As early morning sunlight dances on cobweb, the solar Goddess is preparing to guide us through the yoni-verse of lessons taught in her classroom. She will not be hurried into shedding her cobwebs and veils. To move through the curriculum, where cosmology, mythology and psychology entwine, is to enter the labyrinth. Lessons spiral from revolutions of female consciousness, to a continuum of unfettered coiling and unwinding of the void, in all its interconnectedness; from the language of stars, to the discourse of the underworld. To enter the classroom is to enter the realms where the invisible becomes visible.
Seated upon a cloud, I rose with the morning sun, gazing down at Earth, long shadows revealing the outlines of mass graves and burial mounds, where stories are buried so deep. We travel all day, arcing across the sky, following the sun, until we dip toward the horizon, slipping into a cave, just as Venus is rising. The underworld sun Goddess exists because ‘where she goes at night’ and ‘anxiety for her return’ sparked the imagination ancient peoples. Night sky cosmology is encoded within her symbolism
Journeying with the underworld sun Goddess into the cavernous folds of Mother Earth illuminates the potential for Post Traumatic Growth. Visits to the underworld and fertile corners of the dark subconscious, to face unprocessed trauma and our own mortality, is wisdom hard-won. Embrace the shadow as it follows you, it is part of your soul journey.
Imagine both seed and psyche, lying dormant and forgotten, trod down in the cold earth, being tickled and coaxed by golden fingers into a ‘great bursting forth.’ There is hope in the darkness when we acknowledge of the existence of the underworld sun Goddess.
The underworld sun Goddess described by Jeanine Hall Gailey, in her poem, Amaterasu, The Sun Goddess, Returns [1], “hides from violent fists underground, taking with her the warmth of her breath and her gold fingers.” If I were to draw her “chthonic raw,” I’d paint her in placenta-red, as spontaneously as a blood splat [my image above is a homage to this image I can’t verify ][2]. I see her as a sprouting seed, solar head in the cosmos, umbilical root stretching down into the underworld, shamanic fingers, bloody and engorged, tickling life into underground souls and seeds. She speaks of magic and ceremony and ancient energies luring us to the underworld.
Across the eons the artist speaks to the observer, knowing perceptions vary. In the absence of written language art is “visual language.” Many caves, separated by time and geography, unite us in a galaxy of hand prints: Ancestors touching rock, recording their presence, having entered the “transformative cool” of Mother Earth. Ancient hand prints and stencils adorn rock the world over. Some were made by women and children, raising questions about patriarchal assumption that artists were male. Some hand prints have mutilated fingers, also raising questions: Was this ritualistic, or did they stencil over bent fingers as part of a pre-historic sign language, (bent fingers felt in dark caves when silence was sacrosanct)? [Asamyuta hasta mudras (single hand gestures) convey thoughts and ideas; Yubitsume (finger cutting) is a form of atonement; the Dani sacrifice fingers to honor the deceased.]
Anyway I’ve been sidetracked. The intention here was to write about ceilings of caves as reflections of the cosmic womb space. In the Altamira cave images of bison are drawn hunched over like seeds, dormant yet ready to “burst forth” from the Great Below. [click to see a panorama of the ceiling].
Some caves, including Lascaux, France, are peppered with celestial imagery if you know how to read it, including the Pleiades; possibly the looping path of Mars in retrograde; sun analemmas and/or moon phases (drawn arching along a horse’s neck) [scroll through text to see possible examples on the horse image].
The dots around this Bull’s eye, from the Hall of Bulls, Lascaux II, may represent the Pleiades (the Seven Sisters) or the eye as sun around which the seven visible planets orbit. [Compare with the layout of this Sumerian clay map of the solar system depicting the Sun as a central star and the orbits and positions of the planets.] If so, the bull may have been considered to be an oracular deity or psychopomp, chosen for its celestial markings, similar to the way the sacred Apis Bull, son of Cow Goddess Hathor, was selected. Apis was conceived by a ray of light and was caught in a perpetual cycle of sacrifice and rebirth. He was considered a reincarnation of Osiris, ruler of the underworld.
Once seen, it’s hard to not to see similarities between Old Stone Age imagery and mythologies and symbolism spiraling forward in time and geography, including:
Horses: Epona, protector of horses, a solar deity and Goddess of fertility and the underworld; Hecate, the underworld Goddess, possibly once an Anatolian underworld sun Goddess. Alexander Haggerty Krappe referred to Hecate as ‘the equestrienne,’ claiming the horse to be a chthonic animal.[3]
Bulls/cows: The Seven Hathors, the celestial herd; Cow Goddess Hathor, oracle and wearer of the solar disc, whose original shrine was a cave; Mithraism, with its symbolic bulls, sun beams, celestial cloaks and rituals held in cave-like sanctuaries; Enki, the “true seed”24 [abundance] released by a magnificent bull; bucrania in houses at Çatalhöyük, skulls often plastered into East/West walls, aligning with sunrise or sunset. Ancestor’s bones were buried beneath the foundations.
The pre-historic, master artists at Lascaux and Altamira possessed highly developed observational skills and anatomical knowledge, as well as the skill to paint in a ‘spontaneous’ style. Anyone who has studied calligraphy knows producing ‘spontaneous brushstrokes’ requires practice and discipline.
Images in these caves were mostly painted in shades of red and black. I am reminded of Maori colors where black represents the void; white represents the world of light; and red represents the Earth Mother and “coming into being.” [4]
It is possible the natural pigments used in the Altamira cave held spiritual meaning just as Maori colours do. If so the ‘act of drawing’ may have been part of shamanic ritual. Bison, painted in red pigment, hunching like seeds, on the ceiling of Altamira, could be “coming into being” deep in the cavernous belly of the Earth Mother. Perhaps painting “beasts as seeds” prepared the soul of the sacrificed for rebirth, whilst alleviating guilt for killing such magnificent animals. These images are about birth, death, rebirth.
It’s impossible to know if written mythologies, so entwined with psychologies and cosmology, including journeys of descent, where light is brought into the underworld (as a place and mind state), have roots in prehistoric belief systems, so beautifully drawn on the ceilings of caves. Pulling the thread, weaving through time and geography, reveals a kaleidoscope of emotions embedded in similar symbolism:
Archetype of darkness and inner turmoil, the Minotaur, man/bull hybrid, imprisoned in the labyrinth for being different/monstrous. His mother was Pasipháē, daughter of sun God, Helios. The Minotaur’s real name was Asterion “the starry one.”
Zeus, disguised as a bull to rape Europa, symbolizing patriarchal colonization of women’s bodies and the Earth, violent acts immortalized celestially as the Taurus constellation.
Inanna (who freed the Bull of Heaven), descending to the underworld to meet her sister, the sun Goddess Ereshkigal. Viewed through the feminist lens, her story is one of empowerment.
Sun Goddess Shapash, rescuing Baal from the “mouth” of Mot (the underworld): Metaphor for fertility, resurrection, healing and soul nourishment, with the cosmic Sun Mother holding the power.
“Eater of pomegranate seeds,” Persephone, dragged into the underworld and raped by Hades, rescued by Hecate: Metaphor for rebirth and patriarchal wounding.
Hope manifesting as the appearance of a white buffalo calf, for many native Americans, a prophetic sign. [5]
We must know our own wounds to understand the pain of others. As Anaïs Nin says,
“I have no fear of depths, and a great fear of shallow living.” [6]
Whether we go to the underworld willingly; were dragged there; or waited there for millennia, stories waiting to be told, as numerous Gravettian female figurines waited [in caves at the Balzi Rossi (“red cliffs”), Liguria], traveling with the underworld sun Goddess transforms. Entering the Great Below, whether a place or a mind state, the ancestors, digging deep, re-seeding ‘renaissances of self’ in the fertile ‘nothing,’ show us we are not alone there.
As Ursula K. Le Guin says,
“Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country. Why did we look up for blessing – instead of around, and down? What hope we have lies there.” [7]
References and citations
[1] Hall Gailey, Jeanine. Amaterasu, The Sun Goddess, Returns. Poetry International. https://www.poetryinternationalonline.com/poems/12047/
[2] The Goddess I’ve created is a homage to this image I can’t verify.
[3] Krappe, Alexander Haggerty (1932). “La poursuite du Gilla Dacker et les Dioscures celtiques” [The pursuit of the Gilla Dacker and the Celtic dioscuri]. Revue Celtique (in French). 49: 102.
[4] Munn, Linda. Story: Flags. Tino rangatiratanga flag, Teara. The Enclycopedia of New Zealand. 2009. https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/33979/tino-rangatiratanga-flag-linda-munn-2009#:~:text=The%20black%20represents%20Te%20Kore,and%20Papat%C5%AB%C4%81nuku%2C%20the%20earth%20mother.
24 Thorkild, Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness; 110.
[5] The Meaning of the Sacred White Buffalo. May. 9. 2012. American Indian College Fund. https://collegefund.org/blog/the-meaning-of-the-sacred-white-buffalo/
[6] Nin, Anaïs. Goodreads. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/53992-i-must-be-a-mermaid-rango-i-have-no-fear
[7] Le Guin, Ursula K. “A Left Handed Commencement Address,” delivered 22 May 1983, Mills College, Oakland, California. “Ursula K. Le Guin.” AZQuotes.com. Wind and Fly LTD, 2024. 02 August 2024. https://www.azquotes.com/quote/956323