Feminist critique of ancient myths

Bro-Oddysey: Male-centric Myth

8/13/2026

Opportunities to explore Homer’s ancient Greek tale abound: Christopher Nolan’s masterful 2026 cinematic epic The Odyssey, the intense drama The Return (2024), and renewed interest in Emily Wilson’s translation (2018).
All three tell the story of the Greek hero Odysseus and his challenges coming home from the Trojan War (physical and psychological).
The two movies add to and subtract from Homer’s narrative to craft cohesive movie experiences, the visual medium of film having different constraints and freedoms than written text.

If you enjoy an expansive cinematic experience with exceptional acting, rich camerawork, and a compelling storyline, see Nolan's The Odyssey on the largest screen possible, though be forewarned: there are instances of brutal killing and graphic magical transformation (Circe’s pig-men). Emily Wilson’s introduction and translator’s note form a thematic template for many of Nolan’s creative choices. For fans of this excellent movie, they’re worth reading.

The Return, with Ralph Fiennes, shows Odysseus returned to Ithaca, and shamed by the war. Less of a spectacle than Nolan’s work, this psychological drama is well acted; the suitor Antinous in particular has a nuanced, complex role, and genuinely pines for Penelope (or seems to), while plotting to kill her son. There is an invented hunting scene in this movie that deftly illustrates the precarious position of Odysseus’s terrified son, Telemachus.

The text of Homer’s The Odyssey often assumes a distant, omniscient narrator; is painfully redundant; and has a sprawling cast of characters, likely familiar to an ancient Greek audience, but creating a muddled narrative for modern readers.
I was unwilling to wade through the text this time around, despite Wilson’s highly-readable translation. The narrative's scattered quality may stem from the text being a transcription of ancient oral traditions that were fluid and likely varied from bard to bard and from city-state to city-state. Even after the story was written down, variations continued, per Wilson: “In antiquity, there were a number of legends about what happened to [Odysseus] after the poem ends.”

I focused my reading on passages about Circe, since she's a character in my novels-in-progress. Most of her scenes are in Book 10 and are narrated by Odysseus. His story is jarringly narcissistic and self-serving: Odysseus has Circe tell him how smart and handsome he is, etc., etc.
According to Odysseus, he holds a sword to the sorceress Circe’s throat, the woman who has magically transformed his men into pigs, and she says, “You must be Odysseus, the man who can adapt to anything. . . . Now sheathe your sword and come to bed with me. Through making love we may begin to trust each other more.”
Even in patriarchal ancient Greece, this must have sounded like locker-room bragging.

For the next year, Odysseus says, Circe and her servants wait on him, bathe him, anoint him with oil, then provide fine clothing and even finer food (plus endless sex with Circe herself). She frees his men and attends to their needs as well. Like many written Greek myths, the storyline is implausible if you're not the intended audience: other elite Greek men.

As Wilson says, The Odyssey is “the product of archaic male imaginations, questioning and defending the inequalities of male dominance within the status quo. The poem meditates on what women might be capable of [fidelity, infidelity, sorcery, murder], and the degree to which their potential can or should be suppressed.”
Women’s power takes the form of “seduction, deceit, or witchcraft . . . The goddess Circe and the Sirens also have the power to trap their victims through enchantment.”
However, the “most prominent liar and trickster” is Odysseus himself.

Dominating women is a way of asserting male power within a patriarchy, whether through sexual exploits as Odysseus claims or through verbal belittling. “Unable to stand up to [his mother’s] suitors himself, Telemachus instead practices masculine self-asserting by putting down his mother. . . . Telemachus is consistent in his notion that masculine maturity means the suppression and exclusion of women and the suppression of female voices.”

Because paternity could never be assured (without modern DNA testing), patriarchal systems sought to control access to fertile women. Western folklore has provocative examples of young women locked in towers (Rapunzel, Ethniu).
In ancient Greek culture, Wilson says, “Female fidelity is important for maintaining a husband’s sense of honor and control; it is associated with the preservation of a particular wealthy household and the perpetuation of a particular elite family line.”
Odysseus’s wife Penelope exemplifies this fidelity, whereas Helen and blood-soaked Clytemnestra present contrasting tales of villainous infidelity.

Odysseus’s grandiose escapades reflect both patriarchal privilege and the importance of immortality through glory; his tall tales can be understood in this context. Says Wilson: “Odysseus cannot resist the urge to gain kleos—the honor that comes from being the named subject of heroic legend.”

Though mortal women are often treated like chattel in the story, goddesses play a proactive role in aiding the hero.
In Wilson’s introduction, she describes Odysseus as “a man of extraordinary cognitive, psychological, and military power, one who can win any competition, outwit any opponent, and manage, against all odds, to survive.” He is a “king and warrior who fights to gain massive wealth and assert his own masculine prowess, using deceit and violence to slaughter his enemies” both in foreign lands and his own home when he murders his wife's suitors.
Yet Athena’s guidance is crucial to his success. “Only through female divine power can his patriarchal dominance over this household be regained.”

Exploring the written text of The Odyssey underscores how skillfully the two recent movies, The Return and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, brought this story to life and gave it fresh meaning for our modern world, particularly in giving female characters independent agency. Both movies (and Wilson’s introduction) are worthy contributions to this ~3,000-year-old tale.

Read excellent fictional adaptations of The Odyssey:
Ithaca, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, The Song of Achilles
Read more about Greek gods and goddesses related to The Odyssey:
Sirens Empowered, Divine Darkness, Victory, Four Queens of Aieetes, "A Sorcerer is Born"

The Four Queens of Aeëtes

6/26/2026

In ancient Greek myth, Aeëtes ruled the kingdom of Kolkhis. To the ancient Greeks, Kolkhis represented the easternmost edge of the world, where the sun god Helios emerged to drive his glorious golden chariot into the sky. In most versions of his myth, Aeëtes was the son of Helios.
Aeëtes founded a Greek colony near the mouth of the river Phasis (modern-day Rioni River in western Georgia), called Aea. According to Martin L. West, Aea (or Aia) meant “Dawnland,” and Phasis “was the River of Radiance from which the sun rose.”

Originally, the 1,000+/- independent city-states of what is now Greece had an oral storytelling tradition. Storytellers told and retold myths and legends, varying their content and form over time and by location. What we think of as Greek myth today is based on a relatively small written record of these earlier oral traditions, much of which came from one city-state (Athens) transcribed by Roman and Byzantine scholars. Multiple versions of any given myth are common, creating openings for authors to weave stories from a wealth of narrative threads.

In many myths, Helios originally gifted Aeëtes the city-state Korinthos (Corinth). At some point, Aeëtes “gave” his kingdom to another divinely sired Korinthian, Bounos, charging him to “keep it until he or his children returned.” This sets up an interesting dynamic when Aeëtes’s famous daughter, Medea, returns to Korinthos with Jason and the Argonauts.
In Euripides’s classic play, Medea kills her children and Jason’s betrothed in a horrific jealous rage. In modern terms, the play demonizes a foreign woman, labeling her a madwoman and sorceress. I hope to explore this story from Medea’s rational point of view in a novel-yet-to-be, Fire God’s Daughter.

Aeëtes emigrating from Korinthos to Aea may have paralleled the expansion of Greek colonies into the Black Sea beginning in the eighth century BCE.

Prior to widespread colonization, Helios would have risen from the watery depths of the Aegean Sea east of the peninsula and plunged into the western Ionian Sea at sunset. When Greeks ventured as far east as the western shore of what was then Kolkha (or Qulḫa in Urartian inscriptions), Helios shifted east with them. “Kolkhis” became the origin of the sun’s golden chariot ride across the sky, and Aeëtes became the land’s king.
In actuality, Kolkha existed long before Greek seafarers “discovered” it. Diaokhi or Diauehi was mentioned in Mesopotamian inscriptions around 2000 BCE. Both Diaokhi and its successor, Kolkha, were described as “tribal unions” rather than kingdoms.

Whatever their political structure, they were “a vast and flourishing culture on lucrative trade routes linking Mesopotamia and the far east.” Iron smelting during the second millennium BCE, would’ve given Kolkhan warriors superior weaponry. It’s highly unlikely that a foreign Greek armored in bronze, however divinely sired, could’ve become king—at least not without inside help.

In my novel-in-progress, Sky God’s Warrior, Aeëtes carries the original root of his name, Aietós, the ancient Greek word for “eagle.” The Greek hero Aietós arrives to conquer Kolkha, but the natives are far more formidable than he anticipated.
One of the delights of writing this story is viewing the ancient Greek myths as chauvinistic propaganda meant to elevate the importance of the Greek city-states, which were actually bit players on the world stage at that time.

Storytellers named several different women as the queen-consort of King Aeëtes, all of which were ocean or river nymphs. The four most common names given were Eidyia, Asterodeia, Neaera, and Clytia.

Clytia (Klutíē in ancient Greek) was an Oceanid (Ōkeanís in the original Greek), an ocean nymph. She was a daughter of the Titans Oceanuus (Ōkeanós) and Tethys (Tēthýs). She is often conflated with the Oceanid Clytie, who pined for the sun god Helios. When Clytie discovered him with a mortal princess, her jealous actions resulted in the princess being buried alive.
Though this jealousy could’ve provided interesting foreshadowing for Medea’s tragic story, I rejected Clytia as a character for Sky God’s Warrior based on her unattractive name.

Neaera was either another Ocean-nymph daughter of Oceanus and Thethys, or she was a Nereid, a sea nymph. All nymphs were personifications of nature and “typically tied to a specific place, landform, or tree,” an example of Animism. In Neaera’s case, she might’ve personified the Black Sea, originally called the “Inhospitable Sea” by the ancient Greeks for its unpredictable storms.
Like Clytie, Neaera was a consort of Helios in some myths. Though her stormy nature and the potential love triangle between Neaera, Aeëtes, and Helios would’ve provided drama in my story, I found her name too difficult to say or spell!

Asterodeia was a river nymph or naiad. She’s described as a gold-bearing mountain stream in the Caucasus Mountains, which links her to the Golden Fleece. The myth of the Golden Fleece (part of the adventures of Jason and the Argonauts) echoed the historical practice of using sheep fleece to strain for gold in the mountain streams of Kolkha. Her name is composed of the Greek words astêr “star” and rhodos “rose.” She is listed as the mother of Apsyrtos. The end of his name may come from the Greek syrtos, meaning “washed down from a river.” The beginning of his name may originate in Apsny, meaning “mortal” in native Abkhaz. Apsny is the self-name of the Republic of Abkhazia, in the western Caucasus Mountains—perhaps the location of his river mother? Asterodeia is a pretty name, but not my choice for Sky God’s Warrior.

Eidyia (Eiduîa in ancient Greek) was another Oceanid and youngest daughter of Ocenaus and Tethys. Her name meant “the knowing one” from eídō, meaning “to see” or “to know.” It’s possible she represented native sovereignty, and Aeëtes assumed kingship through a type of sacred marriage with her.

I chose Eidyia as the main character in Sky God’s Warrior, because of her name’s meaning and phonetics. It sounded closest to proto-Iranian, the language of the Eurasian steppe north of Kolkha, where my character fostered from ages eleven through twenty-five. The proto-Iranian name I chose for her is Ayda’ia → Ayda (“wandering”) + ia (woman). In the novel-in-progress, she yearns for a permanent place to belong—and secretly fears she will forever “wander” between Kolkha and the northern steppe, a perpetual outsider.

Part of the humor in my book is the Greek hero Aietós consistently mispronouncing her name as Eiduîa, much to Ayda’s annoyance.

Sifting through ancient lore and selecting the elements that will best illuminate the story I want to tell is one of the thrills of writing mythic fantasy—whether that’s choosing specific characters or shaping other story elements such as setting and plot events.
I grew up with Classical Greek myths, but always despised the roles of women characters: bitter Hera, conniving sorceress Circe, murderous Medea. Reframing these myths from a feminist and non-Greek perspective heals old hurts from internalized misogyny.
Thank you for sharing my writing journey~

Read more about Greek myth: The Song of Achilles, Ithaca, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, Medusa,
Sirens Empowered, #MeTooMedusa, The Spring Maiden, Water Gods, Animism

Divine Darkness

4/25/2026

"If there were no darkness in our lives, we would not encounter
the deep secrets that darkness holds." —Patricia Monaghan

My disability due to pulmonary sarcoidosis consistently spotlights my fears and mortality. Cultivating gratitude helps ease my distress, but shadows also contain gifts, as I discovered while exploring nighttime’s unique blessings.

Night’s special magic includes wishing on a star, listening to whip-poor-wills, and watching fireflies dance in the dark—but the shadows harbor other extraordinary secrets.
Nighttime enchantment can also include bioluminescent fungi, known as foxfire (or fairy fire), which I once witnessed while camping.
Luminescent Will-o-the-wisps haunt peat bogs. In his book, Nature at Night, naturalist Charles Hood explains that “phosphine, diphosphate, and methane—all three of which are produced by organic decay—can cause photon emissions. And since phosphine and diphosphate mixtures spontaneously ignite in contact with the oxygen in the air, only a small quantity of it [is] needed to ignite the much more abundant methane and create an ephemeral flame.”

A similar phenomenon, naturally occurring eternal flames are a subterranean mix of hydrogen and methane (among other gasses), which spontaneously ignite when they reach the surface.
I’ve never witnessed a moonbow, but they occur when the full moon is low on the horizon and moisture fills the air in the form of light rain, fog or waterfall spray.
Longfellow's poem, “Hymn to the Night,” captures the rapturous beauty of nighttime:

According to Charles Hood, our eyes adjust to the dark in phases: “There’s a ‘phase one,’ and that happens right away, in just a minute or two. But our final night vision takes up to thirty minutes to arrive. . . All humans have excellent night vision—it’s how we evolved. You can even hike using only starlight.”
Because artificial light bleaches the rhodopsin in our vision cells, few modern humans experience this intimate connection with darkness. Our night blindness can trigger fear. I’ve laid awake more than once listening to an enormous monster crashing in the dark—only to discover a raccoon or opossum making their nightly rounds when I finally dared to peek outside.

This poem, “Mother Night,” captures the human impulse to look to divine entities to protect us from things bumping around in the night.

In my fictional world of Kolkha, the darkness is ruled by Night Rider, the sky god Tiamar’s son. He wears a midnight-blue cloak spangled with stars. I imagine him as a wise, forgiving presence.
His priestesses wear midnight blue robes embroidered with star signs and use their astrology skills to scry the future.

Here’s an introduction to nine other deities from around the world embodying night’s darkness:

1. ʿAmm is a moon god worshipped in ancient Qataban, which was a kingdom located in present-day Yemen along the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula. The inhabitants of Qataban referred to themselves as the Banu 'Amm, or the "Children of 'Amm."
In addition to personifying the moon, he is also a weather god and wielded lightning bolts. 'Amm's name derives from the Arabic word for paternal uncle and he was actively worshipped into the 2nd century CE.

2. Goddess of the Night was worshiped in the Hurrian kingdom of Kizzuwatna (central Anatolia, in present-day Turkey). She was also worshiped by the Bronze Age Hittites.

Goddess of the Night most likely represents the night sky and is also associated with dreaming.
“Most researchers assume that she was at least partially similar to goddesses such as [the Mesopotamian goddess] Ishtar, [the Hurrian goddess] Šauška and [the Syrian goddess] Išḫara.”

3. “At night, particularly at the dark moon, Hekate could be seen walking the roads of ancient Greece accompanied by her howling dogs and blazing torches” —from Mysteries of the Dark Moon.

“Queen of the Night, triple-faced Hekate [is] most often linked with the dark of the moon and presides over magic, ritual, prophetic vision, childbirth, death, the underworld, and the secrets of regeneration. Mistress of the crossroads, this lunar goddess dwells in caves, walks the highways at night, makes love in the vast seas, and is the force that moves the moon.”

For those who worship her honorably, Hekate bestows her magical knowledge of “love, metamorphosis, and pharmaka.”

Her most famous pupils in Greek mythology are Circe and Medea.
“As priestesses of Hekate, Circe and Medea were held in awe and fear as potent sorceresses well versed in the properties of magical herbs, enchantments, witch’s lore, and shape-shifting.”
In my fictional world of Kolkha, the priestess Sary and her niece, Mezia, personify these two powerful women—but from a non-Greek perspective.

Greek women set idols of Hecate outside their homes to keep them safe and “called upon Hekate to protect their families from her hosts of the dead. It was felt that this goddess could hold back the spectral hordes from the living if she chose.”
From Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: “Hoards of ghosts led by Hecate and Her baying hounds roamed the earth on moonless nights. Yet She protected those mortals who purified themselves in Her name, With faces averted they offered Her ritual suppers at lonely crossroads, the gathering place of spirits.”

4. Hine-nui-te-pō (“the great woman of the night”) is a Māori goddess of the night who receives the spirits of humans when they die. In one story, she flees to the underworld when she discovers her husband is also her father.
Hine-nui-te-pō shepherds souls into the first level of the subterranean land of the dead, Rarohenga, to ready them for the next stage of their journey.

5. Nótt is a Norse goddess whose name means “Night.” She is also referred to in the Poetic Edda as “The Lightless,” or “The Unsorrowing,” as the elves’ “Sleep’s Joy,” and by the dwarves as “The Weaver of Dreams.”

She is both a jötun and a divine goddess. The jötnar are supernatural beings with elemental powers in Norse mythology.
According to Myths of Northern Lands, Nótti rides in a dark chariot, drawn by a sable horse named “Hrim-faxi (frost mane), from whose waving mane the dew and hoarfrost dropped down upon the earth.”

6. Greek poets and playwrights said Nyx lives at the ends of the Earth as a black-robed goddess who drives through the sky in a chariot pulled by a pair of black horses.

In Mysteries of the Dark Moon, Nyx (aka Mother Night) arose out of primeval chaos “in the form of a great black-winged spirit hovering over a vast sea of darkness. Ancient Night conceived of the Wind and laid her silver Egg in the gigantic lap of Darkness. The upper section of this gigantic Egg formed the vault of the sky and the lower section was the earth. … The description that Nyx laid a silver egg is another way of saying that Mother Night gave birth to the moon, silver being the lunar metal.”

It’s interesting to note that in “the earliest mythologies night was given precedence over day, and the moon over the sun.” This is true not only of ancient Greeks, but of Jewish and Celtic cultures, for example.
We can call on Nyx “to reclaim our awareness that our original essential nature arises out of formless potentiality embodied by the night.”

7. Oxomoco (also known as Oxomo) is an Aztec deity, the goddess of the night, astrology and the calendar. Her name means “First Woman” and comes from the Huastic word Uxumocox: Uxum (Woman) and Ocox (First).
Oxomoco usually wears a priest’s tobacco gourd on her back and is shown divining with knotted cords in the Florentine Codex. In some depictions she wears a butterfly mask or throws maize and beans from a vessel. The butterfly symbolizes rebirth in Aztec religion.

These symbols of rebirth and planting seeds lend to her interpretation as a fertility goddess. “According to various myths, she was born from the primordial waters that existed before the creation of the world. … In Aztec society, where agriculture was the backbone of the economy, her influence was significant. Farmers would invoke her blessings to ensure bountiful harvests, and rituals were conducted in her honor during planting and harvesting seasons. The Aztecs believed that her presence in the [dark] soil was essential for the growth of plants and the fertility of the land.”

8. Ratri (“Night”) is a Vedic goddess in Hinduism who personifies the night and represents cyclic patterns of the cosmos. She is a powerful mother who strengthens vital power.
Because Ratri is so familiar with the things that lurk in the darkness, she is often invoked with spells of protection. “She prevents any harm befalling [the Brahmins] from that which flies or crawls or prowls the mountains. She protects the citizens from the villain and the marauder and the thief in the darkness.” Ratri also takes the form of those things contained within the darkness: “the splendor of the lion and of the stag, the form of the tiger, the leopard…. and the wild-man's bellow.”

Quoted in The Goddess Companion, by Patricia Monaghan

Ratri “symbolizes both the literal darkness of night and the deeper, metaphorical aspects of rest, rejuvenation, and the mysteries of the subconscious. … In modern interpretations, Goddess Ratri serves as a reminder of the importance of rest and self-care in our fast-paced lives. She encourages individuals to embrace the darkness not as something to fear but as an opportunity for introspection, growth, and renewal. By acknowledging her presence, we can cultivate a deeper appreciation for the balance of light and darkness in our lives.”

9. Shay-Al-Qawm was a god of the night, war, and guardian of caravans among the al-ʾanbāṭ (or Nabataeans), a nomadic dessert-dwelling people of northern Arabs. His name may mean “the one who accompanies (or aids) the people” pointing to His role as a protector of caravans and soldiers and anyone traveling at night. He was also known as the “Protector of the Clan” or “Guardian of the Army.”
As a night god, “he protected the souls of the sleepers in the form of stars, accompanying them on their nightly journey through the heavenly realms, as well as guiding caravans in the desert by means of the stars.”

His name was inscribed on numerous offering pillars, including one carved in 132 CE where he is called Shia Al-Qawm.

Quoted in The Goddess Companion, by Patricia Monaghan

I had two goals researching this essay: to quiet my own shadow-fears, and to explore what night magic might look like for the fictional priesthood of Night Rider.

In the live role-play game Empire, gamers describe night magic as “subtle, intuitive, deceptive and secretive. It is never direct, and never the same twice - it is the essence of transformation and mystery. … Night magic lives in the unconscious and the subconscious. … The divinatory powers of Night magic are always somewhat dreamlike in nature [and] full of symbols and metaphors that must be interpreted. Magicians who make extensive use of Night magic often talk about its elusive, mercurial nature [and] powerful rituals often leave the magicians feeling dazed or in some cases even cause phantasmagoric hallucinations.”

A real-world exploration of night magic by Korey Ebrima is equally poetic:

“In the tapestry of the night, where the heavens are adorned with constellations like diamonds scattered across a velvet canvas, lies a realm of infinite mystery — the realm of darkness. … The darkness becomes a canvas upon which our deepest fears and desires are painted, a mirror that reflects the depths of our souls [and invites] us to explore, to question, to marvel at the infinite wonders of the universe. The night is not just a canvas upon which we project our fears and fantasies; it is a doorway to understanding, a gateway to the unknown.”

However you choose to embrace the darkness, may you be comforted and guided.

Read related essays, poems, and books:
Night Creatures, Inanna’s Descent, Ancient Funerals,
“Inanna Eclipsed,” “Night Communion,” “Dragon Moon,”
The Underworld, The Witch’s Heart, Mexican Gothic, What Moves the Dead

15 Healing Deities & Practices

2/27/2026

These healing deities provide insights into the recovery process—welcome inspiration as I continue my personal journey with chronic pulmonary sarcoidosis. Each entry includes links to healing practices.
Note: consult your healthcare provider before beginning any new healing practice.
May you be well, dear reader~

Anahita is the Persian goddess of health and healing, fertility, water, and wisdom. Because of her association with healing and life, Persian soldiers prayed to her for their survival before battle. The sick went on pilgrimage to temples dedicated to Anahita or her Armenian counterpart, Anahit.

She was among the most popular and widely venerated deities in Early Iranian Religion from around the 8th century BCE and “survived the religious reforms of the prophet Zoroaster (1500-1000 BCE) as an emanation of the one god Ahura Mazda rather than as the [independent] deity she had been before.”
Anahita personified the Heavenly River, providing water “to the rivers and streams flowing in the earth.”
She is thus “the life-increasing, herd-increasing, fold-increasing, [and] makes prosperity for all countries.”

Humans have been using healing waters in the form of sacred rivers for millennia; holy wells are another form of water used in healing. The benefits of healing waters have reemerged in modern medical advice to hydrate.

The Greek god Asclepius was a deified hero revered for healing wisdom. He was instructed by the centaur (horse-man) Chiron. Another myth says that “in return for some kindness rendered by Asclepius, a snake licked Asclepius's ears clean and taught him secret knowledge (to the Greeks, snakes were sacred beings of wisdom, healing, and resurrection). Asclepius bore a rod wreathed with a snake, which became associated with healing.”
His temples were usually built “on hills outside the town and near wells which were believed to have healing powers. These temples were not only places of worship, but were frequented by great numbers of sick persons, and may therefore be compared to modern hospitals. . . .
Serpents were [closely] connected with the worship of Aesculapius, probably because they were a symbol of prudence and renovation . . .” Tame serpents were kept in his temples and “the god himself frequently appeared in the form of a serpent.”

Snake venom is used by modern medicine in a wide array of medications, including Lisinopril and other ACE inhibitors, Eptifibatide, Defibrase, Prialt, and many others. Basic scientific research regularly discovers new therapeutic medications.

Beaivi (or Beivve) is the healing sun goddess of the Sami. Beaivi is goddess of the sun, spring, and mental sanity. She is also associated with the fertility of plants and animals, particularly reindeer, bringing wealth and prosperity to humanity.
The Sami live north of the Arctic Circle (in northern Scandinavia), where “the sun does not even reach the horizon in winter. . . . At the time of the year when Beivve returned, prayers were made for the people who were mentally ill. The Sami believed that madness (in the shape of psychoses and depression) were provoked by the lack of sunshine and light during the long, dark winter.”

In modern terms, this is called Seasonal Affective Disorder, and can be a challenge for anyone in northern or cloudy climes. Short “sun siestas” or limited exposure to a full-spectrum light bulb may help alleviate the wintertime blues. Be cautious: certain medications (like Methotrexate) cause sun sensitivity.

The Buddhist deity Bhaishajyaguru cures both spiritual ailments and physical illnesses. “He is believed to have made twelve vows as a bodhisattva, including vows to heal beings born with deformities, illness, or other physical suffering, and to help those suffering from sickness, mental afflictions, hunger, thirst, poverty, oppression, cold, and even mosquitoes. Over the centuries, Buddhists in Central Asia, Tibet, China, Korea, and Japan in particular have called upon the Healing Buddha to cure their illnesses, either by praying directly to images of the deity or by rubbing sculptures on the parts of his body relating to their own particular ailment.”

His sutra, the Bhaiṣajya-guru-vaiḍūrya-prabhā-rāja Sutra, “is said to contain 84,000 verses on the subject of medicine and health. Medicine Buddha is typically depicted as the color of lapis lazuli or blue, which symbolizes his power to dispel disease. He is seated on a lotus flower, which represents his purity and wisdom.”
The benefits of prayer are widely documented by modern science, supporting the therapeutic benefits of praying to an entity such as the Healing Buddha.

A traditional Irish ballad describes the healing magic of the goddess Brighid:
“Brigid went out in the early dawn,
  and saw a horse with a shattered leg.
  Bone to bone she knit, flesh to flesh,
  vein to vein she sewed, sinew back to sinew.”
According to Carl McColman and Kathryn Hinds, her name means “the exalted one” or “she who rises” and (in one of her triple aspects) she is “the goddess of healing, herbalism, and midwives.” Many sacred wells and springs are dedicated to her, places where her healing divinity “rises” to the surface. These sacred sites are places “of peace and reflection."

The health benefits of meditation are well proven. I’ve found Qigong breathing exercises helpful, such as those led by Brother Insight and Kseny Gray, but any regular practice to quiet the mind can be beneficial.

Dian Cecht was healer to the Tuatha Dé Danann, the divine tribe of supernatural gods in ancient Ireland. His name in Old Irish meant "swift power." The protoc-Celtic reconstruction was *Deino-kwekwto- “swift concoction,” and “hence the original name of the deity may have signified 'swift potion' or, by extrapolation even 'He-who-is-Swift-with-Healing-Remedies’.”
He soaked the injured in his well of healing, and used incantations and herbs in his medicinal arts. When King Nuada lost his arm, Dian Cecht fashioned a silver arm for him.
An incantation in his name says in part: “I save the dead-alive. Against . . . spear-thong, against sudden tumor, against bleeding caused by iron, against ... fire burns . . . I strike its disease ... Whole be that whereon it (Diancecht's salve) goes.”

Dian Cécht is commonly pronounced “DEE-an kett.” His role as a miraculous healer “reflects the Celtic understanding that healing was a deeply spiritual process, connected to destiny and the wellbeing of the entire community.”
Cultivating a supportive community has profound health benefits. The best way to have friends is to be a friend. Consider reaching out to someone today, if only to send a virtual *hug*.

In Hindu mythology, Dhanvantari was the physician of the gods. According to legend, “the gods and the demons sought the elixir amrita by churning the milky ocean, and Dhanvantari rose out of the waters bearing a cup filled with the elixir. Ayurveda, a traditional system of medicine, is also attributed to him.”
Dhanvantari is described as the "dispeller of all ailments" and is often shown with a leech in his hand symbolizing the historical practice of bloodletting. He was exempt from infirmities and recognized as a "master of universal knowledge.”
Dietary balance is one tenet of the complex system of Ayurveda. A nutritionist working with sarcoidosis patients recommends MyPlate and the Mediterranean Diet to reduce systemic inflammation—both of which promote increased intake of fruits and vegetables (half of each meal). I find the crockpot a low-energy way to cook~

Eir was a Norse healing goddess (or valkyrie), whose name means “protection, help, or mercy.” She is listed among the gods as “an extremely good physician” believed to “shelter and save those who make offerings” to her.
Presiding over childbirth gave her the power over life and death, and she was “revered as a lifegiver, both in the family home and in the courts of kings.”
Among the battlefield Valkyries, Eir chose who would live, recover, and return to health. Her name is “a commonly used kenning for ‘woman’ and ‘women’,” which is fitting given that in ancient times, “the realm of healing was by and large the realm of women. Folk tradition holds that Eir was invoked in healing rituals using a white flower known as Eirflower.”
Healing methods included: “healing through prayers, magic, midwifery practices (which were more advanced than those that followed after), surgery, herbalism, home remedies, healing methods using copper bracelets, and detoxes using saunas.”

Saunas have documented health benefits; a healthy fiber-rich diet is another natural form of “detoxing.”

Gula was a “Mesopotamian goddess of medicine, portrayed as a divine physician and midwife. Over the course of the second and first millennia BCE, she became one of the main deities of the Mesopotamian pantheon . . . She was associated with dogs [and puppies], and could be depicted alongside these animals . . . and received [dog] figurines . . . as votive offerings.” She also had a dog-like being, Urmašum, as her divine attendant, and her dogs were invoked to purge demons: "We are not just any dog, we are dogs of Gula, poised to flay your face, tear your back to pieces, and lacerate your ankles."
Her medical tools included herbal remedies, razors, scalpels and lancets. “Like other medicine goddesses, Gula was believed to be able to use illnesses as punishment in addition to healing them.” Her popularity grew over time, and she “eventually eclipsed all the other medicine goddesses.”

Modern science recognizes the powerful healing associated with dogs and other companion animals; I can attest to the benefits of napping with my cats during my recovery from surgery~

The Egyptian god of magic and medicine, Heka, was depicted “as a man in royal dress . . . carrying a staff entwined with two serpents.”
Heka is among the oldest gods of Egypt, recognized as early as 6000 BCE.
“Heka” referred to “the deity, the concept, and the practice of magic. . . . The universe was created and given form by magical means, and magic sustained both the visible and invisible worlds.
He is mentioned primarily in medical texts and magical spells and incantations . . . In the present day, most people do not associate magic with medicine, but for the ancient Egyptians, the two were almost one discipline. . . .
Diseases were caused either by the will of the gods, an evil demon, or an angry spirit, and spells against these demons and spirits (or invoking the help of the gods) were common cures for sickness throughout Egypt's history.
Egyptian doctors (known as Priests of Heka) were not trying to trick a patient with some sleight of hand but were invoking real powers to effect a cure.”

The power of positive thinking on healing proves our beliefs shape our reality, and is a potent incentive to focus on gratitude: No matter how hard things may be, finding something to be grateful for (health insurance, supplemental oxygen machines, a warm home, food on the table) can uplift the spirit.

Ixtlilton (sometimes spelled Ixtliltzin), which means “Small Black Face,” was an Aztec god of medicine, “specifically in relation to children: young ones who either were sick or who had not yet started to speak were taken to his temple to be cured—and induced to speak. . . . A particular medicine associated with him, itlilauh (“his black water”) was given to sick children to drink in his temple by a priest impersonating him.”
Another source translates Ixtlilton as "ink at the face." He was a gentle god, who emanated from the obsidian mask of night, bringing darkness and peaceful sleep to children in their beds at night.

Restful sleep has proven benefits. Tips for healthy sleep habits include turning off digital devices 2 hours before bed and establishing a consistent bedtime routine. Beware getting lost in a good novel before bedtime~

Kataḫzipuri (also known as Kataḫziwuri) was a goddess of magic, healing, and purification worshiped in Bronze Age Anatolia. Her name is derived from the words kattaḫ, "queen", and pur, "land" and means "queen of the land.”
She is similar to another goddess of medicine and magic, Kamrušepa. Kamrušepa likely means "spirit of the clouds" or "spirit of smoke" and she had an iron throne.
Both goddesses resided in the heavens and were divine midwives. They were invoked in healing incantations and rituals, and could dispel omens related to “unfavorable dreams.”

In the myth of Telipinu, Kamrušepa dispels the agricultural god’s anger with her purifying song: “Telepinu’s anger burns like fire on the plain.
Let his wrath, sin, and brooding depart from him!
Let his furious rage become as barren as the malt that cannot be planted as seed or used for bread!
Douse the fire of his furious, angry rage!
Give up your rage, Telepinu, and let it not return!”
Strong emotions like grief and anger are common with chronic illness and disability. Seeking a supportive community and practicing self-care can ease the distress.

Poh Seng Tai Tay is a god of medicine worshiped among the Hoklo, a Han Chinese ethnic group concentrated in Fujian, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. According to legend, Poh Seng Tai Tay was a mortal born into poverty to refugee parents. After his parents both died, when he was 13, he practiced acupuncture, concocted potions, and studied books written by ancient doctors.
He once healed a tiger with a bone stuck in its throat; these fierce animals often stand guard in his temples. He also practiced alchemy with famous teachers including the Queen Mother of the West, a mother goddess deity, and became a renown healer. According to legend, he died at the age of 57 and ascended into heaven riding a crane.

We all don’t have the drive or skill to become divine physicians like Poh Seng Tai Tay. Relying on the expertise of modern health care professionals is a crucial element of the healing journey especially for those of us blessed with health insurance.

Sonzwaphi is a revered goddess of healing, medicine, and nature wisdom in Zulu mythology (from South Africa). “She embodies the nurturing, restorative qualities of the natural world and serves as the divine guide for traditional healers and herbalists. Her role reflects the deep respect the Zulu people hold for holistic health and the sacred connection between humanity and nature.”
According to legend, she “descended from the spiritual realm during a time of great suffering and taught the isangoma (divine healers) and inyanga (herbalists) how to harness the power of plants, roots, and water to cure ailments and restore balance.” She often guides traditional healers through visions and dreams.
Her name is sometimes translated as “She Who Knows Where to Heal.”

Modern medicine touts the benefits of herbal teas, including the anti-inflammatory properties of chamomile and ginger tea. Consider brewing a cup today~

Sukuna Hikona, as a Shinto kami of healing, invented cures for human and animal diseases in Japan. “He was invoked for protection against ‘creeping things’ [such as insects, snakes, and other pests] and ‘calamities,’ a euphemism for unseen or spiritual forces.”
He gave protection via spells, being proficient in magic.
In addition to being a Shinto kami of healing, Sukunahikona is associated with brewing sake (rice wine) and with therapeutic hot springs.

Thermal springs have a long history of health benefits; Epsom salt baths can be an economical and accessible alternative for anyone without ready access to hot springs.

Read more about the association of snakes and healing: Slither
Read about other types of healing magic: Water Gods, Land Magic, The Green Man,
Celtic Fire Goddess Brighid, Animism, Sky Goddesses, When Women Lead the World

The Wild Hunt

12/19/2025

At the Midwinter solstice, the longest night of the year, the Wild Hunt sweeps through the land, scattering animals and snatching souls of the unwary. The Hunt is led by a mounted horned figure embodying the wild magic of ancient untamed forests. This coming solstice, keep your pets inside and your doors closed when the otherworldly hounds bay like thunder and the Wild Hunt rides.

According to The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore, the idea of otherworldly fairy folk snatching people and carrying them away is common in Celtic folklore.
“In Wales the leader of the Wild Hunt was Gwynn ap Nudd, king of the dead [and king of Fairyland], who rode with the Cŵn Annwn [red-eared hounds] on storm clouds to collect the souls of the newly dead, to take them to the afterlife. . . . Gazing on the riders was dangerous, but those who put a sprig of protective rowan over their doors could watch the procession in safety.”

Gwynn is closely associated with Herne the Hunter who “appears in various legends as a horned spirit, suggesting he may have originated as a woodland deity like Cernunnos.” This Cernunnos was worshipped widely “as far back as the fourth century BCE.” Like Herne, he wears the horns of a stag “suggesting a connection with the powers of the wildwood.”

Several sources link the British stag-horned god Herne to the Celtic Cernunnos.
According to Janet & Stewart Farrar, widespread evidence of Herne/Cernunnos is found “in many Celtic artefacts” including rock carvings, chalk hill-cut figures, and the famous Gundestrup Cauldron.
“He is usually portrayed with horns and accompanied by animals. He usually either wears or has looped on his horns the torc (circular necklet) of Celtic nobility.”

The name Herne may be an imitation of a deer’s challenge: “The call of a hind to her stag sounds like a deep-throaty ‘HH-ERRRN’.”
In Britain, Herne the Hunter “leads his Wild Hunt of red-eared hounds at a furious pace across the sky. In Wales, the leader of the Wild Hunt is called Gwyn.”

The Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology notes that the name “Gwyn” [or Gwynn] means “white, fair, holy.”
Gwyn ap Nudd is the mythological king of the Otherworld, “a realm beyond the senses,” with a pack of otherworldly dogs or hell-hounds, “snow-white, red-eared spectral hounds. . . . They hunt the souls of the living through the air” and are also known as fairy dogs, corpse dogs, or sky dogs.

Authors have recreated the Wild Hunt in fiction. These are my three favorites:

In The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, the Wild Hunt chases the powers of the Dark away at the Midwinter solstice.
The book has one of my favorite portrayals of winter’s bite (a desperate scene illustrating the Dark's ascendant power with the lengthening nights preceding the winter solstice):
“The air was like a current of chill water, coming at them from all sides. The fire in the great hearth gave out no warmth now, no warmth that was not sucked in by . . . the deep cold, the cold of the void, of black space . . . And the cold grew more and more intense, cutting through the body to the mind.”
Our hero, Will Stanton, meets Herne, leader of the Wild Hunt, in the climax:

“The figure of the Hunter towered over him. The moonlight now glimmered clear on his head, and Will found himself gazing up into strange tawny eyes, yellow-gold, unfathomable, like the eyes of some huge bird. . . . The golden eyes blinked, feather-fringed and round, with the deliberate blink of an owl’s strong eyelids; the man’s face in which they were set was turned full on Will, and the firm-carved mouth above the soft beard parted in a quick smile. [His smile told of] cruelty, and a pitiless impulse to revenge. Indeed, he was half-beast. The dark branches of Herne’s antlers curved up over Will, the moonlight glinting off their velvety sheen, and the Hunter laughed softly.”

Will meets Herne’s hounds:
“. . . behind every shadow or tree and out of every cloud, leaping round the ground and through the air, came an endless pack of hounds, sounding, belling as hunting dogs do when they are starting after a scent. They were huge white animals, ghostly in the half-light, loping and jostling and bounding together . . .
Their ears were red [like flames], their eyes were red; they were ugly creatures.”

The Hunt rides: “Round Herne and the white mare they bayed and belled, a heaving sea of red-flecked foam; then all at once the antlered man stiffened, his great horns pointing as a hunting dog points and he called the hounds together . . . A bedlam of yelping urgency rose from the milling white dogs, filling the sky, and at that same moment the full strength of the thunderstorm erupted. Clouds split roaring into bright, jagged lightning as Herne and the white horse leapt exultingly into the arena of the sky, with the red-eyed hounds pouring up into the stormy air after them in a great white flood.”

Later: “out of the west, with the speed of dropping stones, came Herne and the Wild Hunt. At the peak of their power now, in full cry, they came roaring out of the great dark thundercloud, through streaking lightning and grey-purple clouds, riding on the storm. The yellow-eyed antlered man rode laughing dreadfully, crying out the avaunt that rallies hounds on the full chase, and his brilliant, white-gold horse flung forward with main and tail flying. And around them and endlessly behind them like a broad white river poured the Yell Hounds, the Yelpers, the Hounds of Doom, their red eyes burning with a thousand warning flames. The sky was white with them; they filled the western horizon; and still they came, unending.”

The prolific author Jane Yolen wrote a dark novella entitled the Wild Hunt that presents the Hunt as a battle between Winter and Summer, with Herne the Huntsman personifying Winter.
“Lord Herne is the dark, the night, the cold. He is chaos and anger and war.” The White Lady who opposes him is “light and day and summer . . . reason and calm and peace."

Two boys, a talking white cat, and a slobbery dog carry two-thirds of the story in alternating chapters; the terrifying winter Huntsman stalks every third chapter of the book.

The Huntsman arrives: “an enormous man, his black armor both polished and covered with a patina that spoke of centuries of wear. One hand rested on his hip; the other held aloft a long black whip. His horned help was up, but if he had eyes, they were only red coals burning in the darkness that was his face.”
He rides with nine riders on “mine-black” horses and a “pack of slavering hounds” with bright red muzzles. “They growled over their memories of the last hunt; they could taste time.”

One of the boys is imprisoned by the Huntsman: “[He] considered shinnying up the stone bars. But when he put his mittened hands on them, he felt the cold go straight through the wool, straight through the skin, all the way down to the bone. The bars were so cold they burned.”

The contest between Winter and Summer is, as might be expected, a stalemate:
“A draw then, my lady wife?”
“A draw then, my husband. Summer will again be but six months long.”
“And winter the rest.” Behind the helm the red-coal eyes seemed to smile.

Song of the Huntress by Lucy Holland may be the most original fictional version of the Wild Hunt. Herla, a warrior of the Iceni queen Boudica, makes a bargain with Gwynn ap Nudd: “The day I met him, the King of Annwn [the Fairy Otherworld] had eyes like cold stars. He was both huge and humble: a giant one moment, a man the next. . . . he turned his face toward me, it was ancient and sad [and] wild; a stag startled to madness by the harvest moon.”
Herla wants to help her queen defeat the Romans. Gwynn gives her a horse, a sword, and a hound that “was all white save for two unsettling blood-red ears.” The sword he provides curses Herla and her warrior companions to sleep under a tor-mound for hundreds of years.

“Every month, when the moon grew old, Gwynn’s blade woke us from our damned slumber beneath the tor to slay any who crossed our path. [The sword] drew blood from the wind: it sheared soul from flesh. . . . The Britons called us the Wild Hunt and learned to dread the aging crescent of the moon.”

Herla’s experience of the Hunt: “Herla can feel it growing: an iron tang in her mouth, a widening of her nostrils. The bloodlust stirs the roots of her hair, fills her limbs with a storm, until the binding suddenly loosens and the full weight of the curse falls upon her.”
When the Wild Hunt encounters land magic, loosed by a dying king, the curse begins unraveling. This initiates Herla’s struggle to recover her humanity after many centuries leading the Hunt.

Here is Herla’s first bite of bread after so long out of time: “Salt. Yeast. The warm mustiness of wheat. She swallows, presses a hand against her mouth. She can feel the morsel inside her like an anchor, like a burning coal, like a—the sensation fades and she wants to laugh. Rocked by a scrap of bread. What a stranger to life I have become.”

Despite the weakening of the curse, the Hunt remains compelled to ride at each new moon, endangering Herla’s newfound love and threatening her fragile grip on life.
At the novel's climax she confronts Gwyn ap Nudd:
“Your duty is not ours, Gwyn ap Nudd,” she hisses. “It was given to you and only you can perform it.” She holds out the sword. “Take it back and free us.”

Tuck a sprig of rowan over your door (if you have access to mountain-loving rowan trees); call in your pets and lock any livestock in the barn before the sun fades—for on Midwinter night, the Wild Hunt rides.

Read about related nature-based mythology:
Animism, The Green Man, The Spring Maiden, Sky Goddesses, Water Gods
Read more about Celtic deities: Warrior Goddesses, Celtic Fire Goddess Brigid

Top 20 Cat Gods and Myths

10/16/2025

King Tristan

As a longtime servant of domestic cats, it isn’t hard to imagine cats as divine creatures. For example, our cat Tristan likes to assume a regal pose from a high perch, often atop the refrigerator, to supervise his human attendants.
I am a well-trained cat-servant, feeding my two feline princes on demand, keeping their water fresh and their litter boxes clean, and regularly providing a warm lap whenever required. I am also skilled at petting and scritching all my cats’ favorite places (but never the belly!).
Thus it is with extensive personal experience and authority that I present my recent research on cat deities and mythology from around the world~

Bastet: Originally one of the many ferocious lion goddesses of ancient Egypt, Bastet transformed into a “gentler” cat goddess during the Middle Kingdom (~2000 to 1800 BCE).

Cats were domesticated in ancient Egypt around 4000 BCE, and were revered for their ability to kill mice and rats, who threatened the grain supply and spread disease, “as well as snakes—especially cobras.” Wealthy Egyptians often treated their cats like royalty, “dressed in golden jewelry and allowed to eat from the plates of their owners. . . . The death of a cat might leave a family in great mourning, and those who could afford the expense would have the cat embalmed or buried in pet cemeteries . . . More than 300,000 mummified cats were discovered [in] Bastet's temple . . . ”
“As a sign of mourning, the cat owners shaved off their eyebrows, and continued to mourn until their eyebrows grew back. . . . Cats were so special that those who killed them, even by accident, were sentenced to death.”

Cats “were also thought to be the physical form of the goddess Bastet . . . the goddess of protection, pleasure, and the bringer of good health.”

Bastet was considered a daughter of the sun god Ra. “At night, when Ra was resting, Bastet would morph into her cat form and protect her father from his enemy, Apep the serpent. . . . As a cat, Bastet had excellent night vision. This allowed Bastet to search for Apep and slay him with the greatest of ease. The death of Apep ensured the sun would continue to shine and crops would continue to grow.”
“Because domestic cats tend to be tender and protective of their offspring, Bastet was also regarded as a good mother and sometimes was depicted with numerous kittens.”

Her cult city was Bubastis or Per-Bastet, the “House of Bastet,” along the Nile River in Lower Egypt.

“Each year on the day of her festival, the town was said to have attracted some 700,000 visitors, both men and women . . .”
“The festival was celebrated with feasts, music, a lot of dancing, and unrestrained wine drinking. During the festival, sacred rattles [sistrums] were used as a sign of jubilation to Bastet.”
Bastet was a highly popular deity: “thousands of bronze statuettes of the goddess were deposited as votive offerings. Small figures of cats were also worn as amulets; this too was probably related to the cult of Bastet.”

The goddess Bastet is thus both tender mother and fierce protector,
to be celebrated with joy and jubilation.

Sekhmet: The Egyptian lion-goddess Sekhmet “acted as the vengeful manifestation of [the sun god] Ra's power, the Eye of Ra. Sekhmet is said to breathe fire, and the hot winds of the desert were likened to her breath. She is also believed to cause plagues (which were described as being her servants or messengers).”
Sekhmet also healed her faithful of plagues and her priests were considered expert physicians.

She embodied “the searing heat of the mid-day sun” and her name “is derived from the Egyptian word Sekhem (which means “power” or “might”) and is often translated as the ‘Powerful One’ or ‘She who is Powerful’. ”
“Adopted by the pharaohs as a symbol of their own unvanquishable heroism in battle, she breathes fire against the king’s enemies. [In] the battle of Kadesh, she [was ridden by] Ramesses II, her flames scorching the bodies of enemy soldiers. In a middle kingdom treatise, the wrath of the pharaoh toward rebels is compared to the rage of Sekhmet.”

In one of her most famous myths, Ra became angry with humankind and sent Sekhmet to punish them. She became enraged and rampaged the land:

“The fields ran with human blood. However, Ra was not a cruel deity, and the sight of the carnage caused him to repent. He ordered her to stop, but she was in a bloodlust and would not listen. So Ra poured 7,000 jugs of beer and pomegranate juice (which stained the beer blood red) in her path. She gorged on the ‘blood’ and became so drunk she slept for three days. When she awoke, her blood lust had dissipated, and humanity was saved. The saving of mankind was commemorated every year . . . Everyone drank beer stained with pomegranate juice . . .”

Historical records indicate tens of thousands attended this annual festival.

"From the abundant number of amulets and sculptures of Sekhmet discovered at various archaeological sites, it is evident that the goddess was popular and highly important. . . . Archaeologists have discovered approximately 700 larger-than-life granite statues of Sekhmet dated to the reign of Amenhotep III (18th Dynasty).”

Sekhmet was one of many lion-like goddesses of Egypt. Others include:

Shesmetet, whose name means “she of the Shesmet-girdle,” a sash “decorated with beads, which appears on depictions of Old Kingdom rulers . . . ”
Menhit, originally a Nubian lion goddess who led “Egyptian armies and cut down their enemies with fiery arrows, similar to other war deities.” Her name is variously translated as “‘the one who sacrifices’ but she was also known as ‘the slaughterer’" or “'She abides and streams with light upon the head of Ra',” or “‘She who massacres’ . . . Legends tell of her pouncing on enemies with the swiftness and agility of a lioness, her roars resonating with thunderous power.”
The lioness Tefnut whose name means “‘She of moisture’ and its root can be found in the Egyptian words for ‘moist’ and ‘spit’.” Once Tefnut left for Nubia in a jealous rage, “her absence [created] droughts, heat waves, and bad harvests. [When Tefnut returned from Nubia], the skies broke, and rain began to fall upon the farmlands and the Nile for the first time in many years.”
Pakhet, was known as “‘She who scratches’ [and] whose eyes are keen and whose claws are sharp, the lioness who sees and catches by night.” She protected against vermin and venomous snakes, who “wandered the desert alone at night looking for prey,” often in the form of a caracal or desert lynx. “Pakhet’s claw amulets were worn by royal women to provide protection and fertility and happy motherhood.”
Mafdet was a divine “serval [a small cheetah-like wild cat who] defended Ra from threats during his daily voyage” such as the “bite of snakes and scorpions . . .” Her name means “(she who) runs swiftly.” She was “known as ‘the runner’ representing swift death. As the ‘Avenger of the King,’ Mafdet was believed to rip out the hearts of evildoers and lay the hearts at the Pharaoh’s feet in the same manner a cat delivers her catch to her owners.”

Don't defy the lion-goddesses of Egypt!

Gabija Fire Cat:

The Lithuanian goddess Gabija “could take [form] of a cat [or] could appear as a woman clothed in red. Gabija was greatly respected and cared for like a living creature. People would feed Gabija by offering bread and salt. Fire had to be laid to bed – women would cover the charcoal with ashes every evening so that fire would not wander around. . . . If angered, Gabija would "go for a walk" burning the house. Much folklore describes the ill fate of those who offended Gabija by stomping, spitting, or urinating on her.”

“Before Christianity, Gabija, primordial fire goddess, was venerated in the form of sacred fires in grove-sanctuaries on hilltops or riverbanks, served by priestesses called Vaidilutes. Working in pairs; relieved from other duties, these priestesses’ sole responsibility was tending Gabija. . . . Following eradication of the groves, veneration of Gabija moved into the home. . . . She accepts sacrifices on behalf of other deities (burned offerings). She is an intermediary between people and oracular spirits (fire divination). . . . Gabija is not limited to one fire or a single hearth: her essence pervades all fire.
Light a match and Gabija is present.”

The wise treat the fiery cat-goddess Gabiji with respect and reverence.

Maya Jaguar Goddess IxChel:

“An entwined serpent serves as Ixchel's headdress, crossed bones may adorn her skirt, and instead of human hands and feet, she sometimes has claws. . . . Being a jaguar goddess, the Classic Ixchel (or 'Chak Chel') could equally be imagined as a fearsome female warrior equipped with shield and spear . . .”
As the goddess of the old moon, she’s a formidable warrior . . . Portrayed as an aged woman with jaguar ears . . .”

“The Maya word for Jaguar is Bahlam or B’alam. The ancient Maya thought that at night the sun, as it slips into the underworld, would transform into a jaguar. A powerful predator, the animal was also associated with warriors and hunters, and became a symbol of the might and authority of the rulers.”

Aztec Jaguar God Tepeyollotl:

The Aztrec god Tepeyollotl was “Heart of the Mountain, the Jaguar of the Night, lord of the animals, darkened caves, echoes and earthquakes.”
His name “is derived as a compound of the Nahuatl words tepētl (‘mountain’), and yōllōtl (‘heart’ or ‘interior’). Tepeyollotl is usually depicted as cross-eyed holding [a] white staff with green feathers [and] depicted as a jaguar leaping towards the Sun.”

Tepeyollotl was also one of nine Lords of the Night . . . who each ruled over every ninth night forming a calendrical cycle [in the] Mesoamerican ritual calendar of 260-days and nights which includes exactly 29 groups of 9 nights . . .”

Aztec Jaguar God Tezcatlipoca:

Another jaguar god, Tezcatlipoca was “[one] of the major deities of the Aztec pantheon . . . Tezcatlipoca’s nagual, or animal disguise, was the jaguar, the spotted skin of which was compared to the starry sky.”
“(Tez-ca-tlee-POH-ka), whose name means ‘Smoking Mirror’, was the Aztec god of night and sorcery, as well as the patron deity of Aztec kings and young warriors. . . . Jaguars were the epitome of hunting, warfare, and sacrifice to the Aztec people, and Tezcatlipoca was the familiar feline spirit of Aztec shamans, priests, and kings.”

The main rite of Tezcatlipoca’s cult took place during Toxcatl, the fifth ritual month.

“As with other Aztec religious rites an important part of the ceremony was the impersonation of the god, most often by a prisoner of war, typically the best looking and most courageous one. For one year before, in fact, the captive was tutored by priests, treated as a noble and [attended by four women who] impersonated four goddesses.”
“The final sacrifice took place at Toxcatl's May celebrations [and] as he walked up the stairs of the temple [the young man] played music with four flutes that represented the world's directions; he would destroy the four flutes on his way up the stairs.”

“At the top [of the pyramid temple] he was sacrificed by the removal of his heart."

Divine jaguar of protection, jaguar of the night, jaguar of courageous sacrifice~

Puma (or Mountain Lion):

Inca Puma Spirit: “Sacred animals played a significant role in Inca cosmology, intertwining the physical world with the spiritual realm. These creatures weren’t just animals; they were symbols of power, wisdom, and the sacred forces that governed their universe. . . . Representing Kay Pacha, the present world, the puma embodied the power and vitality of life on Earth. This creature was associated with strength, courage, and sovereignty, often viewed as the guardian of the physical realm. . . . The puma was not just a predator of the highlands; it was a reminder that balance in life required strength, bravery, and the ability to stand firm against adversity.”
Cusco, the holy capital of the Inca Empire, is “in the shape of a puma. . . . The puma's head was the temple of Saqsaywaman. Two rivers outlined the body. The main plaza, Hawkaypata, was in the belly. . . . High-ranking persons lived within the outline of the puma. All others lived outside it.”

Hopi Toho Kachina: Mountain Lion is also the Hopi kachina Toho. “Thought to be the most powerful hunter, the Toho is the guardian of the northern direction. . . . Toho can be represented by a naked man wearing a mask, whiskers, and yellow feathers upon either side of his head to look like the lion's ears . . . Toho is there to remind individuals to persevere, clarify goals, and move forward to achieving dreams. He steadies the hunter and protects his territory.”

Zuni Mountain Lion: “The Mountain Lion is the guardian and master of the North in Zuni culture.

He is thought to be the most powerful hunter and appears in both hunting and healing directional sets of fetishes. In Zuni culture a fetish represents the animal spirit thought to reside in the stone. The Mountain Lion . . . is carried by travelers to protect them on their journey and also carried by hunters to help ensure a successful hunt.”

Call on mountain lion for strength, fierce protectiveness, clarity, and loyalty.

Underwater Panther: Mishipeshu is “one of the most important of several mythical water beings among many Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands and Great Lakes region, particularly among the Anishinaabe. . . . Mishipeshu translates as ‘the Great Lynx’. It has the head and paws of a giant cat but is covered in [copper] scales and has dagger-like spikes running along its back and tail. [Other names include] Gichi-anami'e-bizhiw, which translates as ‘the fabulous night panther’. However, it is also commonly referred to as the ‘Great underground wildcat’ or ‘Great under-water wildcat’. ”

“Native inhabitants of the Great Lakes region, stretching back to about 7,500 BC, discovered copper that was 99% pure in Lake Superior, in veins or just lying around in nugget form. . . . There was only one problem. Lake Superior was not a gentle lake to those extracting the copper, in fact it was quite fierce. The fierceness was attributed to a creature which seemed obviously to be guarding the copper. Hence the existence of Mishipizheu.”

“Some traditions believed the underwater panthers could be helpful, protective creatures, for example, it was believed to shelter and feed those who fell through the winter ice. The water manito (water panther and serpent) endowed medicinal power to those shamans who accepted its guardianship.”

“All lakes can be inhabited by one of these beings, but some are known to change their appearance abruptly (eg, sudden strong wind or fog), to contain deep depressions, or to have a particular coloration; these are all signs of the Great Lynx's presence.”

Marsheila Rockwell’s Rhysling-nominated poem, “The Fabulous Underwater Panther,” presents Mishipeshu as the guardian of Indigenous heritage and divine sentry against copper thieves.

Underwater Panther the protective storm and divine guardian against greed.

White Tiger of the West:

“In Chinese mythology, the White Tiger of the West, known as Bai Hu, is one of the Four Symbols representing the cardinal directions. . . . It is believed to mete out punishment to wrongdoers, reflecting the Confucian value of upholding moral integrity. . . . As the seasonal animal for autumn, the White Tiger is associated with the harvest and the waning of life, a reminder of the cyclical nature of existence. The metal element connects it to qualities like resilience, clarity, and the cutting edge of decisiveness.”

Called Byakko in Japan, the White Tiger “spans seven of the twenty-eight Chinese constellations, taking up one quarter of the entire sky. . . . He represents the virtue of righteousness [and] controls the wind.”

Tiger Deity:

The Tiger Deity (Hu Ye), also known as Golden Tiger General, is a popular god in traditional Chinese mythology. “Its origins can be traced back to the ancient Chinese practice of nature worship, particularly the reverence for tigers. . . . The Tiger Deity is closely associated with various [other] deities, often serving as their attendant, mount, or messenger [and] is believed to inherit their divine powers . . . For example, when the Tiger Deity accompanies Zhao Gongming, the Martial God of Wealth, it is believed to bring prosperity. When it serves alongside Baosheng Dadi (the Great Emperor Who Protects Life), it gains the ability to heal, becoming a protector deity for children who fall ill.”

In Taiwan, “Tiger God's many duties include exorcising evil spirits and guarding the property of its believers, acting as the guide for main deities, providing security for temples, and ensuring the protection of fishermen at sea and their safe return to their families.”

Embrace the Tiger Gods of Asia when you seek prosperity, healing, and resilience~

Tiger-Leopard of India: The divine Tiger-Leopard, Waghoba “is an ancient tiger/leopard deity worshipped by a number of tribes in India for centuries. Depending on the region of India, the deity is either described exclusively as a tiger or a leopard or as a deity that can take both forms.”

Among the indigenous communities who worship Waghoba, “reverence for tigers isn’t a mere mythological superstition or belief, but it comes from the innate co-dependence between the two species. The tribal folks depend on the forests for their livelihood—the natural habitat is life to these communities who cannot see themselves apart from the jungles. . . . [They] wear certain jewelry to profess their belief—Garos wear necklaces made with tiger claws entrenched in gold or silver for protection, and the Gonds keep the shoulder bone of the tiger with them believing it to bring strength. . . .

. . . [Among farmers], the tigers protect their crops by keeping the herbivorous animals at bay. The dairy farmers in the forest vicinities also believe that tigers help in keeping milk thieves from intruding into their area. . . . They believe that [when] tigers are appeased with their adoration and they do not enter their villages to harm them. Even if a tiger attacks a villager, the devotees do not turn hostile toward their deity. In fact, the villagers build a temple close to the conflict point to possibly pacify the tiger.”

Said one devotee: “We know that once the night falls, we must stay indoors and not venture out alone. It is time for the leopards to roam around. Sometimes, they do prey on our livestock. So, whenever a leopard roars near us, we break a coconut shell praying to the Waghoba to spare our livestock but continue to protect our forest and our lives like he has done for millennia."

Tiger-Leopard, spirit of the jungle, protector of wilderness~

Lucky Cat: “Maneki-neko, translated as beckoning cat but also known as lucky cat or welcome cat, is recognizable internationally, often found behind cash registers of restaurants and retail outlets . . .”

"There are a variety of tales in the folklore of Japan concerning the origin of maneki-neko. Several Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines … are claimed to be the birthplace of the maneki-neko. [Myths] about the maneki-neko include it being able to beckon . . . customers into shops and bring good fortune and prosperity into households, and it being an embodiment of fertile, life-enhancing feline energies."
The reason for their prevalence seems to be linked to their real-life analogs. In 1602, an imperial decree set free all cats in Japan, intending to capitalize on the felines’ natural ability for pest control, especially in the sericulture [silk] community. After the decline of the silk trade, cats by extension remained as talismans for a business’s prosperity. "

A Japanese proverb, neko wo koroseba nanadai tataru (If you kill a cat, it will haunt your family for seven generations) is based on a folk belief that cats are revengeful and have longevity beyond human lives.
There is a deep-rooted belief in the power of cats: Look after them, and they’ll look after you.”

Black Cats became associated with Halloween likely due to Puritan superstitions: “The Puritan Pilgrims distrusted anything associated with witches and sorcery, including black cats. They actively persecuted black cats . . . [thus the cats became] thoroughly cemented in popular legend right alongside witches.”

This Puritan superstition was a holdover from European prejudices: “Witches honored the natural world, having deep respect for plants and animals. Affection between human and animal therefore began to be seen as 'diabolical', or devilish, and the old lady with her cats became seen as suspect. [Early Christians] saw them both as threats. Cats, like the women accused of witchcraft, tend to exhibit a healthy disrespect of authority . . . In the church, neither independent women, nor independent animals, were to be tolerated.”

But black cats are considered lucky in some cultures. “In Scotland, it’s lucky for a strange black cat to arrive at your doorstep. In Japan, black cats are thought to help single women find suitors.”

Banshee

Other countries also claim black cats bring good luck:
“In Latvia, black cats on farms mean prosperity and a good harvest. In Italy black cats mean upcoming good luck. In Germany, a black cat walking left to right is good luck. In Thailand, black cats are considered auspicious and bring prosperity to their owners.”

🐈‍⬛ If you happen upon a black cat this All Hallows Eve—consider it good luck!🐈‍⬛

You may also enjoy: Animal Emotions, Warrior Goddesses, and Lion-Dragon Mush-kush-shu

Land Magic

9/25/2025

Immersive land magic is featured in some of my favorite novels and nonfiction books. I define this magic as (1) a hypersensitive perception of nature and/or (2) being able to merge into the animate world.

(1) Heightened Perception: amplified sensitivity to nature.

In real life, heightened perception might be as simple as being fully present and opening our senses to the world around us, as described by David Abram in The Spell of the Sensuous:
“There is an intimate reciprocity to the senses; as we touch the bark of a tree, we feel the tree touching us; as we lend our ears to the local sounds and ally our nose to the season scents, the terrain gradually tunes us in . . . "

Abram describes this immersive sensory experience in Becoming Animal:

“Tuning our animal senses to the sensible terrain: blending our skin with the rain-rippled surface of rivers, mingling our ears with the thunder and the thrumming of frogs, and our eyes with the molten sky. Feeling the polyrhythmic pulse of this place—this huge windswept body of water and stone. This vexed being in whose flesh we’re entangled.
Becoming earth. Becoming animal. Becoming, in this manner, fully human.”

A version of this sensory animism appears in the story “Sticktalk” by Vickie L. Sears, published in Hear the Silence. Here the Indigenous narrator waits for the stick who has called her to the beach to start speaking:

“I looked toward the sea. I didn’t find it strange to be waiting on stickspeaking. . . . all things have their own spirits and lessons to share. I am just as the sticks and rocks. . . . Rocks had taught me before. Children. Adults. Animals. The burning of sweetgrass. Many things. So I logsat, cold in winterwind, waiting for this Stick to speak.”

Nicola Griffith’s novel Spear showcases the main character Peretur’s mystic connection with nature:

“From its nectar she will know which moths come to drink, know too of the bats that catch the moths, and what nooks they return to when they hang wrapped in their leathery shrouds as the summer sun climbs high . . . of the stream over which they skim, the falls down which the stream pours, the banks it winds past where reeds grow thick and the autumn bittern blooms. And when the snow begins to fall once again, she catches a flake on her tongue and feels, lapping against her belly, the lake it was drawn from by the summer sun."

“For a moment, in a shiver of sunlit leaf shadow, she almost remembered something, but then a fly lifted from the giant lance and hummed over the water, and, in the air stirred by its wings, she felt the strength of the arm that held that lance, and the speed with which it could change the direction of the brutal tip—an edged blade as much as a point.”

In Lucy Holland’s Song of the Huntress, King Ine connects with the magic of the land:

“Cold. He is crouching, one hand sliding into the mud, and a whole world opens to him. . . . Younger than the sky but older than any creature living. He can barely grasp the edges of it. The pattern is the snail-slow decay of fruit fallen before its time. It eats seeds, spits out the bones of beast and bird, and the silty crust which marks the place the river broke its banks. The pattern is not only deep; it skims the shallows where grass smothers ruins. Where mosses grow, and shattered things lie half-remembered. It has stones in it, and soft sand, and a hundred sounds for hush.”

In the climax, another character accesses the land’s magic with Ine:
“She can hear a heartbeat as vast and deep as the world. She can smell green after rain and turned earth. In her mouth is the sweet tang of blackberries fresh from the briar. Behind her eyes are plains, wide open to the sky, and evenings where twilight vies with the warm yellow light of lamps lit too early."

(2) Merging with the Land

Becoming immersed in the land can take the form of shapeshifting. In The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper, Will Stanton is immersed in the living land when he reads the Book of Gramarye.
Key passages of his shamanic journey:

“ . . . and he was soaring suddenly aloft as if winged, learning through feeling, feeling the way of resting on the wind and tilting round the rising columns of air, of sweeping and soaring, of looking down at patchwork-green hills capped with dark trees, and a winding, glinting river between.

“Then he was in the sea, down out of the turmoil [of waves] through the green haze, into an astonishing, clear world of beauty and pitilessness and bleak cold survival. . . . Through deadly sharp corals the Book sent him swimming, among strange waving fronds of green and red and purple, among rainbow-brilliant fish that swam up to him, stared, flicked a fin or tail and were gone. Past the black unkind spines of sea urchins, past soft waving creatures that seemed neither plant nor fish . . ."

The character Keyne delves into land magic in Sistersong by Lucy Holland:
“Silver threads spread from my fingers, burrowing root-like through the earth. They cross the clearing, climb the ancient oaks, gilding each ridge and whorl. And then I cannot see them.

Because I am the threads. I fall to earth like rain, seep into stone. Beneath its surface is a web branching off into darkness. But where I go, I carry the light. I am the water and the rock. Am the blind things that live on the underside of the world. I delve further. I am the ore, the years, the blood and the bones. And as below, I am above. We are connected. I burst from the yawn of a cave a league away, find myself in reeds. There is a willow and a fox, an owl, a mouse. I open one of my throats and become the nightjar and its song.”

Here Keyne uses this connection to protect his home:
“I only realize my eyes are open when I see the pattern growing, a web of silver, radiating out from my hands. . . . I am broad of shoulder, long of limb, my ribs black caves, my spine the ridge of hills that marches into the sea. It only requires the merest of shrugs to rend the ground apart. I force it up with a roar, humped and high, before driving it left and right until it circles [the castle] and meets the cliff edge.”

Immersive land magic pervades The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton. The character Ban is an adept practitioner. Here Ban “tastes” a crow’s feather to learn its secrets:

“He caught a feather, black and smooth.
In the inky color he saw shifting waves of men and horses; he saw a cliffside and clouds of reddish smoke, sparkling rocks, rotten flowers, and an empty white hand.

He slid the edge of the feather along his tongue, spat onto the back of his hand, and rubbed it against the chestnut bark hard enough to score the skin bloody. The language of birds was full of dreams . . . Ban had learned [to] use pain, or blood, to facilitate the translation.”

Hawthorn trees help Ban when he is wounded later int eh story:

“He shifted but was caught by the heavy embrace of earth. A root hugged his left forearm against his chest, keeping the wrist secure. Another pair of roots circled Ban’s ribs, pinching shut the leather vest and pressing together his yawning wound.
Sleep, son, little brother.
The words shivered through the ground, passed between the hawthorns.
We hold you, they whispered . . .”

Here another character fully merges with the land:

“Regan became more than she was: a piece of forest, with roots and branches for bones, vines of hair, flowers where her lips should be, lichen hardening her fingers, and a black-furred bat unfurling its nighttime wings inside her womb. It shrieked as Regan shrieked, spilling her magic . . . into the creek, into this vein of the island.”
“Seven ash trees gathered close to Regan, wrapping her up. Queen, love, Regan, they whispered as she slumped and wept, as she dug her hands into their golden leaves and their roots wound about her ankles.

The trees twined themselves together, a braided tower of ashlings, closing Regan off from everything but their cool, dark center.”

In the third book of Patricia A. McKillip’s Riddle-Master trilogy, Harpist in the Wind, shapeshifting is a way of becoming one with the natural world. Here Morgan becomes a tree:

“Branches grew from his hands, his hair. His thoughts tangled like roots in the ground. He strained upward. Pitch ran like tears down his bark. His name formed his core, ring upon ring of silence built around it. His face rose high above the forests. Gripped to earth, bending to the wind’s fury, he disappeared within himself . . .”

Later, he melds with the land:
“Slowly he began to understand the roots of land-law. The bindings of snow and sun had touched all life . . . the fierceness of seasons shaped the wolf’s brain; the winter night seeped into the raven’s eye. The more he understood, the deeper he drew himself into it: gazing at the moon out of a horned owl’s eyes, melting with a wild cat through the bracken, twisting his thoughts even into the fragile angles of a spider’s web, and into the endless, sinuous wind of ivy spirally a tree trunk.”

In an early draft of Sky God’s Warrior, I used both heightened perception and merging with the land:
"When Ayda placed her hands on the final lichen-covered stone, an intense bolt of energy connected her with the entire expanse of territory within the clan boundary: the stalwart foothills, the watchful forests and cheerful meadows, the patient overarching sky. Life coursed around and through her in a kaleidoscope of reverberating sounds, smells, and textures.

Distinct patterns formed within this resonating pulse: syncopated fluttering of butterflies dancing in sunlight, birds conversing with each other in warbles and trills. Scratchy insect claws scuttled along the tree trunks; careful spiders stalked those insects whilst others spun silver webs between the trees; rabbits hid motionless in the glades; foxes hunted the rabbits.

And the trees! Each individual a distinct shape and personality—some brash and bold, others subdued; drawing sweet water up through their roots and exhaling moist, fresh air; this soft stir of air rising up into the heavens—the breath of Tiamar infusing all of life.

A deer picked its way among the trees, its footsteps drumming through the soles of her feet. In the living loam beneath, threads of life throbbed within entangled roots: burrowing moles, worms, and beetles, and souls too tiny to hear, crowding the sentient soil.

A blackbird called to its mate, winging through the viscous air.
Ayda dissolved into the blackbird’s call, infused with the scent of damp earth and resonant greenery, sparkling with the crystalline brilliance of vibrant sunlight, vibrating in harmony with the living Land. She expanded and expanded into the Land—then the boundary stone released her and she stumbled back.
Her body felt small and dense, her senses dulled, as if numbed by a head cold.

In The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram articulates the importance of cultivating an intimate connection with the Earth:
“For it is only at the scale of our direct, sensory interactions with the land around us that we can appropriately notice and respond to the immediate needs of the living world.”
However you choose to connect with nature, whether through direct experience or a fantasy story, I invite you to dive into the delights of immersive land magic.

Related blogs you might enjoy: Animism,  The Green Man,
The Spring Maiden, Water Gods, Sky Goddesses, The Wild Hunt
Reviews of books with immersive land magic:
Spear,  Song of the Huntress, Sistersong,  The Queens of Innis Lear'
Other books to explore:  The Dark is Rising, Riddle-Master Trilogy,
Hear the Silence, The Spell of the Sensuous, Becoming Animal

Water Gods

7/18/2025

In May, the quiet creek I crossed earlier in the day became a monstrous torrent after a prolonged downpour. Flash floods, hurricanes, and tsunamis remind us of the god-like powers many cultures attribute to water.
And water is magical: the way it shapeshifts between solid ice and whispery mist; the fluid way droplets join together to form rivulets or shimmering puddles; the way it shapes itself to the land, yet also scours the land into new shapes over millennia.

The sea god Shavi of the Deep Dark, plays a critical role in The Sea God’s Lover, the second in-progress-novel in my series of fantasies set in the ancient Near East. Researching attributes for the androgynous Shavi led me down a research rabbit hole of ocean and water gods from around the world~

Abzû or Apsû, from Sumerian and Akkadian religion, is the divine fresh water from underground aquifers.  The fertilizing qualities of all lakes, springs, rivers, fountains, and rain originate from the Abzû. He is also the primordial freshwater ocean, who mated with the saltwater ocean goddess Tiamat to conceive the Earth.
  The Enūma Eliš begins:
  "When above the heavens did not yet exist nor the earth below,
  Apsû the freshwater ocean was there, the first, the begetter,
  and Tiamat, the saltwater sea, she who bore them all;
  they were still mixing their waters,
  and no pasture land had yet been formed,
  nor even a reed marsh."
Tanks of holy water in Babylonian and Assyrian temples were also called abzû or apsû depending on the language.

Bunzi (also Mpulu Bunzi and Phulu Bunzi) is a goddess of rain and serpent water-spirit in the traditional religion of the African Bakongo people, also venerated by the Woyo people of central Africa.
The goddess Bunzi is sometimes depicted as a multicolored serpent who rewards Her worshippers with an abundant harvest.
She is also said to appear in the rippling water of the river at sunset.

Chalchiuhtlicue ("She of the Jade Skirt") is an Aztec deity of water, rivers, seas, streams, and storms. Chalchiuhtlicue is associated with fertility, and is the patroness of childbirth. She was highly revered in Aztec culture at the time of the Spanish conquest, and was an important deity figure in the Postclassic Aztec religion of central Mexico.
Chalchiuhtlicue is one of many Aztec rain gods.

Danu is a Hindu goddess, embodiment of the primeval waters and mother of the danavas. Both “Danu” and “danavas” are derived from the Vedic word Da meaning “to give.” As a word for "rain" or "liquid", dānu is also the Avestan term for "river." Danu is ultimately derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *dʰenh₂- "to run, to flow," which may also lie behind the ancient name for the river Danube, Danuuius – perhaps of Celtic origin or an early Scythian loanword. Other related river names are Don, Dnieper, and Dniester. There is also a Danu river in Nepal.
The Irish Tuatha dé Danann ("Tribe / People of Danu") are sometimes linked to the Vedic water goddess Danu, or to the Irish goddess Anu as *di[a] Anu (the "goddess Anu").

The Dragon King, also known as the Dragon God, is a Chinese water and weather god. He is regarded as the dispenser of rain and has dominion over all bodies of water. One of his epithets is Dragon King of Wells and Springs.
Dragon processions were held on the fifth and sixth moon of the lunar calendar all over ancient China, especially on the 13th day of the sixth moon (the Dragon King's birthday). These rituals dedicated to the Dragon King, especially prevalent in farming villages, encouraged the deity to make rain.
There were also Dragon King miao shrines all over China for folk to worship local dragon kings.

Manannán, also known as Manannán mac Lir (Manannán son of the Sea), is a sea god, warrior, and otherworld guardian in traditional Irish, Manx, and Scottish religion who is also one of the Tuatha Dé Danann (People of Danu). He uses a mist of invisibility to cloak himself and his dwelling, has a self-navigating boat named “'Wave-sweeper,” a horse that can course over water as well as land, and a deadly strength-sapping sword. In Scottish and Manx legend he is also called “little Manannán, son of the Sea.” The Isle of Man (Mannin) is probably named after him.
He shares legends with the Welsh god Manawydan fab Llŷr (Manawydan son of the Sea).

Mazu or Matsu is a sea goddess in Chinese folk religion, Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. Mazu is the deified form of Lin Moniang, a shamaness from the coastal province of Fujian who is said to have lived in the late 10th century. After her death, she became revered as a guardian deity of Chinese seafarers, including fishermen and sailors, roaming the seas to protect her believers through miraculous interventions. Mazu or Ma-tsu, means “Maternal Ancestor,” “Mother," "Granny," or "Grandmother."

In Hawaiian mythology, Nāmaka (or Nā-maka-o-Kahaʻi, the eyes of Kahaʻi) is as a sea goddess in the Pele family. She is Pele’s older sister, the cool majestic waves of the ocean—contrasting with Pele’s volcanic fire.
When Pele caused a conflagration by staying too close to the fire god Lono-makua, it was Nāmaka who drove Pele away.
In another myth, Pele quarreled with her powerful sister, and Nāmaka sent tidal waves to destroy Pele's lands and homes. Pele fled to the high mountains out of Nāmaka’s reach, and periodically throws hot lava down to the waves, illustrating both the conflicting natures and balanced power of the two sisters.

Olókun is an orisha spirit in Yoruba religion. Olókun is revered as the ruler of all bodies of water and the authority over other water deities, and is highly praised for their ability to give great wealth, health, and prosperity to their followers. Communities in both West Africa and the African diaspora view Olókun variously as female, male, or androgynous. In West Africa directly adjacent to the coast, Olókun takes a male form among his worshipers, while in the interior, Olókun is a female deity. In Santería, Olókun is an androgynous orisha, both a man and a woman.

  Poseidon, is the Olympian god of the sea, earthquakes, floods, and horses from ancient Greek religion.
  Poseidon's most distinctive attribute is the trident, a three-pronged fishing spear and he is often crowned with a wreath of wild celery. His name may be derived from posis (from the Proto-Indo-European root word *pótis, meaning “lord”) and the Doric word dâwon, "water" (from Proto-Indo-European *dah₂- "water," or *dʰenh₂- "to run, flow"). This etymology would make *Posei-dawōn the master of waters.
  He is one of many ocean and water gods in Greek mythology.

  Ryūjin (“Dragon God”) symbolized the bounty and power of the ocean in traditional Japanese religion. In some traditions Ryūjin is equivalent to the Japanese water dragon Watatsumi or Wadatsumi ("great deity of the sea")—who may also be another name for the sea god Ryūjin.
  In many myths Ryūjin has the ability to transform into a human shape. The deity also has knowledge of medicine and brings rain and thunder.
  He is considered the patron of Japan, since the Japanese people lived off the bounty of the sea for millennia. Ryūjin lives in his palace under the sea built out of red and white coral, from where he controls the tides with magical tide jewels. Sea turtles, fish, jellyfish, and sea snakes are Ryūjin's servants.

Talay, Talai Khan, or Dalai Khan, is god of the oceans and seas in Turkish, Mongolian, and Altai mythology. He lives where nineteen seas meet and protects the creatures in them. He can take the form of a giant fish (whale) and decides on the rise and fall of the tides.
The name Talay may come from the verb Dalmak, meaning vastness, depth, or infinity; the word Talaz, meaning wave, or the words Taluy/Daluy, which mean ocean. The first word of the title Dalai Lama, given to the spiritual leaders of Tibetan Buddhism (Lamaism) means Ocean. It is used to describe a wisdom and compassion as vast as the ocean.

Yamm (or Yam, “sea”) was a minor deity in Ugaritic religion, though He received plentiful offerings and played a key role in Ugaritic mythology.
Yamm represents the ocean and other sources of water; he was worshiped along the eastern Mediterranean coast. His secondary name was Nahar, “River.” His most common epithet is ṯpṭ nhr, “River judge” or “River ruler.”

In the Baal Cycle, Yamm is an enemy of the weather god Baal, who ultimately defeats him. This may reference a historical conflict between competing cults, with worshippers of Baal creating this liturgy to celebrate their triumph:
“Surely I struck down Yamm, the Beloved of El,
Surely I finished off River, the Great God,
Surely I bound [the Sea Monster] and destroyed him.
I struck down the Twisty Serpent . . .

More on water-related goddesses:
April’s Goddess~Aphrodite (born of sea foam) and Tiamat versus Marduk

Sky Goddesses

5/17/2025

As spring storms tear through the heartland, it’s timely to review goddesses who rule the skies.
Tiamar, the Sky Goddess of my fictional world Kolkha, is inspired by Tamar, a Pagan goddess of the Caucasus region of present-day Georgia. Tamar controls weather patterns and the seasons, is called "eye of the earth," and rides her serpent/dragon with a golden bridle. Tamar’s serpent/dragon links her to the Mesopotamian goddess Tiamat, a primordial sea serpent.
A related deity is Tzovinar, a goddess of water and rain from the southern Caucasus region of Urartu (present-day Armenia). “Tzov” means inland sea or lake. She rides her horse across the clouds creating thunderstorms and lightning flashes from her “fiery eyes.” In one epic, she is the mother of heroes, similar to the goddess Satanaya, matriarch in the Nart sagas of North Caucasus.

A less fierce sky goddess is Tallay (Ugaritic: ṭly), a gentle weather goddess associated with dew and light rain in ancient Ugarit. Tallay's name is usually translated as "Dewy" and is derived from the Ugaritic word ṭl, "dew," and a second syllable y, which can be translated as "disperser," or "daughter." She is called "disperser of showers," "daughter of rain" or "dispenser of drizzle.”

A sky goddess from the ancient Egyptian religion is Nut, goddess of the sky, stars, cosmos, astronomy, and the universe. Her actual name Nwt, means "Sky.”
She is portrayed as a star-covered woman arching over the Earth, and is also called "Our Lady of the Stars," "Lady of the Starry Heaven," "Queen of Heaven,” and "Queen of Space.”

In The Book of the Law Nut says:
  "I am Infinite Space, and the Infinite Stars thereof.”
  "Every man and every woman is a star."
  "Invoke me under my stars!"
  "I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunset; I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky."

Several goddesses in the ancient Near East are given the title Queen of Heaven, among them Inanna, whose name Nin-anna in ancient Sumerian comes from the words NIN meaning "lady" and AN meaning "sky." She is a lusty goddess and many beautiful poems are addressed to her by her most famous priestess, Enheduanna:
  Like a dragon,
  You … roared at the earth
  In your thunder, …
  A flood fell from the mountain:
  You, Inanna,
  Foremost in Heaven and Earth.
Another Queen of heaven, the winged Egyptian goddess Isis is associated with the annual flooding of the Nile and with rain, believed to be the tears she sheds when she mourns the death of her husband-brother Osiris.

*H₂éwsōs (literally 'the dawn') is the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European name of the dawn goddess. *H₂éwsōs is believed to have been one of the most important deities worshipped by ancient Indo-Europeans due to the consistency of her characterization in subsequent religious traditions. Her attributes are mixed with those of solar goddesses in some later traditions, most notably the Baltic sun-deity Saulė. *H₂éwsōs derives from the verbal root *h₂(e)wes- ('to shine', 'glow red', 'a flame'). The same root also underlies the word for gold, *h₂ews-om, literally "glow." A derivative adverb is *h₂ews-teros, meaning "east" (literally "toward the dawn"). The Dawn goddess is “early-born” and “born in the morning.” *H₂éwsōs is usually associated with the natural colors of the dawn: gold, saffron, red, or crimson.

Two Hindu sky goddesses are Ushas and Aditi.
Ushas (uṣá, literally "dawn") reveals herself "with the daily coming of light to the world, driving away oppressive darkness, chasing away evil demons, rousing all life, setting all things in motion, sending everyone off to do their duties.”
Aditi ("boundless" or "limitless") is the personification of the sprawling infinite and vast cosmos in the sacred Hindu Vedas. She is the mother of numerous beings including the celestial solar deities known as the adityas. As celestial mother and synthesis of all things, she is associated with space (akasha) and is the goddess of motherhood, consciousness, unconsciousness, the past, the future, and fertility.

In Chinese mythology, Dianmu (Diànmǔ; literally 'Mother of Lightning'), also known as Leizi, is a Chinese goddess who uses flashing mirrors to send bolts of lightning across the sky.
She is married to Leigong, the god of thunder and uses her mirrors to illuminate the Earth, so Leigong can see who he hits and make sure they aren't innocent. This is why lightning comes before thunder.
Another Chinese sky goddess, Feng Po Po ("Madame Wind"), rides through the clouds on her tiger. She often carries a fan, sack, or goatskin bag from which she releases the roaring winds.

The next time a castle of clouds floats across the sky, or storms rumble in the night, you can thank one of the many sky goddesses who rule the heavens above.

For more on powerful goddesses read When Women Lead the World;
Warrior Goddesses; Inanna’s Descent; and Tiamat vs. Marduk

Imagining Ancient Funerals

4/14/2025

Burial under the floor, in jars, or in kurgans and excarnation by vultures were common funeral customs among cultural groups living in the Caucasus region during the Iron Age, roughly 1200 to 550 BCE. These funeral customs inspired the burial practices of different ethnicities in my fictional world of Kolkha.

Migrants from the Fertile Crescent started entering the Caucasus plains (location of my fictional Kolkha) around 10,000 to 8000 BCE. The mudbrick homes of Oldtown in fictional Kolkha City are modeled after the houses of Çatalhöyük, which flourished around 7500 to 5700 BCE in central Anatolia.

Vulture murals in Çatalhöyük home.

The plaster walls of many homes were decorated with stylized vultures. Archaeologists believe bodies of the dead were offered to vultures on the roofs of the houses. Once the flesh was excarnated, the skeletons were then buried under the floor to keep the ancestors close to the living. In some cases, the skulls of revered ancestors were decorated and displayed so that members of the community could connect with their spiritual power.

Burying dead ancestors under the floor was common throughout Mesopotamia, often accompanied by food, tools, and other objects to ease transition into the afterworld, thought to exist deep underground.
Mesopotamian merchants and traders, and refugees from Anatolia and Mesopotamia arriving in response to severe drought starting around 2200 BCE, would have brought these beliefs with them to Kolkha.
Infants were often buried in storage jars (pictured), which was also common in the Caucasus region, including Kolkha. These practices of floor and jar burial were practiced by early residents of Oldtown in Kolkha City.

Scythian grave stela

Kurgan burials, pervasive on the Eurasian Steppe among the Skosak (Scythian) horse nomads, spread to Kolka and throughout the Caucasus region.
These vaulted tombs were filled with weapons, beautiful gold jewelry, and other exotic grave goods, then covered with a mound of stone and dirt. Many had carved images (stelae) of the deceased.
After the Great War (in which my fictional tribal federation of Kolka defeated the Kingdom of Diaokhi with the help of Skosak allies), the elite nobility relied exclusively on kurgan burials. Kurgans with carved stelae also became popular among a subset of wealthy merchants and artisans by the opening of Sky God’s Warrior, though most prefer traditional floor burials.

Excarnation by vultures, or sky burial, was practiced in the Caucasus mountains. It was also adapted by early Persian Zoroastrians during the same time period as Sky God’s Warrior. The Zoroastrians built “Towers of Silence” specifically designed to offer their dead to vultures.

Nakh defensive tower/home

The Nakh people of the northern Caucasus Mountains built defensive stone towers that would’ve been potential sites for vulture excarnation. As the Vainakh are believed to have originally migrated from the Fertile Crescent, this would link them to the excarnation practices of Çatalhöyük. For these reasons, the Nakh of my fictional world of Kolkha, dismember their dead on the roofs of their stone tower-homes for vultures to consume. They believe destroying the physical body frees the spirit to be reborn.

Read more on the Mythology of Kolkha and related posts on
Genderqueer Gods, Animism, Fire Goddess Tabiti, God Wars, and Dragon Moon Origins

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