Earth Walker
August 3rd, 2001, 12:00 AM
In Greece the Gorgon as Artemis-Hecate is also the mistress of
the night road, of fate, and of the world of the dead.
As Enodia she is the guardian of crossroads and gates, and as
Hecate she is the snake entwined moon goddess of ghosts and
the dead, surrounded, like Artemis, the wild goddess of the hunt,
by a swarm of female demons. Her principle animal is the dog,
the howler by night, the finder of tracks, which in Egypt, as in
Greece or Mexico, is the companion of the dead. As mistress of
the way down and of the lower way, she has for symbol the key,
the phallic opening power of the male, the emblem of the Goddess, who is mistress of birth and conception.
Thus, when she is angry, the Goddess, as Demeter or Ishtar, as
Hathor or Hecate, can close the wombs of living creatures, and
all life stands still. As Good Mother, she is mistress of the East
Gate, the gate of birth; as Terrible Mother, she is mistress of the
West Gate, the gate of death, the engulfing entrance to the
underworld. Gate, door, gully, ravine, abyss are the symbols of
the feminine earth-womb; they are the numinous places that
mark the road into the mythical darkness of the underworld.
In its negative aspect the cave, one of the earliest examples of
feminine vessel symbolism, is Hel, the Germanic goddess of the
underworld. Characteristically, Hel is the sister of the uroboric
Midgard serpent of the ocean that girds the earth, and also of
the devouring Fenris-wolf; she is the gaping abyss that untiringly
swallows up mortal men.
In christian myth the devil is correlated with hell as the devouring
maw of the earth; amomg the Aztecs he has his correspondence
in Xiuhtecuhtli, the lord of fire, sitting at the center of the earth.
In appearance the christian devil has much of the Pagan Pan
and satyrs about him; his early precursor is the Egyptian Set,
enemy of the soul, adversary of Osiris and Horus. In the Book of
the Dead, he appears in conjunction with the serpent Apopis as
the masculine destroying aspect of the underworld. He is the
slaughterer, the destroyer, the render in pieces, partner of the
soul-devouring Am-mit. He is called "The Fiend, red of hair and
eyes, who cometh forth by night, and doth fetter the fiend in his
lair. He is the evil one, the adversary, associated with red, which
is not only the positive colour of fertility but also the colour of
calamity, evil, blood, death, and the desert.
Hell and the underworld as vessels of death are forms of the negative death-bringing belly-vessel, corresponding exactly to its
life-bringing side. The opening of the vessel of doom is the womb,
the gate, the gullet, which actively swallows, devours, rends,
and kills. Its sucking power is mythologically symbolized by its
lure and attraction for man, for life and consciousness and the
individual male, who can evade it only if he is a hero, and even then not always.
This is very aptly expressed in Germanic myth and its etymological
correspondences. Old Norse GINA, 'yawn,' Old High German GINEN
and GEINON, are related to ON. GIN, 'gullet,' 'cleft'; Old English
GIWIAN, 'demand'; ON. GJA, 'cleft' and 'voluptuous life'; OE. GIPIAN, 'to yap,' and GIPEN, 'to gasp for air, to strive for something.'
The yawning, avid character of the gullet and the cleft represents in mythological apperception the unity of the Feminine, which as
avid womb attracts the male and kills the phallus within itself in
order to achieve satisfaction and fecundation, and which as the
earth-womb of the Great Goddess, as womb of death, attracts
and draws in all living things, likewise for its own satisfaction
and fecundation.
Here the profoundest experience of life combines with human
anxiety to form an archetypal unity. A male immature in his
development, who experiences himself only as male and phallic,
perceives the feminine as a castrator, a murderer of the phallus.
The projection of his own masculine desire and, on a still deeper
level, of his own trend toward uroboric incest, toward voluptous
self-dissolution in the primordial Feminine and Motherly, intensifies
the terrible character of the Feminine. Thus the Terrible Goddess
rules over desire and over the seduction that leads to sin and
destruction; love and death are aspects of one and the same
Goddess. In Egypt as in Greece, in Mesopotamia as in Mexico, the
goddess of love, the hunt, and death are grouped together.
In Sparta and Cyprus, Aphrodite is also a goddess of war and
Pandora is the fascinating yet deathly vessel of the Feminine.
Even today sexual symbolism is still coloured by alimentary
symbolism. In the fertility ritual sexuality and nourishment are
related; the sexual act, which induces fertility, guarantees the
fertility of the earth and hence man's nourishment, and
linguistically the two spheres are also connected. Hunger and
satiety, desire and satisfaction, thirst and its slaking, are symbolic
concepts that are equally valid for both of them.
Similarly magic, which was originally governed by the Feminine,
began no doubt as "food magic" and developed by way of
fertility magic into sexual or "love magic."
Here again etymological relations indicate an archetypal unity.
Ninck continues his development of the stem GINA: ON. GEIFLA,
'to murmur'; OE. GIFRE, 'lustful'; and finally ON. GINNA, 'to enchant, allure, stupefy,' GIZKI, 'instrument of magic,' and
GYZKI, 'miracles.' The development of the word meaning from
"yawn" to "desire or demand" is easily understood with reference
to the hungrily yawning gullet of the wolf. The transition to the
signification "enchant" may be elucidated by a reference to the
Norse volvas, or sorceresses.
The Hrolf Krakisaga, for example, relates that a volva, before
intoning her inner visions from her high magic chair, "opened her
jaws and yawned mightily." And again, when the king would not
cease plying her with questions: "She yawned mightily and the
magic was very painful to her."
I shall have more to say of the yawning depths from which the
magic incantation rises up, and of the twilight state of
consciousness. For now it will suffice to mention the connection
between the fertility of the womb, death, sexuality, and magic in
the numinous image of the Terrible Mother.
the night road, of fate, and of the world of the dead.
As Enodia she is the guardian of crossroads and gates, and as
Hecate she is the snake entwined moon goddess of ghosts and
the dead, surrounded, like Artemis, the wild goddess of the hunt,
by a swarm of female demons. Her principle animal is the dog,
the howler by night, the finder of tracks, which in Egypt, as in
Greece or Mexico, is the companion of the dead. As mistress of
the way down and of the lower way, she has for symbol the key,
the phallic opening power of the male, the emblem of the Goddess, who is mistress of birth and conception.
Thus, when she is angry, the Goddess, as Demeter or Ishtar, as
Hathor or Hecate, can close the wombs of living creatures, and
all life stands still. As Good Mother, she is mistress of the East
Gate, the gate of birth; as Terrible Mother, she is mistress of the
West Gate, the gate of death, the engulfing entrance to the
underworld. Gate, door, gully, ravine, abyss are the symbols of
the feminine earth-womb; they are the numinous places that
mark the road into the mythical darkness of the underworld.
In its negative aspect the cave, one of the earliest examples of
feminine vessel symbolism, is Hel, the Germanic goddess of the
underworld. Characteristically, Hel is the sister of the uroboric
Midgard serpent of the ocean that girds the earth, and also of
the devouring Fenris-wolf; she is the gaping abyss that untiringly
swallows up mortal men.
In christian myth the devil is correlated with hell as the devouring
maw of the earth; amomg the Aztecs he has his correspondence
in Xiuhtecuhtli, the lord of fire, sitting at the center of the earth.
In appearance the christian devil has much of the Pagan Pan
and satyrs about him; his early precursor is the Egyptian Set,
enemy of the soul, adversary of Osiris and Horus. In the Book of
the Dead, he appears in conjunction with the serpent Apopis as
the masculine destroying aspect of the underworld. He is the
slaughterer, the destroyer, the render in pieces, partner of the
soul-devouring Am-mit. He is called "The Fiend, red of hair and
eyes, who cometh forth by night, and doth fetter the fiend in his
lair. He is the evil one, the adversary, associated with red, which
is not only the positive colour of fertility but also the colour of
calamity, evil, blood, death, and the desert.
Hell and the underworld as vessels of death are forms of the negative death-bringing belly-vessel, corresponding exactly to its
life-bringing side. The opening of the vessel of doom is the womb,
the gate, the gullet, which actively swallows, devours, rends,
and kills. Its sucking power is mythologically symbolized by its
lure and attraction for man, for life and consciousness and the
individual male, who can evade it only if he is a hero, and even then not always.
This is very aptly expressed in Germanic myth and its etymological
correspondences. Old Norse GINA, 'yawn,' Old High German GINEN
and GEINON, are related to ON. GIN, 'gullet,' 'cleft'; Old English
GIWIAN, 'demand'; ON. GJA, 'cleft' and 'voluptuous life'; OE. GIPIAN, 'to yap,' and GIPEN, 'to gasp for air, to strive for something.'
The yawning, avid character of the gullet and the cleft represents in mythological apperception the unity of the Feminine, which as
avid womb attracts the male and kills the phallus within itself in
order to achieve satisfaction and fecundation, and which as the
earth-womb of the Great Goddess, as womb of death, attracts
and draws in all living things, likewise for its own satisfaction
and fecundation.
Here the profoundest experience of life combines with human
anxiety to form an archetypal unity. A male immature in his
development, who experiences himself only as male and phallic,
perceives the feminine as a castrator, a murderer of the phallus.
The projection of his own masculine desire and, on a still deeper
level, of his own trend toward uroboric incest, toward voluptous
self-dissolution in the primordial Feminine and Motherly, intensifies
the terrible character of the Feminine. Thus the Terrible Goddess
rules over desire and over the seduction that leads to sin and
destruction; love and death are aspects of one and the same
Goddess. In Egypt as in Greece, in Mesopotamia as in Mexico, the
goddess of love, the hunt, and death are grouped together.
In Sparta and Cyprus, Aphrodite is also a goddess of war and
Pandora is the fascinating yet deathly vessel of the Feminine.
Even today sexual symbolism is still coloured by alimentary
symbolism. In the fertility ritual sexuality and nourishment are
related; the sexual act, which induces fertility, guarantees the
fertility of the earth and hence man's nourishment, and
linguistically the two spheres are also connected. Hunger and
satiety, desire and satisfaction, thirst and its slaking, are symbolic
concepts that are equally valid for both of them.
Similarly magic, which was originally governed by the Feminine,
began no doubt as "food magic" and developed by way of
fertility magic into sexual or "love magic."
Here again etymological relations indicate an archetypal unity.
Ninck continues his development of the stem GINA: ON. GEIFLA,
'to murmur'; OE. GIFRE, 'lustful'; and finally ON. GINNA, 'to enchant, allure, stupefy,' GIZKI, 'instrument of magic,' and
GYZKI, 'miracles.' The development of the word meaning from
"yawn" to "desire or demand" is easily understood with reference
to the hungrily yawning gullet of the wolf. The transition to the
signification "enchant" may be elucidated by a reference to the
Norse volvas, or sorceresses.
The Hrolf Krakisaga, for example, relates that a volva, before
intoning her inner visions from her high magic chair, "opened her
jaws and yawned mightily." And again, when the king would not
cease plying her with questions: "She yawned mightily and the
magic was very painful to her."
I shall have more to say of the yawning depths from which the
magic incantation rises up, and of the twilight state of
consciousness. For now it will suffice to mention the connection
between the fertility of the womb, death, sexuality, and magic in
the numinous image of the Terrible Mother.