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Introduction “Undeniable and Irresistible”: The Mythic Feminine and Women’s Creativity Pamela Collins In 1989 I attended a conference on “The Goddess as Muse”, co-hosted by SUNY Cortland and Tompkins Cortland Community College. Merlin Stone was the keynote speaker, author of the ground-breaking work When God Was A Woman.

Stone’s work, along with Robert Graves’ The White Goddess, had been a pivotal resource for my Master’s thesis on women in Arthurian legend which had consumed my imagination during the early eighties. To see Merlin Stone in person was a thrill, as was an entire conference devoted not just to the images and/or historical disposition of the Goddess, but to Her active role in our creative lives.

During those early years, my “involvement” with the Goddess had two notable characteristics. One, it was primarily intellectual. As I investigated the early versions of Arthurian myth, seeking traces of gynocentric mythological images in the predominantly patriarchal/Christianized texts, the thrill was all cognitive.

Burying myself in relatively obscure texts, I waded into strange seas of various mythologies, symbols more than a little laden with complex and convergent meanings, and images that came and went like holograms or faces seen in smoke.

As disparate pieces fell together and fit, seams disappeared and images became more concrete, I came to know the heady pleasures of scholarly sleuthing. But She hadn’t entered my life as more than the object of my study -- or so it seemed.

The second aspect was the “fringe” nature of my work. Stone’s work and similar texts were not taken seriously by many in the academic community (as G. S. Swan discusses in her work on the vindication of leading Goddess-culture theorist Marija Gimbutas). Many feminists were (and still are) unconvinced of the value to feminist theory of Goddess imagery, so easily co-opted by the patriarchy.

Certainly my friends and neighbors weren’t amenable to discussions of female divinity; nor was I inclined to foresee this area of study as the logo on my academic calling card. It was merely something I was compelled to do -- that I could do it and earn a Master’s degree in the process was a bonus.

In 1982, as I was proofing the final version of my thesis, my advisor brought me a copy of the New York Times book review. “You’re not alone in your interests,” she said as she pointed to the review of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists Of Avalon. I was both thrilled and dismayed – Bradley’s work almost identically mirrored my own research (which I had hoped to develop into a more commercial form). I often see Bradley’s timely work (my version may never have gotten out of the caverns of my mind) as a turning point, the moment when the Goddess, in all three aspects, entered the mainstream imagination.

In 1989, the idea of the Eternal Feminine as creative inspiration to women was a relatively new concept, even for someone like myself who had been Volume 13, Number 1

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“Undeniable and Irresistible” exploring Her boundaries (or lack thereof) and manifestations for nearly a decade.

It was the beginning of Her release from the confines of mythic history into modern manifestations. Since then, I have seen Her cropping up everywhere as both the subject of and impetus to women’s creative expressions.

Perhaps the most important contribution She has made to women’s art is the bestowing of permission to create -- to be a Creatrix. “Art” is to Man as Creation is to God -- and it has been on the grounds of that analogy that creative expression has been reserved for men. Women, after all, bear children -- creation enough for anyone it has been argued. Even for many who have intellectually escaped the cultural/religious prohibitions against feminine participation in “serious” art, we have remained fettered by the realities of domesticity and responsibility to others.

Art demands time and devotion and while some women have managed to participate in its demands in the margins of their expectations as women, many more have stumbled under the burden and died in creative silence.

But the Goddess is large -- as large as a volcanic island, as we will see in Kate Winter’s “Pele” -- and difficult to deny. She also has an incredibly large wingspan under which we have learned to seek refuge from the storms of a patriarchal culture still uncomfortable with women-who-would-be-as-gods. She has given us permission to use bright colors and broad strokes, to draw from eclectic sources without excuse or self-consciousness. And under Her guidance and protection, we have, in turn, been able to free her from the limiting images of Classical mythology, to seek her out in all her many guises of Mythic Woman, and to awaken Her in our own lives.

Kate Winter’s essay is an appropriate beginning as it introduces us to Pele, the Mother Goddess of both a people and a place. She is, quite literally, Hawaii itself, a volcanic island on which people are daily aware of the power of Her flow and never forget that the earth is not theirs to own or control. Through personal narrative, storytelling, and explication, Winter delivers us a vision of complex mythological/environmental understanding through the active reverence of this Presence who is forgiving and fierce, sexual, ever-present, and timeless. She is, as Winter says, “undeniable and irresistible.” Pele is for Hawaiians the cultural and philosophical heart, who, in Winter’s words, “shows Hawaiians how to be in the world that has displaced aloha with tourism, academics and militarism.” For the rest of us, Winter contends that Pele can “teach women around the planet to honor the tempestuous center of themselves in this new age.”

“Michelle and Olivia” is the first chapter of Accident Of Birth, a novel in progress by SuEllen Hamkins and Cindy Parrish, which chronicles the intrigues of an experiment in IF gone awry. As an example of our technology outstripping our wisdom, Accident poses probing questions about the “ownership” of children and the limits of our control over reproduction. The resolution of the novel draws upon the ineffable order of the Divine Feminine, the stage for which is set in the relationship between Michelle and Olivia. If, as Winter says, Pele’s representation 2

“Undeniable and Irresistible” of a “birthing woman…manifests the bloody, messy, dark reality of labor and delivery” the experience of Michelle and Olivia carries us into that experience on our knees, in the immediate and demanding present as two women’s friendship becomes a sisterhood of mutual need. Perhaps the most exquisite expression of Mythical Woman in our lives is the model of how we become the Goddess for each other -- fallible but undeniable, imperfect but irresistible -- and imminent in situations of extreme need.

The paintings of Laurie Goodhart, interspersed among the texts, evoke the Creatrix in the wordless power of line and form. Goodhart works in large canvasses and bold colors, neither of which can be adequately captured here, but the mythical power she invokes with line and juxtaposition survives the reduction.

In “Sunflowers and Osage Orange” a woman and her animal companions lurke behind the “still life” of fruit and flower, belying any notion of “stillness” about the bright adornments and edibles we bring into our lives. In “Baubo in the Garden” eyes and hands tell us again that the Garden is a place of complexity, diversity and surprise. Four women with pears for heads dance across the landscape of “Pears and Grapefruit” accompanied by snake and butterfly, bird and animal. In “Tamorillo and Crickets” the centerpiece is the passionate, pregnant, red fruit, again backed by ghostlike animals and bugs. The knife, poised against the vine, reminds us that in the Goddess’ hand, the sundering blade can either destroy or release new life, prune, weed, or harvest. In her own words, Goodhart says of her subject matter that it is “simple natural or human-made objects and at the same time mythic or archetypal themes.” Large and daring, both in theme and composition, Goodhart’s work empowers the feminine and visually reconnects the common elements of women’s work and experience to the Eternal Mythic of which they have always been a part.

Sue Zimmerman’s “The Divine Mother” considers the larger, beyond-biological, expression of motherhood as expressed in the work of two New Zealand authors, Patricia Grace and Keri Hulme. Like Winter, Zimmerman treats us to a rarely represented cultural perspective on the universal archetype of the Divine Mother. Not surprisingly, through Zimmerman’s discussion of the novels, we see the powerful nurturing force of storytelling at work -- stories with and about women: women as the agents of dissemination, the spinners of the web, originators and subjects alike.

Sheryl O’Sullivan investigates the intriguing women of Celtic myth who, in their complexity, have recently become popular images in Western culture.

Exactly how direct a correlation existed in early Celtic culture between the powerful mythic Queens and the actual life of women in Celtic society is, as O’Sullivan suggests, a matter of dispute. But for modern women, these images of warrior queens and powerful Sidhe folk provide rich grist for the creative mills.

Finally, Wendell St. John draws upon the dizzily profound imagery of the Tarot to construct “Candelane”, an allegorical novel in progress that details a journey of 3

“Undeniable and Irresistible” self-awareness and empowerment. With Strength as her companion, Kara, the main character, undertakes the hero’s journey of enlightenment -- in this case the eventual acceptance of her role as High Priestess. The images of the Major Arcana provide the archetypal human and geopolitical landscape through which Kara travels. The chapter excerpted here gives the reader a taste of the psychological and spiritual challenges St. John presents her character. Weaving the esoteric and convoluted symbolism of the Major Arcana into a standard narrative is no easy task, but St. John’s deep experience of the Tarot guides her hand and provides the reader with a deceptively straight-forward tale, soaked with levels of meaning.

With all this powerful work being done in the name of the Goddess, it has, in a sense, become less important whether archeological evidence supports Her presence in the minds of early cultures -- She is certainly alive in the minds and hearts of members of this culture. To have the work of Goddess theorists such as Marija Gimbutas vindicated, however, would contribute to the Her movement from the shadows into the foreground. G. S. Swan's article tracks recent developments in archeological and DNA research that provides credibility to Gimbutas' theories -a major step toward moving forward in our understanding of and respect for the psycho/spiritual role of Woman in culture. Armed with this exciting and critical breakthrough, contemporary researchers can continue the work of fleshing out the lost ideas and perspectives of gynocentric cultures.

I close this collection with a revision of the paper I presented at that conference so long ago, with the hope of bringing our thoughts full circle. But as a popular Wiccan chant suggests, while the circle may be unbroken, it is nevertheless open. The Mythic Feminine has only begun the work of inspiring us -and we the work of exploring Her potential in our lives and her validity in Academia.

I sit here writing beneath the outstretched arms of a tree-woman, another of Laurie Goodhart’s creations. She stands nearly seven feet tall, made of wood and a starched and painted sheet, hung with seedpods and crowned with leaves. From a distance, in poor light, she can look a bit frightening, but up close her face is full of gentle affection and good will. She embodies Laurie’s full and loving spirit, and the spirit of every other Creatrix I know -- and these days, I know many of them.

Nothing has been the same since I brought her into my life.

Each of the women who have contributed so generously to this collection is an agent of dissemination and fertility. Each has contributed to telling a portion of Her story, to explaining, shaping, and reiterating the Eternal Feminine. Different visions, different fruit, different colors and images, all of it food for our hungry psyches and flowers for the tables on which we work.

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