This is part of a Wednesday series on Goddess spirituality and political activism.
This week is Mabon, the autumn equinox, the balance-point between the light and dark halves of the year. Traditionally, it’s a time to give thanks for the harvest and for the good things in our lives. But it’s also a time of letting go, as the days grow shorter and the earth lies barren until the spring. No doubt it’s coincidental, but I often seem to be dealing with losses around this time of year. Which brings me to the story of Izanami .
Izanami, "She Who Invites," and her husband Izanagi are creator deities of Japan, descended from the most ancient deities. In the beginning, when the world was covered with ocean, Izanami and Izanagi stirred the chaos with a jeweled spear and created land. Then they walked around it in opposite directions. When they met up again, Izanami exclaimed with joy, and said they should marry and have children. Izanami became pregnant, but when she gave birth, it was to a brainless leech-like creature that they sent away in a floating basket. When they consulted the elder deities, they were told the problem was that Izanami had spoken first instead of letting her husband take the lead.
They re-created their meeting, and this time, it was Izanagi who exclaimed with joy when they saw each other. They began creating other deities, starting with the eight islands of Japan. They had many other children: the rivers, mountains, animals and plants, each of them with a divine spirit. When Izanami and Izanagi decided to create the deity who would rule the universe, it was not a God but a Goddess: Amaterasu Omikami , the sun. (Perhaps this was Izanami’s way of resisting the notion that the woman always has to be the follower.) The moon and storm deities followed soon after.
But when Iznami gave birth to her final child, Fire, she screamed in agony. Fire burned her inside and out as she gave birth, and she died. Even in her final moments, Izanami kept creating, and even her urine and vomit became deities of earth and water. Then Izanami descended into the underworld.
Izanagi was so angry that he took his sword and sliced Fire into pieces. Of course, dividing fire only creates more fires, so now there are multiple fire deities.
Like Orpheus, like Ishtar, Izanagi traveled to the underworld, trying to rescue his beloved. Izanami met him in the dark underground passageway, her form barely visible, her familiar voice gentle but firm. "Go back," she told him. "I have eaten the food of the dead, and I am no longer what I was. I cannot return."
Izanagi argued. He begged. He said he could not live without her. Izanami continued to refuse.
"Please," he said, "I just need to look upon your face again."
"No!" she cried, but it was too late. Izanagi took a wooden comb from his hair, and lit it like a torch. He raised the light to look on his beloved.
Standing before him was a rotting corpse, with maggots crawling in and out. Bits of bone were visible through the torn skin. The creature’s face was just barely recognizable as Izanami.
Izanagi recoiled. He fled.
Wailing with humiliation, Izanami chased after him, accompanied by eight monsters, the Ugly Females. Izanagi threw the comb behind him, where it turned into a pile of grapes. The monsters stopped to eat, and Izanagi raced to the end of the tunnel and back into the upper world. He blocked the entrance with a stone.
Izanami called to him from the other side of the stone. "Let us consider this a divorce."
Struggling through his tears, Izanagi said, "Yes, you are right." Then he wiped his face, straightened his clothes, and continued his journey in the land of the living.
When the teabagger/townhall madness started, I was struck by the woman who said plaintively, "I want my country back." Like so may of her companions, she couldn’t really articulate anything specific about Obama’s policies that she opposed. I’m not persuaded that the teabaggers actually know what any of Obama’s policies are; they simply parrot terms like "socialist" and "fascist" with no understanding of what the words mean.
But on some level, she’s right: "her" country is gone. "Her" country is the one where everyone is white, straight, and Christian – or if they’re not, they Know Their Place and speak only when spoken to. "Her" America is the one where privilege for people like her is a right, and rights for other people are a privilege. "Her" America is the one where certain people are just better, and the rest of the world knows that America is just better.
"Her" country is a rotting corpse filled with paranoia, McCarthyism, racism, bigotry and violence. "Her" country will forever make me think of the teenage girl in the 1960’s new report, earnestly arguing that nonviolent civil rights activists were the most violent ones of all, because they violated her right to keep them out of places where she didn’t want them, like her school. Who knows, maybe the woman who wanted her country back is that very same girl.
The America you remember died giving birth to fire, the same fire that you use to light your way. Those who look upon its true face are rightly terrified. Turn away, leave it behind, and come see what’s in our America, the land of the living.
One of the things I need to let go of is this diary series, at least as a regular feature. It’s become an excuse to avoid my other writing projects. I had hoped to keep it going through Hallowmas, which would have made it a full year, but my schedule is not cooperating and I will not have a regular day off for several weeks. I’m still around and may do occasional Goddess diaries as time and the Muses permit.