What they never told you about goddesses of death

It’s a bit of a shock to look down and see a skull, even if it does belong to a sheep. (At least, I think that’s what this one was.)

I painted this piece during a walk in the woods when we still lived in southwest Wisconsin. The way the vibrant vigorous little spring beauties blossomed up out of the old skull’s socket reminded me of a project I did in college.

I attended St. Olaf college in Northfield, MN (many years ago now.) I don’t know if they still do, but back then if you wanted to graduate you had to take three religion classes. I have to admit I was rather curmudgeonly about it at first, but they turned out to be some of the best classes I took there.

One of the classes was a course on the Goddess. We had to write a term paper, of course, and I chose as my topic to write about goddesses of death. (Typical morbid college student.) 🙂

Well, it wasn’t long before I discovered something wonderful. Almost without exception, regardless of culture or time frame, I found that nearly every goddess of death around the world was also associated with birth and new life.

Wow! The circle of life. It’s something curiously missing in our Western tradition, which insists on a one-way trip to one of just two destinations. But all you need to do to see it in action is look at the natural world around us.

It’s easy to feel that no good will come out of tough situations. But I believe that if you give it enough time and space, you will see how everything fits within a harmonious whole.

What do you think?

Advertisement