Juras Mate and Jurate

Marija Gimbutas is from the Baltics. She writes about how her homeland is watched over by the Mates, the Mother Goddesses. There are over 60 known Mates, for different parts of nature, even after centuries of Christian suppression. Juras Mate is the Lithuanian Goddess of the Sea. Mate means mother.

Jurate is her Latvian counterpart, her maiden aspect who falls in love with a fisherman. She brings him to her amber palace beneath the waves, making the thunder god jealous. The thunder god retaliates by destroying her amber palace, killing her love. The amber that continues to wash up on the shores of the Baltic Sea is the detritus of her former castle, and tear shaped droplets are a testament to her broken heart.

Juras Mate Consoles Jurate original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America.

Baltic amber washes up on the shore to this day. (source)

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Asherah

An inscription from Khirbet El-Qôm (near Jerusalem) dated to the 700s BCE and translated by archaeologist Judith Hadley reads, "Uriyahu the Rich wrote it. Blessed be Uriyahu by Yahweh for from his enemies by his Asherah he has saved him by Oniyahu by his Asherah and by his A[she]rah.” ( Source ) Asherah was the Great Goddess of the Ancient Near East. From this inscription and other evidence, it is surmised that Yahweh, the God of the Jews, once had a wife - Asherah. Asherah was also sometimes known as Astarte and was associated with lions and the planet Venus, like her relative, Ishtar/Inanna. Asherah's symbol was the tree of life, and her worship involved sacred groves and asherah poles. Asherah original painting available through Saatchi Art . Stickers, prints, and other merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America. All of the Asherahs in my painting are based on figurines housed in the Isra...

Sheela Na Gig and the Power of the Vagina

The Guardian published a piece on Sheela Na Gigs for International Women's Day on Monday. Here's a link. A few weeks ago, I painted two Sheelas. Found on churches throughout the British Isles and Europe, Sheela Na Gigs are "figurative carvings of naked women displaying an exaggerated vulva." There are over 100 documented examples just in Ireland. The carvings may be remnants of a pre-Christian mother goddess. They may also have been thought to ward off evil spirits. They're often found over doors or windows, and they're generally smiling. The two I have painted are from the Church of St. Mary and St. David at Kilpeck, Herefordshire, England and the Parish Church of Oaksey, Wiltshire. While I was researching the Sheelas I came across other related stories of, as the Guardian so deftly put it, "big vagina energy". The power of women (especially the nude form) to create life, protect it, or - conversely - take it away. My favorit...

Nut

Nut is one of the oldest goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon, Mother of Isis, Osiris, Set, and Nephthys. She swallows the Sun every evening and rebirths it every morning. She is the Goddess of the sky and all heavenly bodies, mother of the gods, she who holds a thousand souls. Her fingers and toes touch the four cardinal directions, north, south, east, and west. In her human depiction, she is represented by cat pose in yoga. Nut original painting available through Saatchi Art . Prints and merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . She is also sometimes represented as a cow, with her milk representing the heavenly river, the Milky Way. Interesting, cat and cow poses alternate in yoga practice. The first domestic cattle were bred from the wild aurochs. Both male and female aurochs had large horns. Modern Texas longhorns are thought to be a relatively close relation to the aurochs. I once slept ...

The First Known Artists were Women

In 2013, Dean Snow of the University of Pennsylvania published research on sexual dimorphism of hand prints present in Upper Paleolithic cave art. His analysis showed that the overwhelming majority of hand prints present in the European cave art analyzed belonged to women ( source ). Marija Gimbutas and others write that in Old European religion caves represented the womb of the earth Goddess. Women, in the womb of the Earth Mother, creating artwork at the dawn of time. The Creator creating creators, matrilineally. The Creator original painting. Blogger Art Chester writes, "There is also an indirect argument based upon observations of modern primates. Blogger Greg Laden, who studied with Prof. Snow at Penn State, states that when you study chimpanzees, you find that the males are virtually technophobes: 'Virtually all chimp technology is used by females, invented by females, passed from female to female, and so on. Males don’t seem ...

Sophia and the Apocryphon of John

In 1945, thirteen leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by an Egyptian farmer near the town of Nag Hammadi, Egypt. These early Christian texts date from the 3rd century CE, and include writings attributed to John the Baptist. The writings of John became known as the Secret Book of John, or the Apocryphon of John. A translation by Frederik Wisse can be read online . In the Apocryphon, there is a female counterpart to the Father - the holy Mother, Barbelo. "She is the forethought of the All - her light shines like his light - the perfect power... The first power, the glory of Barbelo, the perfect glory in the aeons, the glory of the revelation... she became the womb of everything, for it is she who is prior to them all, the Mother-Father." I became aware of the Apocryphon of John after reading a graphic novel by Marisa Acocella, The Big She-Bang, The Herstory of the Universe According to God the Mother (highly recommended, by ...

Branwen, Reinterpreted

I started painting Goddesses in December 2020 as part of a Goddess art challenge, one Goddess per day from a prompt list. Many were new to me, so I had to research. Branwen was Goddess #7. Her story was mostly about her brother, Bran, as was my Branwen painting . She ended up dead of a broken heart. Death by patriarchy. After I had read more feminist angles, I repainted Branwen, and referenced an article by Judith Shaw, reinterpreting her (included in link above). It was a better interpretation than my first, but, I just read another section of The Living Goddesses by Marija Gimbutas , and I need to reinterpret her again. Branwen with her white raven, in front of Cadair Bronwen. Original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . Branwen is associated with the white raven. She is a Welsh goddess of sovereignty, and in the landscape she is represented by Cadair Bronwen, a rounded mo...

Echoing Multiverse

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