The Goddess is a Beak by Sara Wright

The Goddess
is a beak
without mercy
piercing my brain
pecking me apart
in self
hate
disgust
really?
Numbness turns
the world into
Gold Lead
my beloved
earth – dead
all but One
gift from
Beyond
monochromatic
on the brightest fall
days
not a word
from the trees
dull stupid
Backwards brain
twisted body
Backwards brain
Forward
Inside out
Upside
Down
Inside out
Brain
spewing
coiled
Serpents
through tortured
body
what
hellish fury
awaits
me beyond
the next gate
I curl
cringe inward
belly to fur
Stay your Poison
Once out of joy
I birthed a
Bird goddess
I sculpted her
holy
serpent hisses
withers my guts
fangs drip blood
squeeze
breath
from old lung
razor sharp
talons
crush
beating
red heart
Devourer
strips
bone to
bone
stretching sinew
to pain
(have I not loved
you enough?)
why wield
a silver
scythe?
You already
own me
choking on
disorientation
Jingled
to crazy
Winged Nightmare
splinters each night
paralyzes
Light…

Context for poem:

This poem erupted out of a recent post, a comment and listening to Marija Gimbutas who spoke of the beaked bird goddesses and showed us images of them (reminding me of how many I sculpted). What’s happening at present brought the death aspect of this goddess into my ‘field’.

In goddess mythology it’s the end of the year.

Let me explain the rest:

A couple of days ago I read an excellent post that Judith Shaw wrote about images at Chartres of the Black Madonna on FAR that addresses some possible early origins of the Black Madonna and has many photographs of her statues. Up until I read that post I had no idea that below Chartres Cathedral in France there is yet another statue of Mary inside a gigantic subterranean church, one that is cast in total darkness.

Notre Dame Sous Tere
Our Lady Underground.

It fit..

Then I read another comment that also struck a chord. If the Virgin and Child were later depictions of Persephone and Hades (even unconsciously) it made perfect sense to consign one Madonna to the Cathedral and the other to the Great Below because this is where all life begins on earth (although surely that was not the original intention since it was common to build new edifices over old ones).To have an intact image of the Black Madonna above and below connects life and death as one whole. But goes no further.

Marija Gimbutas stated in an interview on goddess art in 2015 that the Goddess is the oldest artistic image known to humans stretching back 30,000 years ago into the Great Beyond – we just don’t know. But she was female and without a child. Male gods were absent, and then we learned that the first human was a woman. DNA evidence supports what Gimbutus’s art demonstrates through image and word; woman did come first. Of course, Gimbutas’s interpretations continue to be debated but I believe this is more about our total disconnect from nature and patriarchy’s hold on humans than anything else.

Before the Goddess animals were painted on cave walls suggesting to her that the earliest of all religious impulses centered around nature. According to Gimbutas the Goddess figures are manifestations of nature. She also believed that mortality was as much of an issue to the first human as it is to us today.

In this same interview Gimbutas states that the Goddess has both a powerful life and death giving aspect but that her most important characteristic is that of regeneration. She believes that at the time of death the life energy of the deceased leaves the body immediately to continue in another form in nature  – as bee, butterfly or firefly. A beaver. Perhaps a tree. Maybe a human. Out of all her powers, Eternal renewal characterizes the most important power of the Goddess she states.

As a naturalist I am struck  by the congruence between what Gimbutas says and by what we little know about the power of  underground mycorrhizal mycelial networks. This subterranean world not only supports all life about but is the source for all life.

Death initiates regeneration.

The cycle remains unbroken.