The Goddess of Death, Myths in the Experience, Part Three.
I recently finished a novel. It read like a feminist’s manifesto on destroying the divine patriarchal structure. God and the Devil are murdered and a Queen ascends the divine throne. Ideologically it was a revenge on the male-dominated cultural structure. There is a struggle that is interminable. A conflict of sexes perhaps but moreover a conflict of dark and light. The psychiatrist Carl Jung talked of the Anima and Animus, the feminine and masculine forces of the unconscious that exist one in the other. In the male the anima, considered a feminine force, his spirit, and true nature or source of sensitivity. In the female, the animus; rational spirit, mental dominance or power. And it does seem these forces have been hashing it out since the beginning of recorded history. On one level in the bible one may interpret descriptors of the feminine power as heretical to the purposes of the male godhead but on closer examination of the God of the Bible, the New Testament and the Quran we will easily find reason to consider the female as a component of the godhead identity. Opening up the Wikipedia page on the names of God in Islam you will find that there are many names, each representing a different part of God’s nature. In Kabbalism, there is an idea named Shekinah signifying the divine feminine (light, wisdom of the serpent, and the tree of life). These are mysteries of divine nature. But even a read of New Testament book most often associated with Jewish misogyny in the treatment of women you will find woman described as something to be loved like the temple of God, the dwelling of God
Evah & the Unscrupulous Thwargg explores the grey areas of power between the female entity as divine and as the vessel of life. Along her journey Evah becomes generative. She becomes a woman as she is finally immersed in the deepest mysteries of her ancient and lost tribe. The climax of the second section, Passages, reveals the multi-verse to her as no one else in the Spirean System knows it. The cosmos are a sort of living organism and through mortals spirits are born. The most exclusive view of her people’s ancient tribal society reveals a matriarchy with rituals of soul transference, some delivered to the eternal, and some delivered into the gardens of the living; the planets of the Spirean System and one mysterious garden representing Earth.
The search for this knowledge is a prize desperately sought after by one of the primary antagonists of books adventure. Haytoo, one of the most gifted remnants of the lost Naaheen tribe, uncovers a temple on the Spirean capital world Constance. His excavation reveals just one of many passages to the world between worlds. A sort of backdoor to divine places. Unfortunately, by the time he has discovers it the space overrun with demons and more closely a passage to illusionary places of hell where they suffer and await the pleasure of devouring the life force of misguided mortals. Indeed, Haytoo’s determination to find a connection with a tribal force and entity he believes more powerful than any in the known mortal worlds.
It is that moment of his most mind-boggling discovery where the book’s themes of male and female forces divide purposes of destruction from purposes that support life and its ongoing processes. Haytoo has known a hard life. He is a being with gifts feared by the ruling parties. He has had to lie and cheat and fight to stay alive and gain power. In fact, his paradox is the more devious and hardhearted he becomes the farther he moves away from joining with that ancient spirit he seeks. Not unlike the struggle of many tormented segments of life. He is perhaps one of the clearest examples of animus in action and tortured anima in repose for his objectives. Seeing through a lens of torment he seeks an ultimate power of control. Something that will best the powers of control in the living world where he has suffered. Reading the hieroglyphs on the temple wall he interprets there is a god of death, known as Urga and all the people with the power of the old tribe, extuiters, are Shone Men that may be one with the god though they are separate. What further confuses his interpretation is that history and the knowledge of what he is trying to interpret has been written wrong. It was a history written by those who conquered his people. And as we all know, in a bad break up the losing party gets stiffed and demonized. So what he finds is evil and has no clue it is not the divine figure he seeks.
This, of course, is only one layer of the farcical misguided divine tragedy that is Haytoo’s journey. There are many functions that fulfill the whole of the old tribe’s rituals and society, many roles, and Haytoo will come to fulfill the responsibilities of more than one before his journey resolves. Moreover, we find what he thinks is a god is actually a goddess. A female figurehead who is a component of eternal machination. She is an elevated mortal spiritual figure, though one couldn’t say how long she could have lived before being slain by those masters of the Spirean histories. But that is for another tale. Still, none the less, even Evah learns of this being from a history book that calls her a goddess of death. It is this skewed interpretation of her greatest tribal power that sets Evah’s mind on a tortured debate about the quality of her very own purpose and nature. If she is as powerful as may be suggested, is she a goddess of death reborn? Is it her purpose and nature to sacrifice the living for some end game she cannot understand being out of her reach of experience? Is she the very heart of destruction? She may be slightly aware of her ability to travel out of her body and even aware that she has a kind of omniscience due to her abundant psychic presence. That powerful part of herself she is too afraid to acknowledge because she does not comprehend its purpose or limitation.
Sadly, I feel this is a common feminine conflict of the modern age, perhaps of any epoch, but one of current social and political struggles, relevant on many levels, though perhaps not only a feminine question. In a quandary between using personal power or being a victim. It is an existential reality that lives can be destroyed with a few words these days. People of power can lose all they’ve built. In this post Me Too age. How should such power be used? How can life go on when everyone’s dark secrets can be revealed with a tweet? What will happen to society? This is a metaphorical variation of Evah’s question. She could literally kill people. The themes are further complicated with other ideas in the story like deep fakes. How do we know what is true? If misinformation can be used as believably as truth and society is ripped apart, how will we find something stable? As I mentioned in the opening paragraph of this post there was the story of a woman who kills God and the Devil. Once that is done what is sacred and what is taboo? Where is and what is order? Not male order. Any. Any of morality as it is the death of good and evil; the dark and light forces we have related ourselves to for so long. Where is order in the post-truth world? These are issues that still seem a struggle in our daily lives. We throw out the idea of God and along with that goes the writings that were kernels of wisdom saying don’t murder and incest is not right. It is a schizophrenia of the modern age. We can prod through the pages of Thus Speaks Zarathustra all we want, it is still relevant. Evah & the Unscrupulous Thwargg is a book that questions where is there safety, what is there to have faith in if we were to pull the carpet out from under everything that holds society together. Should Evah destroy the worlds and their capital power and reestablish an ancient mysterious matriarchy? Is that what she wants to do? Still, either way, to have a power that can be so destructive is a complicated one. Particularly when you’re eleven.
All I can say of these challenging questions for sure is that one way or the other life demands to persevere. We must survive. Anything that does not support life and its continuance must be used wisely or it is simply antithetical to survival. It is lapses of wisdom with such power that incur genocides, the destruction of empires, and the loss of entire segments of culture. It breeds oppressive cruelty. Should we trade one oppressive cruelty for another?
All of this brings me to the inspiration for the aforementioned being Urga, matriarchal head of the Naaheen tribe. This character was derived from the Hindu goddess Durga. The goddess of war, destroyer of pride and greed. Type “Durga, goddess, and meaning” into google and this is what comes up-
Durga (Sanskrit: दुर्गा, IAST: Durgā), identified as Adi Parashakti, is a principal and popular form of the Hindu Goddess. She is a goddess of war, the warrior form of Parvati, whose mythology centres around combating evils and demonic forces that threaten peace, prosperity, and Dharma the power of good over evil.
I guess one reason I settled on Durga was to exemplify good and evil is a cross-cultural science. Be it any one of the cultures depicted in the book, Naaheen, Sharvannan, or Thwargg. In Evah & the Unscrupulous Thwargg, one Thwargg in particular, a part of a secret cabal, not only uses the feminine in destructive ways but proudly stems from a Thwargg history of colonialists smacking down other cultures to serve their drive to assimilate them and add foreign worlds to the Spirean Federation. I thought it appropriate on several levels to use this mythic or spiritual presence, Durga, and her story for the foundation of my book’s most debated cultural figure. The Naaheen queen. Durga’s story draws a picture of a blissful company that is divided by one all too powerful presence and how he must be defeated. I’d expand on the story but isn’t it more fun to watch a cartoon? To know Durga’s story in more depth check out the video here.
So I guess if you know these things it becomes apparent that the story of my book is a loose adaptation of this Hindu tale. Though we have yet to see the war. The truth is, I think, in many ways religion does not necessarily define God as much as it defines the men and sometimes women who run it. Something is going on in the System of Spirea or should I say something is going on behind the curtain to its spirit world. It is something with more shapes than a man with a white beard. And it’s connected to sacrifice and destiny in the physical world. Evah is a girl finding her greatest power, and I think for everyone, whether they dispute a spirit world presence or not, questioning the boundaries of personal power gets sifted through the measure of science and spirituality. Perhaps as many gurus have said, “this life is a cosmic dream,” and this story too, somewhere between the masculine and the feminine, the anima and the animus that we share. Science and spirit. Evah has a supernatural power, as will other members of her tribe to come and where bliss, where peace, will be found is anyone’s guess but pride, greed, and responsibility will be a substantive conflict as the equation plays out.
I have gleaned there may be some idea my story is about a heroic guy who is betrayed by a woman, but there’s a little more goin on here. No one is without some flaws. Varin, the “heroic guy” in question doesn’t just get a one-way ticket to heaven and everything is alright. He is tormented by his inability to undo the web spun by our leading antagonist. Really, he is naïve and for a certain time, would rather believe lies than take action to free himself and those he loves most. You decide if it’s cowardice or faith. If anything, on a simple level, this is a story about a system that will use people like puppets if left unchecked. Men and women. And how should our divine company, being of spirit or merely energy, deal with such sources of control? How will a young girl deal with it?