Earth-Mother: #poetry #Earthweal

Snake-charmer
Goddess-voluptuous 
Viper-venomous 
Whisperer-livewire 
Lover

Original-Author
immaculate-Sinner
Sorceress-Temptress
Seductress and
Mentor

Thundebolt-wielder
bounteous-Mother
Earth-spitting 
venom now breaking
asunder

You shouldn’t have crossed her
You shouldn’t have crossed her
Now cross your own heart
And admit that its over:

Cross your heart
Hope to die
Painlessly

Written for Earthweal Weekly Challenge: Mentors for a Changed World. Brendan has set us the following challenge:

‘Our times are dark indeed. For this week’s challenge, let’s write about mentors. Can these wise ones help with times like these? Can they rally and nourish a forwarding center? What are the figures, from myth and mystery, from the animal world and our dead, from prehistoric depths and personal history, who can tell us something important about going forward?’

For my mentor, I have chosen the so-called ‘Minoan Snake Goddess,‘ discovered by Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos in 1903. I say ‘so-called’ because the ‘Minoan Civilisation’ is a modern construct. The only written records left behind by the ‘Minoans’ have not yet been deciphered. So we interpret these figurines as we wish to interpret them, in the ‘light’ of our own ‘understanding.’ I’ve chosen to set up a few stereotypes about women in general and Mother-Earth in particular, then look at how these stereotypes may one day catch us out unawares: Mother Earth is more powerful than we think.