Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
Womb of the Earth
Chauvet Cave, in southeastern France, is one of Europe's oldest painted caves, thought to date from the Aurignacian period, between 32,000 and 30,000 years ago, but its secrets will be immediately sensible to any witch today.
In Werner Herzog's 2010 film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, we travel with the film-maker through chamber after chamber of stunning animal art. Finally we reach the last and deepest of all, the culminating holy of holies, the room known as the Gallery of Lions.
In the wall directly opposite the entrance is a 10-foot vertical crevice, looking for all the world like a giant vulva. Directly in front of the crevice hangs a phallic stalactite. Painted on it are a woman, shown from the waist down, with emphasis on her vulva, merging with a man with the head of a bison. They are the only human images in the entire cave.
The walls of the chamber itself are painted with a 360° circle of animals, shown in such a way that they appear to be emerging from the giant vulva on one side, and to be re-entering it on the other.
It is a truism among archaeologists that ancient art is difficult, if not impossible, of interpretation.
But here, at least, the meaning seems not far to find.
As any witch could tell you.
Comments
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Wednesday, 23 December 2015
As I grow older it seems increasingly clear to me that the deepest mysteries lie hidden in plain sight in the obvious.
Goddess bless him, Aubrey Burl, the doyen of British megalithic studies, once wrote of stone circles: "It is possible that dancing took place there."
Well no, we'll likely never be able to prove it, but.... -
Wednesday, 23 December 2015I couldn't agree with you more. The basic structures of ritual and meaning are not esoteric. Dance indeed! But when scholars don't love to dance and maybe don't even know how to dance, how can they understand that dance is one of the mysteries of joy and communion.
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yup, but so often, they don't see what is so obvious. marija gimbutas called it indolent assumptions, others call it the patriarchal mindset.