RES: [UA] Quarduple Goddess?

[DL]

On, any of you have give a look at Tribe 8 fatimas? It could help to flesh
out some of this thoughts.

[]s,

   Haroudo Xavier



-----Mensagem original-----
De: ua-admin at lists.uchicago.edu [mailto:ua-admin at lists.uchicago.edu]Em
nome de Kali Magdalene
Enviada em: terça-feira, 23 de abril de 2002 16:25
Para: ua at lists.uchicago.edu
Assunto: Re: [UA] Quarduple Goddess?




Greg Stolze wrote:
>
> I was thinking about the old triple goddess thing yesterday -- Maiden,
> Mother, Crone -- and considering it in light of the other great western
> culture female diad -- Madonna and Whore.

An interesting contrast.

> Clearly there's overlap.  The Madonna figure has elements of the Mother,
> but she's often a strangely unsexual mother.  (The Blessed Virgin Mary is
> the more obvious example.)
>
> The Whore archetype is the outsider, the rejected other, the Mother's
> shadow -- the woman who welcomes as a positive good the sexuality that is,
> for the Mother, a duty or a necessity.  In a lot of the more priggish
> paradigms, the Mother is ideally a woman who went from Virgin to Mother by
> having sex ONCE.

I find Mary Magdalene a fascinating figure (ha, look at my name) in the
NT writings. She's clearly a whore, but she's also clearly welcome in
Christ's eyes. I doubt he would reject her, but she did more. Of course,
being the "whore" she's probably used to doing all kinds of things for
guys, but that's beside the point. She's more of a transitional than an
actual whore as per a potential archetype, I think.

> So what you MIGHT toy with here is the idea of Whore as liminal role.  To
> get to the next stage -- from Virgin to Mother -- you have to brave the
> perils of sexuality (which were, remember, substantially more perilous in
> mythic times).  You have to go into the darkness.

Go into the darkness and embrace it fully.

> That idea seems pretty solid to me, actually.  Now, the question is -- can
> a similar construction be used where the Whore is the 'switching station'
> between Mother and Crone?  It takes a little more work, but I'm thinking
> that the first transformation is sort of the Whore's positive side: At the
> very worst, an ugly necessity and, hey, the Virgin MIGHT enjoy it.  Going
> from Mother to Crone may involve a trip through the Whore's worse side --
> regret, bitterness, ostracization.

An interesting contrast here. From personal experience, this can often
be a positive and negative thing mixed. I mean, you probably have a
divorced mother, perhaps in her 40s, who feels keenly rejected by her
ex-husband, blames herself on some level, and is looking for someone new
even while flinching from the possibility of a second heartbreak (I'm
basing this on a woman I know).

> So, instead of a Triple Goddess, you get a Quadruple Goddess -- the three
> visible and accepted roles, and the unacknowledged fourth.

I wonder how this could resonate in mystical terms in UA.

> In UA terms... er, well, uh, I haven't got that completely worked out.  I
> certainly think that each of the four roles (Virgin, Crone, Mother,
Harlot)
> is prevalent enough to be an archetype.

Well, I think the Naked Goddess is of course, none of them. I think all
four are *much* older roles, naturally, and might view TNG as something
as a Janey-come-lately.

When I think of the Maiden, I think of Diana in the classical sense. Not
the huntress part, but the maiden/virgin part. She's not exactly
available, or really even sexual. She punished Actaeon for seeing her
(by transforming him into a *noble* beast - a stag, interestingly
enough). She is independent and stuff, but I'm not trying to step on
Flying Woman's toes with these thoughts, so.

I don't have as clear a concept of the Mother. You have someone here who
will do *anything* to protect and care for her children, which makes
this, as an archetype, a bit scary. Threaten those she cares for and
you'll find yourself in serious trouble. She fights for keeps, not
sport.

The Crone is wisdom mixed with the fear of death and the loss of what
society sees as desireable in a woman (that is, youth and beauty of a
certain standard). I think the Crone would be the most terrifying of the
archetypes in this instance. Just think of the various crone-goddesses -
Hekate and Kali come to mind (imagine that) - but there are quite a few
and they're often associated with evil tidings or death or in general
frightening things.

The whore, now. In myth, you have Aphrodite and she's hardly unique. No
hangups about sexuality, no willingness to allow another to control that
sexuality. I personally know a woman I'd consider to be on the path of
this archetype, and would probably describe her lifestyle as the way the
whore might live. She has wild parties all the time, with a room set
aside for orgies, buys new sex toys for the guests to try out, in
usually in two or three relationships at a time, and so on. She writes
for the sex industry (columns, short stories, essays, etc).

These are just some initial thoughts based on Greg's post. With more
discussion, I'm sure more will bubble out.

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