Prometheus – Feminism and Religion

Curiosity by Beth Bartlett

In my last post I mentioned the tale of Prometheus who stole fire from the gods. Zeus’s punishment of eternal torture was not enough to avenge the offense.[i] In addition, Zeus punished the entire human race by sending the first woman, Pandora. Pandora is a woman of “all gifts,” one of which is the curiosity that drives Pandora to open the forbidden jar, unleashing evils and miseries into the world. Woman as punishment, as the bringer of evil and misery — these themes have shaped the western view of women for millennia.

Fire by Beth Bartlett

The nature and meaning of fire have been appearing in several disparate aspects of my life lately – in the fire of Celtic spring rituals; in books I’ve been reading[i]; in the fireflies of summer nights and the fireworks of the 4^th of July; even as a clue in a game; and most ubiquitous of all – the smoke from Canadian wildfires. So persistent a theme begs pondering. It first appeared in a Rewilding course as the sacred element of spring in the Celtic wheel of the year. Spring is the time of new beginnings, of the sunrise – the element of fire in the sacred direction of east, of the fires of passion and creativity, and the celebration of Beltane.