Hagia Sophia, Holy Wisdom

HAGIA SOPHIA, HOLY WISDOM*

 “...for the dwelling place of the Divine Bride is in Creation...”

She is called the "wisdom of God," though in fact she is far older than monotheism; she is the feminine dimension of the Divine, almost invisible in the myths of Judaeo-Christianity.

It is said of her that she is the Holy Spirit, the feminine portion of the Trinity which includes the Father and Son. Guide of the human soul, she is both sister and Mother to the Christ, he who is "one with the Father." The Gnostic Christians called her an "Aeon," a facet of female power from which all things originated. The Soul of the World, Anima Mundi, was created from her smile; her orgasm created the Universe and also, parthenogenetically (1), her daughter, Sophia Akhamoth, the Aeon who brought Wisdom to the Etheric plane, that level of manifestation closest to the physical plane of existence. Named Zoe ("Life"), she animated the first man of clay, Adam, by giving him a soul. Her Symbol is the dove, bird of sexual passion.

As Wisdom personified, Sophia, so named by the Eastern Europeans, is the compassionate mother, intervening with the Heavens on humanity's behalf. She softens the  harshness of the biblical Yahweh's rule, as the Shekinah, his female soul and heavenly bride, echoing the South Asian Shakti as the feminine counterpart of the masculine Shiva. Her Hebrew name is Hokhmah, "Wisdom." She is the Greek Metis, mother of Athene and first wife of Zeus.

To the Romans she was known as the Goddess Sapientia, Lady Wisdom, who arose from the sea, breasts spouting red and white wines of enlightenment. Her Egyptian counterparts were Ma'at, who weighed the Human "heart" of the dead against a feather to determine its purity, and later, Isis, the Mother Goddess whose European worship rivalled Christianity for four hundred years. Her sacred number is seven, tying her to the lunar mythologies (seven days being 1/4 of the lunar cycle), and to traditions stretching back to Sumerian times: the gates to the Underworld, the seven sacred planets of the Ancients, the seven colors of the rainbow, the seven energy centres in the body called variously the chakras (Sanskrit), the Asherah or Tree of Life (Semitic), and the Seven Heavens, her dwelling place being the Eighth Heaven (Gnosticism).The biblical House of Wisdom is supported by seven pillars.

           

True to the lunar fashion, Sophia shows herself with both a light and a dark face. Despite Christianity's attempts to eradicate her, she is still present in the two Marys - she who birthed the Christ and she who was his beloved, her female power intact, whom we call Mary Magdalene. Mother Mary has been presented to us as purveyor of the light, while the Magdalene is erroneously interpreted as a "fallen" woman, in part because she had knowledge of the Dark.

In the Wisdom literature of Babylon and Israel, Sophia's dual aspects (her "light" aspect being Wisdom, and her "dark" aspect Folly) impose trials upon humanity in her attempt to lead humans to her path; she is the Law of Life, blending knowledge and love,  thus bringing  us both joy and suffering. She is concurrently transcendent, existing beyond our limitations, and immanent, indwelling in all Nature as its very foundation.   

“Wisdom went forth to make her dwelling

Among the children of men,

And found no dwelling place;

Wisdom returned to her place

And took her seat among the angels.”

Book of Enoch, 1:42

With the evolution of the sky-god concept, and the subsequent loss of status of the Feminine aspect, we lost Sophia as a tangible force. Rather, she became an abstraction, ironically in opposition to her realm of flesh and substance. With this polarization we also lost our respect for the physical realm, our world, and our innate corporeal intelligence, the body-wisdom which is her gift to us. As women, we lost the ecstatic celebration of female sexuality.

Yet whether she is observed as manifest or abstract, Wisdom exists in the all-pervasive silence, in contrast to her masculine counterpart, Logos, the Word. In today's popular psychological terms she can be compared to intuitive right brain functions, accessed through dreams and creative insight, existent in the subtle undercurrent which informs all life, the ground upon which we stand. We are now in a time of re-membering, of awakening to that which we once knew in our profound innocence. We re-member Sophia by reaching back into the depths of our ancient brain; the seat of our emotional responses, memory functions and the master-controller of the autonomic body systems. Our conscious recognition of Sophia awakens within us an erotic response to life, not merely sexual but rather "engaged." Our lives become a sacred dance of Wisdom and Folly in its most exalted expression, that of the Holy Fool.

"The way of Sophia is the way of personal experience. It takes us into areas...[which are] those creative realms to which ordinary mortals are called by right of their vocational and creative skills."  - Caitlin Matthews

                                   

When we venture into the Unknown, into the Dreamtime, into the Void, we approach the sacred realm of the Black or Dark Goddess, who is none other than "veiled" Sophia. In the Western world, we have been taught to fear the Dark, and the reclaiming of the Dark as a place of creative power has been slow to gain recognition again. Therefore, we are likely to look upon the Black/Dark Goddess aspect with some trepidation. Yet there are always those among us who, despite fear or perhaps because of it, are ready to venture into the unknown, and it is these attempts to reach beyond the veil, to expose this "secret" who is Life, which ultimately leads us to the most intimate contact with our own souls. Through the experience of Life's adventures we come to know the Dark Goddess in all her terror and glory. The more engaged we are in the living of our own lives, the more potent, the more rewarding is the knowledge which then, like fruit left on the vine, can ripen into wisdom and truth. We become Priestesses of the Sacred Dance, daughters of Sophia, dancing upon a sacred Earth. We become infused with wisdom, awesome in our potency, in our ability to create, for the world is the product of the creator.

Re-membering Sophia, we become agents of healing, as we recognize the unity that we are, rather than the duality which has been thrust upon us by the divisive and mal-comprehended philosophies we have inherited from our forbears. The dark and light are interdependent; one does not exist without the other, because they create Wholeness.

Copyright, August, 1998, 2003,  Jessica North-O’Connell

*This article originally appeared in Trans-dimension Vista

Bibliography:

Anne Baring & Jules Cashford: The Myth of the Goddess

Janet & Stewart Farrar: The Witches’ Goddess

Susan Haskins: Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor

Caitlin Matthews: Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom

Barbara G. Walker: The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths & Secrets; The Secrets of the Tarot

Notes:

1) parthenogenesis: to give birth without the aid of a second gender; “virgin birth”

The Story of the Great Goddess Cerridwen and the Birth of Taliesin, the Bard

Friday, and it's Storytime. Here is a famous tale, retold for the simple joy of telling a story "in one's own voice." Make yourself your special drink, snuggle into your favorite blanket and enjoy the tale...

THE STORY OF THE GREAT GODDESS CERRIDWEN

AND THE BIRTH OF TALIESIN, THE BARD

By Jessica North-O’Connell

            There was once, in a time that is not a time and a place that is not a place, a great Hall: and in this Hall in the middle of the island in the middle of a lake dwelt the most great and noble Lady, whose name is Cerridwen, she who is Keeper of the mighty Cauldron of the Deep, which is called Aven.

           

            Now it was that Cerridwen had two children: a daughter, Creirwy, the most beautiful girl in the world, and a son, Morvran, whose name means, “Black Raven,” or “Great Crow,” he who was also called Afaggdu by some, as unhandsome a lad as his sister was lovely.

            Cerridwen, so as to compensate Morvran for his unwholesome looks, decided to make for her son an elixir; an elixir of wisdom and knowledge, of poetry and cunning, of prophesy and magical power, so that her son might be the cleverest of all men, that his life might know some pleasure and joy. She gathered together the waters of prophesy and inspiration, and herbs and ocean foam, and at each proper lunar and planetary phase, she added these to the Cauldron Aven. Cerridwen sought out an old blind man to tend the flame beneath the Cauldron, and his assistant, a young boy who was known as Gwion Bach, to stir the graal, the magical contents of Aven. Nine women stood by the Cauldron, breathing upon its simmering contents for the prescribed period of a year and a day.

            Three drops were all that was required; three drops would bestow upon her son all the greatest gifts. As the time of completion drew near, Cerridwen placed her infant son Morvran beside the Cauldron, in readiness to receive his legacy. Then, exhausted by her long and faithful efforts, she went into the nearby woods to rest. There under the shelter of a great tree, she fell into a deep and wondrous sleep—for what else can be the Dreams of Goddesses?

The child Gwion Bach stirred and stirred the contents of the great Cauldron. Lost in a reverie, or perhaps lulled into a trance by the intoxicating vapors of the graal, he accidentally splashed three drops upon his own hand. Surprised by the pain caused by the burning liquid, and without thought, he thrust his wounded hand into his mouth to soothe it. Instantly he received the gifts intended for Morvran. Instantly the Cauldron split apart with a sound like thunder, spilling its now-poisonous remains upon the ground. Instantly Cerridwen awoke and realized what had transpired.

            With his newly-acquired abilities, Gwion Bach perceived that he was in extreme danger and so he began to run. Cerridwen chased him, a furiously-screaming hag, into the forest. But Gwion Bach now had magical powers and so changed himself into the shape of a hare. In response, Cerridwen changed herself into a black greyhound. Gwion the hare ran as hard and fast as he could with Cerridwen the black hound in close pursuit until he reached the water's edge. Just as she was about to snatch him up in her jaws, Gwion shifted his shape into that of a fish and swam away in the river. But Cerridwen shapeshifted herself into an otter and pursued until her nose rushed the fins of Gwion Bach’s fishtail. In terror, Gwion shifted into the shape of a bird and shot up into the sky, but Cerridwen became a hawk, strong and fast and fiercely intent upon her prey. Across the sky they flew, two birds racing the wind, one in fear, one in fury.

            From his vantage point high in the sky, Gwion Bach spied a pile of wheat kernels in a barnyard below. Barely escaping Cerridwen’s hawk talons, he disguised himself as the tiniest seed and dropped into the pile, thinking that he could hide himself therein. But Cerridwen shifted into the shape of a plump red hen, and setting herself down beside the pile, pecked away at the wheat until she had found the seed that was Gwion Bach. Cluck, cluck—she ate him up, thinking this to be his end. Cluck, cluck.

            But the tiny seed that was Gwion Bach sprouted and took root inside the body of the Lady and soon began to grow. Cerridwen swore that the day the babe was born would be the day he died. Nine months passed slowly and when the day of her travail arrived, she birthed the babe Gwion had become. The Lady looked upon his shining brow and beauteous face, and she relented. Instead of strangling him as she had planned, she put him inside a leather sack and threw him into the turbulent waters of a great river, two days before the first of May.

            It is said that Prince Elphin was upon the river at Samhain, the feast of the Dead, in the hope of catching a salmon for the evening meal, when he pulled into his boat a leather sack. Therein was the most beautiful child he had ever seen and he named the miraculous baby Taliesin, “shining brow,” he who was first and greatest of the cerrddorion, the poetic sons of the Great Lady Cerridwen.

           

I am Taliesin. I sing perfect metre,

Which will last to the end of the world.

Anon. 13th C., Welsh

The Crone: Light of the Sun, Dark of the Moon

The Crone: Light of the Sun, Dark of the Moon

            “The Crone...has gained control of the sacred fire...she keeps  the inner fire burning.” (1)

She is the Grandmother, the Healer, the Wisewoman; she has seen much and has done many things. Once she was revered for her experience and wisdom.  She is who all women aspire to and many women have the opportunity to become. Yet she is often ignored, abandoned and even despised by mainstream North American society, a legacy we have inherited from a misogynistic world view, relentlessly evolved over the last 5000 years.

The Crone is an archetype of the very ancient Solar Feminine expression, she who is the ‘eternal flame,’ she who is known as Great-Aunt Tiger of Korea, China, Siberia; Amaterasu of Japan; Hathor/Sekhmet of Egypt; Saule of the Baltic Sea region; Sunnu of the Northern European countries; Maidu of Southwestern America; Seqinek of the Inuit, and many other names; she who shines for all. She reminds us all that we each embody our own star as individuality, personal identity and “life purpose.” Our “lights” may become obscured but we cannot extinguish them.

Her icons and symbols include the mirror, the well, the wheel (or spinning wheel) the sacred tree of heaven, the tiger and the cave. Every time you look into a mirror and see your own reflection, it is a reverent prayer to her.

As guardian or purveyor of wisdom, the Goddess Sophia is her representative, the Divine Feminine of biblical, gnostic and the apocryphal philosophic traditions, the World Soul.

Also, she is the personification of memory, Mnemosyne, the first Muse of Greek mythology, perhaps simply because she has something to remember! Patriarchy under the guise of Apollo, (who appropriated the domain of the arts from Athene), split her into a multitude of aspects to limit her power, though she retained the power of inspiration in all her phases.  Grandmother Mnemosyne became first three, then nine or even twelve different Muses, all ultimately under the authority of Apollo. (2)

The Crone fell increasingly into disfavor as the Classical Greek concept of woman-as-property spread, having outgrown her usefulness as a baby-making machine, her body becoming less resilient and therefore less able to perform physical labor, her intrinsic human value was easy to overlook, especially if she was silenced as, indeed, often she was.  Qualities attributed to her via her Goddesses were appropriated by representatives of her male descendants: Chronos, lord of time and matter, (a reflection of Maya, she who weaves the fabric of the material realms) and the perpetually-young Apollo, the Sun God who seized dominion over art, song, poetry, medicine, oracles etc., are but two.

Yet it is the defiantly un-silenced voice of the Crone and her fearless activity in the service of her daughters, granddaughters and ultimately women everywhere which reminds us of our ever-present link to her through all women who have gone before. She is no less important to men, as she birthed them all, and we now see how society’s disparagement of her has transmigrated and is being perpetrated against her male counterpart, the “elderly gentleman.”

            “In the beginning, woman really was the sun. She was a true person. Now woman is the moon, she depends on others for her life and reflects the light of others....”(3)

Research shows that in cultures which recognized a female solar deity, the moon was usually considered male, with the exception of the Celts who recognized both lights as being female in nature. (Lugh of the Long Arm represented the light of the summer months, or the sun's rays.)  Because of this, it is possible that other cultures may also have recognized the sun and moon both as aspects of the feminine. Perhaps it was in someone’s interest of “balance” that so many records have reached us which show the sun and moon to be of opposite genders.

The Greeks recognized Hestia, virgin Goddess of the central hearth and keeper of the sacred eternal flame, as the most esteemed of their pantheon. While the Classical myths tell us that it was Zeus who gave her status (..”seated in the midst of the celestial dwelling-place(4) she receives the richest part of sacrifices, and among men she is of all the deities the most venerated...”) (5), in truth Hestia’s story and status predates Classical times, as do the stories of many other Goddesses of Greece. Oaths sworn on Hestia’s name were considered inviolate and all important documents were signed within her temple. She was the fire in the centre of the earth, according to Pythagoras (6), and as such represents that part of the sun which broke away to become our planet.  She sought “refuge” from marriage, having been courted by both Poseidon  and Apollo, who may well have taken her place as a solar deity, seeking to submerge her matrilineal (solar) culture through “marriage,” such as was accomplished by Zeus through his “marriage” to Hera.

Regardless of whether or not the pre-Classical Greeks considered Hestia a solar deity, they certainly seemed to regard the moon as female and three-fold, the Triple Goddess.

The Triple Goddess can be seen to represent three phases of a woman’s life, those of maiden, mother and crone.  In the Greek pantheon, Artemis is representative of the maiden aspect or waxing (growing) moon, Selene is the mother or full moon and Hecate is the crone aspect, the waning (shrinking) moon, though apparently Classical Hecate was never artistically represented as an old woman, only as a mature one with great influence. Together they form the life cycle of birth, death and rebirth.

Hecate herself pre-dates the Classical period of Greece and is possibly of Thracian (7) or Egyptian (8) origin. A pre-Olympian deity, i.e., existing before the introduction of Zeus and his contemporaries, she is equal in power to Zeus himself, the only Goddess so recognized. “Hecate is...connected with the feminine in independence from the masculine...the Artemis-Hecate Archetype was rather feared by the patriarchs because, if pursued by women, it could lead to their developing a sense of an independence from the masculine...”(9)

Originally a Triple Goddess in her own right, she is said to have had dominion over the heavens, the earth and the underworld until, in Classical times she came to be identified only with her Underworld aspect and the darkening moon.  She is Guardian of the Three-Way Crossroads (Hecate Trevia or Trivia), keeper of the secrets of magic, sorcery and divination, queen of the night, mistress of the mysteries - birth, life and death. Roaming the night with her hounds, flaming torch in had, she has the power to grant wealth and blessings or to withhold these at her discretion.  Her familiars are the dog, serpent and horse and she is sometimes said to be three-headed, each head one of her animals.  Her symbols are the key, the scourge and the dagger.

Her Egyptian origins derive her from the midwife Goddess Hekt, Hakit, Hequit, Heket or Hekat. She is said to have assisted at the birth of the sun each morning. Her familiar is the frog, which is still associated with both the Crone and the wisewomen called Witches, and is representative of the fetus as the promise and symbol of rebirth. Like her Indian counterpart, Kali-ma (who was also once herself a Triple Goddess until the introduction of the patriarchal philosophy of Hinduism), Hecate is associated with the end of life and is responsible for the Underworld journey which results in the soul’s ultimate reincarnation.

“Hekate is the goddess of all composting materials as her gift of fertility from the underworld.  From death and decomposition come the fertile substance that ensures and vitalizes new life. In her emanation as age, change, deterioration, decay, and death, she finds the seeds for new life in the composting heap of decomposing forms.”(10)

Every woman knows this process intimately as her own menstrual cycle.  When menstruation ceases, as we ourselves become crones, the power inherent in the blood is said to be retained, resulting in wisdom.

.

During the Middle Ages, as the (misogynistic) influence of the Christian Church increased, (and the power of women was further deteriorated), Hecate became known as the Queen of the Witches and was said to enter into the bodies of those women accused of being practitioners of the “Craft of the Wise.” As women became more oppressed, Hecate became more feared and despised, demonized and relegated to the underworld of human consciousness, the unconscious realms.

There she awaits us with her hounds, her torch in hand, to guide us to the riches of our own power and potential which lie buried within each of us, our birthright.  As we respect those who have gone before us, we welcome her. As we disabuse ourselves of the fear of ageing, we free her to show us the way. As we assume our own power and wisdom, we embody her in the service of all humanity.

Blessed be

Copyright, 1995, 2001, Jessica North-O’Connell

           

 NOTES:

(1)   Vicki Noble, Motherpeace, cited by Ffiona Morgan, Wild Witches Don't Get the Blues, Rio Nido, Daughters of the Moon Publishing, 1991, p. 116

(2)   Dawn Kolokithas, “The Mother of Memory,” Gnosis: A Journal of the Western Inner Traditions, Fall, 1989, p. 40

(3)   Hiratsuka Raicho, The Hidden Sun, cited by Patricia Monaghan, O, Mother Sun!, Freedom, The Crossing Press, 1994, p. 9

(4)   emphasis mine

(5)   Robert Graves, ed., New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, Toronto, Hamlyn, 1982, p.136

(6)   Barbara G. Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, San Francisco, Harpoer & Row, 1983, p. 400

(7)   Patricia Monaghan, Goddesses and Heroines, St. Paul, Llewellyn Publications, 1990, pp. 148-149

(8)   Walker, pp. 378-379

(9)   Adam McLean, The Triple Goddess: An Exploration of the Archetypal Feminine, Grand Rapids, Phanes Press, 1989, p. 68

(10)  Demetra George, Mysteries of the Dark Moon: The Healing Power of the Dark Goddess, San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1992, p, 146