and to whom all must return. Her blackness shows her roots in the indigenous Indian culture of the dark-skinned Dravidians and also evokes her forms both as the Earth and the Womb of cosmic birth.

This gouache painting from Kangra, India depicts Kali as a beautiful young woman. Her crowned hair is full of power and vitality; her nakedness reveals her gift of truth. She dances on the cosmic couple; whose desire brings all of creation into being. In her hands, she holds the sword of wisdom which destroys the illusion, the scissors which cut through attachment, a severed head representing the release of the rational mind and ego, and the lotus of fulfillment. The snakes around her symbolize the transformative power of Shakti, the female life force. The arms at her waist represent action without attachment to outcome, a state of true freedom and power. Heads representing the accumulated wisdom of human existence strung together with the umbilical cord of the soul, garland her neck.

According to Hindu cosmology, we are now living in the age of Kali. Kali energy is what moves through us in times of tremendous change when we must face the essential impermanence of life and learn to let go. It is also what is moving through our world today, as we face the consequences of suppressing the Sacred Feminine. Sometimes this surrender is painful, particularly if we are reluctant to give up our attachments, fantasies or illusions. In fact, we might feel that we cannot survive. And indeed we—in our old forms, at least—cannot survive the changes. We must let our old selves and our old habitual patterns die, or die physically. However, when we learn to let the old ways of being fall away, we find ourselves and the world transformed, and we fulfill our true potential.

Continue to Page 3 of The Heart of the Goddess