Thank the Goddess, the Deer Goddess

That day, an interlibrary loan book was waiting for me at the local library:  “The Deer Goddess of Ancient Siberia,” by Professor Esther Jacobson.  My final chapter of Seasons of a Wild Life includes a summary of ancient deer symbolism and Paleolithic deer goddess veneration.  I did not fully trust the information I found in the blogosphere – too much unreferenced material, editorialized through rose-tinted, euphemistic glasses.  My training as a behavioral scientist is still deeply anchored in me and so I was happy to get my hands on reliable source materials.

After picking up the book, we ventured out into the back country. The mountain ridges above 3,000 feet were covered with a light dusting of snow while the valleys remained green – a lovely contrast that promised some interesting photos. Dan, my husband, wanted to explore a narrow road winding its way up the mountain. I was concerned that there might be ice on the road higher up. But he seemed confident, so I relented.

And that was a good thing, a life-saving decision.

Because from that lonely, rarely traveled road we spotted a deer hanging from a fence. She looked dead but when we stopped and approached, she struggled to get away.  When we got closer, we saw that she had almost cleared the fence but the hoof on her left hind leg got snagged on the barbwire trapping her.  Her entire body dangled down the fence, head and front legs just reaching the ground which she had pawed in desperation until utterly exhausted. 

To free her, we needed proper tools – which we did not have with us. We drove back a few miles, stopped at a random house, and explained the situation. Without hesitation, the woman who answered the door handed us a brand new pair of wire cutters. When we got back to the deer, it took only a few well-placed cuts and she slipped to the ground. She immediately tried to arrange her hind legs so she could run away, but her legs would not cooperate. She struggled to drag herself across the ground, away from us.

Back in the car, we followed through on our original plan to drive up the mountain road and then looped back after taking pictures at the top.  The deer was now about 75 yards away from where we had cut her loose.  She was resting among fallen tree trunks, a bit of a protected space.  She remained in place and looked at us calmly and clear-eyed, so different from the panicked look she had before.

On the way home, after returning the wire cutters to their owner, we talked about what to do.  Was the deer in pain, should we return with a gun for a mercy killing?  Would she fall prey to predators that night – coyote, bear? Or could she heal and survive?  I closed my eyes for a quick contemplation and heard:  “Give me a chance.”  If there is or ever was a deer goddess, it must have been her sending this crystal clear message.

When we returned a few days later, the deer was nowhere in sight.  There was no sign of a struggle, no tell-tale remnants of a body if a predator had killed her.  We concluded that she had rested sufficiently to then move into a safer environment and hopefully heal and survive.  I still see those beautiful brown eyes looking at us so peacefully, as if she wanted to let us know she could take it from there.

Crows, Ravens, and Nigredo

Growing up as a child in Southern Germany, my mother sometimes threatened me or my brothers with a stern warning: “If you don’t behave, the Nachtkrabb will come and get you.”  Nachtkrabb was our dialect word for raven implying that it came in the night to kidnap and punish disobedient children, our equivalent of the bogeyman.  No wonder, I instinctively disliked these corvids – until I learned more about them.  My childhood indoctrination against them was augmented by fairy tales that often associated crows and ravens with evil witches, or as foretellers of death. 

Crows and ravens appear in the mythology of many different cultures. They were sometimes seen as protective spirits, divine messengers, or divine beings themselves. 

Celts and Alaskan Natives associated raven with the creation of the world.  To Pacific Northwest tribes, Raven is sacred and featured in their totem poles and other art forms.  Raven saved the world from darkness by bringing sunlight.   The Siberian Raven God Kutcha, a powerful shaman and trickster figure, was seen as ancestor to humans.

In Scandinavian folklore, two ravens were the supreme god Odin’s messengers who brought him news from around the world each day.  They were Hugin (thought) and Munin (memory).  Odin and his daughters, the Valkyries, were capable of shape-shifting into ravens. 

The Celtic Goddess of the battlefield, Morrigan, was associated with raven and sometimes took its form.   Even Baba Yaga was rumored to shapeshift into a crow at times.  Crow is also the companion animal of both Nephthys, the Egyptian Goddess of the Dead, and Dhumavati, the Hindu Goddess of Death.  Similarly, in Christian, Judaic, and Islamic scriptures, ravens are associated with death.

The most striking quality of both crow and raven is their deep black color, sometimes tinged purple when the light hits them just right.  It is probably their intense black coloring that has given rise to much mystique – and fear.

“Black is the color of creation. It is the womb out of which the new is born.  It is also the color of the night.  Black is the maternal color and thus the black night gives birth to a new day….The crow, because of its color, was a common symbol in medieval alchemy.  It represented ‘nigredo,’ the initial state of substance – unformed but full of potential.” (Andrews, AnimalSpeak, p. 130)

As we move into the darkness of winter, may we adopt it as a mantle for slowing down, creating inside comforts, and incubating the year that has passed before readying ourselves for the new one ahead.

This is a brief excerpt from the November chapter of my upcoming book, Seasons of a Wild Life.” (Expected publication date: summer 2024 by Bold Story Press)

Creating Sanctuary, Playfully But Urgently

I went on an artist play date – a collage-making workshop.

This is what came together from the images and materials that called out to me:

The world puzzle was missing a few pieces and so it was impossible to put the world back together again.  I could not make the world whole again. The planetary fragments started tumbling down on my collage backdrop. 

Wake-up Call:  The planet is breaking apart from the pressures we have been placing on it.  Our world is convulsing in its anthropogenic over-heated state – burning forests and tundra, shriveling crops, whipping up monster waves, flooding and leveling our human-made structures with cyclones and tornadoes.  Already, the orcas are fighting back by attacking boats in the Atlantic Ocean. 

But here in these two boxes, the world is still whole: butterflies and flowers and green things in one, and ocean life in the other. 

A lizard is looking on, from the edge of a primeval forest.  Lizard legends talked about such epic destruction in the past.  The lizard – and perhaps our reptilian brain – remembers and watches impassively…what are we going to do? 

A black burnt patch bridges the space between the butterfly box and remnants of dried birch bark. The world pieces are tumbling over the bark.  This is where trees once stood and life was thriving.

Wake-up Call:  Trees are our allies, they keep us alive, give us the oxygen we need to breathe and living space and nourishment for so many other creatures.  We have to protect the trees and forests – fiercely.  The trees need us now, for their survival, for our planet’s survival, for our human survival.

When I feel overwhelmed with the enormity of it all and my own perceived smallness and powerlessness, I turn to the little sanctuary I have created on my own property here in the Virginia Highlands.   We keep removing invasive plants and adding native plants that support this unique eco-system and its wildlife.  By keeping toxic chemicals out of the land, water, and air, we provide a nurturing environment for honey bees and wild pollinators. 

This much I can control along with supporting other people’s efforts to protect and rehabilitate wild spaces, and to live sustainably.

What do you do to keep a bit of sanctuary alive somewhere?

Sacred Lotus and Cults

This post blended lotus flowers with my attendance at a cultic studies conference some years ago. How are the two connected? Check it out here

Cleaning up the River

This gallery contains 7 photos.

Originally posted on The Beauty Along the Road:
Two weeks ago, I posted this open letter to people who left their trash alongside the beautiful Cowpasture River. Last weekend, I went back there to join a group of a dozen…