Season of lions and lazing; books and hammocks; long, golden days of cicadas and apples, I speak of August with words between joy and mourning. Motionless and hot, strangely silent, August is a month of endings and waiting.
“The world does not move through time as if it were a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future. Instead time moves through and within us, in endless spirals.” – Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love. [1]
As blazing, sun-sign Leo roars into the limelight, let’s embrace our inner feline power and the majesty and radiance of the Bronze Age, solar Goddess, who disappeared into the shadows. Fanning her embers raises questions: Why did female and male energy become so polarized? Why do we accept male energy as “directed and solar” and female energy as mostly menstrual, moonlit, watery, mysterious and veiled?
“…its become increasingly obvious [ ] that these were [ ] NOT solar gods, and that the solar deity in the Celtic (and indeed, broader European landscape) was in fact feminine (Monaghan 2008, Snow 2002). [ ]…the Vasconic peoples, [ ] also see the sun as feminine (Trask 1997, Lurker 2015)”. – Albuquerque, Carlos. On the Lusitanian Pantheon. [2]
Mother brightness, ray of light, awakening consciousness, waking dawn: Perhaps the sun Goddess fell into darkness because of a fundamental misunderstanding of how energy works. Perhaps we eclipse the Sun Mother from our imagination because monotheistic, sky god religions did not want women finding strength in the Sun. Or perhaps, under the aegis of poets and myth makers, the underworld aspect of the sun Goddess eclipsed her solar divinity.
“I provide here a new explanation of Hesiod’s prayer, connecting it to Hecate’s origin as an Anatolian sun-goddess of the underworld who mediated interactions between the upper and lower worlds.” Bachvarova, Mary. Hecate: An Anatolian Sun-Goddess of the Underworld. [3]
I’ve sourced over eighty fire, fire-related and solar Goddesses, from world mythology:
A-ta-no-dju-wa-ja, Áine, Alectrona, Amaterasu, Allatu, Arinniti, Arinna, Akycha, Ayida, Āgneya, Alpan, Aya, Al-Lat, Brigid, Bila, Binah, Bastet, Beaivi, Chuvash, Chantico, Étaín, Eos, Eluma, Forna, Gaia Caecilia, Gnowee, Glöð, Gun Ana, Gabija, Grian, Hausos, Hemera, Hepatu, Hebat, Hipta, Hathor, Hestia, Hine-i-Tapeka, Ishtar, Ishat, Iansã, Jowangsin, Launsina, Ma, Malina, Magec, Mawu, Marici, Mahuea, Mahuika, Macha; Nuha, Nantosuelta, Nut, Olwen, Od Ana, Ognyena Maria, Päivätär, Pele, Praurimė, Raet-Tawy, Sekhmet, Shams, Sherida, Shapshu, Saulė, Sulis, Sól, Sanjna, Theia, Taknaš, Tokapcup-kamuy, Tapati, Tabiti, Tefnut, Turgmam, Tushpuea, Umai, Ut, Ushas, Vesta, Walu, Wuriupranili, Wadjet, Xihe, Yhi.
There will be more: Some will be lost to time; hidden within undeciphered symbols; exist as icons, whose form and messaging await understanding.
World mythology shows that the sun was often a Goddess. In Norse mythology Sunna is the solar Goddess and Mani is the moon god. Other male lunar deities include: Chandra, Kašku, Khonsu, Thoth, Tēcciztēcatl, Alignak… and many more.
Both the sun and the lion were symbols of sovereignty. It seems when it comes to Leo all roads lead to Babylon, attributed as inventors of the Zodiac, a means of astrological divination. It is here we find lions. Associated with the Goddess Ishtar, who rode a lion, the lion’s roar expressing her thunderous aspect, these dazzling creatures lined the Processional Way passing through the Ishtar gate into the city [5]. Although Ishtar/Inanna, Queen of Heaven, wasn’t a solar deity her sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld, was an underworld sun Goddess. Goddess Durga rides a big cat, metaphor for mastering the qualities the lion represents: Will, determination, power to destroy evil and Amanirenas, queen of Kush, kept pet lions.
Winding back time to the cosmic Age of Leo, approx 10000 to 8000 BCE, to Göbekli Tepe [Neolithic Anatolia] and an image, carved in stone, of a woman with a mushroom shaped head giving birth. Does this ‘crescent head’ represent hair; ecstatic birth; or a trance like state induced by magic mushrooms? Maybe! However I am struck by the similarity in shape to this pre-Hittite/Hattian Sun Course symbol [bottom left] and this Bronze Age, Anatolian silver Goddess icon. It is possible this is an image of the Sun Mother Creatrix, birthing generations, her head swelling into the shape of the over-arching Sun Course Crescent, celestial bodies being a source of power. [The sun rises in the East, sets in the West, and moves across the sky in an arc.] Ancient artists were recording life AND drawing their belief systems, which became stylized and encoded as symbol.
Sun Goddess Amaterasu births the emperor. Goddess Nut births the sun. Wind time forward to Çatalhöyük, 8000 years ago, to see the Mother Goddess, giving birth, while seated on her throne, flanked by lion-like creatures. Continue winding time forward to see the Phrygian Mother Goddess Cybele, seated upon her throne between two lions. Even in Victorian England the lion was a Goddess power animal. Link to Britannia [with lion], the female personification of the British Isles. When the Romans defeated Britannia [the name they gave England] it represented a Goddess in submission.
Of course these Goddesses associated with the lion, I mention above, weren’t necessarily sun or fire Goddesses and not all sun Goddesses were associated with lions, however the lioness and the solar Goddess did merge in ancient Egypt: Feline Hathor, Sekhmet, Bastet and Tefnut wore the solar disc. The Nubian lion Goddess Menhit was also a sun Goddess.
“Every gesture was one of disorder and violence, as if a lioness had come into the room.” – Anaïs Nin, Little Birds. [6]
Unblinking, all-seeing, solar-Eye Goddess, Hathor shape-shifted from cow to lioness, from nurturing to ferocious. When angered, lion-headed Sekhmet rampaged as the flaming, solar-Eye. Solar energy, is both life giving and destructive, too brilliant, it will scorch, without it we die. Bastet, once a powerful sun warrior, became a much gentler and healing cat Goddess. Tefnut, a serpent with the head of a lioness, was a solar Goddess of moisture, representing fertility (sun + water = flourishing crops).
Knowing solar energy, fiery, bared-faced, out there, energetic, directed, expressing volatile emotion, was divinely female in many ancient cultures, has to be revelatory, especially today, when hot-headed, expressive, rampaging women are frowned upon and women are expected to be ‘small’. The lioness tells us we can honor our sovereign emotions. The Sun Mother Goddess, head in the cosmos, body rooted deep in the Earth, shows us we are connected to a proud ancestral lineage, lost to us, which we can explore.
Just as the August night sky holds space for shooting stars, the underground aspect of the sun Goddess mediates between and moves between realms [more on her in September]. Just like the moon, the sun is cyclical, impacting our rhythms and emotions: Night, day; winter, summer; dawn, midday, dusk; solstice, equinox. Let’s not limit our perception of Divine Female power: She can be sun and moon.
Visualization for Connecting with the Sacred Female Solar Flame
1. Seat yourself in an armchair as if you were Cybele seated upon her lion flanked throne.
2. With spine straight, place your lower arms on the arm rests, with the palms of your hands facing upwards.
3. Relax your hands and fingers. Let your shoulders drop.
4. Place your feet flat on the floor.
5. Close your eyes and breathe in; breathe out.
6. When external thoughts have floated away, imagine a golden ball of light or sacred orb resting gently in the palm of each hand.
7. Submit to this experience for a few minutes and let your awareness merge with the energy in your hands. Can you feel it as heat or a pulse?
8. Simply sit with this energy a while; imagine it unleashing your creativity; or channel it to blocked emotions and chakras. You can direct this energy by moving your hands to the areas to be healed.
10. To close this session, thank the Goddess, then rinse your hands in cool water.
11. Enjoy your day as if you are filled with sovereign light and vibration.
More Anatolian Goddess Icons
Anatolian Sun goddess of Arinna, approx 1500 BCE
Anatolian Idol, Marble, approx 2700 BCE
Spade-shaped Anatolian Icon approx 3000 BCE
References and further reading
[1] Elif, The Forty Rules of Love. Quotes. Quotable Quotes. Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6989187-the-past-is-an-interpretation-the-future-is-an-illusion
[2] Albuquerque, Carlos. On the Lusitanian Pantheon. Jan 20, 2020. Medium. https://mullerornis.medium.com/on-the-lusitanian-pantheon-88d768ab34d5
[3] Bachvarova, Mary. Hecate: An Anatolian Sun-Goddess of the Underworld. May 2010. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mary-Bachvarova
[4] Oracles and Omens: Hittite Divination, Hethitologie Portal Mainze. https://www.hethport.uni-wuerzburg.de/HPM/hpm-en.php?p=divin-en
[5] Kiperwasser, Reuven. Encounters between the Iranian Myth and Rabbinic Mythmakers in the Babylonian Talmud. November 2014. Researchgate. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Ishtar-on-the-back-of-a-lion_fig1_312490055
[6] Nin, Anaïs, Little Birds. Lioness Quotes. Goodreads.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/lioness
[7] Women in Anatolia from the Prehistoric Age to the Iron Age. 16 May 2024. Archeonews.
Wow! Claire thank you for bringing into the light (so to speak) the MANY solar Goddesses who have been relegated to the shadows of our collective consciousness. I have long had an affinity with Ereshkigal and had not heard of her referred to as a sun Goddess, nor was I even aware of the concept of an underworld sun Goddess. Your research is invaluable!