Sigyn's Rage

Throughout history men in power and even at the lowest levels have been telling women to be quiet and calm down. The silencing of women goes back thousands of years. Most obviously in the denial of women's access to education, philosophy, art, religious leadership, and the written word.

In norse and germanic cultures there was such a concept as ergi when applied to men it meant any man who acted in an "unmanly" fashion, in other words, a man who acted like a woman or who was receptive in sex like a woman. Women had the same kind of concept attached to them. Women who displayed physical violence or anger were socially censured and could even be publically punished. (Max Dashu)

The story of Sigyn could be seen as one such example from the lore. We are given very little information about her as a goddess and zero information from her point of view. We are led to believe that her personality was quiet and submissive, that she did not protest the abuses of her family by the gods. We are led to believe by interpreters of the lore that she did not have any strong feelings other than loyalty to Loki that motivated her behavior, her decision to follow him into the cave and take care of him during his imprisonment.

I call bullshit.

How is it reasonable that a woman, a goddess, who had done nothing offensive to the gods, whose children are innocent, could suffer such torture and losss and not feel rage. How could we believe that she did not scream out for vengeance, for justice for the crimes committed againt innocent children?

The Christian monks who wrote these stories down, the men who may have relayed them to the monks, would not have included women's stories, women's perceptions, or the point of view of the goddesses. Even in Germanic and Norse societies women were seen as property and their ambitions, their feelings and emotional health were not a consideration for any man. There was no leverage to make them take women's lives seriously.  If what we know of history is complete, then all women had was what power men let them have in the domestic realm and the ability to "nag" men into giving them what they wanted or needed.

It is well documented in letters and sermons that priests held women in contempt and held especial hatred and sadism towards pagan women. Naturally, they would not want to even entertain a pagan goddess's rage and grief. It would bring them too close to a feeling of fear of their own unshakable privilege. If a goddess felt such rage and vengeance over the destruction of her family, than what rage is hiding in the minds and hearts of sex slaves and beaten wives?  And given the sheer numbers of such women at the mercy of men's rage, what wave of revolution could be hiding in plain sight?

Sigyn is not a manifestation of the perfectly serene face of the the Holy Mother, the Virgin Mary. This soothing image of passive femininity used by the church to indoctrinate women into suffering silently under oppression.  The Virgin was the whip, the propaganda, that taught women who were anger, who were ambitious, who wanted more from life then endless service and pregnancy, that something was wrong with them and they needed to submit to Yahweh's calling.

Sigyn and the other goddesses, in a polytheist faith, are whole persons fully developed and independent of any human agenda. It is BS that she would not have felt rage, would not have screamed out in terror or grief. She is not a child or a doormat as some like to describe her as.
The stereotype of this passive, loving, silent suffering wife needs to give way to a fully developed personality.

Yes, she is loving and protective, but like the other goddesses and like all human women, there is so much more there than just that.

“Sigyn's Rage”

They think of me a an innocent child

A goddess of unquestioning love and loyalty

When they think of me at all

But I have my moments of rage too

In between grief and the chasm of loss

In between the quiet moments in the darkness

The sound of a faint repetitive drip

Sometimes I hate Him

Sometimes I ask myself why

I had other options, other choices

I knew who and what He was

His reputation, His deeds, the twists and ties of His wyrd

I did not walk ignorant into this love

His voice drizzled down my spine like honey

And I wanted to know

That those tattered lips and crooked smiled were capable of

What other skills did that silver tongue have

I had to weigh the pros and cons

On one hand

A love like I'd never known

A partner for eternity

Someone who could love me for my brokenness

Not inspite of it

There was no pity, disgust, or guilt driven obligation

My shards called to His

On the other hand

I know of the threads, the tapestry

I have met the Norns

And been privy to some of the weaving

I knew what would come of our love

What the well had laid down for Him

And those who followed His path

Do not pity me

If you must pity, then pity the children

Who did not choose this outcome

Most of the time, despite the horror

The pros outranked the cons

I chose to descend

To face my Travail

Enter the darkness and be transformed by it

I set the child bride behind me long ago

And sometimes I miss Her wide eyed innocence

Her hope that futures can be reshaped

Her commitment to this great love story

And I rage at Her loss, that part of me

At Him for putting those wheels in motion

But could I have become all of this

Without that tragedy?

Without His stories?

If it wasn't for his infamy

My name would have been lost

Like countless other goddesses

Whose identities moldered with time and genocide

I am still here

That is much in thanks to Him

I help to keep Him steady

Hold the fractures of His mind together

In this silent space where there is nothing to do but think

The others thought they could control the weaving

They could shape the universal tapestry itself

to their own benefits

Hubris, the humans call it

They thought they could stir the layers of the Well

And make the elements settle in their favor

But what had been laid down was determined years ago

Some things are fixed points in time

And a we can do is work with what we are given

He is now my gift to the world

I tend this garden of pain and vengeance

The sacred fire of transformation

Ironic, the fire they tried to lock away

Is also the fire that sustained themselves

From which all their greatest gifts flowed

And this is my Victory

Guarding the effects to their causes

Tending the wyrd that is due Them for their rash choices

He will survive this

We will survive

And when He rises from the depths

He will set it right

The old order, their rules and abuses of power

That made all of these tragedies so necessary

So those in power to keep their thrones

Will be blasted away

And something new will take it's place.

And I will have revenge for what they did to my boys

To my family

I cannot convey what I hope

If we survive all of this to come

Into the next weaving of the newest threads

There will be more compassion, more Love

And other parents will not suffer the loss of children

to the selfish interests of warring powers

I just wanted to weave quietly by the warm firestorms

Listening to the sounds of my children's laughter

Smell fresh bread baking and sing the songs of my foremothers

Curl close around my husbands warmth in our bed at night

And greet my grandchildren's first cries

I wanted a simple happy life

But our ancestors lay down a path for us long ago

of strife and infamy

We d what is necessary

I do what I can to sustain Him

S He in turn can play his role

What would happen if He didn't?

A slow and monotonous decay into tyranny, collapse and then nothingness.

The forest fire burns out disease and insect devastation

Nourishing the forest floor

clearing if for new growth

I saw this the moment I first gazed into His eyes

I Loved Him, Love Him,

For who he is and not in-spite of it

I am not always angry

I am mostly quite focused and placid

But there are moments when I forget why we do this

Why we fight, why we stay this course

And I resent my losses and forget to Love

But it doesn't last long

The bowl fills

And I have to tend to our future

My Love

My Weapon