Skip to main content

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 Goddess 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 the fall of Asgard at Ragnarok?  Or would they be happily skiing together to their vacation cabin over the holidays?

Angrboda original painting by Echoing Multiverse, available via Saatchi Art.

Classical mythology was brutal to the Mother Goddess.  Today, the Goddess is ascendant.  The manosphere backlash will not succeed in holding her down.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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...

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 ...

Jowangsin

 Jowangsin is a Korean Goddess of fire and the hearth.  An offering to Jowangsin in the form of a bowl of fresh water would be placed on an altar above the hearth.  Jowangsin had rules for the kitchen.   Do not curse while in the hearth. Do not sit on the hearth. Do not place your feet on the hearth. Maintain the cleanliness of the kitchen. You may worship other deities in the kitchen. ( source ) Throw your muddy shoes inside or put them on the hearth, and you will experience her vengeance.  She was believed to keep track of household activities and communicate with the heavens. Jowangsin helping with the cooking in a traditional Korean kitchen, circa 1950.  Original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or via Fine Art America  or Saatchi Art . Left: Women in a kitchen in Korea in 1950. Right: An example of a traditional kitchen in hanok (traditional Korean-style homes) during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). [National Archives of Korea, N...

Chang e, Moon Goddess

Chang e or Chang o, the Chinese moon goddess. The details of her story vary, but generally she is married to an archer who shoots 9 of the 10 suns to prevent the Earth from scorching drought.  He is awarded elixir of immortality by the Great Queen Mother Goddess of the West.  To keep the elixir from burglars, Chang e drinks it.  The elixir causes her to float up to the moon, where she is separated from her husband, but at least has a jade rabbit and busy woodcutter for company. China's lunar landers are named after her. Chang E, Moon Goddess original painting by Echoing Multiverse available via Saatchi Art .  Stickers, prints, and other merch available through RedBubble or Fine Art America . In older stories, she also births the 12 moons.  In some versions of the story with the archer, Chang e is reunited with him during the 8th moon of each year.  The Mid-Autumn Festival celebrates this reunion, and is one of the largest holidays in China.  According...

Bucranium = Uterus

 A bucranium is a bull's head and horns.  Bucrania have been found in shrines at Catalhoyuk, one the oldest cities ever to be excavated.  Dorothy Cameron interpreted the bucrania at Catalhoyuk as a "symbol of life and regeneration--essentially a female symbol, representing the divine power of the female reproductive system." Bucranium = Uterus original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or through RedBubble or  Fine Art America .  Layout of bucrania based on a drawing of a reconstruction of Shrine E VI at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in a 2007 article by Joan Relke (below).    Source Marija Gimbutas writes, "the key to understanding Neolithic renditions of the bull's head and horns (bucranium in archaeological literature) comes through their resemblance to the female uterus and fallopian tubes."  Besides the bucrania from Shine E VI, other images at Catalhoyuk show female torsos with bucranium in the position of the uterus an...

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...