Archetypes that Activate & Disruptive Art
Holy Cow
Hathor was the golden goddess who helped women give birth, the dead to be reborn, and the cosmos to be renewed.(1)
I am a bit in love with the cow and her ubiquitous appearance as a holy cow in cultures the globe over and throughout time. Cows’ treatment in modern factory farming is well documented. Among the hardest to take in, their udders bleed from overuse. Instead of giving dairy cows a well-earned break, their bleeding udders are injected directly with antibiotic-delivering needles to maximize output and profit. What makes me rage in anger is the insanity of patriarchal logic, turning the female site of ecstasy/creation/nourishment into a site of torment. The archetype of the cow here holds power for this moment in time. The million-dollar question is, how did we go from a near ubiquitous treatment of the cow as divine throughout the Neolithic era, to her degraded and deontologized status today? Healing this will heal something bigger. The story of the cow, in some measure, encapsulates the story of colonial terrorism against Indigenous values and colonial terrorism against the female creative principle.
The cow is still sacred in India today and was revered in ancient Egypt as the Goddess Hathor. The Dogon revered her on the plains of Nabta Playa before that. Max Dashu has traced the ancient Cow Goddess’ image back to 8,000 B.C.E. in the Sudan. The Primordial Mother of Neolithic Anatolia merges with the cow, as Redmond observes of the dominant figure of the art of Catal Huyuk.(2) For over 10,000 years, the cow has been sacred and even considered a Goddess. One of my first encounters with her occurred while reading Homer’s description of Hera as “cow-eyed” in the Iliad.(3) My curiosity was struck. Egyptian temple complexes celebrate the Cow Goddess Hathor; hers is the only head of a god or goddess that flutes the top of Egyptian temple columns. The cultural exchange between ancient Egypt to the newly birthed Greece is not disputed. The best minds of ancient Greece studied in Egypt, up to Alexander. Within the new patriarchal order of Greco-Roman times, there was still a remembrance of the Cow Goddess through descriptions of Hera.
Reverence for cows’ wild ancestors is well-documented in Paleolithic cave art the world over, dating back to 40,000 B.C.E. at least. In Paleolithic and Neolithic spiritual practice, humans identified with animals, practicing a kind of Totemism, an expression of the mystical oneness and interconnection of the cosmos. We connected with animals because we understood that they hold deep wisdom unlike what a human might arrive at alone. One can see the ancient mind’s deep affinity with the gifts of the cow because she also partakes in the mysterious transformation of water and blood to milk.(4) Hathor is commonly depicted feeding humanity in Egyptian art, in the pictorial metaphor of a tiny human drinking from the udder of the giant cow, a Blue Hathor riddled with gold stars.
This song is a meditation on the demotion of the ancient cow goddess in Greco-Roman times, its consequences for Helen, and those who fought for her.
Holy Cow
There is an eye,
there is a feather.
There is a moon
that sits in her head-dress.
There is a soul
who could have done better;
she gives the dead
chances forever.
Oh holy cow, oh holy cow-
dear god will see you now.
I left a place
of weightless illusion,
taken by grace
to gravity’s confusion.
I seek a place
and I seek a solution;
I saw a face
and I also heard music.
Oh holy cow, dear god will see me now.
Who plays for keeps
when times are a-changing?
Rise to your feet,
saddles are blazing.
Look to the east,
ask what is Nabta Playa?
What does it mean
and why is it forgotten?
Oh holy cow, dear god we see you now.
Hathor, Isis is hiding-
Hathor, do you still laugh at dying?
Hathor, stargazer’s secret.(5)
Hathor, it’s really nice to see you.
Helen’s face launched
1,000 ships-
I’ve heard it said
it was really her hips.
Some people thought
a woman could be stolen.
Some people fought
so no one could own her.
Oh holy cow, dear god I see you now.
Amazons came
to the aid of the Trojans;
they met their match
on the field in their boldness.
Achilles took
Penthesilea down-
he cried afterwards,
her beauty bummed him out.
Oh holy cow, dear god will see you now.
Now.
(To be continued…)
- Olga Sohmer, “The Mythic Cow and the Dairy Industry: An Archetypal Activist Exploration,” Olga Rose Sohmer, December 16, 2015, http://olgasohmer.com/on-mythic-cows-and-the-dairy-industry-an-archetypal-activist-exploration/, 19/27.
- Redmond, 55.
- Homer, Iliad, I:551.
- Redmond, 49.
- The Dogon were a stargazing culture, referred to in the lore as “stargazers.” The Dogon tribe lived in the Nubian desert and built Nabta Playa, the world’s oldest discovered astrological site, 7,000 years ago.
(Meet-mago-contributor) Jen Taylor