{"id":17672,"date":"2014-04-24T00:01:19","date_gmt":"2014-04-24T07:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=17672"},"modified":"2014-04-24T00:01:19","modified_gmt":"2014-04-24T07:01:19","slug":"a-thousand-goddesses-some-nice-some-not-so-nice-take-your-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/a-thousand-goddesses-some-nice-some-not-so-nice-take-your-pick\/","title":{"rendered":"A Thousand Goddesses&#8211;Some Nice, Some Not So Nice\u2013Take Your Pick"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_17676\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17676\" style=\"width: 470px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2014\/04\/24\/a-thousand-goddesses-some-nice-some-not-so-nice-take-your-pick\/\" rel=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2014\/04\/24\/a-thousand-goddesses-some-nice-some-not-so-nice-take-your-pick\/\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-17676 \" title=\"cover-encyclopedia-of-goddesses\" src=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/goddess-encylopedia-cover0001-470x580.jpg\" alt=\"The cover of Patricia Monaghan's book, Encyclopedia of Goddesses &amp; Heroines shows Perdita by painter Frederick Sandys. \" width=\"470\" height=\"580\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-17676\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8220;Perdita&#8221; by painter Frederick Sandys adorns the cover of Patricia Monaghan&#8217;s\u00a0 <em>Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines<\/em>. Perdita is a heroine of\u00a0 &#8220;A Winter&#8217;s Tale.&#8221; By Monaghan&#8217;s lights, she is just one of a thousand goddesses.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em>By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I wish I had known Patricia Monaghan. She died a year and a half ago after a rich life as a poet, author, Goddess scholar, and a pioneer and mentor in the contemporary women\u2019s spirituality movement. She was an academic, yes, but also a hands-on kind of woman. According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/agora\/2012\/11\/mourning-patricia-monaghan-1946-2012\/\">her husband<\/a>, she was as concerned about the temperature of her root cellar as <!--more-->she was with the depth of her research.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_17689\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17689\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2014\/04\/24\/a-thousand-goddesses-some-nice-some-not-so-nice-take-your-pick\/\" rel=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2014\/04\/24\/a-thousand-goddesses-some-nice-some-not-so-nice-take-your-pick\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-17689 \" title=\"patricia-monaghan\" src=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/monaghan-patricia.jpg\" alt=\"Portrait of goddess scholar and author Patrician Monaghan of Wisconsin.\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-17689\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Patricia Monaghan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>That research is stunningly thorough. I have in my hands the posthumously released revised edition of her <em>Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines<\/em>. The first, very popular, edition was published in 1979. This beautiful, fat \u2013 in a good way \u2013 expanded version tells the stories of more than 1,000 ancient goddesses and heroines from such far-flung corners of the earth as Mongolia, Benin, Tierra del Fuego and Wisconsin.<\/p>\n<p>The 432-page book is so lovely and inviting in cover, paper, and text design that I began thumbing through it as soon as it arrived in my mailbox. I started out looking for stories that might have been told by my long-ago Scottish or Native American ancestors, but I was promptly waylaid by tales of goddesses who are worshipped all over the place. To wit:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Inuit creatrix <strong>Aakuluujjusi<\/strong>, observing that the caribou she had created were too fast for human hunters, arranged to turn their belly hairs around so that they caught on the wind and slowed the animals down.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The giant goddess <strong>Cailleach<\/strong> survived on the milk of deer and made it her project to protect the wildlife of Scotland. Hunters caught preying upon pregnant animals were strangled to death with their own hair.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Uzza<\/strong> was the goddess of the evening star worshipped in Mecca before the advent of Islam.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The tiny fairy <strong>Bebo<\/strong> of Ireland was the king\u2019s mistress for a year \u2013 despite the fact her body was smaller than his phallus.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The Ho-Chunk people of the upper Midwest tell the story of young <strong>C-ga<\/strong> whose shiny white hair attracted numerous suitors. C-ga grew so vain with all the attention that she chose to sit by a pond rubbing her skin with flowers. When she rejected the attentions of the trickster Turtle, he turned her into the first skunk.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_17696\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-17696\" style=\"width: 279px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2014\/04\/24\/a-thousand-goddesses-some-nice-some-not-so-nice-take-your-pick\/\" rel=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2014\/04\/24\/a-thousand-goddesses-some-nice-some-not-so-nice-take-your-pick\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-17696 \" title=\"virgin-guadalupe-figure\" src=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_2561-3-324x580-279x500.jpg\" alt=\"Colorful, hand-painted terra cotta statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe, from Mexico. Photo by BF Newhall\" width=\"279\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-17696\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A thousand goddesses &#8212; among them Mexico&#8217;s Virgin of Guadalupe. Mary, Jesus&#8217; mother, has never been considered divine by Christians, writes Monaghan, but she served a goddess-like role until the Reformation. <em>Photo by BF Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Sacred fires, holy wells, magic cauldrons, shape-shifters, a blue-faced woman with one eye, a goddess screaming for human meat, the wail of a banshee, human scabs that can bring wealth to a friend \u2013 Patricia Monaghan must have had a blast putting together this book of a thousand goddesses.<\/p>\n<p>A Pushcart Prize winner, <a href=\"http:\/\/feminismandreligion.com\/2012\/11\/28\/in-memoriam-patricia-monaghan-the-goddess-community-remembers-and-mourns-by-dawn-work-makinne\/\">Monaghan<\/a> was also the author of <em>Goddess Paths<\/em> and <em>The Red-Haired Girl from the Bog<\/em>. She was associate professor of interdisciplinary studies at the School for New Learning at DePaul University and a senior fellow at the<a href=\"http:\/\/blackearthinstitute.org\/black-earth-institute\/\"> Black Earth Institute<\/a> in Wisconsin.<\/p>\n<p>She was born in 1946 and died of cancer in 2012. She grew beans in her Wisconsin garden, restored a native prairie, and grew grapes for wine. One could wish for a longer life for Monaghan, but probably not a fuller one.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines<\/em>,&#8221; by Patrician Monaghan, New World Library, 2014, $29.95, paper.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>You can read about one of my own heroines, my Aunt Grace at <a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2013\/06\/27\/an-episcopalian-says-kaddish-for-her-jewish-aunt\/\">&#8220;An Episcopalian Says Kaddish for Her Jewish Aunt.&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0 More thoughts on religion and spirituality at <a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2011\/10\/03\/book-openers-forgiveness-is-tough-atonement-even-tougher\/\">&#8220;Forgiveness is Tough, Atonement Even Tougher.&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0 Also, <a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2009\/09\/11\/book-openers-john-shelby-spong-facing-death-and-a-dead-theism\/\">&#8220;Christianity &#8212; Some of It &#8212; Is Bunk.&#8221;<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2014\/04\/24\/a-thousand-goddesses-some-nice-some-not-so-nice-take-your-pick\/\" rel=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2014\/04\/24\/a-thousand-goddesses-some-nice-some-not-so-nice-take-your-pick\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-17696  aligncenter\" title=\"virgin-guadalupe-figure\" src=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_2561-3-324x580-279x500.jpg\" alt=\"Colorful, hand-painted terra cotta statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe, from Mexico. Photo by BF Newhall\" width=\"279\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I wish I had known Patricia Monaghan. She died a year and a half ago after a rich life as a poet, author, Goddess scholar, and pioneer and mentor in the contemporary women\u2019s spirituality movement. She was an academic, yes, but also a hands-on kind of woman, as concerned with the temperature of her root cellar as the depth of her research. And that research is deep . . . Read more.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1088,34,1195,1196,82,1197,91,1198,1199],"class_list":["post-17672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","tag-book-openers-2","tag-dont-miss","tag-goddesses","tag-native-americans","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-patricia-monaghan","tag-religion-and-spirituality","tag-wisconsin","tag-womens-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}