Goddesses

"The Goddess will not necessarily involve herself in her Second Coming with the same activities she has undertaken in past or current Goddess religions. She may, but she may also manifest solutions for totally new problems."
Hindu female deities as a source for the contemporary rediscovery of the Goddess. Rita M Cross.

Browse our range of Goddess Statues or Goddess Pendants :: You need not work hard to choose your archetypes, let them come to you, feel who you are drawn to.

There are many ways that the Goddess is becoming more apparent to us. There are many things which suggest that her resurrection in mass human consciousness is both imminent and necessary. Regarding the body as spiritual is an integral part of understanding the Goddess. Spiritual physical movement can do much to heal the damage done by male dominated cultures that frequently operate on sadomasochistic paradigms. As well as physical movement, clear vision and intent will help us to connect to divine feminine archetypes. It is important that we visualise the Goddess clearly. Icons can become keys that if studied can lead us into realisations and awareness that are difficult to intellectualise.

In contemporary western society we are not exposed to the Goddess as an integral part of life. So most people tend not to consciously think of her. In the past, images of women pregnant, naked or even exposing genitalia would have been commonplace.

Sometimes physical movement with a particular intention provides a way towards Goddess consciousness. In the early days Women of all cultures would have practiced some form of sensual dance. It could be that feminine gyrations of the hips became taboo in male-centred Christian culture and these, amongst other things, were forbidden and replaced with feelings of shame towards the body. In some areas dances became limited to the legs and feet; sexuality and personal expression edited out. One of the ways to release the inner Goddess is through belly dance. Through careful consideration of the movements we can be put in touch with a deep, inner, divine knowing. Combined with visualisation, ritual and prayer, we can touch our Goddess selves. The Goddess is being reformed through many frameworks including paganism, feminism, shamanism and, of course, spiritual dance.

Although the Goddess is becoming more apparent to many women and men, we are also experiencing in the world a rise of fundamentalist spirituality. If one has a framework of monotheistic spirituality, it will be difficult to understand the true nature of the Goddess. The Goddess has many hundreds of faces or aspects. She is often defined as the Triple Goddess, the Virgin, the Maiden and the Crone. However there is also just one all encompassing Creatrix.

We are all influenced by the philosophies of mainstream religions, which can be oppressive to women. Religion has affected the composition of scientific and philosophical ideas. Male philosophers generally have created our main intellectual frameworks. Men have invented the written language; so males have mostly created words, the currency of our thoughts. (This concept has been explored and subverted by the feminist author Mary Daley.) Male-centred religion describes women, as what Simone De Beauvoir in 'The Second Sex identifies as the ‘other’.

Catholicism does include the worship of a feminine icon. "Our Lady" although beautiful is a one-sided, passive, idealised virgin mother. She is, to patriarchal standards, in many respects the perfect woman. However, she does not represent the multifaceted experience of feminine spirituality. Because of this many women find it difficult to understand their divine selves, because they have limited or no iconic spiritual role models. Not all religion perceives the sex act as a negation of spirituality. Eastern religions such as Tantricism involve sex as a way of spiritual elevation. This benefits both men and women, who see each other as God and Goddess. This creates a harmony and respect between the sexes which is healthy on a macro and microcosmic scale. Religions such as Christianity (developed through the lens of patriarchy) can often make women feel negative about their bodies, their sexual nature and the desire to be in their own power. Religions like Christianity and Islam suppress the erotic and hag component of female divinity. Ironically, Islam with its emphasis on segrigation of the sexes, has allowed women to practice and maintain pre-Islamic Goddess dances. Having religious indocrination that degrades women is clearly damaging to the female psyche, and to the male anima (inner female). The result is a male-centred world that functions on competition and imbalance. The imbalance is manifesting itself in the destruction of the environment. The Goddess is making her presence known to try to correct the imbalance. Unlike religions based on one supreme male Godhead, who must be obeyed out of fear of punishment, the Goddess seems to encourage us to look at our own divinity, and take responsibility for our own actions.

Perhaps Christianity inspired the Cartesian principles that separated mind and body. It is this mistaken belief in separateness that prevents the worship of the body as a spiritual vehicle. In the final analysis every molecule is imbued with the life force of the Goddess/God. Dance is a deep and primal description of the sub atomic dance of life. In the 'Tao of Physics', Kapra shows an ancient Indian picture describing the dance of Shiva. Amazingly the patterns around the figure described exactly the pathways of subatomic particles that have only recently been discovered due to technological advances. All matter is in a perpetual state of movement. Dance is a metaphor for life. Belly dance with its circles, spirals and figure-eight configurations describes life at its universal cataclysmic inception. Dance in its truest form is an expression of the life force.

The belief that spirituality only exists after death prevents people from experiencing spirit and life NOW! During the matriarchal period of human herstory, women and reproductive processes were regarded with awe and felt to have a divine purpose. The act of sex was not associated with reproduction. This was based on apparently empirical reasons. One woman could have sex with the whole tribe, yet she would never conceive. Some men could not impregnate women yet others could. The conclusion was that procreation was a divine act. Many of the movements in belly dance are based on the movements of a woman's abdominal area when in labour.

Belly dance in its original, primal form probably pre-dates spoken language. The dance encapsulated the spiritual and metaphysical processes associated with creation and procreation. It is widely documented how the dance functions to facilitate an easy childbirth and subsequent recovery. Religions of this period celebrated the fertility of women, animals and the earth. The body, particularly a woman's body, was divine. Statues of males with erect phallus were worshiped with pregnant voluptuous female figures that seem to be dancing. Women were highly regarded at this time. It was not till the penny dropped concerning the biological truth about childbirth and the rise of agriculture and technology that women became perceived as the inferior sex. This coincides, according to Friedrich Engels (and others), with monogamy and inheritance of wealth. Men needed to know that they were the fathers so began to exert more personal and social control over women. Perhaps this is how male-centred monotheistic religions could become so powerful. Islam and Christianity seem to portray woman as being represented by the body and man as being symbolised by the mind. Bodily processes, especially a woman's, are regarded with disgust. The woman's body is perceived as something that can be owned by men. In the Koran it says, "Woman is a field, a sort of property that a husband may use and abuse as he sees fit".

In Christianity, it is Eve who is responsible for eating the forbidden fruit. (This is symbolic of knowledge. Why should we not know? Perhaps women have greater access to knowledge which patriarchal religions repress.) In Genesis it is said that God will, "Greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception in sorrow, thou shalt bring forth children and thy desire should be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee". This is complete turnaround from the former Goddess religions that regarded the process of human creation and procreation with respect. Studies of cultures where women live collectively (especially Islamic ones), where theories and methods of childbirth still retain pagan pre-Islamic ideas, show how childbirth can be a celebration. Goddess worship was more prevalent in the Middle East than anywhere else. The fact that Islam has encouraged segregation of the sexes has, ironically, allowed women to propagate the women’s pre-Islamic traditions including belly dance as a birth dance and natural methods of childbirth and natural pain relief during labour. However, most Muslim women do not consciously recognise the connection of the dance and the Goddess. The feelings of power and ecstasy connect them on other less cognitive levels.

Any icon or focus of divine energy can be said to reflect or represent an aspect of the human psyche. Jung talks about the collective unconscious. This is a concept that suggests that there are ideas or archetypes that exist outside the individual mind. Any individual can tap into these. If we look at various cultures we see ideas which repeat themselves. There are hundreds of Goddesses. It is interesting how Goddesses from a variety of cultures often resemble each other, both in iconography and the magical and divine qualities that they possess. In mythology we can clearly see how the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy is expressed in mythological themes. We see stories of Goddesses being slain or transmutating into men. In present society Islam and Christianity have done much to irradicate the power of the Goddess. Christianity has us worshipping a sadomasochistic image. Pain and suffering are encouraged as a way to spiritual enlightenment. The pleasure of the body is anti-spiritual. The Goddess, on the other hand, urges us to live and enjoy ourselves. The Goddess says "all acts of pleasure and enjoyment are my rituals". When women belly dance this is exactly what they are doing. In doing belly dance with a sacred intention we become connected to the divine feminine archetype in our own being.

There are a variety of Goddesses. We all connect or resonate more clearly with certain aspects of the Goddess. Just as there is a variety of ways of being or sub- selves there are many faces of the Goddess. The French philosopher Janet said that the human personality was like a ladder. We frequently step onto different rungs. Which rung we are on is representative of an aspect of our selves. However we always have a feeling of the consistency of the self. The Goddess is like this she is one and many at the same time.

There are many ways to worship the universal spirit. Dance has always been a way to honour the Goddess. It enlightens the mind body and soul. Once an important feature of community life, many western cultures have lost both the ability and desire for ecstatic dance. Dancing at raves is mindless fun. Dancing with control and feelings and divine intention is ecstatic. The moves of belly dance remind us in our genetic memory of a time when women and our processes were revered, when we freely recognised our connectedness with the cosmos. I am my body and my body is spirit. If I meditate with movement and images on the divine feminine, at that moment that is what I am.

Ishtar
Ishtar is an ancient Sumerian/Babylonian Goddess. Ishtar is a very ancient Goddess. She rules fertility, healing and war. She represents a reconciliation of opposites including male and female. The cult of Ishtar was massive, and spread from the Middle East to the Mediterranean and India. Ishtar incorporated many lesser aspects of the Goddess from a variety of regions. When Ishtar descends into the Underworld to find her son- lover, fertility dies on the Earth. When she returns life is reinstated.

To find her lover Ishtar has to shamanically descend to the Underworld. Here she has to enter seven gates. To do this she bribes the gatekeeper with seven veils, or in some versions her crown, necklace, earrings, bracelets, breast jewels, girdle and silken gown.

The human body has seven centres of consciousness (chakras). Perhaps the myth of Ishtar has something to do with the recognition of the need to look at all the energetic aspects of ourselves to experience our true fertile self.

The myth of Ishtar and Innana tells the story of the death and resurrection of the God. The name Dumuzi and Tammuz was the name of the consort of Ishtar and Innana. Both words mean ‘ 'faithful son'. They carried the title of the 'green one' which shares similarities to the western Green man.

In the descent into the Underworld Ishtar meets her sister Queen Erishkigal (who is some times called Allatu and is half lion and half woman). The images are powerful and reflect the cycle of the moon. Ishtar is the light her sister the dark moon. It is interesting that the dieing /resurrected God belongs to both Ishtar and Allatu as they agree he must spend half the year in the underworld.

Call on her to make your dance command the attention of the audience and when you want to be treated like a queen. Ishtar is often shown on a Lion. She represents the Leo energy in astrology.

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Hecate
First worshiped in pre-dynastic Egypt. She is associated with womens' knowledge of the mysteries of childbirth, the occult, and the magical side of life. She is also referred to as Hekate Selene and is associated with the moon. She is connected with darkness and the underworld. Hecate represents the dark moon. She is described by the poet Sappho as 'The Queen of the Night' and carries two torches in her hands - the two torches of the dark. She is to do with the intuitive self, somehow finding the way in the dark.
Dogs are her companions who also may know the way by the power of scent and instinct. In some ways she is like the Indian Goddess Kali and is often represented with three heads six arms and depicted with torches and snakes.

Call on her when you want to project your mysterious psychic feminine energies through your dance. Use Hecate to improvise and trust in the moment with your dance. Hecate, with her association with the moon, death, psychic abilities and darkness, represents Scorpio.

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Aphrodite
Means raised from the sea foam. She is described as 'The Golden One' the lover of laughter. As a daughter of the sea she is the child of the Beginning. Aphrodite represents human longing to reconnect with the all the other aspects of the cosmos. To the Greeks she was the supreme Goddess of love. People worshiped her in Temples in Greece, although she originates from Mesopotamia. Like Innana-Ishtar Aphrodite was embodied as the brightest star in heaven. She is a Goddess of sexual love despite the sex of ones partner. She is beautiful to Gods and mortals. Although generally thought of as relating to romantic love some aspects of this Goddess include a more comprehensive love for ideas, and the wider society.
In her temples there were ceremonies of ritual religious prostitution, which was offered freely for the Goddess. There are comparisons with Ishtar regarding the son–lover relationship with the beautiful Adonis and her descent to the Underworld were she has to share him with Persephone. Stories about Aphrodite describe her as a synthesis of nature and culture. The Aphrodite energy can be called upon to make human life more beautiful and civilized. She represents the divine qualities inherent in daily living. Priestesses of Aphrodite had their own sensual dance using the hips to display their sexuality.

Call on her to give your dance a sexy yet dignified feel. Aphrodite's sensuality is expressed in the sign of Taurus.

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Artemis
A very independent Goddess of the moon and the woods. She is a huntress and represents the destroyer/nurturing aspect of the Goddess. She rules the primeval nature of women. She is both friend and hunter of animals. She is brave and strong. Artemis rules childbirth, she calls on women to be more instinctual and animal during labour and was called upon to ease the pain of birthing. However Artemis was a virgin who has never given birth. She is often depicted as androgynous. She expresses both the masculine and feminine aspects of herself. Her priestesses performed ecstatic rites to her that involved quivering hip movements.
Shamanism invokes animal energy through the ritual dances of the hunt involving animal skins and had magical functions. During these ceremonies people looked for the ecstatic reunion of human and animal nature. These rituals seem to relate to the message of Artemis.

Call on her to give your dance a strong adventurous quality, and when you want to call on the animal energies that have inspired some of the movements in middle eastern dance. Artemis as the brave and daring huntress is influenced by the sign of Sagittarius.

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Isis
She is the supreme Egyptian deity, Queen of Heaven Earth and the Underworld. Her cult was massive and reached far and wide (including Britain.) She is related to the older Goddess Hathor. Sky Goddess Nut, Hathor, and Isis are often spoken of as a unity. The paradox for Isis is that she is worshiped as the great mother of life death and regeneration, but she also suffered tragedy and loss herself. She represents the interface between human experience and divine consciousness. Like Ishtar she has her lover (her brother Osiris) taken from her. She is also involved in his resurrection and she saved her son from a scorpion sting (in some versions another woman's son.) She is often depicted suckling her son Horus. Isis takes on the human qualities of endurance, struggle and determination. She is the Great Mother, and she is the one who holds all magical secrets. She is the reader of secrets to men.

Call on her when your dance needs to express a powerful magical quality. More belly dances call themselves after Isis than any other Goddess. Isis, with her connection to the Great Mother and magic, is connected to the sign of Cancer.

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Lilith
Technically Lilith is not a Goddess. Demonised in the Bible, Lilith was Adam's first wife before Eve. Unlike her antecedent, Lilith was created with Adam and not out of him. She was one equal part of a male and female whole. This Judaic legend was originally Sumerian. Originally she was 'The bright Queen of Heaven'. When Lilith left Eden she became an outcast. She is often depicted with owls. Her image often sees her as having bird’s feet and bat like wings. Because she was equal and independent to Adam she brings on the feelings a lot of men direct towards feminists and feminism, of fear, demonisation and hatred. She refused to lie in the missionary position for Adam. She fled and then embarked on a career of giving birth to thousands of demons, and killing newborn human children. However she does no harm if the names, images and amulets of angels protect the infant.
Lilith becomes a symbol for men's desire projected on to a woman. The view of sexuality being ungodly is projected onto both Lilith and Eve. Sometimes Lilith is associated with a serpent. Lilith represents the witch of the medieval witch hunts, who is persecuted partly for the sordid things the male imagination dreams that witches/women do.
Her story represents the unification of equal and opposite forces that can create the idealized state, or Jungian mystical marriage of the human psyche.

Call on her in your dance when you want to clearly communicate your two opposing sides. As Lilith was like Adam's twin as well as his wife, as well as this Eve and Lilith have become one in the minds of some of their commentators. She represents the twin aspect of Gemini.

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Ma-at
The winged Goddess whose emblem is the vulture. She is what supported the law and foundations of Pharonic Egypt. She rules the skilled craftsperson and artist; she represents both discipline and harmony. As well as limitation, all creation needs form and content. One must dispense with the aspects of ones creative life that are not needed. It is in this way that we produce meaningful work. She binds divine beings and human beings within one universal law. Ma-at is often pictured breathing life into the pharaohs by holding the ankh to their nose. Ma-at is like the Tao or Dharma of Eastern philosophy she is the universal way, the immutable cosmic order. Ma-at represents the order needed for individual and cosmic consciousness.

Call on her in your dance when you need discipline in your movements and to master difficult tecniques. In her role as disciplinarian and teacher we can attribute Ma-at to the sign of Capricorn.

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Tiamat
She is an ancient Babolonyion Goddess and is included in the creation myth. She represents the sea and is the feminine element that gave birth to the world. She symbolises fertility, power and magic. Tiamat represents the emotional power of the sea, which can also represent the expanses of the individual and collective spirit. In the creation of the universe we see the separation between spirit and matter that creates dualism. The way of the Goddess however is to realize that nature is spiritual and spirit is natural.

Call on Tiamat when you want your dance to have an emotional soulful quality. The sign of Pisces rules Tiamat in her connection to the sea, and the power of emotion.

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Athena
Adopted by the city of Athens in Greece, she is an inventor and maker of Athenian law. She is the bringer of rain. The energy of Athena is intellectual and detached, however she is also sexually attractive.
She is born from the head of Zeus. More recent images of Athena see her clothed as a warrior, older images describe her as a wild Goddess wreathed in snakes. These two images are sometimes seen on opposites sides of the same cup. Stick dancing expresses masculine energy and has evolved from Middle Eastern forms of martial arts, so would be suitable to release Athena power in the dancer. Because she represents the power of thinking within the concept of dance, we could be reminded that artful movement requires intellectual consideration. Dance that is not mindful is impossible. Athena's qualities of reflectiveness, bravery and the heroic journey of self mastery can assist the dancer to find meaning and insight through movement.

Call on her in your dance when you wish to do groundbreaking, untraditional movements. Also when you wish to communicate yours and the audience's energy fields. Athena's intellect, inventiveness and association with rain make her connected to the astrological sign of Aquarius.

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Bast
Often represented as a woman with a cat's head. She is some times shown as a (usually) black cat. She is the creator of the body in which the spirit resides. Ancient Egyptians admired cats for their agility, strength and beauty. Bast is said to personify the sun and sometimes the moon. She is the Goddess of joy, music, and dancing, as well as love and touch, health and healing. Bast is shown with a cystrum, a sacred instrument to dispel evil spirits. Bast urges women to be light-hearted and devote time to pleasure and enjoyment.

Call on Bast to give your dance a feline quality, to express joi de vivre or when you are using the dance to heal, and make yourself and others happy. Bast's emphasis on pleasure, art and enjoyment makes her associated with the sign of Libra.

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Demeter
She represents fertile and cultivated soil, the fruits and riches of the fields. She is often depicted as a corn Goddess. Like many other Goddesses her legend also involves descent to the Underworld. Demeter arrived in Greece in the fifteenth century BC where it was believed that she civilized mortals. Demeter is the Goddess of the fruits of the Earth which human beings transform into food, she is also know as 'mother of the dead'.
The story of Demeter is inextricably interwoven with the story of her daughter Persephone (some times called Kore.) In these two aspects the one Goddess is divided into above and below, living and dead, the corn and its seed. Like the sun lover of Ishtar, Demeter must share her daughter with the underworld ruler Hades, who keeps Persephone prisoner. Persephone is only allowed to spend two thirds of the year with her mother, who was kept prisoner by Hades god of the Underworld. While searching for her daughter she met the comic Goddess Baubo by a well. Baubo has breasts for eyes and genitals for a mouth. Baubo made her laugh with her lascivious sexual humor. She reminded Demeter that life not death was the issue. Baubo gave Demeter the strength to continue the search for her daughter.
Like Ishtar and Inanna her descent into the underworld to rescue her daughter caused the fertility of the world to dry up only to be reinstated by her return.

Call on Demeter for the determination to apply yourself to learning your dance. If you feel you can't go on, renew yourself by having a bawdy laugh at Baubo. Demeter's impassioned search for her daughter is related to the human search for literal and psychological rebirth. Demeter, by virtue of her association with the harvest, especially corn, is related to the sign of Virgo.

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Sekhmet
Her title is 'The Mighty One'; she was a fierce Goddess of war and bringer of destruction of the enemies of Ra. Orgiastic drinking festivals were held in her honour. She is often depicted with the head of a lioness. Bast and Sekhmet represent the two sides of each other. Sekhmet being the more wrathful feline (feminine) aspect. She is a fire Goddess whose wrath threatened the extinction of the human race. She represents the protection that comes from destroying hostile forces. She is both Queen of Battle and Lady of Life. Although Goddesses are often depicted with lions, with Sekhmet lion and Goddess become one.

Call on Sekhmet when your dance needs to be powerful or confrontational, when you need to access the warrior dancer. Although Sekhmet is a lion, she is a confrontational and determined warrior which one would relate to the astrological sign of Aries.

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