WARNING: This post contains SPOILERS for:
- The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
- Wild (2014)
- Aap ki Kasam (1974)
- Disney’s Frozen (2013)
With the sun blazing above our heads this August, the coldness of winter seems far far away. But we all know it will come, in some shape or form, eventually.
One of the ways our ancestors made sense of the changing seasons is by imagining certain events reoccurring each year.
The story of Demeter, Greek goddess of the harvest, is usually the first one that comes to mind. Heartbroken over the kidnapping of her daughter Persephone by her brother Hades, Demeter is so grief-stricken that she abandons the world, leading the land to lose all its fertility.
The other gods eventually negotiate for Demeter that her daughter can return to her; but only for half of the year, each year. Since then, the goddess laments whenever they are separated and rejoices when they are together. Nature must mourn and celebrate with her, leading to cold and barren fields during winter and flourishing crops during the other.
The fact that many gods tend to show their displeasure by blasting their power all over the place makes it all the more interesting that Demeter is able to hold such influence over the world by just disappearing. And she isn’t the only one to do so.
There are many stories of goddesses that go into hiding from the world, driven by a variety of emotions: from sadness and disappointment to rage, indignation and shock. What makes them leave? And how, if so, do they overcome their negative feelings and gather the courage to rejoin the world?
Myths of grieving goddesses
There are many goddesses bereaved by the death or stealing of a loved one like Demeter was; strikingly, this always happens because of the actions of another, often by their own brother.
When one of her beloved weavers dies at the hand of a vicious prank played by her twin brother Amaterasu-Ōmikami, radiant goddess of the sun and chief deity of Shintoism, is overcome by grief, guilt and rage. Where Demeter leaves a barren and cold earth behind, the Japanese sun goddess‘s disappearance plunges the world into darkness.
The majority of this story focuses on how Amaterasu is wooed back from her cave; the other gods organise loud parties and leave gifts outside the entrance, hoping to pique the goddess’s curiosity. Finally, it is a clever trick that makes Amaterasu come back out. The gods pretend an even more radiant goddess has arrived, and a jealous Amaterasu looks outside immediately. For who can dare to take her place?
What she sees outside turns out to be a mirror the Gods have placed there, in which Amaterasu sees her own reflection. Realising the world cannot survive without her light, she comes back to her rightful place.
Amaterasu’s myth is strikingly similar to that of the Cherokee’s sun goddess Unelanuhi, whose daughter is accidentally killed by a serpent actually meant to kill the goddess. Unelanuhi locks herself into her hut, wailing with sadness and takes the sunlight with her. Balance in nature is eventually restored when the people play music for her, making her forget her grief.
And finally, one of the seminal stories in ancient Egyptian mythology also has a grieving, retreating goddess at its heart. Isis, who governs over many domains, intensely mourns her husband Osiris when he is killed by their evil brother Set.
She leaves Egypt to search for the body parts of her dead husband, leaving its land barren. Only after she manages to collect Osiris’s body parts and revive him – something she has to achieve almost entirely on her own – does the land become fertile again.
Whether all these grieving goddesses are soothed and supported by others to help them reclaim their place in the world or they do it on their own, all of them must accept that things will never be as they were again, and find a way to regain their joy despite the loss they have incurred.
Goddesses deeply disappointed with mankind
Some withdrawing goddesses are grieving a more symbolical death; they feel disillusioned with mankind’s unethical behaviour. This leads at least two goddesses to abandon the world.
Themis, Greek goddess of law and justice, is unimpressed with man’s corrupt ways and leaves, ironically causing even further lawlessness and disorder to spread about. Her return does not even come about, symbolising how corruption is still significant to date.
Similarly, earth goddess Coatlicue is saddened by the Mexica (=Aztec) people’s violent subjugation of others, so she leaves for the top of the mountain Coatepec, causing capital city Tenochtitlan to suffer severe drought for years. King Motecuhzoma sets off on a journey to convince her to come back but does not succeed; Coatlicue even predicts that as the Aztec have destroyed others, others will come to destroy them.
She also comments on how she grieves that her son Huitzilopochtli has abandoned her – this son is in fact the god of war, and his leaving her therefore symbolises what he has become, and by extension, what the Mexica people have become.
The journey leaves Motecuhzoma repentant of his people’s imperialistic behaviour and neglect of family life, and accepts that because of this, his doom too, will come one day.
Both Themis and Coatlicue, then, stick to their decision to leave – and for good reason. Rather than undergoing an inner journey during their retreat that changes them enough to come back, their withdrawal is a commentary on the state of the world.
Goddesses scorned in all forms
Abandoning humanity takes a more personal turn in Hindu mythology. At the very end of the epic Ramayana, Seetha (who, in the epic, is a mortal princess, but as an incarnation of the goddess Lakshmi, is also of divine birth) asks her mother, the Earth, to swallow her up, feeling disappointed and hurt in her husband king Rama.
Reason being that he has repeatedly tried to prove to the people in his kingdom – through tests of fire and the like – that his wife did not have sex with another man. Never mind that said man is the captor Rama spent the entire epic trying to save his queen from, and that any encounter between the two might have been non-consensual.
Seetha is swallowed up as requested and never seen again, and no one comes looking for her – though the king is sad, hurt and sentenced to live out the rest of his days without his wife, and the city has lost its queen. Her disappearance reminds us of Themis’s and Coatlicue’s as it has disillusionment with society at its heart. But its catalyst, this time, is personal hurt and humiliation.
Notably, Seetha’s motif is reapplied by ancient poet and playwright Kalidasa in his 4th century C.E. play ‘Abhigyanashakuntalam’, a retelling of the story of Shakuntala. When the title character approaches her husband, king Dushyanta, after a period of separation to join him as his queen, he denies ever knowing her – in front of his full court. Kalidasa’s Shakuntala faints with heartbreak and humiliation, leading her celestial nymph mother to magically appear and carry her off to protect her.
This retelling is notably different from Shakuntala’s original reaction in the epic Mahabharatha, where she does not mince words in reprimanding the king in full hearing of his courtiers and demands he do right by her – though her speech is also dripping with heartbreak. Kalidasa’s Shakuntala is milder, with a more passive and sad reaction like that of the goddesses we saw grieving.
I personally find it a pity Kalidasa put a damper on Shakuntala’s righteous anger in the original version, but it does make for an interesting meshing of myths; Seetha’s story is reused in a very similar situation. In both versions of this tale, Dushyanta is humbled and the couple is (eventually) reunited.
We find a unique example of a goddess abandoning her people in Egyptian mythology. In a story surrounding the goddess of dew and moisture, Tefnut, we find that goddesses can withdraw and withhold driven not just by a passive sadness, but by rage as well. It is a curious example, as wrathful gods usually go for unleashing it.
When Tefnut is forbidden by her father Ra from attending a festival given in her honour and mingling with the people worshipping her, she flies into a rage. Who is Ra to tell her what she can and cannot do – and that too during a festival specially meant for her? Indignated, she leaves for Nubia, plunging Egypt into complete drought.
Ra’s ego stands in the way of his asking her to come back, so he employs the diplomatic ibis-headed god Thoth instead. This god reminds Tefnut who she is truly punishing with her absence; not her authoritarian father, but the people that love her so. The goddess relents and returns to Egypt, where Ra agrees to no longer stand in her way.
In a myth from Australia, hot rage turns to cold fury with Yhi, an Aboriginal sun goddess. Yhi wishes to pursue moon god Bahloo – who has already rejected her advances – across the sky. But she needs the support of the sky spirits to do so, so that Bahloo has no way to disappear from her sight.
She coldly uses her powers as a bargaining chip with the spirits; they must hold the Moon captive so she can eternally pursue him, and if they ever let him escape, Yhi vows to plunge the world into darkness. Here, the goddess withdraws her power with seemingly no emotion at all, but perhaps driven by (very toxic) feelings of humiliation and rejection.
These examples show us that offended goddesses can follow different journeys. Whether withdrawing for need of self-care and healing or sternly refusing to bow to the will of others, they only give the gift of their power and presence again if pacified, teaching us an important lesson about self-respect (as long as it does not escalate into self-importance, as with Yhi).
Distilling the goddess withdrawal motif
What seems to unite all these goddesses is a sense of purposelessness caused by behaviour of people around them – and what sets them apart from each other is how they react to it. Pitting the value of their power to the world against the grievances they feel is key for their journeys.
In some cases, they tackle the inner demons blocking them and come back with a regained sense of self – spurred on by humanity wooing them back. In others, they conclude humanity indeed does not deserve them, and they stay away. Both the goddesses that return and those that do not can make for fascinating characters regardless of the emotion that drives them.
One is my favourite storytelling experts, K.M. Weiland, talks about the Crone arc, where a wise, elderly figure close to Death must make a journey to the Underworld, retreating, healing and realizing their life is not yet at its end. Weiland says about this Arc:
‘(The Crone) gave it all, perhaps graciously but certainly not without heartbreak, in order to secure the Kingdom for her successors and journey on into the twilight….She is resigned to Death but still afraid of it…Therefore, hers is an arc from disempowerment to empowerment…She has retreated to the hut in the woods in order to integrate, to process, to lick her wounds, and to grieve. (Her journey) has demanded the complete death of the person she was….Her challenge, then, is to decide whether she will now accept the call to be rebirthed.’
Modern examples
The story of Ista in The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold is a great example of a powerful character in modern fantasy grieving, retreating but eventually reclaiming her power – but with a twist. She refashions her power in order to reclaim it.
Ista is a former queen mother that has retreated from society and political life. She feels wounded, having lost both het husband and son. To add to her grief, she is misunderstood and treated differently for her extraordinary connection to the Gods. She embarks on a pilgrimage, seeking to escape her life and to heal.
On her journey, she learns to embrace and reclaim her power with the Gods and refashion her role in society. By overcoming past hurt, she learns to harness the very power she was shunned for earlier and use it for the good of the realm. Adding an element to the goddess stories we saw, Ista doesn’t return to the same place, but redirects her power where it is more appreciated – she becomes a Paladin.
Outside of SFF, the 2014 movie Wild, Reese Witherspoon’s directorial debut, is another lovely example. It is clear from the beginning that protagonist Cheryl Strayed is grieving; the loss of her mother and her failed marriage have her exhibiting self-destructive behavior. Untill she decides to go on a journey through the Pacific Crest Trail. Alone. Isolating herself in the wilderness, she heals, accepts that life goes on despite pain, and finds a renewed inner strength and purpose.
As we saw, some goddesses do not return. Themis and Coatlicue get disappointed at man’s corrupt ways and leave, inviting other characters than the goddesses to reflect upon themselves. This motif hasn’t failed to inspire modern writers. One of the reasons that makes good ole’ LotR so evocative is that hope survives in a world that even the elves have abandoned trust in. Even before the end of the First Age, elves have been departing from Middle-Earth for the Grey Havens never to return, having lost faith in mankind and their corrupt ways. And with their graceful, non-violent demeanor, elves reminds us more of the feminine than the masculine.
Used this way, divine beings retreating isn’t the focus of the plot (though it may be personified in side characters such as, in this case, Elrond), but makes for a compelling backdrop. Who will find the courage to return integrity to the world, when even the fairest of beings have abandoned all hope?
One ‘goddess’ that clearly isn’t taking any nonsense is the main character in yesteryears’ Bollywood film ‘Aap ki Kasam’ (1974). It isn’t a fantasy or scifi film, but since it seems to be a retelling of Seetha’s story I just couldn’t ignore it.
At the start of the story, Sunita (played by Mumtaz) and Kamal are a happily married couple ready to start family life. Their neighbour Mohan becomes a good friend of both and frequently visits their home. Kamal however becomes increasingly jealous of the friendship between his wife and friend and eventually accuses her of having cheated on him and even that the father of a pregnant Sunita’s baby might just not be him.
Infuriated, Sunita leaves her husband immediately and doesn’t look back. She eventually finds love again and settles into a happy life. At the end of the film, a regretful Kamal finally meets his long-lost daughter at her wedding and even dies saving her.
What’s interesting about Sunita’s arc is that she wastes little time grieving; she already knows her power from the start. The story’s arc is in essence more about Kamal, who doesn’t realise his mistake until it is too late. The goddess withdrawal is then, a crucial driver for the story, with growth having to come from another character. We are reminded of Coatlicue leaving man behind, acknowledging the regret he eventually feels but firm in her decision to stay away.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if director J. Om Prakash was inspired for this story by the Ramayana, reimagining Seetha’s reaction and a realisation in her husband that he should have acted differently. Watching this film feels like Seetha finally got justice. If Kalidasa can reimagine the goddess withdrawal motif to dampen the main character’s reaction, so can another storyteller by tweaking a dejected withdrawal into a firm and punitive one.
Another example of a scorned goddess going into withdrawal is Ragda in The Sweet Salt of the Earth by – dingdingding! – yours truly (soon too be released in English! You can read the Dutch version in Out Of This World magazine here).
Ragda is the goddess of roots and all things beneath the earth. She feels hurt and humiliated by how both the other gods and their worshippers treat her. One day, she has had enough and what she does next will change the world forever. All I’ll say now is; her hurt turns to rage and then, a very specific kind of cold fury…
Interestingly, Disney’s Frozen (2013) employs a new emotion at the core of goddess withdrawal; fear. Princess Elsa is terrified of her ice magic and runs off to the North Mountain where she hopes to avoid doing anyone harm. But ironically, her uncontrolled emotions are what plunges her kingdom into eternal winter.
Coaxed to come back by her sister Anna, she realises accepting herself just as she is essential to harnessing her powers. When she overcomes her fear, she is able to use her ice magic for the benefit of her people. From the very beginning, Elsa blames no-one but herself, as opposed to all the goddesses we saw.
It makes one wonder what other emotions and motives could drive goddesses to withdraw from the world – and in what other creative ways modern storytellers have used this motif.
What are other examples of goddess withdrawal can you think of? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!