Gitche Gumee

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Up on the rugged western shore of Lake Superior the lamp atop Split Rock Lighthouse will be illuminated for the only time this year tonight. Immensities and superlatives fail at some sites, and as the cold waves lap eternally at the shore, this is one of them. Split Rock illumines its beacon in commemoration of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald on the far end of that great lake on this date many years ago. While not as large as the Titanic, the Edmund Fitzgerald outstretched two football fields and carried more than fifty million pounds of cargo, immeasurables we are forced to recalibrate into yardage and tonnage. When the Fitzgerald sank during an unnamed November storm in 1975 only twenty-nine people died, but the tragedy soon became part of American legend. The image of immensities battling for the souls of twenty-nine human lives possesses an eerie, epic quality. When faced with the raw rage of nature, we are helpless indeed.

Shipwrecks may be the ultimate metaphor, for like ships we are consciousness in a protective vessel. Of course some deny that a soul exists, but in November it is difficult to doubt. A century ago the Titanic sank, and we still wonder in fascination. Human life is fragile when confronting the north Atlantic, or Lake Superior, or even the great waves that wash ashore and sweep some away. Great bodies of water, some psychologists say, represent forces larger than ourselves in the human psyche. Some suggest the ocean in dreams represents sex, but others would say it’s God. In the realm of metaphor anything is possible. It is no accident that many Christian sects begin the rite of membership with total immersion in water. When the Fitzgerald was baptized, twenty-nine men died.

Standing on the vast shoreline of a gray Lake Superior has a way of making you feel insignificant. Enormity was easily related to divinity in the primitive mind, but standing next to something truly vast still sends me into a protective crouch as I ponder just how little I really am. In this year of destructive storms, as we’ve taken to naming the winter squalls that whip across the continent with noble names such as Athena and Brutus, we are still at the mercy of something unspeakably large. The weather is the ocean above us, and it bears children named Andrew, Irene, Katrina, and Sandy. Each reminds us that we are constantly at the mercy of something far larger than human comprehension. Every year as the tenth of November rolls around I think of the Edmund Fitzgerald and the overwhelming forces that surround us. There is indeed a metaphor hidden here, for those willing to plunge into the frigid depths to find it.

Latin Goddesses

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Armed with her shield and trident, as if blending those ancient rivals Athena and Poseidon, Britannia sits proudly atop buildings and plinths of the United Kingdom. She is an hypostasis of the island itself, and as Britain catapulted toward empire status, the goddess was adopted as her protector. She even appears on the coin of the realm. Literally. Across the Atlantic Ocean, those coming into New York City via boat (and occasionally jet) see the familiar green lady standing in the harbor. Generally called the Statue of Liberty, the woman is actually Libertas, another Latin goddess, the personification of freedom. She too has appeared on the coinage of her adoptive nation, although she has been replaced mostly by the more human heads of state and symbols of civil religion. In Great Britain, Charles Darwin appears on the reverse of the ten-pound note.

I’m sure that Britain and the United States are not the only nations to honor goddesses in their national mythology. Whenever nations want to display what is truly noble and to symbolize their highest aspirations, they choose goddesses. Ironically, some of the nations to do so hold a stringently Christian view of themselves, as if Yahweh were battling it out with an old, divorced spouse. Civil religion, however, should not be confused with doctrinal belief systems and dogma. These insidious agitators have forged the weapons with which religions daily clash. Masculine religions brook no rivals.

As Britannia sits in my pocket, and Libertas reigns in my head, I think of the nations run with male agendas and their goddess consorts. The temples to Britannia and Libertas are in the Square Mile and on Wall Street, for lucre always assumes the superior position in any relationship. I fondly recall the days when goddesses had actual power. Of course, the skies have always been empty, with the exception of our imaginations, but once the belief that protective goddesses were there gave humans cause for hope. Maybe they grew a little ambitious now and then, but the Latin goddesses always had the best interest of their patrons in mind. Have we outlived our need for goddesses? That will only happen when mothers and nature’s best protectors are no longer necessary. The Latin goddesses will long outlive our civilization.

Religious Raven

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Having seldom achieved any sort of public recognition in my youth, I have been gratified to observe the approbation my daughter frequently earns. One such instance occurred yesterday as she won an Outstanding Presenter award at the state level of 4-H. For her presentation she introduced and recited Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” from memory. As much as I like to take credit for some of her taste in literature, her remarkable memorizing ability that has impressed several judges and parents along the way is the result of her own determination. “The Raven” has always been among my favorite poems. As I listened to my daughter’s recitation yesterday, once again the wealth of religious and biblical images stood out.

Starting subtly with the perching of the raven on a bust of Pallas, Athena, the protective goddess of Athens itself, Poe adds the supernatural to his lamentation on the death of his wife. The bird’s origins on “the night’s Plutonian shore” also point the reader to the classical underworld toward which the poem inevitably points. The last five stanzas, where Poe’s verse turns directly toward his black thoughts at the decline of his wife, introduce the presence of seraphim—the turning point in the poem—angelic beings mentioned as attendants to God’s throne in Isaiah. The divine presence, however, offers Poe no comfort as the raven refuses to relinquish his memories of his love. Asking with Jeremiah (and citing the bird as prophet) if there is balm in Gilead, the poet is informed no such comfort exists. Calling God in Heaven as witness the bereaved asks if in Eden (Aidenn) he will be reunited with his bride, only to be informed such will not be the case. The raven, compared to devil, thing of evil, and a demon, represents for Poe the ultimate reality.

“The Raven” is a dark poem, tinged with religious imagery that was freely drawn upon in the nineteenth century. Having heard it recited many times over the past few months, I have come to believe that Poe would have been in accord with my belief that religion and fear are close siblings. When the climax of the author’s pain and sorrow is reached, the religious imagery predominates. This is a paradigm of many human lives. How many non-religious folk seek to make their peace with the supernatural when death is imminent? “Eleventh hour conversion” may be a trite trope, but it does point to something that Edgar Allan Poe recognized long before me—when we find ourselves most afraid religious impulses are frequently at hand.

Be Neith It All

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Goddesses have lately been on my mind. Both an occupational hazard and an avocation, study of the divine feminine deflects the trajectory that traditional monotheism traced and places us in the realm of the empowered female. This week my mythology class considered Athena, perhaps the truest embodiment of divinity in classical Greece. I regularly mention that in the ancient world even Plato suggests a connection between Athena and the Egyptian goddess Neith, one of the most ancient of the gods of Lower Egypt. When a friend coincidentally emailed a question about Neith, I realized the goddess was calling out for a blog post.

Neith is difficult to define partially because of the nature of Egyptian religion and its evidence, but also because of her great antiquity. She is a predynastic goddess, dating from before the founding of a united Egypt (back in the days when Egypt was united). She is represented by symbols of both weaponry and weaving (thus associated with Athena), and since she is so ancient, she became a creator. She is occasionally regarded as the mother of the gods. A question that naturally arises for all creators is from whence did they come – the classic chicken-or-the-egg conundrum. Mythology offers a number of options for self-generation, but most often creator gods simply bring themselves into being without many details being supplied. After all, no one was there to witness the miracle of the first birth.

Like most Egyptian creator gods, Neith represented preexistence and creation. She is occasionally androgynous – a necessary precondition for being an initial creator – and is said, by Proclus to have claimed, “I am all that has been and is and will be.” In short, nobody knows where she originated. Like many pre-biblical gods, Neith practices creation by speaking aspects of the world into existence, a technique called creation by divine fiat. This is something that Yahweh will later borrow in Israel. Although the Egyptian myths do not directly address the coming into being of Neith, she represents what every observer of nature knows: monotheism loses an essential element when it supplants one gender instead of embracing both.

Virgin Goddesses and Human Fathers

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Several years ago today I became a father. I try not to say much about my family online because I am old enough to be cautious about this brave, new, virtual world I post in just about every day; yet being a father is a life-changing experience like no other. The absentee father – something I personally experienced – sacrifices one of the most fulfilling aspects of life. Unless you’ve been there, you can’t understand it.

Today’s paper raises the question of whether celibacy is related to the continuing scandal of sexually transgressing priests that continue to come to light. Men who are not fathers but are called “Father.” Men, sworn by duty never to give in to human nature, appointed as spiritual guides to the masses who have succumbed to the dictates of biology and society. The church denies any connection. Could it do any differently? Two thousand years of frustrated men might storm heaven itself!

Among the most admired deities of the ancient Greeks were the virgin goddesses Hestia, Athena, and Artemis. Their divinity radiated through their self-sufficiency and self-determination; no god needed complete them. Goddesses had an integrity that few gods ever attained. We don’t read of virgin gods; Zeus was famous for his affairs, as were most masculine divinities. Many gods kidnapped or deceived women to slake their lust. Yet the virgin goddesses were formidable and truly worshipped. By restoring the virginity of Mary, the church constructed its own virgin goddess as a paragon for all to emulate. Priests were to be like the mythically chaste Joseph, longsuffering and self-abnegating. But they are mere mortals. Why not let religious leaders truly become fathers? It has forever changed my life for the better. Perhaps it would be healthier than chasing mythical virgin goddesses?

Athena, most chaste

Patriarchal Goddesses

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My fascination with goddesses began when I decided to research Asherah. Having grown up in a monotheistic milieu, goddesses were strangely, but not surprisingly, irrelevant. I had, of course, read about them in mythology classes, but they seemed less defined than the gods who had strong, striking characteristics. Now that I’m revisiting many classical goddesses in the course of preparing my class on Mythology, I’m discovering a renewed appreciation for the feminine divine and its contribution to the ancient world.

Athena saves a hero

Athena and Artemis have been on my mind for the past several weeks. Among the Olympian deities they are among the strongest female figures (Aphrodite, of course, provides her own feminine form of power, and Hera, although mighty, remains largely in the background). Perhaps what creates such a striking form for Athena and Artemis is that they blend the traditional masculine and feminine roles in a way that the ancient Greeks were prescient to devise – they both possess weaponry and strength that frequently brings mortal men to their demise. They don’t wile with “feminine charms” like Aphrodite; instead they meet men on their own tuft – hunting and warfare, bravery and muscle. They are virgins, not needing male approval. Together they form the basis of many ancient aspects of divine nobility.

Artemis and her man-dog

Today, however, when we think of Olympians Zeus and Poseidon come to mind almost immediately as the two major figures. No one disputes the unstoppable power of Zeus’ thunderbolt or Poseidon’s earthquake. The goddesses, however, display their power on the human level. They may set the fortunes of armies going to war or individuals out for personal glory or fame. They touch the characters on a more human level. They also have their counterparts, unfortunately often eclipsed, in the world of the ancient Near East. Astarte is still poorly understood, and Anat, although more fully fleshed out at Ugarit, largely remains an enigma. The importance of Athena and Artemis thus stands out in sharper relief for having survived the overly acquisitive masculine ego to remind people everywhere that goddesses also will have their due. Given enough time, perhaps even the gods will understand.