Medusa as an Archetype
Medusa has historically been seen as the archetype of the nasty mother, however
she is far more complex. She symbolizes the following:
Sovereign female wisdom. The female mysteries. All the forces of the primordial
Great Goddess: The Cycles of Time as past, present and future. The Cycles
of Nature as life, death and rebirth. She is universal Creativity and Destruction
in eternal Transformation. She is the Guardian of the Thresholds and the Mediatrix
between the Realms of heaven, earth and the underworld. She is Mistress of
the Beasts. Latent and Active energy.
Connection to the earth. The union of heaven and earth. She destroys in order
to recreate balance. She purifies.
She is the ultimate truth of reality, the wholeness beyond duality. She rips
away our mortal illusions. Forbidden yet liberating wisdom. The untamable
forces of nature. As a young and beautiful woman she is fertility and life.
As crone she consumes by devouring all on the earth plane. Through death we
must return to the source, the abyss of transformation, the timeless realm.
We must yield to her and her terms of mortality. She reflects a culture in
harmony with nature.
Images of Medusa
In her image alone we can find this constellation of archetypal meaning.
Throughout archeological history, there have been patterns of correspondence
of her image around the world as the ancients translated the powers of the
natural world into an organic image that was accessible, practical, ceremonial,
mystical and potent. In the beginning, her images represent a powerful natural
force that is worshipped and revered by cultures as sacred and holy as she
was a symbol of the full potency of the Great Triple Goddess.
In the Beginning:
Medusa's images in Old Europe begin several thousand years prior to her reinvention
in classical Greek Myth. In the Upper Paleolithic, her power is represented
in labyrinth, vaginal, uterine, and other female designs. Throughout the Neolithic,
her forces are symbolized by the female figure positioned in holy postures
and gestures of empowerment, with the presence of animals, primarily birds
and snakes whom she is intimately connected with. These images appear in the
Mediterranean area and continue to extend into the late Bronze Age of Minoan
Crete,(1600 BC) where she is represented as the refined serpent-goddess-priestess.
(modern copied image of the serpent goddess-priestess Ariadne and the original
serpent-goddess-priestesses found at the Palace of Knosses in ivory and gold,
and in faience)
Birds are appear on her head or shoulder, signifying her generative as well
as death wielding powers of her dark, crone aspect. They also represent the
heavens of the sky.
Snakes coil around her arms, legs or are entwined in her hair and are shown
whispering into her ear. The serpent is a totem of the cycles of life, death
and rebirth and the seasons. It is the connection to the fertile earth and
to the underworld. It also symbolizes immortality as it was thought to shed
its skin indefinitely.
Because of this the serpent was placed in relationship to women throughout
antiquity as they correspond to the immortal properties of the blood of menstruation.
Back then menstruating women were feared by men with holy dread as they inexplicably
bled without wound or pain synchronized with the moon-tide cycles.
The serpent is also an emblem of the ocean as the sea was known as an earth
girdling serpent. Centuries later, the myths of classical Greece cast the
serpent as an evil, deceitful, revolting character associated with "witchy,"
(wise), women.
In 750 BC, the full-bodied image of Medusa in Greece is a central piece on
their oldest surviving temple, that of Artemis, one of their oldest gods.
She is the Lady of the Beasts who carries with her memories of Crete and Angolia.
Like Medusa, she kills in a sacred manner so that life may continue. In this
image of Medusa, snakes are tied around her waist in the sacred healing knot
as they were used for medicinal purposes. She retains spiraling hair, large
bird wings on her back and even on her feet that sometimes have claws. The
wings symbolize her freedom and dynamic movement between the worlds. There
are even surviving images of Artemis wearing the mask of Medusa, also called
the mask of the Gorgon or Hecate.
The Mask:
Medusa's ancient, widely recognized symbol of female wisdom was her threatening,
ceremonial mask . It has wide unblinking eyes that reflect her immense wisdom.
They are all knowing, all seeing eyes that see through us, penetrating our
illusions and looking into the abyss of truth. Her mouth is deathly; it looks
like a skull. It is devouring of all life, returning us to the source. Sometimes
she has the frightening tusks of a boar which is meant to scare men, yet these
hearken back to the pig, an ancient symbol of the uterus of rebirth. Her tongue
protrudes like a snake's and her face is surrounded by a halo of spiraling,
serpentine hair which symbolize the great cycles and her serpent wisdom.
The mask was used to guard and protect women and the secret knowledge of
the Divine Feminine. It literally warned men to "Keep Away! Female Mysteries."
It was erected in stone,(corresponding to her look of stone), on caves and
gateways at sacred sites dedicated to the Goddess. It also appeared on stone
pillars erected in honor of her deceased lovers. Even after the degradation
of Medusa Athenian culture after 7th c. BC, her mask image continued to be
used until the reign of Christianity.
Her defilement began in Greece in the 7th-6th c BC, yet at this time there
still exist images that revere Medusa in her full power. There was found a
Cretan-like image of the Gorgon Medusa in a war chariot flanked by lions.
It looks much like the Great-Mother Goddess Cybele, goddess of wild beasts
and fertility of nature. At the same time there was found a relief of a woman
wearing the Gorgon mask while in the menstrual/birth/erotic position, a posture
of women's power in Neolithic imagery. But her face and mask continued to
be used in temples and sanctuaries, and to be commonly placed on columns,
doorways and gateways, signifying her role as the guardian of the thresholds
and mediatrix between realms. (Medusa's face at Didyma, Temple to Apollo and
a description of her image as it appears at the temple at Kalaaktepe)
Medusa in Patriarchal Greece
Patriarchy began in the bronze and iron age of first millennia Greece. In
this mind the world is no longer born of a sacred mother deity but from a
supreme father. Earth and heaven are split eternally. In myth heroes and gods
are created to dominate and subjugate the female and natural forces over and
over again in various forms, the most common of them being gigantic snakes
and serpent monsters. A prime example of this is the serpent dragon called
Eurinaes who is overpowered by Apollo.
The god Apollo represents the rising patriarchy and the contemporary male
interests. The Eurinaes is a dynamic female force representing the old, matrifocal
civilizations, and the female values that pre-date the Olympian gods. The
Eurinaes is subordinated, mastered and tamed by Apollo as she is forced to
leave the sanctuary so he can establish his shrine at the temple of Delphi.
Through domination the hero constantly conquers the cyclical pattern of nature
and tries to make it linear. He tames the wild feminine forces and makes women
conform to male-servicing gender roles.
Soon the holy image of the Gorgon Medusa as an ancient symbol of female power
and wisdom became totally unacceptable. By the 6th c. BC her rites were disrupted,
her sanctuaries invaded, the sacred groves were cut down, her priestesses
were violated and her image defiled. Her images, (as well as women), are mastered
and domesticated. Her mask was used on elaborate Etruscan lantern fixtures
and stoves, probably for her relation to alchemical fire. Although the mask
was widely used by country-folk, her female wisdom, natural forces, powers
of creativity, destruction and regeneration were demonized and made evil.
She was made into a horrid, ugly monster, (most monsters were female or born
of the Earth). Her most popular image became that of her defeat in the Athenian
myth of Perseus.
In Archaic art the moment in the story most often depicted is the chase after
the beheading, when Perseus flees with the severed head pursued by the Medusa's
Gorgon sisters. In 550-450 BC, painted mainly in early and proto-attic black
figure vases was the image of the hero sneaking up on his victim while she
sleeps or cutting her throat while the gods look on. On these she is represented
as a hideous snaky monster. (vase image of Perseus beheading Medusa while
Hermes looks on and its description, also, a description of the slaying on
another vase) At his time the remaining rituals of Medusa were allowed only
for military function and her image was reserved for armor, on the breast
plate or on their shield. (description of her image on a sacred shield)
In the course of the fifth century, she will emerge again as a beautiful
woman in her maiden aspect. But when the Persians introduce the plumed serpent,
her powers are transformed yet again into a dragon which is phallicly speared
into its mouth, an image that is highly popular throughout the Middle Ages.
Medusa-Metis-Athene in Classical Myth
Athenian Myth fragmented and reduced the Libyan Triple Goddess Athene to
Athena, Metis, Medusa and her Gorgon sisters. Gorgo, Gorgon, or Gorgopis was
the `Grim Face'- and besides Medusa (Metis), was the title of Athene as Death
Goddess. The eldest sister was Medusa, who represented Female Wisdom, her
younger sisters were Stheno as Strength, and Euryale as Universality. All
were born of Ceto and Phorcys, but Medusa was the only mortal. They were originally
beautiful. Like Medusa, they had wings on their back and ankles, and wore
the mask of Hecate, the mask of the Gorgon. (an image of a Gorgon sister wearing
the mask while chasing Perseus after the murder)
In the 7th c. BC, Athenians recreated Athene as their patron Goddess. Through
myth the Greeks severed her ancient roots in women's culture by dividing her
from her dark aspect as Medusa and Metis. In the separation of Athene from
Metis and Medusa, the two were overlaid; Metis became her mother and Medusa
her enemy.
Her mother Metis the shape shifter was said to be the original mother as
well as the wisest and greatest of all the gods. To Athenians, she was raped
and swallowed by Zeus. Thus Zeus gained his power over the other gods by consuming
her ancient lineage along with her immense wisdom. [He used her shape shifting
ability primarily to seduce/rape females]. Metis' wisdom was so great that
it impregnated Zeus' head and from it sprang the new Athena.
Betraying her ancient lineage, traitor Athena became the dutiful daughter
who retained only her virginal, fertile aspect. She was the municipal goddess
of Zeus' intelligence, in service of the male-solar ego, making men into heroes
who dominate women and nature, and representing the patriarchal values, roles
and ideals of Athens. She offers women a new blessed role; absent from the
public sphere, and in the service of the male. Women are prescribed the role
of virgin, wife and mother. As virgin, proof of his fatherhood is confirmed.
As mother, she is the nurse of his children. And as wife she is in devoted
service of her man.
In 458 BC, she blatantly rejects her mother Metis in Aeschylus' Oresteia
, as she also justifies the priority of men over women; "It is my task
to render final judgment here...There is no mother anywhere who gave me birth...
I am always for the male with all my heart, and strongly on my father's side.
So, in a case where the wife has killed her husband, lord of the house, her
death shall not mean most to me."(p.161)
Yet Athena's character contains many contradictions that show the struggle
of the male order to manage her potent past. One example is that her favorite
animal is the owl, an ancient symbol of bird of death and regeneration, as
well as female wisdom, darkness, night, the moon and mystery. However, Athena
never uses the darkness to realize her self.
Athena's new enemy Medusa rivaled her in beauty and power. Even Perseus was
said to have admired Medusa's beauty while she was dead, which is why he took
her head with him to show the Greeks. When Medusa became a mythological monster,
it was Athena herself who made Medusa ugly. According to Ovid's Metamorphosis,
when Medusa was a virgin, she was raped by Poseidon in Athena's temple. Athena
blamed Medusa for the sacrilegious act and punished her by changing her loveliest
feature, her hair, into snakes, (at this time snakes were considered revolting).
But even the monster Medusa responds to the abuse with rage- a burning charge
of a fiery vitality to protect life. From then on she forever uses her powerful
gaze to turn her male enemies to stone, among others, Atlas is turned into
a stone mountain.
List of the polarized separation of Athena and Medusa:[1]
In the fragmentation of the Great Goddess, Medusa and Athena are separated
into polarized opposites.
