Jabme-Akka

Jabme-Akka is the akka of the dead in Sami mythology. She rules over Jabmiaimo, which mirrors the land of the living. The dead live as they did on earth, but in a youthful state. Source: Patricia Monaghan's Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines. Jabme-Akka soothes babies that enter her land unaccompanied. (Source)

Jabme-Akka original painting and prints available through Saatchi Art.

Entrances to the underworld were located around "sieidis, places that have unusual land forms different from the surrounding countryside, and that can be considered to have spiritual significance." The Sami worldview was "that the living and the departed were regarded as two halves of the same family." The sieidis were places that were close to the underworld and where offerings could be left. (Source). The sieidis were also places for burials.

My painting is set near a sieidi in Saltfjellet.

Sadly, "like many other indigenous groups, Sami activists have been fighting for decades to recover the bones of their ancestors. Between 1850 and 1940, many graves were disturbed to feed theories based on phrenology. These were not only ancient sites. A pair of Sami men executed in 1854, for example, ended up with their skulls in the collection of the University of Oslo. Their bones were only returned to their families in 1997. The treatment of Sami remains and their academic value is still a subject of controversy." (Source)

Painting this version of the underworld made me consider beliefs that I was brought up with, the importance of baptizing babies to save them from Hell. What a terrible thought. At one point, the summer Bible camp pastor convinced me that everyone I knew and loved who wasn't born again was going to burn in Hell for eternity. That was intense for a sensitive child. I like this afterlife better.

Additional Sources:

An Introduction to the Sami people

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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...

Angrboda

In December of 2020, I took part in a Goddess painting challenge. One Goddess per day to Instagram. I am grateful to that challenge, for sending me down this rabbit hole of research into the divine feminine. On Instagram on December 8, 2020, I wrote: "Hel was today's prompt. In the Eddas , she is the daughter of Angrboda and Loki . She is alternately described as half blue, half black, or half skeletal. I went with blue. " Here, she is a baby, in a family portrait. Mother Angrboda with her darling children in the Ironwood forest of Jotunheim . Baby G oddess Hel, Jormungandr the baby serpent, and cute little Fenris wolf puppy. How would they have grown up if Odin hadn't separated them from their mother and flung them out to the farthest and most desolate corners of the nine worlds? Would they all still crave...

Ophanim

The Ophanim are listed by ancient Jewish scholar Maimonides as the highest of God's angels. In the Bible, the Ophanim are described as sets of nested wheels, covered in eyes, that move next to the Cherubim angels, beneath the throne of God. They never sleep, but along with the Seraphim and Cherubim, guard the throne. The Ophanim See All. Original painting, prints, and merch available via shop link above, or RedBubble or Fine Art America . Ezekiel, in the Bible, describes the Ophanim as sparkling like topaz, high and awesome, full of eyes all around. Sources: Wikipedia The Bible

Hannahanna

Hannahanna is an enigmatic goddess. She is the Great Mother Goddess worshipped by the Hittites of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), circa 1800–1180 B.C.E. (Source: Brooklyn Museum ). The word for grandmother in Turkey derives from her name. She may be a grandmother of Artemis of Ephesus and Demeter. All three share a bee connection. Hannahanna is known for saving the world by sending one of her bees to awaken a depressed Telepino, sulky god of agriculture. Another myth tells of how Hannahanna herself disappeared in a fit of anger, causing all the crops to die and parents to abandon their children until, her anger absorbed by the dark side of the Earth (the underworld), she returned. This, combined with the myth of waking the god of agriculture, presents a close parallel to the myths of Demeter and Persephone. Additionally, the priestesses of Persephone and Demeter were known as Melissai or “bees.” Persephone’s nickname among the ancient Greeks was Melit...

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 ...

Ajysyt, or the Birch Goddess

This week I read about Ajysyt, "literally 'birthgiver'. The mother goddess of the Yakuts, a Turkic people living near the Lena River in Siberia." She is part of a myth involving a "white youth who encountered a calm 'lake of milk' near the cosmic tree. Having besought the blessing of the tree, the white youth felt a warm breeze, heard the tree creak, and observed a female divinity arise from the roots. She proferred him milk from her full breasts, and having satisfied his thirst, he felt how his strength had increased a hundredfold. The milk breasted mother goddess and the tree of life are thus combined" ( source ). I wanted to know what kind of tree this was. After research, the birch seemed most likely. Sacred to Freya, Frigg, Nerthus, Holda, Eostre, Brigid, Kupala, and other Goddesses of the North, the birch is a pioneer species and would have been one of the first to recolonize as the glaciers of the ice age receded. Ajysyt, or B...

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