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Week 14 Reading: Seven Secrets of the Goddess Part A


  • "Gaia's Secret" Parts 1 & 2
  • Part 1 tells about Gaia the Earth Mother from Greek mythology 
    • it goes on to explain that a "primal female deity" is first adored "then brutally side-lined by a male deity" 
    • this is present in cultures across the world including Egypt, Greece, and India
    • Goddess Adya - India
      • transforms into a bird and lays 3 unfertilized eggs 
      • from these eggs, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva are born
      • Adya wanted to unite with he 3 male gods but Brahma refused because he considered Adya his mother - Adya cursed him saying there would be no temples in his honor
      • Adya did not want to unite with Vishnu because she found him too "shifty and shrewd"
      • Adya turned her attention to Shiva who agreed (through the advice of Vishnu) but only if she gave him her 3rd eye
        • she agreed to give Shiva the 3rd eye
        • Shiva used the eye to release a missile of fire that burned Adya and turned her to ash
        • from the ash came 3 goddesses who would become the wives of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva
    • The video also tells about similar stories in Egyptian and Sumerian cultures
  • Part 2 tells about how women, sexual pleasure, and death are closely related
    • Yama and Yami
      • the first living creatures in the Rig Ved
      • Yami - sister
      • Yama - brother
      • Yami "approaches" Yama but he continually rejects her advances on moral grounds
      • Yama eventually dies and becomes trapped in the land of the dead because he had no heirs in the land of the living
      • Yama's rejection of sex turns him into the god of death
      • Yami mourns for her brother which turns her into Yamini, the goddess of the night and the mournful dark river Yamuna
    • Polynesian mythology
      • Maui (but not in the Disney, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, way - believe me) 
        • tries to get immortality from the goddess of death and the netherworld, Hine, by entering her body through her vagina and exiting through her mouth
        • however, Hine wakes up while the intrusion is happening and bites Maui with the teeth that line her vagina
        • that is most definitely not the heart of Tefiti from the Disney movie
    • the connection of death with sex, sex with pleasure, and sex with women resulted in men connecting women to "immorality,  vulnerability, and misery." Therefore making them associate celibacy with physical strength
  • Storytelling Notes: I take issue with the treatment of women in absolutely every part of these videos. I am especially interested in retelling the stories of Gaia or Adya as well as the stories of Yama and Yami and Maui and Hine. I want to give the women or goddesses more agency and free will. I also might gender flip the characters or get rid of the male characters all together and craft my own origin story.
  • Bibliography: Seven Secrets of the Goddess by Devdutt Pattanaik (2016). Video. 
(Yama and Yami a Tibetan Thangka Painting)
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