If you devour a mother goddess
make sure you have a loyal friend nearby
armed with the ax of the crescent moon.
It’s like this: the feminine power
you thought you could master
is going to stir and swell in you
until your whole being is a trembling womb
that can only open at the top
like a volcano rising from the ocean floor.
It will blow out your brains
unless your head is opened.
So keep a helper with the right tool handy
and be ready for the bright fury
with owl eyes and blazing mind
who will burst from your head fully armed
and love you to death, setting her spear
at the throat of your certainties.
make sure you have a loyal friend nearby
armed with the ax of the crescent moon.
It’s like this: the feminine power
you thought you could master
is going to stir and swell in you
until your whole being is a trembling womb
that can only open at the top
like a volcano rising from the ocean floor.
It will blow out your brains
unless your head is opened.
So keep a helper with the right tool handy
and be ready for the bright fury
with owl eyes and blazing mind
who will burst from your head fully armed
and love you to death, setting her spear
at the throat of your certainties.
Image: Birth of Athena from the head of Zeus. Archaic, c 550 bce. That's Hephaistos with the ax. According to Hesiod's Theogony, Zeus swallowed his first wife, the oceanic Metis (of "wise counsel") because of a prophecy that his children by her would usurp his throne. This only hints at a more primal creation story, from a time before the Greeks confined the gods to statuesque humanoid forms. Go dream on it.
