(3) BARBARA WALKER – WOMEN’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MYTHS & SECRETS (1983)
She is the goddess and this is her body!
Also behold the monomyth! Not of Joseph Campbell’s universal hero, but of the universal goddess (although all heroes are her heroes). Or rather – the Goddess, since she is ultimately all goddesses. Virgin, mother, crone – god the mother and mother of god.
Now we get into my top trinity of my top ten books of mythology – the three B’s as I like to call them, although admittedly I have to force that a little for this entry from the first letter of the author’s first name. Interestingly, Barbara Walker has also written a number of classic references to knitting. Obviously our interest here consists of her books in neo-pagan feminism, of which this entry was first and foremost – as an encyclopedia reference to mythology and religion through the lens, or rather the dance, of the Goddess. Essentially, throughout all entries there is Walker’s monomyth of the archetypal Goddess throughout mythology and history – or rather prehistory (or perhaps herstory), as the Goddess was displaced, firstly into many goddesses, and secondly by male gods or God.
However, like neo-paganism or the goddess movement in general, Walker’s monomyth is not so much a matter of historical accuracy (as many of her historical sources and interpretations don’t hold up under scrutiny) as it is historical reconstruction – the goddess as sacred poetry rather than sacred history. Or as sacred dance – the ghost dance of the Goddess as it were.
Walker herself is an atheist, so she doesn’t believe in the Goddess as a supernatural entity but as a symbol – and one she proposes as healthier for our society.
As she quotes Eugene O’Neill in one of her entries:
“We should have imagined life as created in the birth-pain of God the Mother. Then we would understand why we, Her children, have inherited pain, for we would know that life’s rhythm beats from Her great heart, torn with the agony of love and birth, and we would feel that death meant reunion with Her, a passing back into Her substance, blood of Her blood again, peace of Her peace.” – Eugene O’Neill, “Strange Interlude”
Of course, Walker’s not just talking your New Age Goddess here, all sweetness and light or maiden and mother – baptized between her breasts. She’s also talking your Old Testament bitch-goddess, apocalyptic wh*re or classic White Goddess of Graves – crucified between her thighs.
But meh – that’s no different from my life anyway:
“Sometimes I am the sister who befriends you, sometimes I am the mother who holds you, and sometimes I am the lover who sticks one in your back.”
RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD TIER)