“Goddess as Mother is the Weaver of the Fabric of the Universe, with many ancient Goddesses imaged this way. This power came to be feared, rather than revered – in Her “character as creator, sustainer and increaser of life” the Great Goddess came to be seen as “negative and evil,” by a consciousness that desired “permanence and not change, eternity and not transformation, law and not creative spontaneity …(turning) her into a demon.” This consciousness, which Neumann calls an “antivital fanaticism,” feared being “ensnared” in the “web of life, the veil of Maya.” Sometimes the weaving activity of women became known as the cause of illness or a curse with some Christian traditions even forbidding knitting. Ixchel the Weaver, Mother, Queen, Grandmother to the peoples of Southern Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, and most of Central America, came to be symbolized by an “overturned vessel of doom” – yet “for centuries, women have made pilgrimages to Her holy places.” Austen describes Ixchel as sitting “at Her loom with Her ever-present bird companion, the nest weaver, who is associated with Goddess throughout the world:” Ixchel “easily and with great presence ... in the bliss of creativity” spins “from her deepest being” and breaths the “breath of eternity, ... the life force into each being.”
...Ixchel is also new for me.
ReplyDeleteAnd now you know...
DeleteOh, the lengths and depths to which the patriarchal hatred of women and our creative powers will go. Demonization of the very power of life!
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to my full moon altar honouring Ixchel as a triple goddess in case anyone wants to check it out:
https://shewhoseeks.blogspot.com/2025/05/may-full-moon-altar-triple-goddess.html
Thanks so much for sharing your Ixchel altar with us. Lovely! Indigenous peoples have been able to continue rituals honoring the goddess(es) down through the ages, while the rest of us have had to invent systems to honor them based on the artifacts that have been found in sites from when goddesses were central to civilizations...many pre-Greek and pre-Roman, even pre-Judaic.
DeleteIxchel was recognized as the goddess of so many things. She was sort of a one-goddess-does-all figure, I think. She must have been busy.
ReplyDeleteSo glad you introduced her to me. I love all her aspects!
DeleteOf course christianity deemed weaving evil and knitting! Did they also think their clothes made from the fabric women wove was also evil? When goddesses are givers and takers the patriarchy focuses on the taking. When gods are givers and takers patriarchy focuses on the giving.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to think of the giving and taking. Today I'm feeling I've received so much, very grateful, and many gifts I've received might just be considered coincidences. I chose to feel connected to the source of life, and the river that feeds us all...and the best I can do to give back is to say what I feel here on blogs. The sad state of narrow-mindedness as a result of patriarchy is coming to an end, I do believe.
DeleteThat is pretty fabulous weaving.
ReplyDelete