CAVE MYTHOLOGY
IN MYTHOLOGY, OUR ANCESTORS SAW CAVES AS THE PLACE
WHERE NEW LIFE EMERGES FROM THE MATERNAL EARTH.
In ancient
cosmology, the cave was the symbol
of the whole world,
providing passage for the dead
and for the re-birth of souls.
This is where one went to commune with the deepest,
most resonant and awesome powers.
Monica Sjoo & Barbara Mor (1987)
Now I know the maternal feeling of things. The
mountain
that looks down at me is a mother too, and in the afternoons
the mist plays like a child around her shoulders & about her knees.
Now I remember a cleft in the valley. In its deep bed a
stream went singing, hidden by a tangle of crags & brambles.
I am like that cleft; I feel singing deep within me this little
brook, and I have given it my flesh for a cover of crags and
brambles until it comes up toward the light.
Gabriela Mistral 'Image of the Earth'
The Sacred Yoni
used by Native American
girls in their puberty rites.