Venus – Feminism and Religion

Reconsidering the Venus Myth by Lisa SG

Venus. The Roman Goddess of the third-party situation. Lady who wouldn’t stay faithful. Hoochie who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, keep her coochie home. Or is this viewpoint on the actions of Venus maligned? (See Ancient-Origins: Venus: Eroticized Goddess of Love, Fertility, Agriculture… And Infidelity? by Wu Mingren.)

Venus is often conflated with her Greek counterpart, Aphrodite. Their myths intertwine in such a fashion that the two figures many times seem to be one; we will honor the ancient commingling in this article.

Venus’ myth starts with the castration of her father by her brother. Saturn, the Lord of Time and Karma, usurped his father Caelus (Uranus) (See World History Encyclopedia: The Mutilation of Uranus by Saturn (Cronus) by Giorgio Vasari). When Saturn used his sacred scythe to castrate his father, some of the seed of Uranus fell upon the sea and Venus was born from the sea foam (See The Internet Archive: Theogony by Hesiod). She rose whole and pure from the ocean and fell immediately under her brother’s care as reigning king of the Gods (See Le Gallerie Degli Uffizi: Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli).

Loving Venus, a poem by Marie Cartier

Dedicated to Carol Christ, 1945-2021, who taught so many of us how to love the Goddess

She is called “Nude Woman” and currently lives
in her natural museum house in Vienna.
Nude woman. She is art, but she is not in an art museum.
And there are questions:
why was she originally painted red? Why are her breasts so large?
Why is her stomach so large?
Why does she fit in a human hand?
What was her purpose?
Was it to entice men, or to comfort women?
Historians disagree.
Is her hair woven? Or is it a hat?
Why does she have no eyes? No feet? Why is she there?

Yes, there are Goddesses in the Bible, Part 5 by Janet Maika’i Rudolph

As I wrote my last blog post, the Great Goddess of the Canaanites, Ashera was honored and worshipped (according to the bible) within and through groves of trees. Ashera and El, the “great bull god” were deeply connected. In fact, in Canaanite mythology, El and Ashera were married.

But before delving into their relationship, I would like to start in a different (but connected) direction – the lovely archetype of the morning star and the evening star. The planet Venus, named for her namesake Goddess (or vice versa), is both the planetary vision of the morning star and the evening star. Whether She be Goddess, planet or evening/morning star, when She appears in one form, She embodies them all. Continue reading “Yes, there are Goddesses in the Bible, Part 5 by Janet Maika’i Rudolph”

Persephone by Barbara Ardinger

Here we are, creeping up on the vernal equinox (March 21), which astronomers and weathermen on TV tell us is the start of spring. I see Imbolc (as described by Deanne Quarrie) as the true beginning of spring, however. It’s when we see the first little crocuses popping up through the snow…..oh, yeah…..well, maybe not this year, when more than half the U.S. is buried under mountains of snow. Let’s just agree that in ordinary years crocuses pop up and bloom and trees start showing us their tiny green leaves in February. The equinox is really the turning point of spring, the hinge of time when the rising energy tips over into falling energy that is flowing toward summertime, which will arrive at Beltane (May 1 or 2).

We’re probably all familiar with the story of Persephone, who under her childhood name, Kore, was out picking flowers in the meadow one day when her Uncle Hades roared up out of the earth in his mighty chariot and kidnapped her. This led her mother, Demeter, the grain goddess, to search for her and finally go on strike and let the world turn back into winter. This went on until Aunt Hecate told Demeter where her daughter was. When Persephone, now queen of the underworld, came back up with her mother—voilà! It was springtime. That’s how the vegetation myth goes. Continue reading “Persephone by Barbara Ardinger”