O Mother Sun!: A New View of the Cosmic Feminine

by Patricia Monaghan

Genres: Mythology, Spirituality, Religion, Nonfiction, Goddess

265 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1994

About the author

Patricia Monaghan was a poet, a writer, a spiritual activist, and an influential figure in the contemporary women's spirituality movement.

Reviews

[Nick Imrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Light and Dark. Sun and Moon. Male and Female. That's just the way it is right? Surely it's part of the Jungian collective unconscious that we all think of the sun as male and the moon as female? Patricia Monaghan argues otherwise, collecting evidence from different cultures all around the world where the sun is not a god but a goddess.

For an academic, she writes surprisingly well (sorry all my academic friends, you know it's true!). So if you enjoy cozing up with a big book of myths and fairy tales then break out the hot chocolate because this is the book for you. There's straightforward retellings of the Japanese myths of Amaterasu, which are very well documented. And the Lativian and Lithuanian Saule, preserved in thousands of folk songs. From Australia to America, sun goddesses are known. Alas, some better remembered than others. The poor old Scandinavian goddess Sunna, survives only in hints in the Eddas, which are largely focused on the doings of gods and heroes.
But if you like mysteries, then this is a good book for you too, as Monaghan investigates some interesting theories. St Brigid's origin as a sun goddess is shown through her many sun-goddessy attributes (and let's face it, is there any Irish saint who didn't begin as Celtic god?) There's even, rather boldly I thought, an argument that even the most well-documented of sun gods and moon goddesses may have switched their roles some time in the past. Apollo was, apparently, very poorly documented as a sun god before Aeschylus, but retains some lunar associations like mice. Did even the uber-patriarchal Greeks once view the moon as male and the sun as female?

One thing I wasn't expecting was to be inspired to go travelling! Usually I can enjoy stories from around the world in the comfort of my own armchair, without the slightest desire to leave it. However, Monaghan's description of the sacred sites of the goddess were fascinating. I especially want to see the tumulus at Newgrange, where the light floods into the mound on the winter solstice. Monaghan describes the experience:

At 8:55, a dim strip of light suddenly appears on the sandy floor of the cave. The watchers gasp, for the light seems to arrive in a rush, not to creep into the cavern. For a few moments the inch-wide strip rests there. Eyes begin to adjust to the new brightness. Then, the light begins to change color and to widen. Within moments a wide strip of butter-yellow light blasts across the cave, reflecting upwards sufficiently to illuminate the rough corbeled arch twenty feet above. The light glows like fire.
The sunlight pours in, warming the cave's occupants with its color. One by one they kneel in the sand and put their hands into the light. Everyone is surprised, for far from being as warm as its tawny color suggests, the light is cool. Everyone peers down the corridor into the light. Almost everyone weeps. There is little talk; the feeling of a sacred presence is so strong that words evaporate.
Slowly, slowly, the light begins to retreat. Curiously, it does not fade, it backs away. The strip of light grows thinner. Then all of a sudden there's no light inside the cave. Instead there's a puddle of light in the doorway. Then the puddle of light moves up the corridor. It's like watching footsteps [...] witnesses report an odd sensation of knowing, for the first time, that there is light behind them as well as in front of their eyes. There is a feeling that light and air are separate - the sense that light is rarer, more precious. And there is the added sense that the sunlight is a living conscious entity, a feeling that begins in the darkness of the cave but does not end for hours, sometimes days, afterwards.'

Monaghan dismisses the traditional notion that this represents a sun god penetrating an earth goddess and bringing forth life. It is the goddess like Amaterasu - who goes into the Sky-Rock Cave in an ugly fury but, forced to admire the beauty of light, emerges radiant - the goddess of Newgrange is transformed. It is the same story: the sun is drawn into her cave and emerges, escapes, with all the beauty of sunlight itself.
Wouldn't you want to see a goddess?

If not, how about a monster? A monster serpent crowned with crystals; the eternal enemy of the sun. The Great Serpent Mound in Ohio can be seen from the viewing platform above, helpfully constructed by the National Park Service. Or, you can daringly break the Park rules, and climb the mound itself and experience the horror of the monster:

You start by mounting the tiny coiled tail; from there you can't see the head, because the sculpture is so subtly curved into the hillside. What seems, from beneath the mound, to be a short walk is astonishingly long, and oddly precipitous, from this new perspective. Worse, the twisting of the snake's body is sharp enough to induce vertigo; the snake seems to writhe under your feet.
Then you approach the head.
At this point the hill seems to sweep downwards, and vertigo increases. You must climb over one mound, then up another to enter the round space [...] The entire walk may have taken seven minutes or so, but what walkers report talks place in a time-less plane. Almost invariably, they report a sensation of fear or fright. [...] Walking the serpent's back was almost inexpressibly terrifying they say, like an encounter with chaos.

Admit it, that sounds like a great adventure!

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]