Since I am the first and the last
I am the woved and the despised one,
I am the prostitute and the saint,
I am the bride and the virgin,
I am mother and daughter,
I am my mother's arms,
I am sterile, though my children are numerous,
I am married and maiden,
I am the One who brings light and the One who never bred,
I am the one who consoles from birth pains.
I am bride and bridegroom,
And my man nourished my fertility,
I am my father's Mother,
I am my husband's sister,
And he's my rejected son.
So bring respect to me,
Since I am the one who gives Scandal,
The one who gives Sanctification.

Hymn to Isis
Found in Nag Hammadi, Egypt
III-IV century B.C.
 

Freyr and Freya, the structuring divinities of the first Aett, are among the most important Vanir deities, tied to the cult of the Mother Goddess before Indo-European invasion. They are brother and sister, and this could be a hint to an ancient, androgynous and hermaphroditical divinity which united them for long time. These qualities were attribuited to the Goddess, too.
It is diffusely acquired that the pagan theological and mythological system derived from Indo-European peoples and sprung with them during their IV-III millennium B.C. expansion.
At any rate, the primitive religiosity of paleolithic and neolithic periods, linked to the cult of Mother Goddess, had its huge influence upon the theological beliefs of the nomadic peoples of warriors which enstablished themselves in ancient Europe on successive waves, migrating from various zones of central Asia.
Myths and legends are very important if we want to understand the way these two different cultures mixed together; agricultural and matriarchal the first, nomadic and warrior the second, characterized by deep social and cultural differences, but one another complementary. The clash between these populations is well depicted into the legendary war between Æsir and Vanir, which we'll speak diffusely about on the next paragraphs.
Erich Neumann, Jung's pupil, argues that in order to understand the structure of feminine archetype, and more specifically of the Great Mother, is of the utmost importance the so called “comparative morphologic psychology”; in other words the study of religious history, of ethnology, archeology, of preistoric age, whether our aim is to understand correctly each symbol that structures every archetype and which brings its form within the collective unconscious, founding its memory into ritualistic myths.
There is a kernel of concepts that we must hold before exploring the world of the Runes; since they're signs of a nordic alphabet, they reflect origins, history, and life of North-European peoples, their beliefs, their vision of the world.
Rudolf Steiner underlined more and more the importance of myths in the evolutive process of individual from birth to adult age:

“We must always keep in mind the importance of legends if we want to understand the revealing stages of evolution: all truths kept inside of them are far and far deeper of those that history gave us.”

According to Jung, myth is a projection of very important psychological mechanisms for human life; in every legend from different cultures we'll find with striking accuracy the same stages of development of Self, from a philogenetical point of view. The Ouroboros, the Great Mother, the Struggle with the Dragon, they are all archtypical modalities, as they were inbred in some ways, which psyche uses to represent every step of growth of conscience from thousands and thousands of years on. The archetype is composed by an unlimited series of forms, images, symbols and concepts combining each other, interact and contribute to the creation of myth.

Symbols of Feminine

 
All symbols related to the Great Mother and “maternity” as theme are featured by a strong ambivalence, a double nature, negative and positive, of “loving mother” and “terrible mother”. According to Jung the archetype of the Great Mother is

«The magic authority of feminine, the wisdom and the spiritual height that trascends limits of intellect; what is benevolent, protective, tolerant; all that brings growth, fecundity, nourishment; the places of magic transformation, of rebirth; the istinct and helping impulse; what is secret, occult, gloomy; the abyss, the realm of the deads; what is devouring, seducing, intoxicating; all that feeds anguish, the ineluctable».

Since the Homo Sapiens age and further, from 30.000 to 3.000 B.C., humanity used the image of the “Unique Goddess”, and only from 3.000 B.C. the figure of a male God went to light, which nonetheless absorbed some very specific female qualities, such as creation and giving life; the Goddess was confined to the role of mother or bride or sister of God, or – as far as catholic religion is concerned – of virgin Mother.
 

The Vessel

Marija Gimbutas, lithuanian archeologist, in her famous book 'The language of the Goddess' conducts a deep analysis on prehistoric cult (mesolithic and neolithic ones) linked to the earth and founded upon lunar and earthling pre-Indo-European feminine deities. Gimbutas argues that in Europe and Minor Asia (the ancient Anatholia) between 7.000 and 3.000 B.C. would eventually existed a society characterized by egalitarism between sexes, women would have covered a predominant role as female priests or heads of the clan, life would have been guided by a Great Goddess symbol of rebirth, death and renovation. This society would be eventually been replaced, the so called Kurgan populations which imposed upon the first between 4.300 and 2.800 B.C., transforming the so called Proto Indo-European culture into a patriarchal one.

During archeological excavations upon Euroasian upper-paleolithic site, have been found a series of elements leading to a concept of feminine deity, such as small statues and numerous vessels in first place. These conceptual and iconographic elaborations have been realized by primitive men in order to express their religiosity, the concept of divine.

The vessel is what represents to the best the role of feminine, that is to mantain and contain life (water), to protect and nourish (food), which inevitably hides and embraces something invisible inside, and so mysterious.

According to Neumann also, myths, rites, religions of primitive humanity based their principles upon a strict symbolic formula: woman = body = vessel = world. This vision created the sense of superiority that for long time accompanied the feminine figure, creating a series of religious practices for adoration of the Unique Goddess, the Great Mother.

The Man, the masculine principle, seems to be completely excluded from primitive symbolism, probably for the fact that the mechanism of fecundation was not known, and according to Neumann. This is the key-stone of the idea of virgin linked to the Great Mother:

«The basic matriarchal conception doesn't match sexuality with birth. The continuity of sexual personal life is suddenly interrupted by menstrual period, such as by pregnancy. Both phenomena are deployed withing feminine-matriarchal sphere... for this reason woman becomes pregnant by extra-human powers, not personal».

Jung himself writes accurately about symbology related to feminine:

«The archetype of Great Mother encompasses an infinite quantity of aspects. I will mention only a few of the most typical ones: the personal mother and grandmother, the step-mother and mother-in-law, every woman anyone's related with (the nanny, the ancestor or the White Woman). In a more spiritualistic level, figuratively: the goddess, the mother of God, the virgin (as rejuvenate mother, such as Demethra and Core), Sophia (as lover-mother, as Cibeles-Attis couple, or as daughter/mother lover-rejuvenated woman); the willing aim of redemption (paradise, realm of God, heavenly Jerusalem). In a broader sense: the Church, the university, the state, sky, earth, forest, sea, stagnant water, matter, subterranean world, the moon. In a strict sense: places of birth or procreation – field, garden, rock, cave, tree, source, deep well, baptismal font, flower as receptacle (rose and lotus); the magic circle... in a stricter sense: uterus, every hollow shape, oven, pot; different animals: cow, hare and generically every helping animal.»

The Cosmic Snake, Ouroboros

It is one of the most famous symbols of the lost unity with the whole, a memory of motherly uterus, it's the primeval archetype leading inevitably to the Great Mother. It brings us back to the primary human condition of being wrapped, nourished and restricted, improsoned into uterus, in a fluid and indistintive environment, dark and warm, immersed into oblivion, into indifferentiation. The snake and the tree are the most ancient symbols of all traditions throughout the world. The snake stands for the earth, as material dimension, instinct of survival, while the tree is  sublimation of pulsions, the tension toward the heaven, the mind, the Spirit. The Sea Snake Nidhoggr that into the Nordic Mythology devours the roots of the Cosmic Tree is the same snake that wraps the Tree of Life into the Earth Paradise of the Bible, tempting Adam and Eve with a forbidden fruit.

Blood and Milk

The psyscho-biological development of the feminine is related to a very complex symbolism with blood: since through menstrual blood the young girl becomes woman, allowing her to give birth, blood therefore becomes symbol of life and generation. The woman, on the other hand, creates milk, food for the baby, being custodian of the mysterious capability to transform blood in nourishment.

In many primitive sepultures body and bones are put back together in foetal position and coloured with red ochre, as to rejoin them to the ring of ciclicity life/death.

The primitive Great Mother, divinity that frames the ciclicity of time and controls the agricultural world, will be gradually substituted by male figures representing a gradual shift of primitive social-economical structure. From metal ages on will be enstablished a new kind of more dynamic and articulate economy, with an increase of exchanges among populations, with new needs of defence in which male strength becomes more and more important for a protection of society.
 

 
The published material upon these pages is taken from “Runemal, Il Grande Libro delle Rune” - L'Età dell'Acquario editions. For info and booking please write to info@runemal.org