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Dea Gravida

I bought the little goddess in, of all places, Jerusalem.

“How many people come to Jerusalem to buy idols?” I laughingly asked the dealer in the little antiquities shop where I bought—say, maybe, redeemed—her. In Hebrew, the question has a certain pungency that it lacks in English.

(In an even deeper irony, the real answer is: millions do. Books like the Torah, the Bible, and the Qur'an are the most dangerous idols of all; they've caused more human suffering than any statue ever did.)

She's maybe 2500 years old, of a Phoenician iconographic type known as the dea gravida, the “pregnant goddess.” (In English, to be “gravid” is not just to be pregnant, but to be really pregnant.) Nearing the end of her term, with her elaborate hairdo and veil, she sits in a chair with her right hand held protectively, reflectively, over her belly. There's a stillness to her. She's waiting.

Mold-made, an affordable best-seller of her day, tens of thousands like her survive. That explains how someone on a student budget like me could afford to buy one, and why the Israeli government would let her out of the country. (Nation-states are usually jealous of artifacts found within their borders: in this case, up north in “Galilee of the gentiles,” where Phoenician influence was strong.)

The little goddess sits on an altar in my bedroom, where I see her every day. In a house filled with Green Men and Astartes, somehow this is the time of year, this pregnant time before Yule, when I find myself noticing her most.

Check it out--I'm pregnant with my second daughter! Incidentally, I've been too sick to blog for the past six months. It's worth it in the long run, right?

My first pregnancy was pretty textbook, but this one's been rough. The nausea and fatigue of the first trimester lasted until week 20 or so, at which point my uterus sprouted a new fibroid that sent me to the ER with pain and preterm labor symptoms. Since then, I've been working from home a couple days a week and taking it easy, but my body seems to have skipped over the high-energy period of the second trimester and gone straight to the constant exhaustion of the third trimester.

Life does not accommodate you, it shatters you...
Every seed destroys its container
or else there would be no fruition.
~ Florida Scott-Maxwell

The possibility of using public service ads to reduce fossil fuel consumption is considered. Scientists study whether or not Alzheimer's can actually be transmitted from one person to another. And the seemingly religious behavior of chimps is examined. It's Earthy Thursday, our weekly segment on science and Earth-related news! All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

As I write this entry, the moon is on the verge of peeking through the branches of the Eucalyptus tree just to the east of my apartment. I love looking at the full moon rising through the branches of that tree: the tines of Cernunnos caressing Diana.

Of course, being witches, we all know why tonight is special. We've been waiting almost three years for a blue moon! Two full moons in one month--think of all the magic we can do!

There's something immensely powerful in women baring our bellies.

Quoted in The Woman's Belly Book, a woman describes what would happen when her daughter, as a toddler, met someone for the first time: She'd lift her shirt up and show them her belly.

Here's an adult, and global, example. "Get Your Belly Out" is a worldwide campaign that four women in the UK have launched to raise awareness of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), Crohn's disease, and colitis — all ways of naming the belly's deep distress. Using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, supporters are posting photos of their bellies bared. They're also donating to research that will generate a cure for these gut-wrenching diseases.

I love how bellies bared for the camera make such an impact. They're saying: "Here I am, you can't ignore me now." When women bare bellies in a joint enterprise, the message is: "Here we are, you can't ignore us now."