This painting and essay tie together seemingly disparate topics—childbirth, honoring your creations, plagiarism, and Ostara, to name a few. I’d love your thoughts on this, truly.
Scroll past the pic for my thoughts on it.
Click on the picture to see an unblurred version.
Here is purchase info about this art piece: https://www.etsy.com/listing/179731379
I consider this the best of my 2013 paintings because of its insights and enormous talismanic power. It took til 2014 to post it because it brought up a lot for me. I needed time to write about it.
Birthing Goddess. Cosmic egg within Her womb. Milky Way spiraling through Her breasts. By Her very stance, you see She makes no apologies for Her raw primal power.
A client phoned when I was painting this piece. I hadn’t intended it to be a Birthing Goddess. When my client shared her situation, I put the painting away to help her, but also realized the painting needed to be a Birthing Goddess.
I have the best job ever—I am a shaman. The client who phoned was 40+ hours into labor. There was no medical problem, and she had fabulous midwives; things were just slow. So I did long-distance shamanic work for her, and things started moving along more. Life doesn’t get any better than this—supporting a powerful woman in the sacred miracle of life.
I had yet another astounding experience when I returned to painting. I love my life! The Goddess told me She wanted her legs portrayed as braced. Wow, of course She would brace them, to give birth as She stood! Then I realized I should not close off the bottom part, as is usually done with this Goddess figure. It should be left open, for ease of birth. I painted more, then realized the upraised arms of this archetype were a woman bracing herself during labor. So I painted braced arms. Then, shaping the last parts, I realized the part below the spiral was the opened birth passage—simultaneously both os and vulva. At which point, I had the extraordinary experience: I saw that this figure must have originally been a birthing symbol. It’s inherent in its shapes. And the primeval power of this flooded me, like stardust pouring through me.
Mind you, the image is inherently other things as well. (Hence my other paintings of this archetype.) A symbol of great depth touches reality’s core, which has many manifestations. For example, the figure is clearly a fertility symbol. But the figure makes such sense as a Birthing Goddess; I suspect that was its origin and, due to its accurate representation of a powerful woman birthing, it has the aforementioned depth and thus touches universal themes.
No wonder so many women love the symbol. Though I’ve never heard or read anyone call it a Birthing Goddess, that must be, at minimum, a subconscious reason for some of the love the symbol receives. Since doing the painting, I’ve researched re this archetype originally being a birthing image. No luck yet, but I will research more.
Given all the above, there are many ways this painting can be used:
To help ease childbirth and protect both mother and child during labor, place this painting on an altar or near a birthing woman.
We birth children, ideas, projects, and communities. Place the artwork on an altar as a focus during a birthing ritual for anything.
Display anywhere in your home as a house blessing.
To see this detail of the painting unblurred, click on it.
Use it as a focus for any other spells, prayers, or meditations you think suitable.
Divinity is beautiful. Display simply as straight-ahead decor to add beauty to any room.
This piece honors Goddess as source, which also makes it excellent on the altar for purposes of worship.
It is also a talisman for acknowledgment of self as source—it helps you honor what you create and provide.
In that vein, the painting is good as a focus for spells to combat plagiarism. In fact, if internet history is any indication, people will blog the same ideas that are in this post or imitate my visual interpretation. (I better use the painting myself for an anti-plagiarism spell.) Mind you, I know I can’t be the only one to have the realizations I’ve delineated above. And I know imitation is flattering. But, imitation without attribution is not “being inspired by someone else’s work;” it is stealing.
Stealing—whether through lack of acknowledging a source or use of material without permission—is a microcosm of betrayal of Goddess Womb as source and as inspiration. No surprise it happens more to women. Stealing the fruits of someone’s labor is part of our culture as a whole, but my heart especially hurts when Pagans plagiarize—it is heartbreakingly ironic.
Thieves creates bad mojo in their goods and services, which hurts people. It makes me want to cry.
But we can reside in Her love and protection. So mote it be.
I bless all my work. This original painting from my heart carries good mojo. This picture, visually and magically, has two aspects: One suits the whole year, and the other is specific to Spring. This helps give the painting its multiple uses as decor and a talisman. If you would like a copy, go to https://www.etsy.com/listing/179731379 Thanks so much for reading!
