Goddess of Wisdom and Justice: Born-Again Athena

Barbara Ardinger has published her visionary story of Athena, born three times over, on the treasure-trove site: Feminism and Religion (FAR). Ardinger writes in the first person, inhabiting the persona of Athena-thrice-born. She begins her story …

“My first birth was in the dark continent to the south of the Black Sea, always described by Homer (who invented much of what you take as true in his two long stories) as the wine-dark sea. That is, I was born in what is now Libya in northern Africa. I was born in a many-chambered palace beside a clear lake and received into the world by a tribe of strong women. I was the first-born child of Metis the Wise. You may have read that Metis was the daughter of Oceanus and a Titaness of great cunning; that’s what the “traditional wisdom” says about her. Not true. Metis was one-unto-herself, the queen of a great tribe, holder of the sacred serpents, and painter of wild scenes on tall red cliffs that exist into your day. I was the daughter of daughters from the beginning of the earth, whom some have called Amazons. I knew nothing of that name, however, for I was simply a much beloved child of a thousand thousand foremothers and a hundred living mothers.

“Yes, I had a happy childhood in a flowery land that had known peace since time out of mind. I was praised as often as I was scolded. When I reached the proper age, I began my schooling, and my mothers became my teachers. I learned from them the arts of the ever-renewing moon, the ever-renewing serpent arts, the art of knowing when to speak and when to keep silent. (The latter was a difficult lesson for me then and is difficult still.) I learned music and mathematics and rhetoric and the books of the laws. I learned the arts both of peace and defensive warfare.

Read more on the site Feminism and Religion …