Goddess of the Week

Arianrhod comes up for the second time, the last time being exactly three months ago, on December 29th.

It's a little hard these days to pin down what the Goddess Arianrhod is about, as She's mainly known from the Mabinogion, the Welsh collection of tales written down in the medieval period; though the tales certainly contain earlier legends, they are told within a Christian framework, and so the Divinity of the characters has been ignored and downplayed.

Her name means 'Silver Wheel' or 'Silver Disk'; this has usually been taken to mean She is a Moon Goddess. To me the idea of the Moon rolling across the sky has never made sense, since it obviously doesn't revolve in that manner, so instead I tend to interpret Her as a Goddess of the stars, which do appear to turn in the sky. Additionally in Welsh tradition the constellation of the Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, is called Caer Arianrhod, the Castle of Arianrhod, so She does have some connection with the stars.

The tale in the Mabinogion is that Arianrhod is the mother of Dylan and Lleu; Dylan, the Sea-God, jumps into the Sea shortly after birth, but Lleu, or what would become Lleu, is a sort of shapeless blob that Her brother Gwydion takes and squirrels away to raise. Now, the circumstances of the birth are a bit unusual--Arianrhod is being considered for a position (that of Math's 'foot-holder', whatever that means) that requires virginity; but when magically tested She abruptly gives birth. And ever after, according to the tale, Arianrhod in Her shame and anger adamantly refuses to acknowledge Lleu, Who of course grows up to be a handsome lad. To this end She proclaims He will not have a name or arms unless She give them; these constraints or curses are of course cleverly overcome, as usual in fairy tales. The third curse or constraint requires a bit more of a workaround, but is also overcome: that Lleu will not have a wife from any race of the earth. This Gwydion and Math circumvent by creating a woman out of flowers, the owl Goddess Blodeuwedd, Who later betrays Lleu, setting Him up to be grievously wounded; He is eventually healed whole by the magicians.

It is all fairly convoluted, and the version that has come down to us very much feels like it has some pieces missing. For one, there is evidence that in earlier versions Gwydion, Arianrhod's brother, is the father of Her children. Which sounds horrible by regular human standards; but of course in myth it is a different thing, and may mean no more than that the two were considered equals, like Geb and Nut of Egyptian myth. But it is hard to tell from here. At any rate, I could never understand the why of Arianrhod's obsessive denial of Her son Lleu, and it always felt to me that there was a key circumstance left out. When I thought of Her as the victim of rape and violence by Gwydion, though, things fell right into place (see my version of Her tale here). But, you know, that's just one idea.

Still, intuition is what we have. And I'd argue that intuition is especially appropriate and accurate when used to understand myth, which, though there are of course cultural factors that come into it, does basically come down to a sort of shared dreaming.

So I think that this week may involve sticking to your guns about something, even if you do not wish to disclose your reasoning at this time, and even if you know it will make no sense to the people around you. You do not have to justify anything, and the others are not after all owed an explanation. If you wonder if you have the right, think of it as a boundary that you set with good reason, the workings of which are really no one's business. You need neither apologize nor explain. You have the right to do what is necessary in this situation, and keep the private private. Or it may be that you are being advised that the best course of action is to bide your time this week.

Also intuition may play a part in putting the pieces of a story together. This week may well see you figuring out a missing part of an old (or new) story such that it finally makes sense. Perhaps new information comes up; or, maybe, you figure it out on your own. What incomplete stories have you been holding within you?

And finally, Arianrhod as a Goddess of the revolving northern sky reminds us that the center is a place of quiet and restoration. Finding that center within yourself, perhaps through meditation or other grounding practices, will help you make sense of things this week more readily.

So, then, what does She say?

Her dark hair is everywhere. It is the black space between the stars.

I am Darkness who gives birth to the Bright One.

I am all darkness, and yet all the little pinpricks that shine through nevertheless; and any astronomer will tell you that darkness isn't really dark. The further you go, the more stars you find; there are layers upon layers of light. Though they are too faint for your eyes, still they are there if you know how to look. Seek them out. Seek out the light that makes up the dark. Bless the blades of grass as they push themselves out of the dark earth this spring, as innumerable as the stars. You are surrounded by light, by blessings, if you will look. This is a good time, right now, very positive. The stars are aligning, as they say. Take notice.

And remember it all works out.

What do you think? What does your intuition say? Those of you who are familiar with Arianrhod's story, have you ever wondered why She was so determined to deny Lleu?

References: The Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology, by James McKillop.

Goddess of the Week

This week's Goddess is Danu, thought to be the Mother Goddess of the Continental Celts. Her name is not quite attested, nor does She have any mythology under that name; however there is plenty of indirect evidence that a Goddess by that name existed in the Celtic mythos.

The Danube River, that great river of central and eastern Europe, located in the area from which the Celtic peoples are thought to have emerged, is probably named for Her. Though it is likely Her origins are even older--there is a Vedic Goddess also called Danu, Who was the mother of the Davanas, Asuras (roughly 'demons') Who rebelled but were defeated by the Devas (approximately 'gods' or 'angels'). Upon defeat, the Davanas were cast into the oceans. The word danu in Sanskrit means 'rain,' 'liquid', or 'waters of heaven,' and is related to the names for several other famous rivers, such as the Don and Dneiper rivers of Russia, and the Dniester of eastern Europe. So She would appear to have origins in a river Goddess.

She probably found Her way into Irish myth under the name Ana, which is occasionally spelled with a D affixed to the front; as such She is the mother of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the name used for the family of the old Pagan deities of Ireland. The name means 'the people or tribe of the Goddess Ana or Danu', and Their numbers include Deities like the Dagda, Brigid, Macha, Manannán, the Morrigan, Ogma, and Flidais. Her Welsh equivalent is Dôn, also a Mother of Deities, including Arianrhod. Ireland is sometimes called for Her 'the land of Ana,' and She can grant or withhold the prosperity of the land.

Though the Tuatha Dé started out as Deities, according to legend They were later driven underground, literally, to live in the sídhe, the hollow hills; They were then called the aes síde, or 'the people of the mounds.' In time They became the fairy folk, who in modern Irish are still called the sídh, after the fairy mounds. Here I have drawn Danu in that role, as Mother of the Fairies.

The strands making up Danu are nearly lost, though we have some good guesses; and I was wondering how I was going to interpret this card in light of that. But in doing the research, I came across this line in the entry under 'Ana,' in The Dictionary of Celtic Mythology by James MacKillop (an excellent and thorough book): "Despite these pagan associations, her name is borne by the virgin St. Ana whose feast day is 18th January." Now then. That's a funny coincidence.

So then, what have we got? A Deity Who was considered central and primary to a people, Who was once the mother or leader of the Gods, though She has been much forgotten and reduced; and the startling 'coincidence' of this day, this moment right now.

Something has been brought sharply into focus. Something that touches on ancient, profound ideas. There is a connection with this moment right now and the patterns of the past. What do you see? What can you make out? It's as if two lenses have momentarily overlapped and are allowing us to see, in great detail, something we had thought lost.

Then of course there is the fairy aspect of it. It was only the week before last, in fact, that I drew the Faerie card. Though we've had the Magdalene in-between, I think this is probably in some ways a continuation of the theme of wildness and paying attention to magic; I said at the time that "[s]ome strand has looped close to the surface this week;" I think this week it has actually broken through.

I don't even really know what that means, but it feels like a rare opportunity of some sort. I would say, look around at the world of the hidden, the wild places around and within us, with clear sight (of as many kinds as you can manage), and above all pay attention.

I wonder if She can clarify.

Danu says:

Wheel, spin, watch the change. The sap is rising. Things are being born. Things are slipping through. Be ware. Be wary. Be aware. It cannot be stopped.

It must run its course. Yes, like a river--you are so clever!--a great river, that which is central to a people. No, I know nothing about that. Why would I?

Oh, yes, the veil, as you call it, it is so thin right now. I know! Now? In the middle of winter, when We should all be sleeping? But yes.

The forgotten will find you. But be aware. It cannot be stopped.

Well, I'm not sure that exactly sheds much light on anything. What do you think?

Goddess of the Week

This is the first time Arianrhod has come up. She is a Welsh Goddess Whose name means 'Silver Wheel' or 'Silver Disk'; She is usually interpreted as a Moon Goddess, but I tend to see Her more as a Star Goddess, since the Moon does not turn like a wheel, but the Stars do appear to. It is hard to tell, though, since what we know of Arianrhod is through the medieval Welsh collection of tales called the Mabinogion; for by the time it was written down the old stories of the Deities had been Christianized into fairy tales. Sure, there is plenty of magic and the supernatural in the Mabinogion, but the original Divinity of some of the characters does look to have been downgraded and hidden away.

In the Mabinogion Arianrhod is a candidate to be the foot-holder of Math, a position that one has to be a virgin to hold. When She is magically tested for said virginity by Her brother, the magician Gwydion, She immediately gives birth to twins, putting the lie to Her claim. One of them, Dylan, dives straight into the Sea; the other, Lleu, is a formless thing that Gwydion claims.

Arianrhod wants nothing to do with Lleu; so Gwydion brings Him up, periodically tricking Arianrhod into giving Her son what He can only be given by His mother; each time She is tricked, She heaps scorn upon the both of Them, accusing Gwydion of perpetuating Her shame at not being a virgin by throwing Her son in Her face.

But each time Her refusals are overcome through the magic and trickery of Gwydion, and Lleu gains a name, is armed, and even obtains a wife, the maiden Blodeuwedd, Whom Gwydion and Math create out of flowers. That, however, ends rather badly (see any of the previous posts on Blodeuwedd linked in the tag below).

That, at any rate, is the story in the Mabinogion.

Now, let's first get the family relationships straight. Arianrhod is the daughter of Dôn, Who is the Welsh Mother Goddess, the equivalent to the Irish Danu, the mother of the Sidhe or faery-people. She has (at least) four brothers: Gwydion, Gofannon, Amaethon, and Gilfaethwy. Their names represent some very fundamental skills, the sort of basic building blocks of civilization: Gwydion's name means 'Knowledge,' Amaethon's 'the Divine Ploughman,' and Gofannon's 'Smith.' (I was unable to track down the meaning of Gilfaethwy's name.) Math fab Mathonwy (Math son of Mathonwy) is Dôn's brother, Their uncle, Who, like Gwydion, is also a great magician.

Remember, the tale in the Mabinogion has been straightened up for a Christian audience, the probably Divinity of the players downgraded or glossed over. There are pieces missing. And so there is no outright mention of Who the father of Arianrhod's sons might be. And while it's tempting to go the route of 'well it must be an older virgin mother scenario that was hidden in a vast Christian anti-woman and anti-Goddess conspiracy' (and while I usually do tend to that), this time I don't think so.

The internal evidence, such as it is, points to Arianrhod's brother Gwydion being the father. Lleu is in fact called His 'son' in the tale, though perhaps this refers to His position as adopted son. (And, no, I am not just making this up; I am getting this from MacKillop's Dictionary of Celtic Mythology.) Now, in myth, incest is not the same as it is in reality, where it is a taboo, shameful, horrific thing; in myth, it can simply be a shorthand way of saying the pair are considered equals, in the way that Isis and Osiris, Freyja and Frey, and Hera and Zeus were sister and brother.

But by the time of the Mabinogion that's all been buried; and there is only the barest hint of incest. What we are left with, as explanation for Arianrhod's extreme anger towards Lleu, Her own son, is Her shame at being exposed as not a virgin.

It is hard to say. Nowadays that is not considered the end of the world, or even all that important, really; though, it's true, virginity (in women, of course) certainly was very much prized in some ancient societies. But something never quite rang true for me. That alone never felt like a good enough reason for Arianrhod's utter rejection and hatred of Her son.

But when I looked at Arianrhod as the victim of rape it all fell into place. (My version of Her tale is here.) Her hatred towards Lleu, Her own innocent child, then takes the place of Her anger at Her brother Gwydion, the powerful magician Whom She can not touch.

A modern feminist reading? Maybe. Though rape is certainly not a modern phenomenon, and I don't imagine that women, being human, have had vastly different experiences of it through the ages.

There is this, though:

In a related tale in the Mabinogion, Math's virginal foot-holder is one Goewin. Gilfaethwy, however, conceives a lust for Her, and with the help of brother Gwydion hatches a scheme and rapes Her while Math is away; when Goewin tells Math what Gilfaethwy did to Her, Math offers to marry Her, elevating Her to a position of honor as queen; He also punishes Gwydion and Gilfaethwy by transforming Them into a pair of beasts for three years. Each year one takes His turn being the female and bearing young; at the end of the three years They are considered punished enough. (I don't know if Goewin, however, thought it sufficient.)

This is the situation that necessitates Math finding a new virginal foot-holder, and which leads to Gwydion's suggestion that Arianrhod apply. On one level that doesn't even make sense: if Gwydion is the father of Arianrhod's twins, then for sure He must know She is not a virgin. Is He trying to punish or shame Her further? Or is it simply a detail that has not been thought through, some piece gone missing by the time it was written down in fairy-tale form?

I have always found the psychological analysis of fairy tales fascinating; the sort of thing Bruno Bettleheim did in The Uses of Enchantment. That way of figuring dips back into very primal, archetypal ideas. Wicked step-mothers are a way of splitting off bad behavior unacceptable in an actual mother; and mothers can be further split off into more than one character. (For example, in Hansel and Gretel, the wicked step-mother who hatches the plan to abandon the children and the cannibalistic witch in the bread house are the same figure at some level.)

I've really got no evidence for this, I suppose, beyond a hunch, but I suspect that Arianrhod and Goewin are in some ways different aspects of the same character. They are both foot-holders to Math (which is in itself a puzzling title or occupation; all it says is that Math had to have His feet in the lap of a beautiful and virginal young woman. I don't know what else it is implying); They are both entangled with Gwydion, Who obviously has no scruples when it comes to facilitating rape. I mean it's all been sort of made logical and fit into an actual, non-mythological timeline; but there is something moving around under the surface of the stories. I don't know; but I find it fascinating and disturbing.

So what does my long, rambling digression mean for the meaning of this card? I don't know. Let's just go back to the card itself, for a moment.

At very first glance, Arianrhod as a Star Goddess with Her back to the North Star would seem to fit quite well with the time of year up here in the northern hemisphere, with the winter solstice just past; the idea of north, the direction defined by the Earth's axis, and the still point in the whirling about of time, that moment when the sun is said to stand still before turning back the way it came. And that fits with the whirlwind cards that have been coming up lately, Oya and Kelaeno the Harpy. Though this time, the focus is on the still point, and maintaining yourself in that space while all is whirling about you; as ever, this time of the year is a good time to go inwards into the dark and the stillness.

But the dark is also where the fascinating and disturbing lives, the layers underneath, the meanings, concepts and motivations that cannot be approached by logic but must be intuited out. I would say try to spend some time there this week, feeling out old tales of your own; pay attention to dreams, especially, but also other stories and myths (both cultural and personal) that catch your eye. Something's up. On a very basic level the year has turned; look for evidence of that turning, of a shift in the current of the psyche's Sea which may bring formerly deep things towards the surface. I'm not sure what kind of specific advice to give; I think the point is that you will have to figure it out for yourself.

Let's see what She says:

I whirl but I am not dizzy. I am solid in myself, in my anger, in my knowedge that I am right. Deep in my bones I am I, myself, me, and I know it.

It is all panic and war-plans and lies when there is in fact peace. Shoemakers misusing their skills, all a plot, a plan, a surface shuffling about of colors. It does not affect the underlying story, the reality of it. Destiny is destiny, after all, and I am the Woman with my back to the Deep, the north star, the straight line, the center, the axis; there is no fooling me, no getting around the Fate I proclaim. And so the pretty flower-woman is Death in disguise, for my Son does not escape his destiny.

All is fate and spinning and round and round the center. Trying to keep track of the whirling is a waste of time and energy, though it may be pretty; find the center. You can admire it all from there without being caught up in it. It is much quieter, here, much more conducive to thought and contemplation, which is what you need right now.

Come.

What do you think?

References:

The Mabinogion, translated by Gwyn and Thomas Jones

The Dictionary of Celtic Mythology, by James MacKillop

This isn't anything related to the Arianrhod tale, but it did get me thinking: a psychological analysis of maternal cannibalism in the Hansel and Gretel tale (as well as Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood) by Tracy Willard is here.