Pop Shamanism
Long before God, long before Yahweh, before even Zues, going back as far as when nomadic peoples first started roaming the savannah, the grand deity that gave birth to them all was worshipped. She was the ultimate creator, the benevolent giver of Life and the one that would inevitably take it away. She was the continuum, the rhythm of nature, the breadth in the air, the cycles of life visible on the nascent Earth. She nourished her creatures from her soil and illuminated the night from her heavens. She was the radiant sun that kissed her children awake, the din and lightning of the storm that purged and cleansed the air. She was the vital energy, the youthful blood of a newly born child, the dark mystical warm blood of the mother giving birth and the phantom chill in the blood of death. She was both beautiful and gruesome, inducing both ecstasy and terror. She embodied the very existence of those first peoples, the sights, sounds, fears and hopes that they encountered as they began to explore the wondrous expanse of the unknown. She grew out of their experiences and their intimate familiarity with the forces of our planet, the influence of the vast empyrean above them, and the subtle energies surrounding them.
She was not ruling on high from an unreachable throne, but could be found in the birds flying through the air, the plants growing in the ancient forests, as well as in the celestial bodies visible in the night sky. She dwelled inside the women and men themselves that gave ritual thanks to her as they were not only her children, but were inextricably within the forces that were her being, along side every other creature co-inhabiting the Earth. The snake annually shedding its skin was a symbol of the eternal return, the cycle of life and death. The moon was her cosmic orb as it waned and waxed, grew to light and then faded to dark. She was present in the sacred bull that carried the moon itself on his head as his horns. She was the dualities of life, the unfathomable mysteries of the dark and the revealing clarity of the light.
She was represented by carvings of spirals and double spirals that can still be seen today in the ancient rocks in the ancestral homelands. Her alters and her icons were painted with red ochre, the color of the life blood, as were burial chambers and the dead themselves. She was depicted many times with a green child, often shown as a dove, the fresh spring of life, the potential that everything new can hold. The great Goddess was also shown as a crone, an old woman, withered and dying, with a vulture menacingly peering by her side. She was shown as a Bird and Snake Goddess, as a pregnant expecting mother, and as a warrior queen. Her symbols are still visible in modern times both in artifact and in the collective consciousness inside each of us that has inherited her wisdom.
Many try to teach that these are only fertility and luck tokens, common nothings that happened to survive the test of time. But the truth of her realities are the essential substance of life and existence that we are inherently a part of and can witness all around us. Her power is the essence of us all, deep in our primordial hearts, and we all have the ability to reopen its surging energy. Yet, it should not replace all that mankind has learned in our several thousand years, but its strength must be incorporated with that knowledge, creating a greater fusion and equilibrium than ever before realized.
