Here
is another thorny topic for some, the Dark Goddess. Many honor the Triple Goddess with no room
for a fourth, others mix her in with the Crone Goddess. I think there are mysteries in life and that
there is a fourth living in the shadows.
Not really a 'evil' Goddess, just the dark to balance the light. Many of these notes are mixed since it is
hard to find info solely on her. This is
not meant to offend anyone. Use the
notes as a starting place and follow up with your own research.
The
Dark Goddess is the aspect of the Goddess most often deemed mysterious, dangerous,
violent or ill tempered. Dark Goddesses
or God appear in almost all religions featuring female/male deities and are widely the most
misinterpreted and misunderstood of deities worshipped by modern day
practitioners.
Many
Dark Goddesses deal with the subject of destruction. The popular Hindu Goddess Kali, Supreme Dark
Mother Goddess, is known as the Mother of Dissolution and Destruction. As the Goddess of destruction, without
further study one might assume that she is ill tempered and violent, sadistic
or insane in nature. Do your research. According to Hindu mythology, she destroys
ignorance, destroys that which opens chaos or disrupts harmony,
destroys the ego which interferes with the workings of God, and blesses those
who strive to know God.
Such
misunderstandings is widespread in the study of the Dark Goddesses. So, if Dark Goddesses are not evil, then why
do we call them 'dark'? One line of
thinking is inherited from European practices in which men who sought to
justify the conquering and enslavement of darker skinned people all over the
world linked darkness of skin with evil.
Lilith,
the first wife found in Jewish-Gnostic scriptures, is portrayed as a dark angel
or a winged demon, also known as the first Eve. She represents feminine evil, deeply
suppressed in human unconscious. As a handmaid
she would gather men in from the fields for the sacred rites, willing or not.
Far
earlier than that, when light skinned Aryan tribes moved into the area of
present day India and began to conquer the dark skinned Dravidian people, the
Aryan people subjected the natives to the caste system, which relegated all of
the most darkly colored people to the lowest caste, marking them as something
less than human.
Darkness
in Wicca is not a negative thing, it is rest, stillness or letting go. Wicca speaks of dark in its more original
context: "hidden or unknown". The
Dark Goddess is the counterpart to the life giving aspect of the Goddess we
usually associate with. She brings
death, for without death, we cannot fertilize the earth to bring new life. She is the destroyer, for without destroying
that which we no longer need, we cannot grow. She is the keeper of magic and mystery, for
without the hidden truths, our journey as a human seems without point and
purpose. Darkness should be honored, it
is necessary and valuable to the circle.
The
Dark Goddesses represents the hidden and suppressed aspects of a women and men
psyche that lives unseen in the shadows of the personality. In order to know oneself, one needs to
intimately know and understand both your light and dark aspects.
When
the shadow is not integrated into the personality self, the personality will
overcompensate for this imbalance in its reactive self. Thus, as long as you suppress your dark
feminine self, you will only express your light positive masculine self and the
inner child will be subjected to an on-going cycle of pain and suffering. It will continuously be subjected to inner
criticism, the need for perfection, the need for acceptance and the need to be
validated at all times.
As
you understand your life’s mission and purpose on a deeper level, you will see
that the Dark Goddess holds the key to Divine Will for your life. It is to break the bonds of conditioning and
to ask questions, it is often that which will bring you freedom.
The
Dark Goddess symbols are the new moon m, cradle and grave, dog, winter, raven, midnight, fate and
death, black, yew, dark in the light, balance, or the warrior and healer.
Hela h was the Goddess of Death
and the Underworld in Norse mythology and for some myths she is the Dark Goddess.
Hela (Hel) was frequently thought of as a Dark Mother Goddess, and she
was known by other names including the Goddess of Death and the Afterlife, the
Underground Earth Mother, or the Ruler of the Realm of the Dead. Her body was seen as half dead and half
alive. Some say that part of her body was beautiful while the other was horrid
like death. This symbolizes the light
and dark aspects within all of us.
The Dark Goddess speaks
to us,
I am the Darkness behind
the shadows.
I am the absence of air
that awaits every breath.
I am the ending before
life begins again,
the decay that fertilizes
the living.
I am the bottomless pit,
the never ending struggle
to reclaim that which is denied.
I am the key that unlocks
every door,
for I am that which is
hidden and secluded.
So may it be.
