There isn't much written about this aspect of the Goddess -- most people associate the word 'warrior' with a man, and images of Arnold Schwarzenagger or perhaps Bruce Lee. The Warrior aspect of the Goddess is most often called the "Hidden Face", if you can find a reference to it at all, as it is not typical for a woman to be a "warrior" as society generally sees the term Warrior.
However, what does a mother do when any of her children are threatened? Does she not fight for them, doing whatever she must to protect them? Those of use who use our knowledge to fight for the good of the community in general via letters to the Editor, or participating in political rallies, etc., are also showing the Warrior side of our nature. Starhawk and her Reclaiming Collective are warriors as well as witches.
The terminology "Warrior" does not necessarily mean "one taken to violence"
but rather one who fights for what they believe to be right. Some
of us are activists more than others ... but that side of our being will
still come up when something we believe in is challenged. And, the
Warrior shows Her face regardless of whether the Maiden, Mother, or Crone,
or combinations of the
three exist at the time. The Maiden's warrior side can be seen
in the myth of Artemis in which a hunter views her bathing and she turns
him into a stag, then watches as his own dogs kill him; the Mother's aspect
in the stories of Hera (She loved her family and fought mightily with Zeus
over his ever-roving eye for human women. She hated the offspring
of those women as they represented a threat to her "God" children ... hence,
her ever raging battle with Hercules); and the Crone's Warrior side emerges
when we invoke Justice -- which She dispenses with a terribly even hand.
For now, I have several Goddesses, Bellona and Morrigan, two articles: The Spirit of the Warrior and Warrior Goddesses & Women as well as a poem. One thing that is important is that the text "Warrior Goddesses & Women" may be read as a 'male-basher'. JaguarMoon Coven does not believe that one gender is more violent than the other, and we encourage the reader to recognize that anger can distort reality beyond recognition. As well, I have included an excerpt from Barbara Walker's Encyclopredia on the Valkyries.
A fabulous site is: The Amazon Connection. Here you will find a comprehensive list of links to Websites covering every meaning of the word "Amazon."
As well, I have only a few images:
Durga (In Hindu mythology and
religion, a malignant form of Devi, the inaccessible.)
Mercy
Valkyrie
Scarce, yes, but we welcome your additions!
in love,
Ma'at
Roman goddess of war, popular among the Roman soldiers. She accompanied
Mars in battle, and, depending on the legend, was said to be either
his
wife, sister or daughter, and was sometimes portrayed as his charioteer
or muse.
This serpent-haired goddess is often described as the feminine side
of
the god Mars. She is identified with the Greek war goddess Enyo. In
front of Bellona's temple, the fetialis (priestly officials)
performed the
declaration of war ceremony, the casting of a spear against the distant
enemy. Bellona's attribute is a sword and she is depicted wearing a
helmet.
She could be of Etruscan origin.
The Morrigan is a goddess of battle, strife, and fertility. Her name
translates as either "Great Queen" or "Phantom Queen," and both epithets
are entirely appropriate for her. The Morrigan appears as both a
single goddess and a trio of goddesses. The other deities who form the
trio are Badb ("Crow"), and either Macha (also connotes "Crow") or Nemain
("Frenzy"). The
Morrigan frequently appears in the ornithological guise of a
hooded crow. She is one of the Tuatha Dé Danann ("Tribe of the goddess
Danu") and she helped defeat the Firbolg at the First Battle of Mag Tuireadh
and the Fomorians at the Second Battle of Mag Tuireadh.
The origins of the Morrigan seem to reach directly back to the megalithic cult of the Mothers. The Mothers (Matrones, Idises, Disir, etc.) usually appeared as triple goddesses and their cult was expressed through both battle ecstasy and regenerative ecstasy. It's also interesting to note that later Celtic goddesses of sovereignty, such as the trio of Eriu, Banba, and Fotla, also appear as a trio of female deities who use magic in warfare. "Influence in the sphere of warfare, but by means of magic and incantation rather than through physical strength, is common to these beings." (Ross 205)
Eriu, a goddess connected to the land in a fashion reminiscent of the Mothers, could appear as a beautiful woman or as a crow, as could the Morrigan. The Disir appeared in similar guises. In addition to being battle goddesses, they are significantly associated with fate as well as birth in many cases, along with appearing before a death or to escort the deceased.
There is certainly evidence that the concept of a raven goddess of battle was not limited to the Irish Celts. An inscription found in France which reads Cathubodva, 'Battle Raven', shows that a similar concept was at work among the Gaulish Celts and the Valkyries in Norse cosmology. Both use magic to cast fetters on warriors and choose who will die.
During the Second Battle, the Morrigan "said she would go and destroy Indech son of De Domnann and 'deprive him of the blood of his heart and the kidneys of his valor', and she gave two handfuls of that blood to the hosts. When Indech later appeared in the battle, he was already doomed." (Rees 36)
Compare this to the Washer at the Ford, another guise of the Morrigan. The Washer is usually to be found washing the clothes of men about to die in battle. In effect, she is choosing who will die.
An early German spell found in Merseburg mentions the Indisi,
who decided the fortunes of war and the fates of warriors. The Scandinavian
"Song of the Spear", quoted in "Njals Saga", gives a detailed description
of Valkyries as women weaving on a grisly loom, with severed heads for
weights, arrows for shuttles, and entrails for the warp. As they worked,
they exulted at the
loss of life that would take place. "All is sinister now to see,
a cloud of blood moves over the sky, the air is red with the blood of men,
and the battle women chant their song." (Davidson 94)
An Old English poem, "Exodus", refers to ravens as choosers of the slain. In all these sources, ravens, choosing of the slain, casting fetters, and female beings are linked.
"As the Norse and English sources show them to us, the walkurjas are figures of awe an even terror, who delight in the deaths of men. As battlefield scavengers, they are very close to the ravens, who are described as waelceasega, "picking over the dead"..." (Our Troth)
"The function of the goddess [the Morrigan] here, it may be noted, is not to attack the hero [Cu Chulainn] with weapons but to render him helpless at a crucial point in the battle, like the valkyries who cast 'fetters' upon warriors ... thus both in Irish and Scandinavian literature we have a conception of female beings associated with battle, both fierce and erotic." (Davidson 97, 100)
She appeared to the hero Cu Chulainn (son of the god Lugh) and
offered her love to him. When he failed to recognize her and rejected her,
she told him that she would hinder him when he was in battle. When Cu Chulainn
was eventually killed, she settled on his shoulder in the form of a crow.
Cu's misfortune was that he never recognized the feminine power of sovereignty
that she offered to him.
She appeared to him on at least four occasions and each time he
failed to recognize her.
1. When she appeared to him and declared her love for him.
2. After he had wounded her, she appeared to him as an old hag
and he offered his blessings to her, which caused her to be healed.
3. On his way to his final battle, he saw the Washer at the Ford, who
declared that she was washing the clothes and arms of Cu Chulainn, who
would soon be dead.
4. When he was forced by three hags (the Morrigan in her triple aspect)
to break a taboo of eating dogflesh.
Pronunciation {mor-rig-ahn}
~ from The
Encyclopedia Mythica
Although we have been made to believe that if we let go we will end up with nothing, life itself reveals again and again the opposite: that letting go is the path to real freedom.
Just as when the waves lash at the shore, the rocks suffer no damage
but are sculpted and eroded into beautiful shapes, so our characters can
be molded and our rough edges worn smooth by changes. Through weathering
changes we can learn how to develop a gentle but unshakable composure.
Our confidence in ourselves grows, and becomes so much greater that goodness
and compassion begin naturally to radiate out from us and bring joy
to others. That goodness is what survives death, a fundamental goodness
that is in every one of us. The whole of our life is a teaching of
how to uncover that strong goodness, and a training toward realizing it.
So each time the losses and deceptions of life teach us about impermanence, they bring us closer to the truth. When you fall from a great height, there is only one possible place to land: on the ground; the ground of truth. And if you have the understanding that comes from spiritual practice, then falling is in no way a disaster but the discovery of an inner refuge..
Difficulties and obstacles, if properly understood and used, can often
turn out to be an unexpected source of strength. In the biographies
of the masters, you will often find that had they not faced difficulties
and obstacles, they would not have discovered the strength they needed
to rise above them. This was true, for example, of Gesar, the great
warrior king of Tibet, whose escapades form the greatest epic of Tibetan
literature. Gesar means "indomitable," someone who can never be put down.
From the moment Gesar was born, his evil uncle Trotung tried all kinds
of means to kill him. But with each attempt Gesar only grew stronger
and stronger. It was thanks to Trotung's efforts, in fact, that Gesar
was to become so great. This gave rise to a Tibetan proverb:
"Trotung tro ma tung na, Gesar ge mi sar," which means that if Trotung
had not been so malicious and
scheming, Gesar could never have risen so high..
For the Tibetans Gesar is not only a martial warrior but also a spiritual one. To be a spiritual warrior means to develop a special kind of courage, one that is innately intelligent, gentle, and fearless. Spiritual warriors can still be frightened, but even so they are courageous enough to taste suffering, to relate clearly to their fundamental fear, and to draw out without evasion the lessons from difficulties. As Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche tells us, becoming a warrior means that "we can trade our small-minded struggle for security for a much vaster vision, one of fearlessness, openness, and genuine heroism..." To enter the transforming field of that much vaster vision is to learn how to be at home in change, and how to make impermanence our friend.
~From The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
by Sogyal Rinpoche
The original valkyrie was a less domesticated creature than the mail-clad beauties of Wagner's pompous operas.
Once, several valkyries were seen sitting on a battlefield weaving a tapestry made of human intestines, with men's severed heads weighing down the ends of the cords and an arrow for a shuttle. Sometimes they rode wolves instead of horses, or poured blood down from the skies. One man told of seeing a Valkyrie walk an abandoned battlefield with her wolf mount, picking up the corpses one by one and throwing them to the wolf, who crunched them up with hungry jaws.
They could take the forms of swans or mares -- or ravens, the carrion- eating birds of the battlefield.
"In Old Saxon the Valkyries were walcyries or waelceasig, 'corpse-eaters,"
defined as 'man-eating women' during the 11th
century A.D."
-- Barbara Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets
"As women it is our task to preserve the balance. Sometimes we can't, but we have to try. The earth, our mother, is sick and may die because we haven't tried hard enough. Men rule us because they are willing to be violent. They are too stupid to realize that our capacity to be violent exceeds theirs. Women have to stop being afraid of that potential, and learn instead to exercise it with wisdom and justice." -- Pat Califia, Doc and Fluff
These incredibly violent females -- from where do they come? The darkest imaginings of men? Or from the genuine anger of womyn?
Why do men create such images as these -- if indeed they did? The memory of the once-terrifying rage of the Mother? The projection of their own gender's uncontrolled aggression onto womyn, their eternal scapegoats? Or from very real fear of womyn's deeply buried rage?
Or are these images just more aggressive forms of the Death Goddesses -- Goddesses who moved from accepting the dead to actively killing? And how can male violence and male supremacy be stopped, if not by womyn's violence? These savage, merciless figures raise questions; they don't answer them..
If the answer isn't violence
Then neither is your silence
-- "Ich Bin ein Auslander," Pop Will Eat Itself
~http://www.csulb.edu/~persepha/violence.html
"There is no such thing
as being a
good warrior,
and I don´t mean good at being a
warrior.
If you say that you are a warrior,
it means that you take a stand for
something and it also means that
you involve yourself in some sort
of conflict.
Well,
a conflict usually has two sides
and you know, one of the funny
facts of life is that never is one
side entirely right and the other
side entirely wrong.
No side is entirely good nor bad.
So, by all means, become a
warrior, be a warrior.
Take a stand for what you
believe in but keep your
intentions clear.
Critizise and question your own
reasons. If you want to fight for
the environment,
fight for this earth to become a
better place to live in, for all
living beings
and for the future generations.
But watch out, so you don’t use
this ‘war’ as an excuse, only
because you personally feel
mistreated and abused by
authorities.
Become a warrior, be a warrior
but never, never say that you are
the good guy
and the other one is the bad
guy."
~ Author Unknown
