The Earth Goddess Every community in Africa recognize the Earth as a spirit and the provider of fertility and harvest. The Akans conceive her as the second in command after Onyankopͻn. Most communities regard her as a female and related to the Great Goddess of India. She is also seen as the dearest of all the deities. The Akans call her Asaase Yaa and Asaase Efua among the Fantes, the Ibos call her Ala or Ane. The Ibos believe she is the most significant goddess among all the gods. They also believe
The Goddess Movement When in 1974 respected archaeologist Marija Gimbutas published The Goddess and Gods of Old Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press), little did she know the effect it would have on feminism, religion and society. Her book was about the spiritual practices of people living in southeastern Europe 6000 to 8000 years ago. Her book presented a theory of matriarchal and matrilineal societies that in many ways were ideal. Men and women lived in harmony, women ran the temples
Fertility cults existed in almost all cultures, where Earth is treated as the Mother (female) and Sun, the Father (male). For instance in Babylon, Ishtar, the earth-goddess, was considered as a supreme deity among the female divinities. Throughout western Asia, the Great Earth Mother, representing fertility was worshipped under diffrent names. When Greek colonists in Asia Minor found her temples, they named her Artemis and the existing
Funerary rites for inanimate objects, known as Kuyo, are commonplace in Japan. They are by far the most varied form of mortuary rites the country has. The format it takes differs greatly from the memorials for deceased people. Only the people who have an attachment to the item are involved in its Kuyo. While some Kuyos are performed for religious items most are for everyday items such as eyeglasses and tea whisks. Kuyos are performed by either setting up memorial stones or by holding a ceremony.
Suffering is inadequate to describe the life of Frida Kahlo. Her childhood was marred with polio; a streetcar accident shattered her left leg, shoulder, pelvic bones, ribs, and spine; her husband shattered her heart with numerous love affairs; and she suffered three miscarriages throughout her life. Her physical and psychological suffering bound her life into the limited identity of a crippled patient. Yet even as the streetcar accident left her crippled, her self-portraits gave her wings to soar
It’s an old story, which happened in the end of 1946, created havoc between two states, India and Pakistan that took the cries of the Hindu and the Muslim daughters. The country’s emotional cord was on the verge division, they took the different names of the same god (Allah, Waheguru, Vishnu, etc.) and kept spilling the blood of innocent lives. The innocent lives, which didn’t even know Hindu and Muslims were two different religions, became the victims of anger, hatred and cruelty, where women and
Woman: God’s second mistake? Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher, who regarded ‘thirst for power’ as the sole driving force of all human actions, has many a one-liners to his credit. ‘Woman was God’s second mistake’, he declared. Unmindful of the reactionary scathing criticism and shrill abuses he invited for himself, especially from the ever-irritable feminist brigade. The fact and belief that God never ever commits a mistake, brings Nietzsche’s proclamation dashingly down into the dust bin