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Sunday, October 7, 2012

The War on Women


Actually, this association is nothing new.  Societies have noticed the resemblance of a bulls skull and the female reproductive system for a very long time.  If you look at Egyptian hieroglyphics you'll find a bulls horns on the head of the earth goddess Isis (between the horns you'll find the moon, which is another earth goddess symbol), or Zeus assuming the form of a bull to mate with mortal women, "creating" earth goddesses (ie: the male god essentially takes the role of fertility from women), the minotaur, the sacred cow in india, etc.  It's a very old association that was identified with the earth goddesses' fertility role.

The war on women is nothing new.  The devil, for instance, is another symbol that attempts to paint women in a poor light.  It's red for one, which is a well known color in the animal kingdom to indicate sexuality (just think of monkeys in estrus).  It's got horns which I just mentioned is a symbol of the earth goddess.  It's got a serpents tail, which obviously links the devil to a snake (another symbol tied to the earth goddess and subsequently "sin").  He also carries a trident which is another symbol of the earth goddess, many of which arose from the "primordial waters."  Blame it on "civilized" society, where humanity is disconnected from directly witnessing the fertility of the earth and thus male solar gods have dethroned the earth goddess (you can see this in many creation stories where a male solar god desecrates a former female earth goddess's body to create the earth).

The Buddha was asked by Mara (the demon personification of ignorance) after three relentless days of unsuccessful attempts to dissuade him from his seat at the bodhi tree (a symbol of the earth goddess, btw) how he knew he had found enlightenment.  The buddha said nothing, but simply placed his hand on the earth and Mara instantly knew.