The Maltese Goddess

PROLOGUE

I am at the beginning as I am at the end. I am the sacred circle, spinner of the web of space and time. I am the Cosmic “And”: life and death, order and chaos, eternal and finite. I am Earth and all things of it.

For periods of time you call millennia, we lived in harmony, you and I. I gave the bounty of the lands and seas to nourish you, and taught you to use them. I gave you artistic expression so that through your sculpture, painting, and weaving you might honor me, and through me, yourselves. And I taught you writing that you might remember me.

How is it that you wrenched apart that which is inseparable? Why did you make the Either/Or? Flesh or spirit, body or soul, thinking or feeling. Because when you did, when you replaced me with your despotic sky gods who rule from Without, you made me something to be mastered, something to be conquered, just as you then thought you had to conquer each other.

Neglected, devalued, insulted, and profaned I may be, but I remain. I wait in my sacred places. I live in your dreams. Nammu, Isis, Aphrodite. Inanna, Astarte, Anath. Call me whichever of my manifestations you will. I am the Great Goddess, and I will be avenged.