Goddesses Of Time And Seasons

The concept of time appears as a goddess in several cultures. 

In Hindu India, Nidra is the sleep of time, whose passage is beyond human control, while Kalı represents the many eras of the worlds life, with the final era named after her. 

In North America, the Cherokee saw time as ruled by the sun goddess Unelanuhi, who divided night from day and thus invented all measurement. 

Among the pre-Roman Etruscans, time was the goddess Nortia, in whose honor nails were pounded each year into her temple. 

The later Roman Juno represented time as embodied in womens passage through lifes stages, with multiple Junos representing each woman as she aged. 

Some time goddesses are also foretellers of fate, as was Arabic Manat (see Eastern Mediterra nean), Finally, many goddesses are associated with the period before day was divided from night. 

These divinities appear in a primordial, often chaotic ‘‘time before time, and are often creatrixes who form the universe. 

Many goddesses, especially earth goddesses, are associated with specific seasons that paralleled the seasons of a womans life. 

Spring goddesses (Roman Flora, Greek Hebe, Slavic Kostrubonko, Scandinavian Rana Neida) are typically young and sex ually active or even promiscuous, unburdened by children. 

They are kind and gener ous, beautiful and tender. 

Often spring goddesses are associated with dawn, both representing the promise of new beginnings. 

Just as dawn goddesses (see Light/Day, above) could be dangerous as well as desirable, so figures connected with spring, like Slavic Rusalki, could present themselves as threatening. 

Spring was a time of hunger to subsistence farmers, who had devoured their stored crops and were awaiting new growth. 

Even for gathering-hunting cultures, spring could be difficult, so in the Arctic we find Asiaq (see Circumpolar), to whom shamans made sacrifices if ice did not break up in the rivers, allowing fishing. 

Thus maiden spring goddesses such as Greek Persephone were connected to death, an ever-present danger in hungry springtime. 

Summer goddesses, by contrast, are typically maternal, indicative of the earth in its agricultural abundance. 

Like Roman Ceres (from whom we derive the word ‘‘cereal), these goddesses are often associated with food plants, which flourish in summer weather (see also Vegetation, below). 

In North America, such goddesses could be embodied in the important food-crop, maize or corn; see Selu and Oniata. 

Such goddesses are typically depicted as mature and fertile, women in the prime of their reproductive years. 

But in desert lands, summer goddesses could appear as threat ening, as with Egyptian Sekhmet who represents the scorching sun, or Sri Lankan Pattinı (see India) who began as a gentle woman but became rage-filled and destruc tive later. 

It might be assumed that autumn goddesses would represent decline and death, but fall is a season for both harvest and the hunt. 

Thus goddesses connected with autumn could be paradoxically both fertile and deadly. 

Some, such as Irish Tailtu, were sacrificed in order to provide fertility to the land, while in other cases such as Slavic Baba Yaga, they threatened others with death by devouring. 

In Mesoamerican ritual, a mature woman assumed the identity of Toci and was sacrificed and flayed at her har vest festival. 

Other autumn goddesses (South American Pachamama, Greek Demeter, Roman Pomona) were goddesses of abundance, appropriate to harvest sea son. 

These goddesses are typically shown as a woman past the prime of life but still vigorous. 

With the Irish Cailleach, this vigor included sexual appetite; this divine female could exhaust and even kill young men with her demands. 

Winter goddesses, typically envisioned as old women, are often threatening. 

This is hardly surprising, as winter in earlier times was a time of hardship and want. 

Winter goddesses are shown with the power to control the weather (see Weather, above). 

Thus they were to be propitiated, lest they grow angry and bring on dangerous storms. 

The Scandinavian winter goddess appeared as a pair, with friendly Holle shaking her feather beds to make snow and rewarding those pleasant to her with gold, while her twin Perchta roamed through the world looking for people to punish for minor infrac tions, bringing bitter cold with her. 

Some winter goddesses are paired with a spring deity. 

In Scotland, the Cailleach appeared with the girl Bride, who spent winter trying to escape the hags grasp. 

Finally, some winter divinities are witches (Roman Befana, Finno-Ugric Louhi) who kidnap good weather and growth, holding it hostage until spring. 

~ Kiran Atma

You can learn more about Goddess Symbolism here.

Goddess Akhushtal

Mesoamerican Goddess of childbirth, Akhushtal. 

• Akhushtal is the Mayan  god that oversees the whole process of childbirth, from conception to delivery. 

• She is the patroness of obstetricians and midwives.

• Akna was a term given to Akhushtal, among other goddesses, that meant 'Our Mother,' and was strongly tied with fertility and birthing deities.

Mayan Midwifery And Society. 

Midwifery is a female-dominated profession that aids women from conception until postpartum care. 

Akhushtal goddess of midwifery is worshipped in certain Maya tribes, and midwives are said to be allocated their vocation via signs and visions. 

Ixchel was the name of the pre-Spanish Yucatan deity of the old midwife.

Childbirth is the Maya's ultimate rite of passage, completing a girl's transformation to womanhood.

Many women who give birth in remote regions are cared for by midwives who have no official training but are said to have gotten instruction in dreams by the Maya religion. 

Traditional birth attendants are referred to as comadronas or iyom kexelom, and their work is regarded with respect.

Maya midwives are in charge of the ajtuj ("pregnant lady") and her unborn child during the pregnancy as well as the week of bed rest after the delivery. 

Unlike other communities, the Maya believe that they receive a holy calling from God via dreams, allowing them to perform their intended career. 

The midwife's calling is divine, and she has the ability to speak with the supernatural realm.

Though midwives are revered for their holy role in society, they sometimes face animosity from their spouses and children since they must spend so much time away from them in order to do their duties. 

Midwives are required to refrain from sexual activity, which might cause conflict with their spouses.

Midwives are said to acquire their calling from God via a sequence of dreams in Maya civilization. 

Visions of Saint Anne, the patron saint of all midwives, are said to often carry subtle signals that a woman is destined to become a midwife. 

Women, according to the Mayan faith, discover little artifacts along routes that represent symbols and objects associated to midwifery, in addition to getting dreams and visions. 

Small unique stones in the form of faces, shells, marbles, and shattered parts of prehistoric figures are common. 

In Maya religion, stones are typically ascribed holy qualities and are said to be sent from the spiritual realm as a symbol of one's vocation to midwifery. 

Some things placed in a midwife's path are said to be the instruments they require to execute aspects of the delivery process, such as a penknife for cutting the umbilical cord. 

Women often contact shamans, who explain their calling to them, and if they accept their calling as midwives, they are said to have a series of dreams and visions about the birthing rituals they must follow. 

They may also be called to mountains or other holy sites, where they may meet supernatural entities, in addition to these specific things and the repeated dreams. 

Mayans think that women who disregard their calling are more likely to get sick, and that if physicians are unable to diagnose their diseases, they may even die. 

They also think that supernatural creatures tell them in their visions that they will get presents from the families of the children they deliver, and that they must not be greedy since many will offer what they have, and that they must take it with a good heart.

Midwives are in charge of pregnant women throughout their pregnancies with no official training or education other than what they think they acquire through their dreams. 

These dreams are said to include visions from the spirits on how to correctly inspect women, massage them, feel for the position of the fetus, measure dilation, cut the umbilical chord, pray, and prophesy a child's destiny based on the marks on their umbilical cord. 

Midwives think that by seeing these visions, they will be able to recognize difficulties that might jeopardize a healthy birth and will be able to take women to local clinics and hospitals. 

Midwives are called during the third to fifth month of pregnancy and provide prenatal care at monthly intervals until the last month of pregnancy, when they begin to visit weekly. 

Midwives offer prenatal care that includes massages, exams, attending the delivery, and caring for both the new mother and infant during the week of bed rest.

Many things, according to the Mayans, may be interpreted when a child is born. 

The "Sacred calendar," or Maya calendar for divination, is said to forecast a child's destiny since certain days are more favorable than others. 

In Maya civilization, the calendar is crucial for understanding and determining the destiny of children. 

Mayans, on the other hand, believe that midwives may predict a child's life based on the marks on the umbilical cord and the amniotic sac. 

They think that the sex, number, and spacing of subsequent births may be predicted based on the marks of the firstborn. 

The most essential marks are those of a future shaman (worms or flies gripped in a newborn's hand), a midwife (white mantle over the head, which originates from the amniotic membrane), and a baby who will imperil future siblings' life (born with a double whorl in its crown). 

The midwife is the first person to view the newborn, and before a mother can connect with her kid, the midwife is supposed to carefully read the child's symptoms, and she alone will determine what career the child will pursue. 

She must then carefully remove, dry, and conserve the signs, which the maternal grandma will maintain. 

Praying is regarded crucial in the delivery of a child, and the midwife starts praying as soon as she is notified about the birth. 

Before entering the home and touching the pregnant lady, she is also supposed to pray. 

She must also pray to each of the room's four corners, which are thought to be guarded by unseen guardians. 

When subsequent children die, one ritual must be completed because it is thought that the first-born child (sometimes born with a double whorl on the umbilical cord) pursues and consumes the newborn's soul. 

The midwife wraps a live chicken in a cloth and travels the room with the eldest kid praying to each of the four corners in an attempt to preserve the newborn's life. 

On the back of the oldest kid, the chicken is battered to death (behind closed doors and away from the newborn). 

She then cooks a chicken soup, which the oldest kid is obliged to consume in its whole, even if it takes many meals. 

The midwife must execute her last cleaning rites at the conclusion of the bed rest week, indicating the end of her duties. 

The infant is washed, and a fresh dress is put on the naval, as well as the hammock in which the baby will sleep. 

She requests that the infant be kept safe. 

In a semi-public hair washing ritual, the mother is also purified. 

Before she goes, the last ritual she must undertake is sweeping and cleaning the room. 

She then says a last prayer, thanking the spirits for a safe delivery.

The Birthing Figure at Dumbarton Oaks is spectacular, dramatic, and completely unique. 

The anguish and bliss of labor are perfectly captured in this Aztec-style sculpture of a lady giving birth. 

It has long wowed spectators, including artists, researchers, and notable collectors of Pre-Columbian art, thanks to its excellent carving in a hard, speckled stone called aplite. 

Its distinctive iconography and carving have provoked a heated discussion about its origins and validity.

The sculpture has been related to a portrayal of the goddess Tlazolteotl in the process of childbirth found in the Codex Borbonicus, which was first cited in an 1899 book by the French anthropologist E.T.  Hamy. 

This goddess, whose name means "eating of dirt," was linked to sexuality and the atonement of crimes. 

She wears a big cotton headpiece with crescent-shaped decorations on her nose and/or garments in the codices. 

Her mouth is filthy and stained.

The Birthing Figure sculpture is unique in that it lacks Tlazolteotl's typical characteristics. 

Unlike any other Aztec god sculpture, this one is nude and unadorned. 

Scholars have noted other unique aspects, such as the figure's crisp edges and immaculately straight hair, since the 1960s. 

Some have speculated that the sculpture was not done by Aztec carvers. 

A scanning electron microscope (SEM) study of the item in 2002 revealed that most of the carving was done using contemporary rotary tools. 

The Dumbarton Oaks Birthing Figure was carved – or maybe re-carved – in the nineteenth century.

The history of the sculpture is interesting. 

It travelled through various members of France's Academy of Sciences around the turn of the twentieth century, and was chronicled by anthropologist E.T. 

Hamy, who prepared a plaster cast for the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro. 

By the early 1930s, the figure had passed through the hands of Parisian art dealer Charles Ratton, who sold it to Joseph Brummer, a New York-based art dealer and collector. 

Until his death in 1947, Brummer kept the artwork in his personal collection. 

The Birthing Figure was purchased by Robert Woods Bliss, the creator of Dumbarton Oaks, at that time. 

He exhibited it in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and then at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C., beginning in 1963. 

Many books, exhibition catalogues, and other media have included The Birthing Figure. 

It's also sparked a slew of creative initiatives. 

Man Ray, a surrealist photographer, made a four-part photomontage (about 1932) to emphasize the piece's dynamic lines. 

The sculpture was used in a mural by Diego Rivera depicting the history of Mexican medicine (1953-54). 

Eduardo Paolozzi created a huge papier mâché replica, which he put in a traveling exhibition of his work (1988). 

The Golden Idol in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) is perhaps the most renowned reincarnation of the statue. 

A search on the internet uncovers a plethora of other creative works inspired by Aztec-style sculpture.

~Kiran Atma

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References And Further Reading:

• Evans, Susan Toby 2010 Ancient Mexican Art at Dumbarton Oaks. Pre-Columbian Art at Dumbarton Oaks, No. 3. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C.

• Grossman, Wendy A. 2008 Man Ray’s Lost and Found Photographs: Arts of the Americas in Context. Journal of Surrealism and the Americas 2 (1):114-139

• Hamy, E. T. 1899 Commentaire Explicatif. In Codex Borbonicus; Manuscrit Mexicain De La Bibliothèque Du Palais Bourbon (Livre Divinatoire Et Rituel Figuré), pp. 1-24. E. Leroux, Paris

• Hamy, E. T. 1906 Note Sur Une Statuette Mexicaine. Journal de la Société des Américanistes de Paris III (1):1-5.

• Walsh, Jane McLaren 2008 The Dumbarton Oaks Tlazolteotl: Getting beneath the Surface. Journal de la Société des Américanistes 94 (1):7-43.

Goddess Acpaxapo

Mesoamerican goddess of intuition, Acpaxapo. 

• Acpaxapo is a snake with a woman's face and hair, according to the Otomi people of Mexico. 

• She communicates with her devotees, giving messages, omens, and future prophecies.

Goddesses Of Water

 

After earth, the symbol most commonly associated with goddesses is water, both as the fresh water of rivers and streams, and as the oceans salty waves. 

The gendering of water as feminine is not invariable, however. 

Some mythologies describe the oceans as masculine. 

The Greeks had a sea god, Poseidon, while a similar figure among the Irish was Manannan mac Lir. 

In both cases, the ocean was defined as masculine, as dis tinguished from fresh water, which was feminine. 

Among the Greeks, who despite see ing the ocean as masculine pictured its waves as the innumerable feminine Oceanids, we find the freshwater Nymphs called the Nereids. 

The Irish knew many river god desses such as Sınann, Berba, and Boand, while outside Ireland we find dozens of Celtic water goddesses including Abnoba, Aveta, Coventina, Natosuelta, and Sabrina. 

This salt and fresh water distinction, however, is not universal. 

Some goddesses were described as ruling the oceans, including the Scandinavian Ran who ruled the northern sea, and Chermiss Bu¨t aba and Finnic Mere-Ama (see Finno-Ugric), whose domains were similarly in the arctic waters. 

Hebrew Miriam (see Eastern Mediterra nean) was connected with the ‘‘bitter waters or the salty seas, although a freshwater stream created by her brother Moses also bore her name. 

The connection between the oceans salt water and female fertility is emphasized in the Hindu myth of Prakrti (see India), whose amniotic fluid became the oceans after she gave birth to the gods. 

In many cultures, an ocean goddess controls the fish and mammals that live in her waters and on which humans depend for food. 

An important example of such a figure is Inuit Sedna (see Circumpolar) who, thrown into the water as a sacrifice, thereafter receives sacrifices herself as the ‘‘great food-dish. 

Finnish Vellamo (see Finno Ugric), too, is an ocean goddess who determines how many fish humans can take from her waters, taking advice from her many daughters, the waves of the sea. 

Similarly, the South American sea-mother Mama Cocha brings fish and sea-mammals close to peo ple so that they can be harvested for food. 

Fishermen often fall under the rulership of ocean goddesses, who like Ma-tsu (see China) protects them when they are faring on the waves. 

In some cases, the oceanic goddess is depicted as a primordial mother or creatrix, one from whose depths life was born, as with Babylonian Tiaˆmat (see Eastern Mediterranean). 

Finno-Ugric Luonotar, while not the ocean itself, is intimately con nected with it, having spent much of eternity floating on cosmic waters. 

The sky woman of the American Iroquois, Ataensic, floated on the oceans waters until earth was created (see North America). 

Wherever the waters of the Wintu goddess Mem Loimis fell, the earth grew fertile, while areas not endowed with her watery gift were left as desert (see North America). 

Ocean goddesses could be charming and delightful. 

Lithuanian Amberella tossed pieces of amber to the shore, to reward those who honored her, and Greek Aphrodite was ravishingly beautiful even when fickle. 

But they could also be dangerous. 

Mer maids and sirens, which appear in many mythologies as ocean-dwelling women of great beauty, are threatening water divinities who lure sailors to their death. 

Such fig ures guarded the boundaries between water and land, like Siberian Sug Eezi (see Circumpolar) who like other mermaids had long hair that mimicked the rippling streams that she inhabited. 

Celtic Korrigans danced each night, drawing victims to themselves and drowning them. 

Greek Aphrodite was born of the oceans waves and, although beautiful, could also be pitiless, for love is never without possible threat of loss. 

In China, the primary goddess Xiwang Mu controlled the worlds waters and was invoked when floods threatened, showing that the activities of such cosmic god desses could be damaging to humanity were she not ritually appeased. 

Thus ocean goddesses represent both creative possibility and danger. 

Goddesses associated with fresh water are powers of fertility. 

Such watershed god desses can be seen as divinities of the land as well as the rivers that drain it. 

In India, many rivers are imagined as goddesses of earthly abundance, none more so than the Ganges, whose powerful river drains much of the subcontinent and is seen as the actual body of the goddess Gan ga. 

In Egypt, where the annual inundation of the land by the river Nile was typically associated with the god Osiris, we find the water goddess Anu ket representing the connection between water and the lands increased fertility. 

In Africa, major rivers were goddesses (Yemaja, Oshun, O ya) who were sometimes in conflict with each other over their shared consort. 

Such river goddesses were typically maternal forces, providing their human children with sustenance. 

A similar goddess in Russia, Mokosh (see Slavic), was a motherly figure whose presence was most actively felt in budding springtime. 

Smaller water sources such as springs and creeks could be seen as threatening rather than helpful. 

In Slavic lands, supernatural women, once human, haunted quick-flowing streams. 

Deprived by early death of a chance to have children, the Rusalki drowned sweet babies or fertile young people. 

The Scandinavian Nixies were similarly danger ous. 

In tribal India, the Nippong especially targeted young pregnant women, whom they caused to miscarry. 

Such spirits were often most active in spring and may re present the possibility of flash floods. 

Tribal Indian Bai Tanki, another destructive river goddess, spreads disease through her water—a mythic narrative with a firm basis in science, for polluted water can indeed spread disease. 

Fountains and bedrock springs were often seen as locations of inspiration because of the goddesses who inhabited them. 

The Greek Musae are still known as an image of the force that causes artists to create. 

In India, the river goddess Sarasvatı was the source of inspiration as well as a cosmic creatrix. 

Such inspiration could be legal and organizational as well as artistic. 

Among the Roman water nymphs called the Camenae was Egeria, who oracularly dictated the first laws of Rome and whose name is still used to describe a wise woman advisor. 

Freshwater goddesses, endowed with the gift of seeing the future, could help those who wished to practice the oracular arts. 

Babylonian Nanshe (see Eastern Mediterra nean) was a fortune-tellers goddess celebrated at waterborne festivals. 

Prophecy was not always seen as a gift; the Greek water Nymph Telphusa killed anyone who drank her prophetic waters. 

Yet most often, prophecy was a positive act, connected with heal ing because the ill and infirm turn to oracles in hopes of receiving predictions of pos itive change. 

So common was the connection between springs and healing among the Celts that the names of many of their goddesses have been lost, for they were renamed ‘‘Minerva Medici after the Roman goddess of healing, during Imperial occupation. 

Healing was a common part of the domain of the freshwater goddess, a tradition that continues today with the prayerful use of water from the well at Lourdes, France, dedicated to the virgin Mary (see Eastern Mediterranean). 

In Africa, we find the lake goddess Idemili and the water spirit Mammywata, both of whom offered healing to their worshipers. 

The Hindu goddess Narmada (see India) was especially powerful against snakebite, while the healing offered by Gan ga extended beyond this life, for those who died in her waters were freed from the cycle of rebirth. 

Some important goddesses controlled all water, whether found in rivers or in oceans. 

Anahita, one of the most important Persian divinities (see Eastern Mediterra nean), ruled everything fluid in the universe, even those of the human body. 

Similarly, among the Lithuanians (see Baltic), the water mother Jurat˙e controlled all the earths waters. 

Aztec Chalchihuitlicue (see Mesoamerican) could be found in lakes, rivers, and the ocean. 

Finally, some goddesses could be described as divinities of what science calls the water cycle, for they ruled the rain that falls on the land, the bodies of water (above ground and underground) that gather the rain and return it to the ocean, and the ocean where clouds are born to return water to the land. 

Such goddesses connect air and water like the African sky woman Andriana who descended to earth to become a water goddess. 

Rainbows, those bridges between sky and earth formed by water vapor, often symbolize such goddesses. 

In Australia, the primal serpent Julunggul ruled ocean, rivers (especially waterfalls), and rain; she was embodied in the rainbow. 

A similar rainbow-water-snake spirit found in Haiti was Aida Wedo (see African Diaspora). 

~ Kiran Atma

You can learn more about Goddess Symbolism here.