Killing the Moonlight (9)

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 © Eso A. B., 2012

The moon, while generally known by as male gender, is also mentioned by the Latvian language in feminine gender. The word “luna” is also moon in femine gender. An older version of the name for the “sun”, Old English and German Sonne, feminine gender for the sun.

The author who discusses the mythology and beliefs surrounding the moon best is the poet and writer Robert Graves in his book “The White Goddess”. Graves points out how the daily rituals of life during the days when ‘Mēnisnīca’ or Moonlight ruled were different. Early in his book, Graves cites a  Ballad of Robin Hood and the Curtal Fryar. The citation egins (p.96):

But how many merry monthes in the year?

There are thirteen, I say;

The mid-summer moon is the merryest of all;

Next to the merry month of May.

The neo-Christian monks from Cluny (most likely) later changed this stanza to read:

There are twelve months in the year

As I hear many men say;

But the merriest month in all the year

Is the merry month of May.

Here we see how the month of Midsummer or the month of Johns (June) in Latvia came to be discarded and assigned what neo-Christians interpreted to be an evil number: thirteen. Moreover, since Moonlight or  Mēnesnīca was believed to ride a small white horse [Graves (p.419): “She will appear as a small mettlesome mare,…cream colored. Her nine-fold will be nine fillies closely resembling her (interestingly, the proto-Latvians preferred silver over gold.—Auth.)… except that their hooves are of ordinary shape, whereas mettlesome mare’s are divided into five toes …. Around her neck hangs a shining poitrel  of the sort known to archeologists as lunula, or little moon.] ” In  other words, the five toes of the lunar mare are not because this represents a nightmare, but attests to how ancient the moon-mare actually is.

Because the erasure of the sacred number thirteen is thorough and with prejudice effective until our own days, we have to resort to poetic imagination to restore it some of its sacred attributes.

However, before getting to the matter, I have to point out that there is one matter in which I dissents with from Robert Graves, i.e.: Graves writes (p.420): “One question I should myself like to ask her (Rhiannon, Great Queen) is a personal one whether she ever offered herself as a human sacrifice to herself.” Graves denies that she did. However, if she is associated with the moon, what are we to make of the three moonless nights? Does not Rhiannon, in fact, sacrifice herself to herself? Does she not leave the crime of discovering scapegoats-innocents to the nightmarish secular warrior of a later age?

Though the sacred nature of Rhiannon (Pareidolic associations: Ra-Yan? Ryan-a? Ra-zhana? Ra-gana?)  is erased from contemporary memory as thoroughly as number thirteen (13) is, the Latvian name for moonlight, mehnescihca), attests to her long ago existence, however dim her light may be by now.

Let us permit ourselves to imagine that before Moonlight was dethroned as Queen of Night, she derived her importance from an inner snd subjective vision that saw her illumination as the light that embraces a germinating life in the womb. Therefore, the moon comes to be believed not only an object in the sky, but an object that is able to expand and embrace its surroundings through its peculiar light. Moonlight mostlikely also stood for a self-sacrificial Goddess, illustrated by the waxing and waning moon, who-which reappears in the skies after a three day absence.

Unfortunately, the dethroning of the Moon and Mehnesnihca, brought with it an entirely different interpretation of the meaning of its three nights of absence, which left the nighttime in total darkness. We see this in the fantasy about the resurrection of Jesus after three days in the void. The fabrication of the story is even today presented as proof of resurrection. Worse, it serves as an excuse to turn men into killers, who need not fear killing or being killed, because the resurrection of Jesus is presented as proof that all of one’s sins (when fighting of behalf of oligarchs) are forgiven. Needless to say, if Muslim men are said to go to a heaven populated by sexy maidens, Christian men are assured of a Heaven made for oligarchs.

The transition from resurrection following the sacrifice of one’s self to one’s self, can be noted in Latvian folksongs, in which moonlight or Mēnesnīca are given the function of illuminating the battle field, and providing the light for night raiding parties:
Kur tecēji, mēnestiņi),/ Ar to zvaigžņu puduriņu? / - Karā eimu, karā teku,/ Jauniem vīriem palīgā.
Translation: “”Where are you going moon... among the crowd of stars? I am going to war, and help young men.”

The moon becomes also associated with thunder, especially  thunder at night time: Saule cirta Mēnestiņu/ Ar aso zobentiņu./ Kam atņēma Ausekļam/ Saderētu līgaviņu.LD33950,3 Translation: “The Sun hacked at the Moon with a sword, why did he take the bride from the Morning Star?” Implicit to the imagery is thunder in the morning. The “bride” is from what was formerly Austra or Ausma, the dawn of a new day.

Though Graves insists that “…instances of ritual murder of women are rare in European myth….”, he does not deny the rape and murder of women priestesses in later days by one Hercules, who wins over women by discovering that burning down their shrines is an effective means of destroying their Goddesses. Indeed, the auto-da-fe of the Christian Inquisition can be traced to this time.

* * *

The Moon and her light, Mēnesnīca, was surely one of the targets of male violence. In the following story from the land of the Azteks, Mexico, we see that the Moon Goddess was associated by the ancients to be Earth Mother Herself.

The following squote is from David Carrasco’s “City of Sacrifice ”(p.77ff):

“At the center of this landscape [on Mt. Coatepec or Moon Mountain], at the axis mundi, where the origin of Huitzilopotchtli was revealed, the Mother of the Gods, Lady of the Serpent Skirt, Coatlicue, is sweeping the temple …. there fell on her some plumage [a small ball of fine feathers]….  

“Hearing of their mother’s pregnancy at the sacred mountain, her four hundred children [all living in the South of the country] ‘were very angry, they were very agitated, as if the heart had gone out of them. Coyolxauhqui  [One Goddess of the 400 Gods], incited them, she inflamed the anger of her brothers, so that they should kill her (1 female Goddess among 399 male Gods) mother.’”

Who is Coyolxauhqui ? For one, she is one of the four hundred children of the Mother Goddess. If we presume that she is also Moonlight (as per her possible role in Latvian mythology), then her incitement of the other 399 Gods is similar to the preparation of the men of the Baltic tribes for violence. No doubt, surprise raids probably made them wealthy and infected them with the Wealth Virus.