(Slideshow) Summer Solstice Goddess by Glenys Livingstone Ph.D.

Each year between December 20-23 Sun reaches Her peak in the Southern Hemisphere: it is the Summer Solstice Moment.

Poetry of the Season may be expressed in this way:

This is the time when the light part of day is longest.

You are invited to celebrate

SUMMER SOLSTICE

 Light reaches Her fullness, and yet…

She turns, and the seed of Darkness is born.

This is the Season of blossom and thorn

– for pouring forth the Gift of Being.

The story of Old tells that on this day

Beloved and Lover dissolve into the single Song of ecstasy

 – that moves the worlds.

Self expands in the bliss of creativity.

Sun ripens in us: we are the Bread of Life.

We celebrate Her deep Communion and Reciprocity.

Glenys Livingstone, 2005

The choice of images for the Season is arbitrary; there are so many more that may express Her fullness of being, Her relational essence and Her Gateway quality at this time. And also for consideration, is the fact that most ancient images of Goddess are multivalent – She was/is One: that is, all Her aspects are not separate from each other. These selected images tell a story of certain qualities that may be contemplated at the Seasonal Moment of Summer Solstice.

As you receive the images, remember that image communicates the unspeakable, that which can only be known in body, below rational mind. So you may open yourself to a transmission of Her, that will be particular to you.

• Shalako Mana Hopi 1900C.E. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess), Corn Mother. Food is a miracle, food is sacred. She IS the corn, the corn IS Her. She gives Herself to feed all. The food/She is essential to survival, hospitality and ceremony … and all of this is transmuted in our beings.

• Sekhmet Contemporary image by Katlyn. Egyptian Sun Goddess. Katlyn says: Her story includes the compassionate nature of destruction. The fierce protection of the Mother is sometimes called to destroy in order to preserve well being. And Anne Key expresses: She represents “the awesome and awe-full power of the Sun. This power spans the destructive acts of creation and the creative acts of destruction.”- (p.135 Desert Priestess: a memoir).A chant in Her praise by Abigail Spinner McBride:

• Sheila-na-gig 900C.E. British Isles. (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). From Elinor Gadon The Once and Future Goddess (p.338): “She is remembered in Ireland as the Old Woman who gave birth to all races of human…. In churches her function was to ward off evil”, or to attract the Pagan peoples to the church.  From Adele Getty Goddess (p.66): “The first rite of passage of all human beings begins in the womb and ends between the thighs of the Great Mother. In India, the vulva “known as the yoni, is also called cunti or kunda, the root word of cunning, cunt and kin … (the yoni) was worshipped as an object of great mystery … the place of birth and the place where the dead are laid to rest were often one and the same.” Getty says her message here in this image “is double-edged: the opening of her vulva and the smile on her face elicit both awe and terror; one might venture too far inside her and never return to the light of day …” as with all caves and gates of initiation. In the Christian mind the yoni clearly became the “gates of hell”. And as Helene Cixous said in her famous feminist article “The Laugh of the Medusa”: “Let the priests tremble, we’re going to show them our sexts!” (SIGNS Summer 1976)

• Kunapipi (Australia)  “the Aboriginal mother of all living things, came from a land across the sea to establish her clan in Northern Australia, where She is found in both fresh and salt water. In the Northern Territory She is known as Warramurrungundgi. She may also manifest Herself as Julunggul, the rainbow snake goddess of initiations who threatens to swallow children and then regurgitate them, thereby reinforcing the cycle of death and rebirth. In Arnhem Land She is Ngaljod …”  (Visions of the Goddess by Courtney Milne and Sherrill Miller – thanks to Lydia Ruyle). More information: re Kunapipi.

NOTE the similarity to

• Gobekli Tepe Sheela Turkey 9600B.C.E., thanks Lydia Ruyle.
• Lydia Ruyle’s Gobekli Tepe banner.

• Inanna/Ishtar Mesopotamia 400 B.C.E. (Adele Getty, Goddess: Mother of Living Nature) She holds Her breasts displaying her potency. She is a superpower who feeds the world, nourishes it with Her being. We all desire to feel this potency of being: Swimme and Berry express: “the infinite striving of the sentient being”. Adele Getty calls this offering of breasts to the world “a timeless sacred gesture”.

• Mary Mother of God 1400 C.E. Europe (Hallie Iglehart Austen, The Heart of the Goddess). A recognition, even in the patriarchal context that She contains it all.

• Wisdom and Compassion Tibetan Goddess and God in Union. This is Visvatara and Vajrasattva 1800C.E. (Sacred Sexuality A.T. Mann and Jane Lyle).

• Sri Yantra Hindu meditation diagram of union of Goddess and God. 1500 C.E. (Sacred Sexuality A.T. Mann and Jane Lyle, p.75). “Goddess and God” is the common metaphor, but it could be “Beloved and Lover”, and so it is in the mind of many mystics and poets: that is, the sacred union is of small self with larger Self.

• Prajnaparamita the Mother of all Buddhas. (The Great Mother Erich Neumann, pl 183). She is the Wisdom to whom Buddha aspired, Whom he attained.

• Medusa Contemporary, artist unknown. She is a Sun Goddess: this is one reason why it was difficult to look Her in the eye. See Patricia Monaghan, O Mother Sun!

REFERENCES:

Gadon, Elinor W. The Once and Future Goddess. Northamptonshire: Aquarian, 1990.

Getty, Adele. Goddess: Mother of Living Nature. London: Thames and Hudson, 1990.

Iglehart Austen, Hallie. The Heart of the Goddess.Berkeley: Wingbow, 1990.

Katlyn, artist https://www.mermadearts.com/b/altar-images-art-by-katlyn

Key, Anne. Desert Priestess: a memoir. NV: Goddess Ink, 2011.

Mann A.T. and Lyle, Jane. Sacred Sexuality. ELEMENT BOOKS LTD, 1995.

Milne, Courtney and Miller, Sherrill. Visions of the Goddess. Studio, 1999.

Monaghan, Patricia. O Mother Sun! A New View of the Cosmic Feminine. Freedom CA: Crossing Press, 1994.

Neuman, Erich. The Great Mother. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974.

Ruyle, Lydia. Goddess Icons: Spirit Banners of the Divine Feminine. Wovenword Press, 2002.

Swimme, Brian and Berry, Thomas. The Universe Story. NY: HarperCollins, 1992.

The music for the slideshow is “Gaia Dea” by Pascal Languirand Gregorian Waves CD who generously gave permission.