The European fairytale hag, Medusa from ancient Greece, Hel, the Germanic Goddess, the snapping vagina in Navajo culture, Ereshkigal of the Summerian Inanna myth, Kali, Lillith…
Throughout our human history, we have collected myths and tales of the Dark Feminine. We see her from afar – exotic, somehow in her distance and in her darkness, and powerful although how and why, we cannot quite comprehend. We are too busy pointing fingers, bemoaning the catastrophes of Patriarchy to pay her much attention.
But she is there within all of us, ever present, cackling away, and the less attention we pay her, the louder the cackling becomes.
How do you experience her?
For me, she represents the dark side of desire. The part of me that wishes to smother, to devour, to control.The side that is unable to let go, that will manipulate in order to get what I want. The part of me that wishes to consume another’s innocence and youth.
We can jump up and down about patriarchal paradigms all we want. We can talk about men dominating and conquering all we want. But if we don’t own those parts of us that are contributing to the system we long to transcend, we are lost.