ANIMALS AND THE GODDESS

In ancient cultures, humanity was connected to the natural world where the interdependence of all life forms was necessary for survival. Animals were vital to humans for they offered food, entertainment, and a source of wisdom. Wherever the reciprocity of human and animal relationship was understood, animals were considered sacred in the ancient world. This is shown in the depiction of deities from ancient Egypt, the source of Gnostic wisdom ,where goddesses and gods had a composite animal and human form.

The ibis-headed god Thoth was revered as the keeper of Hermetic knowledge and magical systems. The image of the great goddess Isis depicted a bird/woman with wings outstretched who flew in the realms of spirit. The relationship between her and her falcon-headed son Horus symbolized the archetype of the mother and child union. Powerful and popular deities with animal heads included psychopomp Anubis, the jackal-headed (occasionally baboon-headed) god of transformation; and ram-headed Amon, a solar deity. Sobek, the crocodile-headed god, was worshipped in an ancient city dedicated to crocodiles where they were kept in clear pools and adorned with jewels. Animals embodied attributes of the human experience which united people and animals in one common expression. For example, the hippopotamus-headed goddess Thoueris served as patroness of birth and rebirth.

Although strength is now associated with masculine energy, the powerful lioness-headed goddess Sekmet had a woman's body, not a man's. She represented the strength and power of the African sun at high noon. Her archetype lives in the major arcana tarot card "Strength." On Sekmet's crown was a solar disc and a cobra. Uachet the cobra and her vulture twin-sister Nekabet were desert warriors who protected the Sekmet and other deities.

Sacred snakes, such as Uachet and Buto, were deeply respected in goddess cultures. Crawling on the ground with grace and fluidity, snakes are connected to he earth. The snake represents healing and renewal because as it sheds its skin it is reborn. The python, imported from Africa, was considered sacred at Delphi in Greece. (Delphi means "womb" in Greek.) Images of women and snakes were found all over the ancient Mediterranean. The goddess Hygieia, patroness of healing and midwifery, engaged the snake as her symbol. Even today the American Medical Association uses the caduceus, two intertwined snakes, as their symbol of healing - a remnant of the goddess' healing totem.

The combination of animal and human characteristics took many diverse forms. A bird's body with a human head expressed the very high spirit of the Egyptian god Ba. The cat was celebrated as the goddess Bast and depicted solely as a cat without a human body. A composite creature of human, bird, lion, and bull - the sphinx - represented the four alchemical elements: the human represented the astrological sign Aquarius, air; the bird represented Scorpio, water; the lion represented Leo, fire; and the bull represented Taurus, earth. Centuries later these same four animals and their powers were borrowed by Christianity and given to four of the twelve apostles.

Elsewhere in the ancient world it was not unusual for the goddess to be depicted in animal and human form. The ancient Hebraic goddess Lilith had the wings and claws of a bird, and owls and lions as her animal familiars. Recreated as a she-devil and demon, Lilith was stripped of her power by the monotheistic patriarchal religion of Yahweh.

The goddess has been interpreted in three aspects: the virgin, the mother, and the crone. The virgin is the youthful girl and young woman, the new moon of potential. The mother is the full moon, pregnant with life. The crone is the wise old woman, the waning moon, who understands death's mystery. The virgin archetypes are ever popular, for they are pleasing to men. The mother archetype also pleases and serves men, for mothers take care of boys and men and give them children. In Christianity, where the trinity is cast in masculine terms, the goddess survives as Mary, a combination of virgin and mother. But the crone, the most powerful aspect of the feminine deity, has become invisible and unwanted ever since the goddess and her animals were declared profane.

Occasionally, a virgin archetype survives in popular culture. The half-woman/half-fish mermaid is associated with the goddess in her virgin, or maiden, aspect. The mermaid can swim in the realms of the unconscious and live in the watery world of mystery. Fear of the intuitive maiden's power has resulted in trivializing the mermaid, or making her a temptress who lures men to their death. The maiden is also referred to as the nymph, a free-spirited child. But too often the maiden qualities, which are sexually attractive to men, become distorted and the nymph unfairly becomes the nymphomaniac.

By observing the animal deity connection of the ancient world, the feminine role is shown to have been far different than modern associations. Now the earth is considered feminine and the sky masculine. The sun and sky gods' names are many: Ra, Apollo, Zeus (Roman Jupiter), Jehovah, etc. But the ancient Egyptian goddess Nuit gave birth to the sun daily from her womb and swallowed the sky at the end of the day to create night. Although the ancient earth goddesses such as Gaia and Demeter (Roman Ceres) were feminine, the earth also had masculine connections: The earth was associated with the male Egyptian vegetation god, Geb; part of the dismembered Egyptian god Osiris was buried in the earth; and Greek Narcissus of the flowers and Dionysus (Roman Bacchus) of grapes and wine were connected to the earth through flowers and plants.

When the ancient gods and goddesses of Egypt were imported to Greece, they lost their human and animal composite deity forms and became solely human. Ibis-headed Thoth became Hermes Trimegistus (Mercury), the keeper of Hermetic knowledge, transformed without the bird head. Hathor, the Egyptian cow-headed goddess, became Aphrodite (Venus) and lost all animal attributes. Anubis, now Hades (Pluto), lost his jackal head, although the Hades' three-headed dog Cerberos survives today as the "hounds of hell." Some goddesses were partnered with animals, such as the owl of Athena (Minerva), the stag of Artemis (Diana), and the peacock of Hera (Juno), but in these associations the animals served as pets.

The final blow to the Goddess culture was delivered by warriors from central and northern Europe who invades the Middle East and Africa. (If it seems unrealistic that a few thousand warriors could destroy civilizations countless years old, reflect on how the ancient earth cultures of the Americas were destroyed by a few thousand men from Europe who came by ship.) Sky gods replaced the earth religions which had respected animals as well as both feminine and masculine deities. Warrior culture replaced matrifocal wisdom at Delphi when the sun god Apollo killed they python snake in an attempt to steal power. The universal goddess symbol, the snake, was turned into an evil creature in the tale of Adam, Eve, and the serpent.

Judaism, based on the one male god Yahweh, also relegated animals to the position of "things to be eaten or not eaten," depending on whether they were considered unclean. Specific animals became profane in dietary laws and other religious codes. Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with a new code of laws written on tablets, only to destroy the tablets by throwing them at a statue of Hathor the golden calf. "Thou shall have no other gods before me..." especially not an animal goddess. Animals continued to lose their sacredness with the advent of Islam. The pig, singled out as unclean, was particularly degraded (although by human standards the pig is extremely intelligent). This destroyed the cult of the pig, once considered a sacred animal to Astarte in Palestine and Demeter in Greece.

Even in the non-Western religions, such as Buddhism, animals lost their sacredness. The slighting of the importance of the personal qualities of animals in the Chinese zodiac is one example of this. The clever rat who, according to ancient Chinese legend, outwitted the steady ox to become the first animal of the zodiac, was attributed this position of honor by the Buddhists for being the first animal to the bedside of the dying Buddha. The animals became footnotes to the new male gods and prophets.

The disrespect for animals has led to religions and philosophies that glorify ideas of the mind while ignoring basic life as reflected through nature. The ecological balance which we are experiencing today is a result of a culture based on immediate gratification which has forgotten the goddess as a living entity, Earth, and has forgotten the animals as beings who know how to live peacefully with one another in a balanced eco-system. As the rain forest is destroyed, so are the animals within it - including the human animals. A healing can occur as humans acknowledge animals in their role as healers, protectors, allies, and teachers. By reclaiming the ancient wisdom, the animals again may become sacred. As the goddess is respected and honored, her animals too become respected, for the two are inseparable.