Life's Goddess

There is a side of life that has been ignored, overlooked, ridiculed, chastised, judged and even feared for many centuries in patriarchal societies around the world. Presently the problem is inflamed due to the farce declaration of equality and respect within an increasingly global culture based on capitalism and independence, which has no real respect for the deep, dark, feminine elements of life. She was removed from religions centuries ago. Her abilities of creation have been chained down whilst Her powers of destruction are feared and attacked. Humanity’s feminine nature is degraded in our fast, materialistic world that is always doing and leaves no time for being. Many modern people live their entire lives giving little homage to the feminine elements of life. These individuals never know the bounty of her harvests, which fill one’s heart with joy and strength. However, Life’s Goddess lives on through many talented and insightfully grounded poets throughout time. She shines especially bright through the artistic poetry of three strong women and one grounded man. Each poem relates to a different aspect of Her, but they are unified in their connection and devotion to the feminine elements of life.

The first poem selected is “Coal” by Audre Lorde, a black feminist born in New York in 1934 (Ferguson et al., 1752). Her poetry was influenced by myths and legends of struggle and survival from Africa and America. Lorde’s comprehension of the feminine elements of life was surely broadened by her study of stories of people from different places and different times. In Women Who Run With the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes searches for myths of the “Wild Woman” which have been muffled by civilization. She finds the Wild Woman in La Loba as the Wolf Woman who is the “Mother-Creator-God of all beings and doings” (Estes, 20). The feminine side takes on many different forms, and this poem describes the deepest, darkest, most powerful side of the feminine. Coal is used to describe this side of the Goddess not only because it is pitch black and originates within the earth, but also because under immense pressure it is transformed into perhaps the most beautiful stone ever, a diamond.

The first three lines clearly name the force which is speaking through the words of the poet. “I” is described as the “total black” which comes “from the earth’s inside” (stanza 1, lines 1, 2 & 3). The next stanza consists of four lines, with the first line declaring “there are many kinds of open” (stanza 2, line 1). There are many ways for the feminine force of life to be expressed out in the open. However, the last two lines of the stanza remind us that the expression of life that emerges is influenced “by who pays what for speaking” (stanza 2, line 4). In other words, people are shaped by the powers they try to please. The third stanza focuses on all the different types of words. Words of truth spoken from the heart “are open like a diamond,” while other words are forced and false like “stapled wagers” (stanza 3, lines 1 & 4). These false words are spoken to please others and do not flow freely. Some words “live in my throat” waiting till just the right moment to burst forward, while others need to be spoken so badly right now that they burst forth “like gypsies over my tongue” exploding “through my lips” (stanza 3, lines 11 & 12). Still other words “bedevil me,” bursting out at unexpected times and leaving everyone including the person who spoke them contemplating the deeper meanings (stanza 3, line 15).

The last stanza returns to the ideas presented in the first stanza. "I" is the voice speaking. "I" is Her, the deep, dark, earthly, goddess: mother, seductress, healer, creator, destroyer. She is “Black” because she comes from the “earth’s inside,” not only physically, but also mentally, emotionally and spiritually (stanza 4, line 3). The earth symbolizes a life-containing vessel, like the human body. She lives in our core, our inner most being. She is our source of  life and love. The first line, “love is a word, another kind of open,” illustrates how this force of the depths can be expressed through love, “as the diamond comes into a knot of flame” (stanza 4, lines 1 & 2). Looking at and reacting to the world with love turns everythings into diamonds eventually in one way or another. When the dark feminine nature speaks in the “open light” her words are “jewel(s)” that should be revered (stanza 4, line 4). This poem was written in 1976 during the feminist movement. The original spark of the seventies seems to have been a bit smothered by the ego of the modern woman who is playing the boys’ game of winners and losers.

“You Begin,” by Margaret Atwood is a beautifully puzzling poem that requires time and patience to understand (Ferguson et al., 1785). Atwood explains the origin of life and unveils the true identity of all human souls in a brilliantly abstract way that is colorful and illustrative. Each of the first three stanzas contain one or more colors which represent the theme of the stanza. Blue and yellow are the colors of the first stanza, which describes the beginning of life and its true nature. Blue flowing waters and brightly energized yellow sunshine are the fundamental forces which join together to create life. The forth line, describing a fish as “blue and flat” invokes an evolutionary image of man originating in the sea as a round glob with big round reflective eyes (stanza 1, line 4). Our physical side, as breathtaking and powerful as it is, is still one-dimensional when compared to the fullness of our spiritual side which makes life three-dimensional.

Atwood seems to suggest life was created to see when she notes how the shape of the fish resembles the “shape of an eye” (stanza 1, line 6). When Atwood states “you begin this way” in the first line of the poem, she means that we each are life and we begin where life begins, if there ever was a beginning to begin with (stanza 1, line 1). When she declares “this is your hand” and “this is your eye” she means life gives you the ability to manipulate your world and see it in all its vastness, not only physically but emotionally and spiritually (stanza 1, lines 2 & 3). Our hands and our eyes reveal our true nature and give our lives a purpose.

In the last three lines of the first stanza Atwood employs several circular symbols: a mouth, an O and the moon. Like a circle life is completely interconnected and has no visible beginning or end but goes on for eternity in a circular motion: birth, life, death, rebirth, and so forth. These symbols are presented as choices, which symbolize the way life gives us all choices, some of which lead to the same end. The last sentence states, “this is yellow,” which summarizes what life is: yellow, bright, energetic and full of possibilities (stanza 1, line 9).

The second stanza is colored green and illustrative of rain, plants and summer time. This six line stanza describes the structure of the world in a simple way, showing how it begins in the center and stretches out in different directions, like a radius emitting from the center of a sphere. In the center it is simple and fundamental, made of only “nine crayons,” but as one sees in the fifth stanza, the world really “has more colors / than we can see” (stanza 2, line 6 & stanza 5, lines 2 & 3). Towards the center is the foundation of life which is simple and elemental, but as life sprouts outward it becomes vast and complex. There are only nine colors in the inner core, but the colors are endless in the outer realms.

Red and orange are the colors of the third stanza which deals with the anger and frustrations of the world. The world is “difficult” and “burns” due to its vast complexity, and Atwood assures us it only natural to feel weary and depressed at times (stanza 3, lines 2 & 5). She tells us we “are right to smudge it that way / with the red and then / the orange: the world burns” (stanza 3, lines 3-5). The problems of the world are connected to the complexity of the world, which is infinite, making the problems of the world much too big for any one person to deal with. However, at the same time, the complexity of our connected world demands that each and every one of us deals with the problems of the world.

The fourth stanza pulls the first three stanzas together, going back to the beginning to realize that once you know it all, you’ll know there’s more than you could ever know. Once you see the connection of all of life you will understand that the meaning of life is grand and vast and beyond your comprehension. Everything in the world is connected and our connections ground us in life, like how the “word hand floats above your hand” and "anchors/ your hand” (stanza 4, lines 4, 6 & 7). “Your hand is a warm stone” that generates heat and grounds you (stanza 4, line 8). Our hands connect us to each other, holding us together and giving us stability and the warmth of love.

The fifth stanza simplifies the complexity of life by showing how we are all the same and we are all life: “This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world” (stanza 5, line1). Atwood describes the world as “round but not flat” referring back to the first stanza and the blue, flat fish. The words and ideas describing life are simple and one-dimensional compared to the fullness and complexity of the world. The last stanza suggests that your life has a beginning and an end, but in the end “you will / come back to” that which you came, the beginning, “your hand,” or simply life itself. MargaretAtwood grew up in Canada where she spent a lot of time in the woods with Mother Nature. She is best know for her novels, but she also writes children’s stories, short stories and critical essays. Her writing considers the roles of women and the role of power in relationships. “You Begin” was written in 1978, during the feminist uprising and near Atwood’s fortieth birthday.

The third poem that echoed the deep, hidden feminine nature of life is “Prayer” by Dana Gioia who was born in 1950 and raised in a suburb of L.A. (Ferguson et al., 1845). Gioia strives to achieve tension and the element of surprise in his poems, which would be much more difficult if he did not have such a strong connection to the deep, dark, hidden feminine elements of life. This poem consists of six stanzas. The first five stanzas have three lines each, while the last stanza has only one lonely line. The first stanza uses three symbols to illustrate the dark, shadowy aspects of life that are difficult to see or hear. These feminine elements of life hide in the corners and the shadows like a “footstep / in the alleyway” (stanza 1, lines 1 & 2). The next stanza describes the Goddess as the creator of connections and appreciator of the fruits of life which she harvest swiftly and surely. She is the “jeweler of the spider web” and the “connoisseur / of autumn’s opulence” who wields her power as fast and as fierce as the lightening (stanza 2, lines 1 & 2). She harvests the world. She is the one who decides when it is time for what, when it is time to come or go, for she is the “keeper of the small gate” and the “choreographer / of entrance and exits” (stanza 3, lines 1 & 2). She speaks to us in whispers, in our dreams, and in the deep, dark parts of our mind and feelings like a “midnight / whisper traveling the wires” (stanza 3, lines 2 & 3).

She takes on several roles including “seducer, healer, deity or thief” (stanza 4, line 1).  She seduces us with her overflowing passion for life. She heals us with her love and understanding. She is a goddess capable of great feats, but she is also a thief who steals our glow as she fades away. She is found in the most precious, fleeting moments, like the “brief violet darkening a sunset” (stanza 5, line 1). We find her again and again, but again and again she leaves us wanting more. We need her to guide and protect our inner hero, our inner savior who has the strength to save us during our darkest moments, but who has not yet come to fruition. Our inner hero must be guarded like “a mountain guards its covert ore / and the harsh falcon its flightless young” and she is the only one capable of completing the task (stanza 5, line 3 & stanza 6, line 1).

“Syrinx,” by Amy Clampitt, is the last poem chosen to illustrate the buried bones of the feminine realm (Ferguson et al., 1845). Clampitt, who was born and raised in Iowa, did not publish any poetry until 1982 at the age of sixty-three. The syrinx is the “vocal organ of birds named after the Arcadian mountain nymph in Greek mythology” who was transformed into a reed in order to protect her chastity from Pan (Ferguson et al., 1845). Pan made the panpipe, or syrinx, from the reed. The first stanza, consisting of eighteen lines, considers the meaning of the bird’s song when it originates from the “Aeoloian / syrinx, that reed / in the throat of a bird” (stanza 1, lines 6-8). The bird’s song can take on so many meanings that it is “too impressive for consensus / about what it even seems to / be saying… much less whether a bird’s call / means anything in / particular, or at all” (stanza 1, lines 11-13 & 16-18). The syrinx is symbolic for the spiritual force which turns our words into diamonds that shine in various directions when we give in to the feminine powers of life. One simple phrase takes flight when it takes on many different meanings to many different people, leaving one confused, wondering what the original meaning was, or if there even was one.

In the Heroine’s Journey Maureen Murdock discusses how “woman’s words” can “influence the experience of others“ through myths and images of the "sacred feminine” (pg. 147). As the syrinx’s instinctive words are etched into culture they give birth to renewal, transforming us through healing powers which accept everything and blame no one, yet also urge us to dig for the gold within ourselves. The syrinx is in the center and comes first. It is simple and grounded. On the other hand, “syntax comes last… and can be thought of… as a / higher form of expression” (stanza 2, lines 1, 3 & 5). When syntax joins with the syrinx they take off and soar, “breaking free of the dry, / the merely fricative / husk of the particular” rising “past saying anything” (stanza 2, lines 11-14).

The depths of our soul, the goddess, the deep dark force of life is associated with the feminine for symbolic purposes only. While a man’s body offers him more freedom in the physical world a woman’s body anchors her in the spiritual world, the unseen realm which exists without really existing at all. This force is not a female or only found in women, just as the ability to rule in the physical realm is not limited to men alone. Women can climb to the tops of the mountains and men can fall to the depths of their abyss. However, from a symbolic stance, it simply makes more sence to associate the dark power of the depths with the feminine and the powers of our skills and might to the masculine and the light of rationality. Like the syrinx and syntax, the masculine and feminine sides of life are set free when they join together and rise past being anything. The question of who is hurt more when the feminine elements of life are ridiculed and chastised may seem simple to answer, but in truth it is hard to say. Women were certainly not the only ones at a loss when the feminine side was thrown overboard in a frantic search for a light strong enough to reign in uncontrollable powers that swallow us again and again. In our search to control Mother Nature we have imprisoned ourselves. Yet if we escape our cells we will surely have more than we did to begin with.

Poetry has a way of representing all layers of the whole in a balanced manner, granting poems the ability to illustrate the depths and dimensions of the deep, dark, feminine elements of life that are lost in the fast pace of our over-paced world. Brining the goddess within out into the open light requires time, patience, love and the option to employ various forms of expression. Each of these four poets has beautifully illustrated a face of the feminine elements of life. Some sides of the goddess are dark and destructive, while others are as good as gold. However, all parts are perfectly natural and a part of the whole, which is not complete without all its parts, and which becomes much greater than the sum of its parts when everything is included.

 

Works Cited

Estes, Clarissa Pinkola. Women Who Run With the Wolves. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992.

Ferguson, Margaret, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. 4^th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996.

Murdock, Maureen. The Heroine’s Journey. Boston: Shambhala, 1990.