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...

Jowangsin

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Helena Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine of Tibetan Wisdom

Helena Blavatsky was born in what was then Russia in 1831. She traveled the world, researching ancient religions, searching for ancient wisdom of the great protoreligion. In 1875, she founded the Theosophical Society. The motto of the society is "There is no religion higher than truth." She wrote multiple books and was hugely influential in bringing ideas about eastern religion to the west. She detested the Catholic missionary system and its attempts to wipe out indigenous religions, and actively worked against it in India and Ceylon. Both Thomas Edison and Gandhi studied theosophy, along with many other intellectuals of the era. Helena Blavatsky original painting and fine art prints available through Saatchi Art . Stickers, prints and other merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . In 1888, Blavatsky published the first edition of Secret Doctrine , containing her translation of the Book of Dzyan , an ancient book...

Al-Lat

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Saint Helena

I generally blame much of the patriarchy in today's society on Abrahamic religion. I recently started reading Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It, by Janina Ramirez, and I was struck by the fact that it was largely women who first brought Christianity to the English speaking world, and who were the early adopters. Even before that time, it is widely believed that it was Helena, the mother of Constantine, who convinced her son, the Roman Emperor, to convert to Christianity. Why, ladies? Today's painting shows Helena, now known as Saint Helena, following her travels to the Holy Land where she built the Church of the Nativity, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Church of the Ascension. She's posing with the cross upon which Jesus was crucified, which she located and brought back with her as one of the most sacred relics of Christianity. She has the nails in her outstretched right hand. Helena has been given a position of honor ...

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