5.1.5: Symbols Associated with the Great Goddess

Of the many symbols associated with the Great Goddess, perhaps the most pervasive is the serpent, a creature which possesses the ability to travel between layers in the earth seeming to exist between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead. As an animal that often hibernates–another connection to death and rebirth–and then returns in the spring to molt its skin, it further secures its place within the symbolic mysteries of the Goddess, a manifestation of the Goddess’ chthonic [thON-iK] (inhabiting, or belonging to the underworld) ability. In pre-Christian cultures, the serpent was associated with wisdom, and was commonly used as a temple guardian. Within the Greek pantheon, several goddesses are affiliated with the serpent, including Athene and Salus, the daughter of Asclepius.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Knossos Snake Goddess. The Minoan civilization, a pre-Greek culture, venerated snake goddesses, similar to ancient Indian, Egyptian, Kongolese, and Aztec cultures. This goddess figure emphasizes her mothering function, signified by her bare breasts, and her chthonic functions, reflected in the snakes she has mastered. The snakes further identify with the mysteries of the Mother Goddess and her secret wisdom of life, death, and rebirth. (Archaeological Museum of Heraklion CC BY 4.0 Wikimedia)

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Salus, the goddess of health, is often associated with a serpent, which symbolizes the healing arts. As the daughter of Asclepius, the god of medicine, and granddaughter of Apollo, she retains the affiliation with restoration (rebirth) and the serpent of the Great Goddess and reunites the male elements of medicine within her female form. In this statue she is depicted feeding the serpent to affirm her nurturing nature, while the sleeping Eros by her side represents the practice of resting in the temple of Asclepius for healing. (Photo by A. Murray 2023, CC BY)

A number of other indigenous cultures also venerated the serpent as a benevolent, or creative spirit. The Aboriginal First Nations people of Australia credit the Rainbow Serpent as a creative entity, responsible for carving up the deep gulches, the high mountains, and rivers. As one version of the myth relates, the Rainbow Serpent offered shelter (in its mouth) to two young men of his tribe. Then it did what snakes do and ate them. When the other tribal members became aware of the two missing men, and realized what the serpent had done, they tracked down the mighty snake, cutting into the rainbowed skin, and releasing the two men who had been transformed into colorful parrots. As an etiological tale, this explains both regional landscape features as well as the existence of a variety of the multi-colored birds that populate the country. But it also highlights the powers of life, death, and transformation also seen in the Great Goddess.

Similar to the earthly chthonic qualities of the serpent, birds are another common symbol of the Goddess. Throughout the Neolithic period, images of Goddess figures portrayed with birds, wings, or with bird heads and wings proliferated between 7000-3500 BCE. The Egyptian goddess Isis is depicted as winged, especially in her quest to restore Osiris where she is depicted beating her wings over his dead body to revivify him. The connection with birds not only aligns with rebirth, but also with the Goddess’ ability to travel between the upper and underworlds as well as mediate between humans and the divine (Young 25-26,41).

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): This modern statue of Athene incorporates many latent symbols of the Great Goddess, including the wings on Nike, held in Athene’s hand, the coiled serpents on her breast plate, even her platform of acanthus leaves which connect to another symbol of the Goddess, trees, which are often represented as stumps, pillars or columns. Trees affiliate the Goddess with the Tree of Life, the World Tree, or sacred trees, all symbolizing immortality or rebirth, as well as a connection to the underworld through their roots. This statue’s phallic spear, however, reminds us that though Athene may look feminine, she orients with a masculine warrior mindset. Vienna, Austria, Parliament Building. (CC BY, via Wikimedia)

The moon, as mentioned before, is consistently associated with the Great Goddess, and with women in general, as its twenty-nine-and-a-half-day cycle neatly aligns with the menstrual-fertility cycle, giving rise to the term “moon time.” Cycles of the moon further symbolize the stages of womanhood–maiden, mother, crone–along with the moon’s waxing, waning and disappearance from the night sky, followed by a welcome return, or rebirth. The pattern also mirrors the many pre-Greek myths that tell of lunar goddesses on quests to redeem, return, and reanimate their dead loved ones. The moon is also credited in some systems as being the source or creative inspiration, giving birth to greater understanding of the world, the creation, or the human experience; in essence, its brilliant light against the dark night reassured early humans that a benevolent and nurturing deity watched over them.

The crescent horns of the moon are another link between the celestial aspects of the Goddess and her agricultural functions, especially those of Ancient Egypt, where the sky goddess was depicted as a cow. The crescent moon symbolizes the horns of Nut and reaffirmed the link between the heavenly cow and the earthly cow which both light the night and support life. Isis, along with Hathor and the Sumerian goddess Ishtar and her Phoenician counterpart, Astarte, all have cow goddess associations related to the value of cattle within early agrarian cultures. The association is carried into Greek mythology in the story of Europa, a mortal princess captured by Zeus disguised as a bull. Her transportation across the continent may have reflected a version of cow goddess or Great Goddess worship spread across differing civilizations (Harris and Platzner 142); similarly, the tragic tale of Io may offer another etiological explanation of the retreat of the cow goddess as her tribes were chased or conquered by warrior cultures.

Other iconography associated with the Goddess includes birds, vessels or storage jars, the double ax, seeds and fruit which neatly align with life and rebirth. Birds or their symbol, wings, establish a connection between the terrestrial earth and the sky deities, including those that live in the heavens like the Olympians. Several of the Olympian goddesses hold birds as sacred, such as Hera’s peacock and cuckoo, both of which figure into her myths; and Athene’s owl, which further aligns with wisdom or insight. Vessels, like Pandora’s jar, represent the Goddess’s womb, an object of veneration and fear in its capacity to create and retract life. The vessel is often represented as a chalice and appears in Beowulf, when Queen Wealtheow serves the hero with her wine chalice and ensures the contract between them that will protect her people and, specifically, her young sons. In the Arthurian legends, the holy chalice is the feminine representation of rebirth and salvation for the kingdom.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): This drawing of the motif on a gold ring from Mycenae depicts Demeter handing three poppies to Kore, with a labrys (double-headed ax) central in the image. The labrys symbolizes the Goddess’s deathly aspects, while the poppies have several symbolic associations with Demeter. The flowers and their seeds, which grow within corn fields–the primary crop belonging to Demeter–are also known for their scarlet color, which guarantees resurrection after death, and the seeds carry tranquilizing effects. Thus Kore’s acceptance of the three flowers portends her annual winter descent (Graves 73). (Acropolis Museum, Greece. CC BY 1.0 Wikimedia)

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): The Delphic Omphalos, or “world’s navel,” carries dual meanings for the Ancient Greeks. This example was found near Delphi, where Apollo’s temple commemorates his triumph over the serpent Python, a distant avatar of the Goddess. Thus, the temple and the Omphalos signify the birthplace of the Greek world, and the defeat of the ancient Goddess by the emerging male warrior cultures. Greek tradition also assigns the original Omphalos as the stone Kronos swallowed in place of infant Zeus (Markale 31, 204) (Harris and Platzner 228). Robert Graves believes the stone might have depicted “the raised white mound of tightly-packed ash, enclosed live charcoal, which was the easiest means of preserving fire without smoke. Later, it became pictorially identified with the lime-whitened mound under which the harvest corn-doll was hidden, to be removed sprouting in the spring; and the mound of sea-shells, or quartz, or white marble, underneath which dead kings were buried” (Graves XXV-XXVI). (CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia)

Fruit and seeds also connect to another significant function of the Goddess as Creatrix: sacred sexual rites. Persephone’s fate was rendered when she consumed the seeds of the pomegranate,“the fruit of Hell” which was laid as bait by Hades, and in doing so she became “of Hades.” No longer the virgin child of a virgin mother–consuming the fruit carries sexual connotations–she became trapped between worlds, a harbinger of spring and the bride of death, and an analog of the Goddess.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): The knowing smile of The Kore with Pomegranate, displayed in the Acropolis Museum in Athens, emphasizes her mastery of the fruit, often referred to as a “bloody fruit” for its sanguine color. The connections with blood distinguished the fruit as “an appropriate offering for the dead who craved life, that is, blood,” as well as a common votive offering to Athene whose early shrines emphasized her fertility aspects (Young 59). (Photo by A. Murray 2005, CC BY)

The link between sacred sex and agricultural procreation was further sanctified by the hierogamy (hieros gamos), the sacred marriage. Karen Armstrong explains,

Human sexuality . . . was regarded as essentially the same as the divine force that fructified the earth. In early Neolithic mythology, the harvest was seen as the fruit of the hierogamy, a sacred marriage: the soil was female; the seeds divine semen; and the rain the sexual congress of heaven and earth. It was common for men and women to engage in ritual sex when they planted their crops. Their own intercourse, itself a sacred act, would activate the creative energies of the soil, just as the farmer’s spade or plough was a sacred phallus that opened the womb of the earth and made it big with the seed. (Armstrong Myth 43-44)

Such practices of sacred sex continued throughout the sixth century BCE and are referenced in the Bible, much to the disgust of prophets Ezekiel and Hosea. Armstrong notes that in the temple in Jerusalem rituals involving sacred prostitutes were enacted to praise the fertility goddess, Asherah, of Canaan (44). Sex in this regard was not a lascivious or wanton expression, rather the human attempt to act their part in a necessary ceremony to sustain their fragile existence.