- Sep 28, 2022
From the Divine to the Demonic
- Eline Kieft, Ph.D.
- Spirituality and Shamanism, Goddess, Archetypal Realm
Stay tuned!
Collection: Goddess
Feminine Power in the British Museum
On my recent journey from France to Schotland, I had some time in London before my connecting train. After acclimatising in the shade under a tree (yes those September days can still be warm!), I felt my feet guided to The British Museum, where I stumbled across an exquisite exhibition called Feminine Power: The Divine to the Demonic.
This had special significance to me, as I was on a personal pilgrimage to encounter the Goddess of the Isle of Lewis, one of the Outer Isles on the west coast of Scotland.
The exhibition was curated as a journey through time and across cultures, and specifically designed to raise questions about the many faces of womanhood. Visitors were warned that it might change their lives forever...
How do we view feminity in general, and our own, as modern women, in specific?
Born in the Netherlands in 1977, well after our mothers burned their bras and became 'boss in their own belly' with the availability of contraceptive pill, I never considered myself a feminist. I was living the legacy of the activism of previous generations, so I never questioned that girls could do anything boys could too. I have a great spatial awareness (dare I say, better than my boyfriend?), can read maps like the best of navigators, and never thought that sucking at math had anything to do with gender.
However, I know there is still a huge amount of emancipation needed. Women still earn less on average, have a lower glass ceiling than men, and in many countries are unfree to live the life they want. This year, abortion rights were revoked in the USA, violent deaths happen in Iran around prescribed head scarves, and female genital mutilation continues abundantly in many countries.
This thought-provoking exhibition revisits the "profound influence of female spiritual beings within global religion and faith" and the various faces of the feminine, including goddesses, witches, saints, and spirits (museum website).
How have these other-worldly imaginations and realities of womanhood shaped our worldview, and how do they continue to influence our understanding of femininity?
The exhibition displayed a mix of ancient and modern sculptures, ritual objects and sacred art from all over the world. Sculptures of Mother Earth, of the Spirit of the Ocean, of Serpents, modern creation myths, tools for everyday and sacred use, images for contemplation and meditation...
It was encouraging to see a great number of pregnant women, young mothers, some men, and women of all ages, some solo, others holding hands or visiting in small groups.
The richness of the feminine includes wisdom and justice, vulnerability and strength, cunning, shapeshifting and the ability to transcend gender, desire and passion, compassion, mercy, the sacred and the everyday, and powers ranging from terrifying, fear-invoking to tender comfort and healing.
On the borders of life and death, with the rhythms of the bleeding moon, the capacity to go into the darkness and come out unscathed, these sure are forces to be reckoned with.
And don't we all, men and women, have all of these capacities within ourselves? Out of context each of these qualities can be too much, unhealthy, overbearing, suffocating and destructive - yes also the caring ones!
I believe that lack of understanding, of self and other creates fear. Fear has a tendency to lash out, wanting to cage the wild, again in others and ourselves, in order to be safe. From there it becomes a slow journey of repression.
Patriarchy curbed feminine freedom in general, and as a result, as women too, we easily repress the not-so-nice, the hairy and messy, the bitch and the hag in ourselves because that's what we were told from a very young age. So, emancipation is still needed, both in men and women, in free and less free-er countries alike.
It is close to the Equinox as I write this, a time of year that invites reflections on balance. Balancing the darkness and the light inside ourselves is probably the most challenging task in our lives.
I advocate not for a 'running wild' with any of these qualities, but for creating containers for safe expression, for engaging the mind to assess in each moment how we can best, in the most supportive manner, work with the raw material of our emotions. It is also about trying to keep a dialogue open, between different genders, age groups and cultures.
May all of us (re)connect with the divine feminine, and balance and celebrate both feminine and masculine qualities in our beings.
The small print...
Exhibition visited on 17 September 2022, article written on 28 September 2022.
All images taken on my iPhone, in order of appearance (read rows from left to right):
Mami Wata, originally part of a headpiece worn by Annang Ibibio peoples in Nigeria, early 1900s
Mother Earth, 2010, by Mona Saudi, Lebanon
Divination Bowl from Congo, 1800-1900
Sekhmet, Egyptian Lion Goddess, Lady of Slaughter, 1391-1353 BC
Circe, divine Greek Sorceress, by John William Waterhouse, 1991
Medusa with her Snaky Hair, Italy 500 BC
Bolivian Mask, 1985, worn during the Dance of the Devils
Sedna, 1987, attributed to Lucassie Kenuajuak, Inuit mistress of the sea, part woman, part seal
Sheela-na-Gig carving, Ireland 1100-1200, symbolising fertility and regeneration, with exaggerated vulvas representing birth and life
21 forms of Tara, with Green Tara seated on a lotus in the middle, Tibet 1800-1900
Isis nursing her son Horus, Egypt, 400-300 BC
Luba Royal Advisor, Congo, 1800-1900
Mahadevi in her warrior aspect, Hindu Great Goddess, 1400-1500
Athena/Minerva, goddess of war and wisdom, Italy 1-100 AD
Hecate, triple goddess often associated with witchcraft, Italy 161-200 AD
Lilith, transcending gravity, by Kiki Smith, 1994, USA
Guanyin/Kwan Yin meditating on a lotus, China, afte 1260