Echoing Multiverse

 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 to do any of that. "Thus if yo

 There are so many skillful people, But none can compare with my mother. There are so many knowledgable people, But none can equal my mother. There are so many people skilled at song and dance, But none can compete with my mother. --Mosuo Folksong ( source ) The Mosuo people, an ethnic minority group who live on the shores of Lake Lugu in China, follow a matriarchal, matrilineal culture.  Their main deities are the Goddess of the Lake and the Goddess of the Mountain -- specifically, the highest mountain adjacent to the lake, the Mother Mountain, the Lion Moutain, Gemu.   "The lion is called "Gem" in Mosuo language, "Senggem" in Tibetan, "Sengge" means lion, and "Gemu" means white goddess." The sleeping lion faces the lake with its head facing the lake. The slanted Hengling is the lion's claws, resting in the lake water ( source ).   Gemu Lion Mountain original painting available through Saatchi Art .  Prints, stickers, and other mer

 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 Birch God

 al Uzza, Al-Lat, and Manat are Arabian Goddesses, triple Goddesses of pre-Islamic Arabia.  They are famously depicted in a relief from the city of Hatra, created during the 2nd century AD, in which they appear atop a lion. These Goddesses are also mentioned in the Quran... "Have you thought of al-Lāt and al-‘Uzzá and Manāt, the third, the other? (Quran 53:19–20) "These are the exalted gharāniq,  whose intercession is hoped for. Gharaniq is sometimes translated as cranes, deities of the sky. It is generally claimed that these verses show the influence of Satan and do not reflect the true tenets of Islam 😆 I had fun with duct tape shapes and a palette knife. al Uzza, al Lat, and Manat original painting available through Saatchi Art .  Prints, stickers, and other merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . Besides being named in the Quran, all three Goddesses are attested to in the Book of Idols , written by Arab scholar Hisham Ibn Al-Kalbi (737–819). 

 There is no school today for Yom Kippur, so I looked up what we're "celebrating".   Wikipedia: Yom Kippur is a day of atonement for sin.  On Yom Kippur, refrain from eating, drinking, leather shoes, bathing, anointing oneself with perfumes or lotions, and marital relations. "Refraining from these symbolically represents a return to a pristine state of re-attachment to the purity of Edenic existence, and symbolically therefore one avoids that which arose as a need only after the exile from Eden: The Eden account tells of God saying "thorns and thistles will grow in your way...the snake will raise its head (to bite you) and you will give your heel (to crush it)" and so in the new post-Edenic existence it became necessary to wear strong protective shoes, and so these are avoided on Yom Kippur (see article for specifics). The Eden account also states that as opposed to the automatic food and drink in Eden, it will be necessary to work for it "by the sweat

 Today's painting was inspired by Elisabeth Schmid's reconstruction of the Lowenmensch figurine, a 40,000 year old lion-headed woman carved with stone tools from the tusk of a mammoth.  Many have argued that the figurine represents a man.  Elisabeth Schmid, a German archaeologist and osteologist, and others, however, argue that this early figurine with its prominent navel and pubic triangle, which are found on early representations of women throughout Old Europe, clearly represents a woman, perhaps the forerunner of the many Goddesses associated with lions throughout history and prehistory. Lion Woman original painting available through Saatchi Art .  Prints, stickers, and other merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . I have painted my Lion Woman as a shaman with a drum, inspired by Layne Redmond's book  When the Drummers Were Women , in which she traces the herstory of spirituality, drumming, and women across the world and also discusses why the