Echoing Multiverse

 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 ...

Emily Wilding Davison was a campaigner for women's suffrage in the U.K. She was arrested many times, went on seven hunger strikes and was force fed in prison. She had studied the classics and medieval literature as part of her education and was inspired by the Amazon women in Chaucer's The Knights' Tale. According to a classmate, she took on the name 'Fair Emelye' after reading the Canterbury Tales at school. Emily Wilding Davison In the Knights' Tale, Chaucer describes how Emelye was captured along with her sister Queen Hippolyta when Theseus laid seige to Scythia, home of the powerful Amazon women.  Terracotta lekythos (oil flask) with scenes of a battle of Greeks against Amazons (detail), ca. 420 B.C., Greek, attributed to the Eretria Painter. Terracotta. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1931 In the opening of the tale, the triumphant lord Theseus arrives at the city of Thebes. Rows of ladies clothed in black kneel before him in the stre...

 Valentine's Day takes its name from a Catholic saint, Saint Valentine.  Living as a priest or bishop before his martyrdom, Valentine would have been celibate.  To become a saint, he had to first be martyred...by beheading.  How romantic. According to the History Channel , Valentine was executed on February 14, around the year 270 A.D. Valentine had been a holy priest in Rome in the days of Emperor Claudius II. "Under the rule of Claudius the Cruel, Rome was involved in many unpopular and bloody campaigns. The emperor had to maintain a strong army, but was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. Claudius believed that Roman men were unwilling to join the army because of their strong attachment to their wives and families.  To get rid of the problem, Claudius banned all marriages and engagements in Rome. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret....

 Who was Medusa before the invading sea god supposedly defiled her?  According to Marija Gimbutas, she dates at least as far back as 6000 BCE, based on a mask found at Sesklo.  More recently, Medusa appears on the pediment of Artemis's Temple at Corfu, built around 580 BCE.  On the pediment, Medusa is flanked by leopards. Large cats, like those associated with Artemis of Ephesus , the Great Mother Goddess of Anatolia, are sometimes considered to be guardians between worlds.   Medusa's snakes are a symbol of rebirth.   I've read that she may be a chthonic aspect of Artemis, much like Ereshkiga l was the underworld aspect of Inanna. Medusa original painting available through Saatchi Art .  Prints, stickers, and other merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . Pediment from Artemis's Temple at Corfu ( source ) Or perhaps Medusa was a Moon Goddess.  Robert Graves in The Greek Myths writes, "The Gorgons' names--Sth...

 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 ...

 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 B...