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The Goddess of the Eclipses
Helen Benigni
Abstract The metaphor for the violence done to the Goddess as a representative of Natural Order and the balance of the Natural World appropriately takes the form in the celestial sphere as an abrupt and frightening change in the heavens: an eclipse. The actions of the Goddess of the Eclipses are not the warrior goddess archetype but the intellectually powerful and disturbed nature of a Goddess represented as a raging fury determined to shake the universe, darken the skies, and set the world into a readjustment of its values after experiencing the chaos of the unnatural. Her power is to astound, frighten, and horrify to create the required and necessary change to the universe of humanity that is out of sync with Nature. Therefore, her power dwells in the unmasking of uncertainty and the shocking of humanity to evoke revenge and correct misconduct through a demonstration of cosmic change. The figure of the archetype must therefore rely on the ratio seminales or seeds of destruction planted in the human imagination to evoke such monumental shifts in cultural behavior. Like the eclipse itself, the Goddess of the Eclipses demands a recalibration of the universe as Divine Feminine Ruler of the Heavens to create a shift in paradigms guaranteed to repeat itself when necessary. The abrupt and frightening change necessary to recalibrate the actions of humanity finds its perfect expression in the lunar and solar eclipse cycle and its perfect metaphor in the human mind as The Goddess of the Eclipses celebrated as the Cailleach Bhéarra, the Goddess of Dowth, the Badb, Nemain and the Mórrigú, The Morrigan, Hecate, Pasiphaë, Circe and Medea.
Keywords Ancient goddesses, Greek mythology, Irish mythology, Celtic mythology, comparative mythology, archetypes, Paleolithic goddesses, Neolithic goddesses, Bronze Age goddesses, Iron Age goddesses, ancient astronomy, archeoastronomy, feminist studies, ancient calendars, goddess spirituality, eclipses
In the evolution of human thought, both Carl Gustav Jung and Erich Neumann mark the development of what they believe are primordial archetypes. Neumann explains that the primordial archetype is most clearly defined in the writings of Jung as “the structural concept signifying ‘eternal presence’” manifested early in the stage of human consciousness before differentiation into particular archetypes.[1] This myriad faceted stage of the archetype leads to the emergence of individual archetypes from a great complex mass to the formation of coherent archetypal groups….
[1] Erich Neumann, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 7.
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S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies Volume 2 Number 1 (2023)